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Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

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TanaNari said:
Lisa finds Crawler!Grue and Butcher!Taylor and they proceed to plot the destruction of all life in vengeance.

That would be dark as fuck, wouldn't it?

Someone would have to be a real dick to run with that plot, wouldn't they?
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Maybe they could also recruit Noelle Classic.
 
TanaNari said:
Thanks. I actually wanted to do one of those early on. It would have been during the school arc. In the brief few noncomprehending seconds that Taylor just stood there in shock at the idea this was happening, Riley would have gotten all excited and started asking questions and giving pointers on how to hold a knife more menacingly (she knew THE expert, after all).
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I'm honestly a little upset this never happened. That sounds like a great little snippet.

Now, I'm not saying that you should go back and add that scene in, even if it means revising one or more chapters. I'm just saying that I've 'liked' nearly half of your chapters, so I feel I would be entitled to make such a demand....
 
dasstan said:
Do we have a shipname for Butcher!Taylor and Crawler!Grue? If not, I purpose "Abominaship"
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They probably have enough powers between them that they could make a Passenger duet ala Taylia or Lisandria. After all, Taylor's done it before, and Grue is the perfect rebound. Taylien all the way! (I know the spelling isn't quite right, but it needs to be more different from Taylia and the 'alien' vibe feels right.)
 
Amelia, Ch 353- Nelson
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    • Amelia, Ch 353- Nelson


    "So, do you want to tell me what all that was about?" I asked Vicky the moment we shunted back over to Bet. LA was currently blanketed by a low hanging, smoggy haze of clouds, which made for poor scenery but let us remain as isolated as one could ever hope. Now I just had to hope there wasn't anyone using our suits to listen in on our conversation. It was certainly possible, with Gaea's powers or Dragon's technology.


    "Umm," she hesitated.


    "You drag me off in the middle of a meeting with the excuse to go get fast food," I pointed out. "And implying we'd have a chance to get a quickie along the way. As fun as that sounds, I know you better than that."


    She drifted over to me, taking advantage of our antigrav systems to make herself float upside down relative to me as the helmet folded away from her face and her hair floated out to drift lazily in the air. The girl was extremely comfortable in our artificial zero gravity environment, while I was still stuck thinking in normal up-down relationships. "You don't think I'd binge on junk food and sex?" Vicky smiled at me mischievously. "That doesn't sound like you know me very well at all."


    "I know you better than to think you'd leave during an important mission, and right before meeting Eidolon," I insisted. "Come on, Victoria, we both know you don't ditch in the middle of a mission, which means you have something else up your sleeve."


    "You're going to hate me," she sighed unhappily. "Taylor said I needed to get you out of that meeting right away."


    "I already figured out that part," I told her. "It was pretty transparant. Minerva didn't want me there, Alexandria really didn't want me there, and everyone else seemed to be afraid to say anything while I was there. They have some kind of secret weapon they're trying to keep the Protectorate from knowing about. I just don't know what it is."


    "You're not mad at me?" She smiled hopefully. "If you knew, why didn't you stay?"


    "They'd have found some other way to get rid of me, I'm sure. If nothing else, Alexandria could have waited for me to need to sleep. Maybe I'd have been more stubborn if we weren't expecting the next Endbringer some time this week. And... I guess I wanted to see if you'd be honest with me about it," I told her. Arguably, she'd failed that test. I couldn't exactly claim she lied to me, because she would no doubt follow through with everything she said, but it was a close call. I could probably be accused of manipulating her, too, with this. "And so I could ask you why you did it."


    "Amy needed my help," she answered, her voice small and afraid. "Guess that makes me a complete bitch. Are you going to dump me, now? I deserve it."


    The problem with someone with Vicky's powers is that it's impossible to trust her emotions to match her behavior. She could easily fake any feelings she could imagine, and she had the boosted intelligence to imagine a lot. Instead, I watched her shape, the manifestation of her power as it wrapped around her with its sunset colored wings, alert and ready to protect her against threats. She really is afraid.


