How Taylor Hebert Agreed to Be a Slut [Worm/Slut Life]

Except Taylor's already going to be helping a Magical Girl on the job with her current powerset... And what are bugs going to do against a tentacle beast (this is a newly triggered Taylor she can't pull off the stuff she does later on in Worm)? Magical Girl job would actually make Taylor safer for that owner slot.

Hell, the Magical Girl Job and Owner might even be combined to the same time-slots, if Taylor is actually helping her owner on the job during the owner time as a Magical Girl.

And in what way would Lifelong Learning be useless? By the 3.1.3 COYA you get 3 years of education on a topic instantly.

This means that all Taylor needs to do is pop into her New Home every 3 months for 5 minutes or so to get the next 3 years worth of stuff learned.

By-the-by the last part probably means that Taylor's plan of "Martial Arts" isn't going to work, but something more specific, such as "unarmed combat" or a specific martial arts style will.

 

This hasn't actually come up yet. That said, my thoughts on the matter are "I might get stuck underwater for an extended period of time while fighting Leviathan. Boy, wouldn't it be nice if I wouldn't drown from that?" Though I also see the side of "This might be a terrible idea and could give Leviathan a new, exciting way to kill me."

Don't let that stop you, assuming you want to give Taylor magic. There's enough different types of magic that can be used that I doubt we'll completely overlap, even if you used the same source as I did. I'm also going to put a lot more emphasis on her stay (one year) compared to yours (one week), so the development of their magics are likely to be different, even if we did have identical abilities.

I think you may have this one backwards, though it'd be amusing if this is actually what you meant.

 

1. I like to direct folks who are surprised by low ages of consent to that.

2. Good luck, because I can't think of another way to pull Taylor's head out of emo without lots of coaching. Lots and lots of coaching...

You sure?
Cause Canon Taylor's "pyre of conviction" is pretty Sasuke Uchiha like AFAIK, and I doubt she could pull her head out of her ass enough to go back for MOAR POWAHZ or something unless Annette points this out to her...

Unless she gets nabbed right before an Endbringer attack and told flat-out how she'll get extra training time the longer she stays with time travel as one of the rewards, assuming she chose an immortal body that is.

 

If you're in the water, you're gonna need a hell of a lot more than gills to survive if Leviathan is trying to kill you.

With Babysitter, the older kids can play "pranks" on you. What's the bet they aren't explicitly sexual in nature?

Yup.

The only real benefit of Gills is that if you're KO'd in a Levi fight, you won't drown immediately.

I'm not really a Magical Girl fan, so I hadn't even considered going there.

I was a little tired

We shall see.

Well, here's the thing. That spoiler? It's not her current plan. But plans change with new experiences.

 

True, I've actually pointed this out to other users in the past actually; but the worst they can really do is feel-up her breasts. Chastity Belt would protect her from anything worse. And Taylor always has bees as a deterrent if things are taken too far. Or this:

"Oh, you want to feel up my tits? Sure!" *takes off shirt, shows the blanket of bugs covering her tits with an evil smirk* "Go right ahead." *kid runs away screaming*

And to quote you:

Sexually, with the given contract, I'd actually say Taylor will get less molested at the Babysitting job than the Maid Cafe.

 

Ack, I usually like your fics enough to have no comment, but... What you are telling us is that Taylor Hebert is so myopic that she would rather have deformed/sickly children and chooses certain death over being away from home for a month instead of a week.

Because going from 1 month to 1 week costs 50 credits, which can afford...

Timeless + Hourglass (-20)
Genetic Cleansing (-15)
Easy Pregnancy (-3)
Healthy Babies (-1)
Perfect Homeostasis (-10)

Honestly, Annette needs to have a go over the list and give Taylor a good round talking to for being an absolute imbecile. "Bitch if I had the chance to go through this before you were born you would not have ever needed glasses, except safety glasses... and not being constrained by heat or cold when disguising yourself is a HUGE deal! You ever heard of Byzantine cataphracts or other heavy cavalry? They were sometimes nicknamed CAULDRON BOYS for how badly they had to sweat in their armor! And heat exhaustion was a huge problem for knights even in the cooler, wetter climates of western Europe!" ...Because I can't imagine an English prof not also being reasonably competent in history, given how cosmopolitan England was as a maritime/trade power.

