Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

pepperjack · May 23, 2015

Ack said:
No, I already did that with HCtBB

I really need to go through and tally how often you get to say this.

The Shadowmind · May 23, 2015

Wasn't the naked-singularity device already a solution to one of problems the cycle was trying to solve?

Mr. Tebbs · May 23, 2015

TanaNari said:
Yeah. The horrific part is more subtle. Notice how no one's even reacted to "it's just a body transplant".

Body horror has become so par for the course in this story that the audience doesn't even blink anymore.

That's the horrific part.

Not quite as horrific as [redacted terror and proof that man is a wolf to his fellow man]

Drama and romance, strangely enough, are actually less interesting in real life than in fiction.

Sry Tana, I'm all for authors or other non-wordsmith artists evoking the horrors of man's depravity. but your fic does not qualify for those protections imo by virtue of quality of writing (which i believe is a blessing) nor do I believe such evokings should be taken trivially.

At the risk of pontificating, i went to the Dachau concentration camp, and the entrance to said camp was 'To each their own.' say what you will about germans, the ones in charge of inflicting pain had masters degrees, or at least aprenticeships, in irony

By the end of WW2 they had modefied the electric fence so it was less lethal than when the camp opened, b/c inmates had a tenancy to ' go to the wire' while they were there.

I seem to have lost my train of thought; anyway dont' do drugs kids

gatewaewanderer · May 23, 2015

TanaNari said:
Yeah. The horrific part is more subtle. Notice how no one's even reacted to "it's just a body transplant".

Body horror has become so par for the course in this story that the audience doesn't even blink anymore.

I have confidence that Taylor and Amelia, if they can survive past this, will find a way to give themselves back flesh and blood bodies. Why? Because they've only had sex together once, but they seemed to enjoy the experience enough together that I doubt they'll be willing to give up up the act altogether. So yes, I think they'll win and overcome all odds, for the nook...err, each other's continued company. Yeah. That. well, that too...

tordg · May 23, 2015

Assuming they survive this, Taylia will have access to enough self-duplication abilities that they could arrange a new orgy every nanosecond if they really wanted. I'm extremely not worried about their continued ability to fuck each other senseless.

MadGreenSon · May 23, 2015

tordg said:
Assuming they survive this, Taylia will have access to enough self-duplication abilities that they could arrange a new orgy every nanosecond if they really wanted. I'm extremely not worried about their continued ability to fuck each other senseless.

Way to keep an eye on the important things in this time of eldritch horror and bodily transformation.

Hiver · May 23, 2015

It occur to me that while we were told it was a fix fic, we were never told 'who' it was for. Turns out it was for Scion.

huh.

hellgodsrus · May 23, 2015

Honestly, this? I feel kinda ambivalent about.

The reason the Scion plotline in Worm worked at all was because the fight took so damn long, because it covered such a vast portion of the story. Here there's no time to feel any suspense or buildup because it's all happening too quickly. I can barely feel anything about Lily, Eidolon, GU and Dragon's permadeaths because it was moved on from so quickly.

traviswj · May 23, 2015

I think the reason that this will be considered the 'darkest fix fic' is that after over 400 chapters, we get to the final one, unsure if humanity or scion is the one getting the fix, and then Tana trolls us by never posting the last chapter, making the fix fic 'go dark'.

Just as planned...

I hope this isn't a true prediction.

TanaNari · May 23, 2015

hellgodsrus said:
The reason the Scion plotline in Worm worked at all was because the fight took so damn long

No! That's what made it awful. Wildbow managed to combine the worst parts of the disaster movie, superhero movie, and that goddamn phase that spawned such convoluted asspull abominations as Lost and the new Battlestar Galactica where if you skip an episode you have no goddamn idea what's going on anymore.

Easily the third worst thing about Worm. Possibly the second.

In competition with giving Taylor the most obvious plot armor in the universe in a supposedly grimdark setting.

I am fine with invulnerable plot armor- as a fan of the 90s Batman cartoon, I kinda have to be.