    "Do you know why they needed me gone?" I asked.


    "No," she answered. I waited silently until she spoke again. "I have a guess I'd bet money on. But."


    "But you're not going to tell me," I didn't bother hiding my disappointment. What would be the point in trying, given her abilities?


    She looked down? Up? Toward her feet. "You're mad at me. I don't blame you, y'know."


    I kept my eyes on her Passenger, and how it reacted to her emotions, still cradling her protectively. Maybe even a bit of hostility pointed in my direction, thought that could be me projecting. I so rarely needed to do this with her. Usually Vicky wore her heart on her sleeve, but usually she didn't drag me away from important meetings for the express purpose of keeping me from finding out important secret information.


    "Maybe I should be, but I'm not angry," I corrected, doing my best to navigate this potential minefield without tripping her built in lie detection. "I'm hurt, and disappointed, but I understand your reasons for it. I'd do the same thing if it was for my family." Even if I think your family needs a good kick in the ass.



    She smiled halfheartedly. "Yeah, family."


    "What's wrong?" I almost reached out to her, then hesitated. I didn't know how she'd react. Three months of her flirtation and always energetic attitude, less than two days of her opening up. This moment alone of her allowing herself to be vulnerable like this in front of me.


    "My parents are getting divorced," she answered. "Apparently they've been planning it since before... before I was brought back."


    Oh.


    She laughed unhappily. "And that, that right there is the problem."


    "I'm not sure I understand," I kept my voice cautiously neutral. Ease it out of her.


    "Your response was... it's like you already knew!" She shouted. "Everyone already knew! Amy, Aunt Sarah, Taylor, Taylor's dad! They all treated it like it was nothing, like my family being broken in half was fucking meaningless! I've seen more emotional conversations about pizza toppings! And when I tried to convince them to just, y'know, talk to a marriage counselor and maybe spend a couple days together to see if there was room to fix their relationship... Mom just got annoyed, and Dad was that weird kind of nervous energy I see after we put people in interrogation... and everyone else just thought my idea was idiotic."


    Now I reached out, stroking her face with the armored glove. There were times when the costume got in the way, some of those times were even literal.


    She leaned her face into my hand nonetheless. "It's so fucked up," she continued unhappily. "They didn't even care enough to be angry at each other. Just gave me a list of reasons why it was a really good idea to break up then, instead of doing it earlier or waiting until later. Like 'nope, our family's breaking up because we don't feel like putting work into keeping it, and you're the one who's wrong for feeling like we should actually give a shit about each other.' You'd think we were talking about replacing an old couch or something, not my parents deciding they never want to see each other again."


    Sometimes, I get reminded of how young she really is. "I don't think it's stupid."


    "Yeah, but you weren't at all surprised that they're getting divorced, either," she argued.


    More surprised that they were still together at all, if I was being honest. Carol Dallon is not an easy woman to like, or even politely tolerate. "Well, I've never met your dad, and your mother and I don't really see eye to eye about, well, much of anything at all. They're pretty much strangers to me. That doesn't mean I think you're stupid to care. They're your parents, I'd be worried if you weren't upset about it." I leaned in and gave her a kiss on the forehead.


    She smiled faintly. "So, does that mean you're not mad at me about, well, luring you out here?"


    "Well, I'm not mad at you," I qualified. "Not exactly happy with your sister and her fiancée. Alexandria and Minerva are not on my list of favorite people, either. Speaking of which, is it just me, or is there something..." I trailed off, trying to find a polite way to phrase it.


    Luckily, Vicky was there with her usual eloquence. "Are you asking if Alexandria and Minerva going at it like lesbian rabbits through sign language in front of all of us, while lying to themselves that there's anyone in the vicinity that hasn't already figured it out?"


    I smirked. "So that's a yes, then?"