Not to mention Annette doesn't need to be a biology major to know that "parents should try to get as much in terms of successful reproductive prospects for their children and grandchildren as possible" if worded rather differently, and Timeless + Hourglass (to blend in) basically means Taylor can have nigh-infinite offspring over time.

 

One more time ... the week is just to get her mother home.

And who says she wants children?

For that matter, unless they also have the treatment (ie, she pre-enrolls them in SL) they'll grow old and die while she's still young.

Which is a bastard of a thing to do to an immortal.

In any case ... chill your tits.

Taylor's just getting started.

 

Grouped your points and numbered my responses.

1. I am aware, however, the Characters are, as far as I can tell, not aware of this. Given what Annette said about Menstruation Control (basically "Taylor, if you don't take that... I would have monstrously fucked up raising you."), the options and risk mitigation from those choices would be, ah... :/

2. IIRC Taylor vaguely wants to be like her mother in eventually settling down and having a few kids... if possible under the circumstances...

3. You sure Taylor would have that much foresight? And methinks Annette would keep mum (inb4 infracted for bad pun) on the topic because she wants Taylor to have options regardless.

4. I know what you mean, but this gives me an idea on what happens when someone (Taylor or otherwise) spills their iced water drink over the chastity belt. I bet that cold metal or latex, or even cloth, touching various parts for extended times would prove rather annoying...

 

Still no Lifelong Learning? (Seriously, she gets it now and she'll have it free through any future runs)

Illegal selections.

You actually can't do Secret Society Membership, Powers, Perfect Powers x2, and New Home, because that's 1 too many rewards.

On the flip side, you have 30 extra points to work with.... Actually... 60 extra points, because the 1st perfected powers would be free via SSM.

Was there anything else besides the extra reward and dropping Purity that you sunk the extra points from part timing all the jobs?

And you chose Bartender over Magical Girl? Even with the 10 point bonus? I understand your reasoning here, but not Taylor's, which is minorly SoD breaking for me.

@Guardian54 PLEASE, please don't start bringing all those same arguments from Commercial Break into this thread (Seriously, Ack's read them there, and taken them into consideration here already, I'm sure). I've been seriously holding back on it there, but if you start repeating the same rants over and over in this thread too, I will call upon a mod to review your posts. (not gonna jump down your throat for posting something once, but repeatedly posting in such an aggressive manner after it's already been answered/addressed/ignored? That's bad, m'kay)

 

I find your demands agreeable.

I just made note of things in the unlikely event that Ack's thought partitioning (he needs some good partitioning to run that many independent stories in the same fandom) happens to, well, work a little too well.

And as Ack has said before, actions should make sense with in-character reasoning. The meta reason of "not gonna be my last run" kind of... has problems... with that litmus test. Add to it Taylor's neuroticism issues and obsessions and though I know Ack can do it I'm not seeing a light down the tunnel for Taylor ever taking another run (or doing so without being slapped with at least the -150 credit difficulty modifier as punishment for trolling them this time).

In other words, Ack has planned out a bent tunnel

BTW why didn't you tagging my name work as a link????

 

Because she hasn't yet decided to go through again, and she hasn't decided not to. If she does again, she can get Lifelong Learning for free. If not, she gets exactly the same benefit with Education,

Secret Society Membership gets her two rewards (she picked New Home all by herself). Those rewards were Powers and the enhancement of Perfect Powers for one of the three powers she gets.

Then she spends her last sixty points upgrading the other two powers to Perfect.

Okay.

A major aspect of why Taylor's doing this the way she is is control. ( Guardian54 please take note).

If she's to be at all comfortable with Slut Life, she wants to know that she's got control of how she goes through it.

