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Commercial Break (Worm / Slut Life) (Borderline SFW)

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Jonakhensu, Apr 8, 2018.

?

Should I post 2.9 a week early or keep to the normal schedule? 2.10 will be on 11/13 regardless.

Poll closed Oct 23, 2018.
  1. Yes, post 2.9 on 10/23

    13 vote(s)
    48.1%
  2. No, wait until 10/30

    14 vote(s)
    51.9%
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  1. edale

    edale Versed in the lewd.

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    I'm so tempted to say "Cauldron did it" here, but that might just feed Guardian's misconceptions....
     
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  2. owrtho

    owrtho Unknown Member

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    It's entirely possible that this is before Canary's trial started, since Taylor triggered in early January, and worm doesn't start until some time in April. Still, the prejudice against masters is well known even before said trial.
    The thing is, Earth Bet isn't particularly prejudice against psychics (at least not of the mind reading variety). Those would after all just qualify as thinkers, due to having an extra way to gain information that normal people lack. The prejudice is against Master, which is to say people who can control the actions of others. That is why Lisa isn't worried about claiming to be a mind reader. Of course, given the psychic powers from SL contain both aspects, there is risk in taking them, particularly if you also take body mods to get loads of feathery wings.

    I strongly suspect he's not actually resisting the emotion control, but rather resisting being controlled by his emotions. Which is to say, powers that specifically alter emotions are able to alter his emotions just as readily as the can anyone else's, but due to his mental issues, he's far more detached from his emotions, and the impact his decision making to a far lesser extent than the average person. Thus making him really hate someone to the degree that a normal person would decide to hunt down and perform violence upon said target may fail to motivate him into getting off the couch. He still hates the person, he's just not inclined to act on said hate.

    owrtho
     
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  3. Guardian54

    Guardian54 Versed in the lewd.

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    I admit to massively derping on the Hulk idea, because I was reading a number of Hulk!Taylor fics at that time.

    Sorry about that. Then I went back to fix it.

    However, I still think that radiation immunity would be useful for Behemoth fights.

    ...Would someone please tell me why LUNG got he Lay-Z-Boy in fanon instead of Regent? Cause this sounds like one hell of a lazy boy to me.
     
  4. owrtho

    owrtho Unknown Member

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    It featured in one of the early classic worm fanfics that many people read, enjoyed, and then borrowed elements from. I forget which one specifically. That said, the point of the example was not that he's lazy, but rather emotions having little sway on his decision making process.

    owrtho
     
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  5. Guardian54

    Guardian54 Versed in the lewd.

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    Well, I figured it was something of that type, but it's rather interesting as Lung seems easily enough provoked in most fics...

    If it's really hard for you to desire to do something, and thus you don't do stuff very much, that has no symptomatic difference from laziness?
     
  6. owrtho

    owrtho Unknown Member

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    The general appeal of the idea is that while Lung is someone inclined to go out and get things done, when he then has free time, he likes to just kick back and relax in his comfy chair. Keep in mind the term La-Z-Boy is not indicative as to the nature of the owner. It's just the colloquial term for a reclining chair, so called as it is the name of the company that invented them.

    You seem to be adding the the "you don't do stuff very much" yourself. There are motivations outside emotion. Just because a person is not motivated to act due to how they feel about stuff, it does not mean that can't be active due to other factors, such as rational reasoning, following orders, alleviating boredom, activities required for survival, etc. It's also not to say they are completely uninfluenced by emotion, just that it falls below other factors in how they judge the courses to take, and depending on the person, some emotions may influence them more strongly than others. Basically, there's a reason why apathy and sloth are two different things, even if they can at times overlap.

    owrtho
     
  7. Guardian54

    Guardian54 Versed in the lewd.

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    I am aware La-Z-Boy is a brand. I'm just saying that it seems ironic that Lung has one instead of someone less proactive (for greater irony we should probably provide Eidolon and Contessa with some such furniture...).

    Indeed, there are motivations besides emotion, but the purpose of emotions existing is to give you a swift mental boot to the rear to do something about sensory input or conclusions drawn from such. For example whenever Gallant whacks someone with an apathy beam in fics we generally see them being incapacitated by IDGAF Syndrome. THAT is why I argue that Regent should occasionally be shown with one... because of the overlap you mentioned.