    She drifted some, turning herself around so she was using the same definition for 'up' the city below us again. "That is a big yes. Emma knows, she's told Zach, not sure if Clarice figured it out from Emma or by using her own powers. Taylor and Amy know. I'm pretty sure all of the new recruits have already figured it out. Most of us are just too polite to say anything about it. For a pair of high end Thinkers who are paranoid about their relationship being discovered, they haven't done shit to protect themselves."


    I thought as much. It does mean Alexandria can't be trusted when dealing with Pantheon, and I'll need to report that to Costa-Brown. Fuck. "It's the Thinker curse, they sometimes forget normal people can figure out things for themselves."


    She kissed me on the cheek. "We have Thinker powers," she pointed out with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. "I bet you got an... interesting... look at the pair."


    "Well, yes, but not like that," I corrected. "Their Passengers are genderless. Alexandria's is always a stone... it changes from time to time, sometimes looking like Stonehenge or some ancient Inca statue. Sometimes more natural, like the face of a cliff. Sometimes a castle wall. Lisa's is more like a shimmering web of light. You know those pictures that people say are a physical map of the internet? Her power looks something like that, only constantly jumping around like a plasma globe. When they're together, it's like watching a mountain covered in a thin blanket of electricity."


    "Sounds about right from when I read their emotions," Vicky agreed. "As opposed to when my sister and her fiancée give you a powers based peep show?"


    I surpressed that mental image. Their Passengers were humanoid, though whether they were male or female or entirely sexless or the number of limbs or faces they possessed would change from moment to moment depending on the ways the Empresses were using the incredible array of powers at their disposal. What never changed was how physically entwined the pair were.


    Vicky smacked my shoulder. "Don't worry, I won't blame you for peeking." Then she jabbed me hard in the chest. "But if it ever goes beyond that, I'll remove, deep fry, and then eat your skin while forcing you to watch."


    I gulped, faking fear. "Yes, ma'am."


    She climbed into my arms. "So, what do I look like? My Passenger."


    "Like an angel," I answered honestly.


    She raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Uh, huh."


    "I'm serious," I insisted. "Colors change, though usually metallic yellow, orange, or red."


    "So my Passenger paints herself to look like a sports car?" Her smile carried her doubt and amusement.


    "The eyes are always solid, metallic, purple," I continued, working my way toward the end. "They're large, like those ones from supposed alien abduction stuff. There's two pair of them, the second being higher up on the forehead. I've never seen her with any other facial features. She always has birdlike wings, either two pair of wings and one set of arms, or two wings and four arms when you're in your war form."


    I had her attention, now. She knew what was coming next, even if not the exact details. "Do go on."


    I glanced over at the Passenger, it watching me in silence. "She's covered in blood," I finally admitted. "It drips fresh from the talons on her fingers, falls off the wings in dried chunks. Her face is the only part of her that doesn't have at least some blood spattered on it, and I can never see her legs because she's always wading in a pool that comes up to her waist."


    "That... that's... kinda fucked up," Vicky muttered. "No wonder it took so long for us to get together."


    "If it makes you feel any better, yours is one of the ones I have to work at seeing," I offered. "Usually she's at most a mask of her face, watching quietly. Most Passengers are like that, I usually only see more when I'm concentrating, or when they're actively using their powers."


    She recovered quickly from the description, and smiled broadly. "So no using my powers to spice up our lovelife, gotcha."


    Grateful for the chance to get off the topic of her Passenger, I simply smiled back. "That would be appreciated."


    ================


    A/N- C'mon, Vicky, you got a Bonesaw shard... you were expecting something pleasant?

    Also... I've adjusted my writing style some at the helpful advice of one of my readers. And will in at least a few future chapters.

    ... So let's see how well received the adjustment is.

    I'm personally ambivalent. I don't think it's any better than my usual style, but I don't think it's worse, either, and it's roughly the same amount of effort whichever way I handle it. In the face of all those things being equal, I shall default to reader feedback.
     
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    • TanaNari said:
    I thought as much. It does mean Alexandria can't be trusted when dealing with Pantheon, and I'll need to report that to Costa-Brown. Fuck.
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    I laughed out loud.