She's got half an idea that she might take future runs through it, but what she's doing right now is making sure that she can make choices and ensure that they pan out. And in the off-chance that she simply can't bring herself to go through again (for whatever reason) she's gifting herself with three powers that have had all incidental limitations and restrictions removed. As well as Secret Society membership, and a base on an alien planet. Over and above her bug control.

If she takes up the Magical Girl option, she doesn't know that it won't cancel out her bug powers (she doesn't know how Magical Girls work, and she isn't an anime fan in general). That's a few variables too far for her, that she doesn't have control over. Besides, she's already got one set of super-powers that she needs to figure out how to use to their best effect, in one week. Also, she doesn't know that Magical Girl powers will still work when she goes back to Earth. They might require a set of conditions that only apply here. However, training alongside a Magical Girl is a perfectly valid use of her time.

Once she does this as a 'test run', so to speak, she'll be open to doing further runs and pick up more benefits along the way. But she needs to do it this way first.

 

Not sure on that one myself, found it weird as soon as I posted it.

Erm... The fact that she doesn't know if she'll go through with SL again is a HUGE argument for taking Lifelong Learning now. Current setup gives her 3 years of learning on one subject (Krav Maga), and she'll never get to use the equipment again.

Sure she'll be able to learn another subject in 3 months (I assume the 3 months is to give the brain time to adjust to the new knowledge), but that does no good without the educational program to feed into the machine to teach her.

Now if she knows she'll be coming back for sure, then I can see her holding off on Lifelong Learning, but frankly... She's already seen tech that exceeds TinkerTech in some ways... and it's mass-producible. And she has the means to learn the sciences that makes those things possible at next to no effort, and she's... passing it up?

I'm.... Not sure if you can do that?

Definitely using the letter of the contract to spite the spirit of it... But then again, SL's already done that to Taylor with Annette...

Actually... Looking closer, Perfected Powers doesn't have the dagger symbol, which means you can only select it once.

So again, illegal selections, and you've got 60 extra points to work with. Maybe spend 30 of them on Powers+, to get 6 powers with 1 of them perfected?

 

Makes perfect sense, Taylor is indeed a control freak who hates surprises of any kind.

But... where exactly does she get this expectation that she'll get the option/privilege of taking future runs????
We know that the viewers are highly likely to have a sizable bloc that finds flipping off the SL administrators uproariously funny, but Taylor probably won't think about that. Did/will her guide mention it to her at some point, encouraging her to just test the waters to begin with instead of "this is my only possible ticket to having potentially forever to learn skills with"?

Canon Taylor is definitely NOT a technologist, by no means whatsoever can she be thought of as a Technologist. Ack is right on her making some seemingly less than brilliant decisions. I for one assumed Lifelong Learning would stop working after the show... but the 3.1.3 notes only say you had to pick New Home, so... *shrugs* I was wrong.

If Taylor was a technologist instead of a cape geek, she'd know Tinkers are by far the most crushingly OP power and probably choose "more CYOAs" instead of powers, because JUMPCHAIN picking up powers, and UNLIMITED TECH WORKS.

 

The whole point of Lifelong Learning is you can keep using it after the show (well... and to get the most out of the 5-10 year runs).

You don't need to be a technologist to see "they have technology that can give superpowers and make people immortal" and "I can learn how to do that myself!"

Seriously, a Lifelong Learning package can be used as a way to give yourself unlimited powers, including any and everything SL Corp is capable of, once you've learned enough of the science to make it work, and gather the needed resources.

 

Her current run is one week. Not sure how you're thinking she'll have the option of making use of Lifelong Learning if she never comes back.

It seems to be a Slut Life speciality. And it will come up as a plot point.

Hm. I'll look into that.

1) They're so desperate for players that they kidnap teenage girls from far-off realities and trick them into signing contracts. If she chooses to re-sign, knowing what she's getting into, they'll love her for it.
2) She won't have Annette to pass off her controllers to (the whole point of this is to get Annette home), so she won't be able to pull that particular shit a second time.
3) There's actually an option for previous players to be signing up again.
4) Future plot point.