    ...And maybe Sleeper too :p

    Well, glad that that misunderstanding (and dispute) is over with :)
     
  8. RobotGuy76

    RobotGuy76 Getting out there.

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    I'm pretty sure that it was Cenotaph that started this.
     
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  9. The Unicorn

    The Unicorn Well worn.

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    Also piss me off - that's one of the more annoying bits of fanon(made worse by the fact it was started by annoying WoG that do not IMO fit very well with the story.
     
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  10. Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    It is WOG, however, that American culture in Earth Bet has been largely shaped by Cauldron's manipulations from behind the scenes.

    Guardian54 might have the idea that it's 'pragmatic' for badass normals to snipe supers from range and thus bring them to heel. Except that it's also WOG that Contessa explicitly stops that sort of thing from happening. In short, the culture that's now extant is that way because it was intended to be that way.

    It's hard to be pragmatic when the 'pragmatic' acts which should let you succeed and get ahead keep failing because an extremely competent woman in a fedora wanted it that way.
     
  11. Guardian54

    Guardian54 Versed in the lewd.

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    Which is how Cauldron has succeeded in 30 years what thousands of years of human efforts have failed at: Destroying human civilization.
    And that is why, after Scion is dealt with, Cauldron delenda est.
     
  12. Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    Actually, quite the opposite.

    Without Cauldron, America would've been no better than the African warlord states.

    Because in between preventing any random normal with a sniper rifle and an attitude from picking off the less bulletproof supers more or less at will, Contessa also prevented the more blatant attempts at overriding the rule of law and governance by normal human beings over supers.

    And it's obvious that you haven't read Worm, because you'd know if you had that Cauldron was more or less destroyed during the fight against Scion.
     
  13. Guardian54

    Guardian54 Versed in the lewd.

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    1. So Wildbow CLAIMS. Need I draw up diagrams of how mid-1980s USA and Africa differed? As far as I'm concerned, different starting points most likely result in different end products.

    2. By doing this and other obstructions, Cauldron helped the 3:1 Villain-Hero ratio, a lot. Blocking normal politicians from being assholes to capes is sensible. Making capes feel they can relatively safely run wild... is a great way to make anarchy in an initially stable system (which Africa was and generally is not).

    3. Derp, forgot that from the chapter summaries list.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2018
  14. The Unicorn

    The Unicorn Well worn.

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    Wildbow does seem to be rather insistant on contradicting his own story at every opportunity, and making these ridiculous WoG statements that, if you accepted them, would have the setting even more nonsensical.

    The golden age of parahumans ended when one was shot and killed by a random criminal, that is canon, and fits with the ratio of villains to heroes, and the fact that the gangsters were considered a danger to new heroes starting out.

    The big problem with all the WoG concerning Contessa is that the more powerful he makes her, and the more stuff he has her do, the more evil, incompetent and stupid he makes Cauldron into.
     
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  15. Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    It's WoG; here's a rundown, and this is directly from the man himself.
    https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-quotes-and-wog-repository.294448/page-3#post-15024624
    So yeah, he didn't just say it, he backed it up with examples.

    It was a balancing act. They want capes to feel like they can run around and be capes (and tbh, not letting them do that would be stupid, because capes gotta cape, and repressing that leads to a lot of stuff happening outside the rule of law--more than 2 out of 3 capes being villains) without overthrowing society in the meantime.

    Read Worm. Summaries only give you so much. Fanfic only gives you so much.

    Vikare wasn't shot. He was hit on the head during a sports riot.

    That was actually useful to Cauldron, because it was an important message to capes that they weren't invulnerable, and thus had to take a little care (promoting teamwork, rather than a lot of independents). Also, it gave the hero capes a martyr to look up to.
     
  16. edale

    edale Versed in the lewd.

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    Dear God, he's working off the Cliff Notes...[​IMG]
     
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  17. Ack

    Ack (Verified Ratbag) (Unverified Great Old One)

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    Yes.

    It's like someone critiquing Moby Dick, working off of someone else's comments about how there's a white whale involved.

    Guardian54 -
    Read. Worm.

    Or don't make judgements about it.

    One of the two.
     
  18. Guardian54

    Guardian54 Versed in the lewd.