I'm fine with settings where nothing requiring plot armor happens. You can have some truly amazing stories that are nothing but character study. Gattaca, personal favorite of mine.

I am fine with grimdark. Pan's Labyrinth is one of my favorite stories ever. And holy tripping balls that one got dark.

The two go together like picking up your daughter from daycare and watching strangulation snuff porn.

Same reason I roll my eyes at Attack on Titan and can't stand Game of Thrones. Difference between the three being that Wildbow made a great story that's interesting in other ways, just a sadly weak finish. And AoT is at least fun, and has great music. Georgie boy offers nothing of interest to me.

And that timeskip.

... Sure, I timeskipped, too. But I timeskipped in a period where everything was stable and moving forward. I also skipped in smaller amounts that got larger as we moved forward to sort of acclimate the narrative to the concept and only in zones without room for much character development. Instead of BOOM! TWO YEARS!

Wilbow rushed to the ending, then drew out the ending for ten times longer than it should have been.

hellgodsrus said:
I can barely feel anything about Lily, Eidolon, GU and Dragon's permadeaths because it was moved on from so quickly.

Ask anyone who's been in a war. THAT is what it feels like. Then you have a chance to stop, realize what's going on, and be like "oh, fuck".

gatewaewanderer said:
Why? Because they've only had sex together once

Umm... they were married for over a year. I can't swear they ever went at it again, but I'm operating on the assumption they did.

Might be wrong.

VaporDeagle · May 23, 2015

TanaNari said:
Umm... they were married for over a year. I can't swear they ever went at it again, but I'm operating on the assumption they did.

Might be wrong.

Oh thank goodness, I almost forgot about the timeskip after they were married.

My train of thought before knowing that was like this.

Lisa: "Geez thank, you guys had sex one time and Scion have gone mad from the revelation that he could only live off wanking alone forever, right now England is experiencing golden shower of death."
Taylia: "Worth it!"

Daunmi · May 23, 2015

TanaNari said:
The two go together like picking up your daughter from daycare and watching strangulation snuff porn.

Try to remember that you're posting this on the internet. There's probably people out there who're quite happy to watch strangulation snuff porn while driving.

That's what you meant, right?

pepperjack · May 23, 2015

dragonkid11 said:
Lisa: "Geez thank, you guys had sex one time and Scion have gone mad from the revelation that he could only live off wanking alone forever, right now England is experiencing golden shower of death."
Taylia: "Worth it!"

This is how we link music for the chapter, right? I'm doing it right?

oneeyedpike · May 23, 2015

I can definitely say that I like that the ending is quick.

Firedon · May 23, 2015

It's also somewhat funny how they chose their own name right off the bat if I understood it right.

TanaNari said:
But the two of us, together, our Passengers were the heart and the mind an Entity. We are the heart and mind of Avalon

Like with everything else they're acting all "if we're going to do something, we'll do it right".

Cyclone · May 23, 2015

I have the strange and irrational feeling they have more planned than we know about and wiped their own memories of the plan for some reason. No idea why, hence "irrational."

Coruscant Knave · May 23, 2015

dasstan said:
You left out the part where their original bodies were converted into endbringer zombie goop, first. Honestly, man.

TanaNari said:
Yeah. The horrific part is more subtle. Notice how no one's even reacted to "it's just a body transplant".

This stuff didn't phase me terribly for a lot of reasons, but chief among them was rapidity of the ending. It didn't matter much because I knew it wasn't going to last (the fast moving ending isn't bad overall, but it did knock some of the weight out of this bit).

Well, that covers the zombie part. The entity thing was just the culmination of something that's been expected for quite a long time.

gatewaewanderer said:
I have confidence that Taylor and Amelia, if they can survive past this, will find a way to give themselves back flesh and blood bodies. Why? Because they've only had sex together once, but they seemed to enjoy the experience enough together that I doubt they'll be willing to give up up the act altogether. So yes, I think they'll win and overcome all odds, for the nook...err, each other's continued company. Yeah. That. well, that too...