The unspoken assumption there is that you live in your New Home, and don't go wandering off elsewhere.

... I'm not sure what you're getting at. I'm not familiar with other CYOAs.

As for Tinkers being the most crushingly OP power, this is why L33t rules Brockton Bay and has Alexandria as his personal enforcer, yeah?

 

She's keeping the House to use as a base, as well as Personal Teleporter to be able to return to it. Even if she never signs another contract with SL, she'll have permanent access to their world and her home on it.

With Lifelong Learning she'll still be able to choose new subjects to learn even without being on the show. The technological hardware will be in her home. Lifelong Learning gives you permanent access to the database of things it can teach, of which you can select 1 new thing every 3 months. And it teaching things instantly, which means she only needs to stop by for 5 min every 3 months to learn a new topic.

I don't know why you'd assume she'd be unable to use it after the show was over, when it specifically says "lifelong."

Not... Exactly...

 

The assumption with Lifelong Learning is that you use your New Home, in which the Lifelong Learning equipment is installed.

She's getting the New Home and Teleporter mainly to get her mother home. Using it as a base is purely secondary, and if it turns out that she can't stand to be on that planet for even another moment, then ... yeah.

 

Taylor's still munchkin enough to go back to her unoccupied small house for 5 min to learn a new martial arts form, or first aid, before quickly leaving before anyone notices she's there.

 

Ahem, as you said to me recently, "if you expect competence from teenagers, you'll be disappointed 99% of the time."

Given Annette hadn't taught Taylor non-black-and-white morality before she died, I don't think she would be able to tell Taylor "Honey, if they have the technology to hand out powers and you can study the principles of the technology, you can give yourself ALL the powers."

And expecting an overwhelmed teen to come to that realization herself without being a technologist (she was a fan of Alexandria instead of Hero)...

1. New Home + Personal Teleporter + Teleporter = ????

2. Does Taylor know this? Because "kidnapped by comically more advanced civilization" is a pretty powerless position to be in, so she'd probably think it would be easy enough for them to get participants. It's just bribing them enough (e.g. with Annette for Taylor) to be willing participants who don't show unwillingness on camera that's an issue, which, for more primitive ladies, isn't that hard (just improving health, durability, fertility etc is already "gift from the gods").

3. You have a Teleporter, and a Personal Teleporter... which probably means wandering about more than a bit...

4. There are CYOAs where you can get tons of other bullshit powers. Like say any of the Longinus Gears from High School DxD. Even just the Sephiroth Graal (revive anyone ever) would be enough to break the Worm setting beyond repair... ah but of course Taylor doesn't read fiction, or go online... wow, Worm is just set up so that Taylor can't get inspired by much, huh?

5. If Leet's power wasn't so bad at encouraging people to take risks (have you read Mauling Snarks up to where Taylor points out how it's shooting itself in the foot?)... well, Alexandria is no real threat to Scion, but Hero at least had Stilling. Why else would Manton have been set up by Ziz to kill Hero?

Well I guess I'll leave you to poke holes this time around

 

Yes, but I'm being polite, trying not to be argumentative, and doing my best to add new things in each time I mention it, so I'm not just rehashing the same argument over and over.

 

RAW - won't work. Only the options (or sub-options) marked with a superscript dagger can be picked multiple times, and "Powers+" does not have such mark.

 

If this is actually the case, I retract my claim; I was thinking of older versions, where the education took several months and/or only covered a single year.

Either way, this would probaby be rather slow for her. Absent any interfering runs, she won't be able to get her new portion of education until April, and then not again until July. She might just consider such a very-long-term investment not worth it.

Taylor's reasoning is probably 1) that she'd have too high of a chance of sex on that job, and [as claimed by Ack, at least] 2) she's not sure how will getting a Magical Girl form interact with her pre-existing powers.
(The "she has little idea what a Magical Girl is" claim, also proposed by Ack, is negated by her choosing the sidekick option, which otherwise makes little sense, but the other two reasons still apply.)