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    You don't need to read Harry Potter itself, just a good cross-section of the fanfics (and discussion threads), to realize Harry is a moron. (EDIT: And I'm not going to get into a morality debate about exactly how he is stupid, only state that I find Teddy being an orphan to be primarily if not almost wholly Harry's fault because he couldn't get over his ego enough to reducto death eater faces off at the Ministry in 5th year.)

    Similar principles apply. I don't need to read Worm to know Armsmaster's first line (or one of his first lines) strongly resembles "You gonna fight me?"
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2018
  19. edale

    edale Versed in the lewd.

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    Correct, you don't need to read Harry Potter to realize that. It still doesn't change the fact that it's wrong.

    Harry's actually very intelligent, he just lacks proper social awareness (a condition you yourself should be familiar with... *whistles innocently*). You know, in a way that makes perfect sense given the abusive childhood he had?

    Seriously, do I need to start bitching at you to read Harry Potter before judging it now too?

    *edit- and no, watching the movies most definitely does not count. They changed too much.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2018
  20. 5ColouredWalker

    5ColouredWalker Know what you're doing yet?

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    I've been planning to join this site pending me getting off my ass and putting together a fic for it, but it's at this point I finally registered to ask the question:

    Who else, having seen Guardian in numerous Worm threads performing similar derails, thinks he should just be banned from all Worm subforums, until such time as he's actually fucking read Worm?
    Not gonna happen, but it's a nice thought.

    Edit: Does anyone else find it strange Guardian gave this post a like?
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2018
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  21. The Unicorn

    The Unicorn Well worn.

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    Third option(what I did),
    Guardian54 if you don't want to read Worm(which I can understand) and do want to keep discussing Worm there's a simple solution - whenever someone mentions something odd/interesting/disturbing happening in Worm look up where it happens and then read that chapter (or enough to understand what was going on beyond it). That will keep the dosage of Grim Derp and setting insanity low enough to be tolerable and still let you actually learn what actually happened in the story, something you clearly don't get.

    No, but you do need to read the books to realize Harry is not a moron, despite what many fanfics will claim. Ignorant and passive you have a solid basis for argument, but moron? not if you actually read the books...well the first five books at any rate, I refuse to acknowledge the others.

    Sure it does, for the movies. Something I like about the Game of Thrones/AsoI&F fandom which would be nice if other fandoms would adopt is the clear identification most people have for which setting they're talking about the movie verse or the bookverse and acknowledging they're different.

    Hopefully no one. If someone can get banned for the sort of posting habits I've seen Guardian display than I at least don't want to be part of that community.
     
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  22. Guardian54

    Guardian54 Versed in the lewd.

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    I have checked some specific reference sections for Worm before.

    I read the first 5 Harry Potter books over 10 times each in sequence.

    Everything was very well written and Harry was, though passive, well away from being stupid, until the Ministry Battle in Book 5. And even that sorry shitshow can be excused with "new to this life or death war of genocide business".
    Book 6 and 7 were utterly unforgivable though, and were what made me believe Harry was an utter imbecile.

    Like Nazis which they are clear references to, generally, a good Death Eater is one that has eaten enough Reducto to have met Death.

    My least favorite character by the end of reading Deathly Hallows (and finishing the dry heaving) was Hermione Granger. Harry's the designated "Retarded Noble Git" by that point, so he's unsalvageable, but Hermione's supposed to be the brainy one????
    *insert Obi-Wan "You were the Chosen One!" clip here*

    If a thrown object can hurt a wizard, that shows kinetic weaponry can harm wizards. And guess what growing up in the last years of the Cold War mean? Lots of curricula about the Cold War... and WWII... and WWI, which meant automatic weapons and their effects on exposed targets would be a Big Deal. And being bookish... the absolute best excuse I can come up with for Hermione not deciding to use guns is "British, thus gun control laws and public consciousness are less gun-happy".

    You decide your parents are too stupid to make their own decisions because you're completely kool-aided into believing wizards are superior. That's understandable because Teenage Idiocy.

    You fail to recognize a war of genocide (which you should be very well-read in) and take the appropriate responses? And you're supposed to be the bright one?

    Each particular bit of stupidity is comprehensible or rationalizable, if barely. But put together and ascribed to THE BRAINY ONE?
    I spit at Rowling's portrayal of a "competent" female. Because everyone knows that when it comes down to the wire, the female of the species is far more dangerous than the male.