    TanaNari said:
    "It's the Thinker curse, they sometimes forget normal people can figure out things for themselves."
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    Icing on the cake.

    TanaNari said:
    I'm personally ambivalent. I don't think it's any better than my usual style, but I don't it's worse, either, and it's roughly the same amount of effort whichever way I handle it. In the face of all those things being equal, I shall default to reader feedback.
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    Good deal. It's one of those subtle improvements that's hard to notice specifically unless you're looking for it, but which improves the experience anyway. Makes the dialog smoother, paints a clearer picture of a conversation, shows a little more and tells a little less.
     
    TanaNari said:
    A/N- C'mon, Vicky, you got a Bonesaw shard... you were expecting something pleasant?

    Also... I've adjusted my writing style some at the helpful advice of one of my readers. And will in at least a few future chapters.

    ... So let's see how well received the adjustment is.

    I'm personally ambivalent. I don't think it's any better than my usual style, but I don't it's worse, either, and it's roughly the same amount of effort whichever way I handle it. In the face of all those things being equal, I shall default to reader feedback.
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    As someone who suffers similar problems sometimes, I'd love to hear what that method for phasing the word 'said' out of your vocabulary is. It's not that I have small vocabulary myself (medium-sized at least with the ones I use regularly, though I normally recognize at least 2 out of every 3 words I see on a regular basis throughout any given month, ) but I very much suck at dialogue. Don't talk to other people besides family very often. Not much call for it in my RL. Makes writing dialogue hard though.

    pepperjack said:
    Good deal. It's one of those subtle improvements that's hard to notice specifically unless you're looking for it, but which improves the experience anyway. Makes the dialog smoother, paints a clearer picture of a conversation, shows a little more and tells a little less.
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    I agree with this. It's even harder for me to spot any differences, I think, because as I said I'm not good at dialogue, knowing what's appropriate for what each person is try to say and how. Probably overcomplicating it, but i tend to be guilty of that for a lot of things with no real clue how to stop so :shrugs

    Like what I see here. Really excited to see what's coming next, though I find myself souring on Lisa in this story. Lisa and Taylor both are characters I like and dislike, because both have traits I like to see in fictional characters, both often react to situations in ways I like to see, but both also have traits I dislike (and sometimes see in myself,) and often react to situations in ways I hate to see (and, again, could easily myself reacting similarly in similar situations if I had the same amount knowledge of everything ivolved they did during said situations.) Lisa and Taylor are characters I often feel pretty conflicted about, as easy for me to love them as hate them. Which might be the point, come to that.
     
    TanaNari said:
    This is not a thing that I recall. Got a chapter for me?
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    Right here:
    Worm Interlude 24 said:
    Chevalier made his way to the downstairs room. He paused at the entrance.

    Tattletale's 'shadow' peered around with a dozen eyes all at once, each set different in design, in appearance and apparent function. A mosaic. Accord's was a glimmer of an old computer, the edge of a desk that wasn't there.
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    And Taylor's is a bunch of cells and tiny tendrils of light:
    Worm Interlude 24 said:
    His eyes settled on Weaver, surrounded by the nimbus of her power, which glowed with an intensity that surpassed any and all of her teammates. When she stepped forward, it was like she was pushing against a curtain, only it was a membrane, a network of individual cells, each with tendrils extending out, so thin he couldn't make them out, except by the highlights that seemed to rush down them as she gave conscious direction to her bugs.
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    TanaNari said:
    Also... I've adjusted my writing style some at the helpful advice of one of my readers. And will in at least a few future chapters.

    ... So let's see how well received the adjustment is.

    I'm personally ambivalent. I don't think it's any better than my usual style, but I don't think it's worse, either, and it's roughly the same amount of effort whichever way I handle it. In the face of all those things being equal, I shall default to reader feedback.
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    Are you using speech tags more? I didn't see the discussion, but that was the impression I got, and personally I like that style better. One could hope that a reader follows the conversation perfectly at every turn even without speech tags, but if there's mental hesitance or confusion even one time out of a hundred it'll really hurt the immersion.
     