 

The "too high a chance of sex on the job" is negated by the Magical Girl Owner. Taylor's already stated she's going to be helping them fight to get used to her powers.

 

Um, you're making Taylor seem a bit too dumb as this sounds awfully like "Would prefer to get home 3 weeks sooner over basically getting a new Tinker specialty every three months FOR LIFE."

 

To be fair, "equivalent of 3 years of education" << "new Tinker speciality". She probably could get a course in nanotech or something, but chances are it would be significantly lacking in the kind of grounding that could possibly let her replicate nanotech, and end up relatively useless unless she already has a Tinker power. (Which she might have after the run, admittedly.)
Of course, she could always try working up to a big thing in 3-year steps - which is the "very long term investment" I was talking about. Let's be honest, her further life expectancy as a Brockton Bay resident on Earth Bet isn't actually that large.
(It's still going to be at least a fairly close thing, though; if she ends up with a significant surplus in credits after fixing up the misinterpretations, I could totally see her going for Lifelong Learning.)

Also, the choice of a week run over a month run wasn't so much motivated by coming home earlier as by minimizing possible sex (and impregnation). Though the "don't give Danny that much time to worry" part was probably also a significant factor.

 

Unless the Heberts decide it's time for a Family Fucking Vacation, and sign up together.

 

This is a civilization where education works so fast that 10-year-olds are considered adults (which makes no sense as social experience is what counts, learning can only do so much) so...

Rules Lawyering says "Equivalent of THEIR 3 years education..."

And "Oh I'm just starting my period today, so no worries about pregnancy LOOOOOL!!11!!" could be a good reason for "chooses to stay 3 weeks less over getting immortality and Technocracy."

Ack I hope you don't mind how we've managed to construct justifications for you beyond "her neuroses" through nitpicking...

Danny is so embarrassed by Annette not taking the opportunity to gain powers--he's been on the receiving end of what happens to unpowered folks, like how the DWU is brushed aside and probably bullied by the gangs--and her reasoning for not getting powers when she could do it non-traumatically, that he goes out, gets drunk... and seduces Squealer while very, very drunk (like "When Your Mother is the Simurgh" where a drunk Danny and co ran over Lung with a truck, drew dicks on his face, and he was married to Ziz by Contessa officiating. Yeah, THAT level of Unseen Awesomeness drunk...).

...He's drunk enough to say something like "Well if doing this gets my wife to seek enough power to be safer then I don't care if she leaves me..." while Squealer is actually sober enough to gawk at him as he falls asleep. This is followed by Squealer using his driver's license to find his phone number. She drives him home and then spends a bit telling Annette in person about the "insane bullshit justification what the fuck how did you raise your husband to be such a cloud cuckoolander" problem and the likes of "don't fucking let a guy who's that into romantic ideals go or... well, I broke up with Skidmark again recently, so..." *shrugs*.

This is followed what you suggested. Oh, and Danny is now a harem protagonist.

 

So, I just want to comment on this. I'm interpreting the way Fun Time interacts with duplicate owner slots differently than was done here. I'm seeing Fun Time as a near-global sub-option to the owners, so would be included in the total cost of each owner. So for the +5 credit owners with Fun Time, 3x each, I'd see the credits as being +10/+5/+2 for 17 total, instead of what amounts to +10/+7/+6 and 23 total, a 6 credit difference.

I can't say which of our methods of calculating is correct, because the way things were structured makes it vague, but I figured I'd point it out.

 

This bit will likely be a benefit for her. Someone who has authority over her actually being helpful and trustworthy for once? Or it could turn out horribly but she should be able to head that off with initial choices.

I don't think Taylor is so much a control freak as she clings to control for survival. Her trust has been abused a lot in the past few years and this is an opportunity to heal from that.

Not this run but future ones.