You jest, but literally the only requirement for Amelia to be okay with being a zombie forever was if she could also boink her wife.

hellgodsrus · May 23, 2015

TanaNari said:
No! That's what made it awful. Wildbow managed to combine the worst parts of the disaster movie, superhero movie, and that goddamn phase that spawned such convoluted asspull abominations as Lost and the new Battlestar Galactica where if you skip an episode you have no goddamn idea what's going on anymore.

Easily the third worst thing about Worm. Possibly the second.

In competition with giving Taylor the most obvious plot armor in the universe in a supposedly grimdark setting.

I am fine with invulnerable plot armor- as a fan of the 90s Batman cartoon, I kinda have to be.

I'm fine with settings where nothing requiring plot armor happens. You can have some truly amazing stories that are nothing but character study. Gattaca, personal favorite of mine.

I am fine with grimdark. Pan's Labyrinth is one of my favorite stories ever. And holy tripping balls that one got dark.

The two go together like picking up your daughter from daycare and watching strangulation snuff porn.

Same reason I roll my eyes at Attack on Titan and can't stand Game of Thrones. Difference between the three being that Wildbow made a great story that's interesting in other ways, just a sadly weak finish. And AoT is at least fun, and has great music. Georgie boy offers nothing of interest to me.

And that timeskip.

... Sure, I timeskipped, too. But I timeskipped in a period where everything was stable and moving forward. I also skipped in smaller amounts that got larger as we moved forward to sort of acclimate the narrative to the concept and only in zones without room for much character development. Instead of BOOM! TWO YEARS!

Wilbow rushed to the ending, then drew out the ending for ten times longer than it should have been.

Ask anyone who's been in a war. THAT is what it feels like. Then you have a chance to stop, realize what's going on, and be like "oh, fuck".

Umm... they were married for over a year. I can't swear they ever went at it again, but I'm operating on the assumption they did.

Might be wrong.

I kinda disagree with most of your assertions there but since I'm in a very small minority there I'll cede the point.

And as someone with lots of friends in the military and who has read a metric shittonne of books on the subject - yes, that happens sometimes but not always. Pisses me off when it becomes something people assert to always be true when it really isn't.

Also, QQ - are the Endbringers acting under lingering orders from the big E or is the fact that they're still operating and haven't gone comatose a clue?

Zarohk · May 23, 2015

Inverness said:
Mute, power-copying Taylor ends up reviving/becoming Eden. Taylor in one way or another convinces Eden and thus Zion to adjust their behavior for the cycle. The two go around killing all parahumans everywhere and take back the shards. They then leave Earth with the intent of coming back in cycles to farm it as a "garden of Eden". Eden is also running a simulation of Taylor's mind who had been steadily becoming more and more disassociated from humanity throughout the story.

Basically, it's the single most depressing Worm-related ending. It totally insulated me against stuff like what you've written here.

It's funny, because it was more different that just depressing to me. It felt like the counterpoint to Worm's "a billion dead is horrible" story, in that things turned out alright for humanity overall and badly for Taylor than the other way around (which is what Worm itself sort of did).

hellgodsrus said:
I can barely feel anything about Lily, Eidolon, GU and Dragon's permadeaths because it was moved on from so quickly.

TanaNari said:
Ask anyone who's been in a war. THAT is what it feels like. Then you have a chance to stop, realize what's going on, and be like "oh, fuck".

This is definitely the case. It's why I almost waited for the last chapter to be up before reading, since when you go through an entire sequence like this it's not until it's over that the shock sets in, and you realized how many people (characters) you knew who died quickly and almost senselessly. It's what I loved about Animorphs, and what I love about this fic, that because death is so easily avoided through the use of powers and tools, real, permanent, irreversible death takes a while to register, and hits so much harder when it does.

And seriously, poor Dragon. I can't even quite grasp that she's dead. Dragon has never died in any extended Worm story I have ever read. Is anyone else still completely shocked by this?

Zarohk · May 23, 2015

Firedon said:
It's also somewhat funny how they chose their own name right off the bat if I understood it right.

Like with everything else they're acting all "if we're going to do something, we'll do it right".