    Getting away with individually excusable events of not being too bright? Okay.
    Getting away with a large number of such events? I think I hear a train coming, because railroading...
     
  23. necrolectric

    necrolectric [Lazy Catgirl Enthusiast]

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    I don't even...
    Stepping away from the Harry Potter derail, let's look at this. You're trying to make the point that if you are familiar with the discussion around a work, then you can be said to be familiar with the work itself even without having actually read it. That's all good and fair, and is true to a certain extent.

    However, the fact that you only added discussion threads as an afterthought to that situation leads me to believe that when it comes to Worm, your only real knowledge of it comes from fanfic of it and the discussion in the threads about it. I don't claim that that is exactly what you meant to say, but that's the meaning I got from it.

    So here's the thing: Worm has a vast and thriving fanfiction community, one that has been around for years. Which is good, because just based on Sturgeon's Law that means that there are a lot of good Worm fics. Unfortunately, that also means that there are that many more people who, like you, think that if they read enough fanfic, that that will substitute for the in-depth knowledge that comes from actually reading the damn book. The result of this is that there's this crust of little details that people made up for fics early on in the fandom's history that just keep accumulating as more and more people read them in fic and take them for gospel truth.

    Did you know that the Protectorate headquarters out in Brockton Bay isn't actually called the Rig? That particular nickname dates back to Wail of the Banshee, if I remember right.
    Danny only referred to Taylor as 'Kiddo' a grand total of two times through the entirety of canon.
    Armsmaster is a workaholic asshole, yes, but he has some awareness of social skills, not like the Robo-cop wannabe you see in most fics.

    Do you see what I'm getting at here? If you're going to make claims that Taylor is being mis-characterized, you need to be able to back that up by showing us examples of Taylor's behavior and speech from the original story that support your assertion and no, saying that "the people in this discussion thread say..." does not cut it.
     
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  24. Guardian54

    Guardian54 Versed in the lewd.

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    1. Valid enough.

    2. I've seen that noted in discussion before. However, it's a modified oil rig. No matter what, a common local nickname would be... "The Rig". I always ascribed the name to fanon because there's no way a government agency would have a facility name that's that un-self-important.
    I know the kiddos are often overdone, a lot, and I also know most characters are exaggerated or completely redone (i.e. Mom-Militia instead of the canonical PRT/Protectorate-Is-Right...).

    3. Yes. However, I must note that Taylor in canon had a plan of freeing Dinah that... amounted to being so useful she could demand it, which I had to confirm with other forumites due to utter disbelief. That is... not a great feat of brilliance.

    Even then, I know enough to know that if this wasn't explicitly pre-canon Taylor we'd all be up in arms. But this is a point where Taylor WOULD be meek to authority telling her to do something, and be vaguely surprised when tehy promise rewards at all (instead of "not punished") for cooperation.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2018
  25. edale

    edale Versed in the lewd.

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    Guardian's flat out admitted that he only knows Worm from fanfiction and discussion threads.
    Was Taylor's plan to free Dinah by being so indispensable she could demand it? Kinda, yea.

    Does knowing this tell you anything about why Taylor went with that plan? Nope. And therein lies your problem.
    Taylor was never meek to authority (disillusioned, yes; meek, no). That includes pre-canon.
     
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  26. Guardian54

    Guardian54 Versed in the lewd.

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    Er... "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Yes Sir No Sir Three Bags Full Sir." seems pretty meek compared to, say, suffocating Alexandria.

    Though I will concede that "apathetic" is a better term.
     
  27. edale

    edale Versed in the lewd.

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    Apathetic means she didn't care. Taylor cared very much. Disillusioned is the right term.
     
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  28. Guardian54

    Guardian54 Versed in the lewd.

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    Tired of them and no longer bothering with them... well, factoring in the typical portrayal of slack-jawed awe whenever an authority figure behaves in the Right Way... you're right.
     
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  29. The Unicorn

    The Unicorn Well worn.

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    Except for the "minor" problem that for Taylor to reach the point she was when she triggered she had to have been meek.
     
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  30. edale

    edale Versed in the lewd.

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    Due to the situation forced on Taylor at Winslow, she basically had to act meek. That's a far cry from actually being meek.

    If Taylor actually understood what Emma and Sophia were after, or why everyone in authority wouldn't help her... Things would have been far different.
     
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