    TanaNari said:
    The girl was extremely comfortable in our artificial zero gravity environment, while I was still stuck thinking in normal up-down relationships.
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    The Enemy's Gate is Down, Michael.
    TanaNari said:
    The problem with someone with Vicky's powers is that it's impossible to trust her emotions to match her behavior. She could easily fake any feelings she could imagine, and she had the boosted intelligence to imagine a lot. Instead, I watched her shape, the manifestation of her power as it wrapped around her with its sunset colored wings, alert and ready to protect her against threats. She really is afraid.
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    With a little practice, he could pull a budget Jack Slash.
    TanaNari said:
    It does mean Alexandria can't be trusted when dealing with Pantheon, and I'll need to report that to Costa-Brown. Fuck. "
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    [Hearty Chuckle Here]
    TanaNari said:
    Their Passengers were humanoid, though whether they were male or female or entirely sexless or the number of limbs or faces they possessed would change from moment to moment depending on the ways the Empresses were using the incredible array of powers at their disposal. What never changed was how physically entwined the pair were.
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    Am I reading too much into it, or does this imply that the thing that happened at the end of Worm is currently going on with their shards?

    Also, seconding the comment pepperjack made regarding the change in style. It's minor, but upon a second read through of the chapter (because I'm usually immersed during the first read through and don't notice technical things), it comes off as more polished.
     
    dasstan said:
    The Enemy's Gate is Down, Michael.

    With a little practice, he could pull a budget Jack Slash.

    [Hearty Chuckle Here]

    Am I reading too much into it, or does this imply that the thing that happened at the end of Worm is currently going on with their shards?

    Also, seconding the comment pepperjack made regarding the change in style. It's minor, but upon a second read through of the chapter (because I'm usually immersed during the first read through and don't notice technical things), it comes off as more polished.
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    By the thing that happened at the end you mean super-sychronization? Where the shard starts thinking its the cape? Then yes, but a more stable version thereof. Actually something like a pale shadow of the Taylor/Tales dynamic in Copacetic to my mind.
     
    pheonix89 said:
    Actually something like a pale shadow of the Taylor/Tales dynamic in Copacetic to my mind.
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    I actually find that dynamic to be one of my least favorite things about Copacetic. If the super-synchronization is actually what's happening, I'm hoping that it eventually reaches the point where Taylor-as-QA and Amelia-as-Shaper are just piloting the bodies as meatsuits.

    I kind of wonder Zach's passenger isn't in a similar state of synchronicity, what with it having to emulate his brainstate, and the sheer amount of conflict the boy gets himself into. He suicide bombs Endbringers, that's got to make a passenger happy.
     
    dasstan said:
    I kind of wonder Zach's passenger isn't in a similar state of synchronicity, what with it having to emulate his brainstate, and the sheer amount of conflict the boy gets himself into. He suicide bombs Endbringers, that's got to make a passenger happy.
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    at least it smart about it
    making your host un-killable mean that they do really crazy/stupid thing since the threat of death is not hanging over their head
     
    TanaNari said:
    going to attacked me
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    going to attack me
    TanaNari said:
    "I am secretly the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, sent back in time from the year two thousand one to stop Prussia from conquering Australia," Lisa interrupted dryly. To my surprise, the lie detection tech read her as telling the truth. "So, you were saying?"
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    Interesting. Lisa can fool lie detection, but only while concentrating? Or maybe there's another interpretation.
     
    evildice said:
    Oh like being dead stops people in this story.

    Pantheon has all of Noelle Classic's data. They could bring her back if someone told them to.

    (And actually, feeding her to GU might not be an entirely terrible idea.)
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    Who's going to be eating whom, I wonder? GU and Noelle are both parahumanitarians.
     
    Oooh, things are happening.

    I can't really tell the difference in writing style. It flowed well. I liked it.
     
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