TanaNari said:
But the two of us, together, our Passengers were the heart and the mind an Entity. We are the heart and mind of Avalon.

And I really love the naming of this Entity. They are the people who took the real and made it magical, mythical, legendary. Just as they reinvented themselves as gods, they reinvented a place-being of the past as one of myth. It fits perfectly, and I can't believe that we didn't see this coming, between the "Taylia might become an Entity" theories and the "their land is Avalon" established canon in this story and the general setup of Entities having place-names. So completely surprised nobody even suggested a name for the Taylia Entity in that form. Great surprising job.
Speaking of the defiance of Occam's Razor ("entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity") I wonder if Abaddon will ever appear in this story, even the epilogue. Probably not, but would be a fun closing cameo. Or just an omake.

Rolo · May 23, 2015

Skullbot1 said:
Meanwhile no one is upset that we had no Missy/Clarice/Theo threesome.

I for one am, you're not alone.

Tenebrous Fantasies · May 23, 2015

Skullbot1 said:
Meanwhile no one is upset that we had no Missy/Clarice/Theo threesome.

Missy/Clarice/Theo threesome or riot!

Coruscant Knave · May 23, 2015

Skullbot1 said:
Meanwhile no one is upset that we had no Missy/Clarice/Theo threesome.

I mean, they are teenagers that were out of focus for a several year timeskip. Use your imagination

.

Zarohk said:
So completely surprised nobody even suggested a name for the Taylia Entity in that form. Great surprising job.

Probably because they already had a name, and like you said they already were Avalon. It was already their second name. Sure, no one came out and said it, and it is a nice bit of bow-tying, but there wasn't much incentive to guess their entity name.

Anyway, I CAN SEE THE FUTURE

Now that Taylia has become a new entity, they have new ideas for the cycle. Scion is dismantled for parts (willingly) since he sees the benefit. The new cycle focuses finding power interactions and bonds, forming new entities in the image of Taylia. The conflict compulsion is edited accordingly.

The stray Eve is recovered and her store of backups is used to revive whoever needs it. Amelia and Taylor are either revived powerless since their shards are Avalon now or not revived at all. This is the dark part, along with the fact that the world is still in the grips of an eldritch horror that manipulates their minds, even if it is significantly more benevolent.

Because the manipulative eldritch horror part is plenty dark and motivation for people to fight them off without going full saturday morning cartoon and making them blow up the planet while twirling their whale mustaches.

So we end with the gang mostly okay but morning Taylor and Amelia while Cauldron and the Protectorate scheme to eventually overthrow their new overlords. Fin.

Oh, and Ziz was there.

Rolo · May 23, 2015

Coruscant Knave said:
I mean, they are teenagers that were out of focus for a several year timeskip. Use your imagination .

But I can't use my imagination for something as important as this! It needs to be completely spelled out for me in no uncertain terms in pornographic detail. Pun may or may not be intended. Use your imagination.

Myriad · May 23, 2015

TanaNari said:
Personally, I liked EoE... it was a giant slap in the face of people who couldn't accept that sometimes happy endings make the story worse.

This fix-fic was never about improving the situation presented in worm... it was about improving the narrative as a whole.
Crap... so your fix for Worm is removing anything resembling a happy ending because it doesn't fit.

*Cries in a corner somewhere*

evildice · May 23, 2015

Coruscant Knave said:
I mean, they are teenagers that were out of focus for a several year timeskip. Use your imagination .

Alternately, use the NSFW forum. It won't be the most perverse thing on there, I'm sure.

Myriad said:
This fix-fic was never about improving the situation presented in worm... it was about improving the narrative as a whole.

[CHARACTERIZATION]

[EDITING]

[PLOTLINE]

[EDITING]

The natural enemy of the Entity... the Edity.

fishbait08 · May 23, 2015

Welp, that was a lot going on-

To break it down, we have:
-Taylor & Amelia briefly being saved by Endbringers (and that was an odd thing to find myself typing)
-Endbringers are driven off, Taylor & Amelia are trapped by flames closing in, and Amelia finds a way to turn off their pain receptors so they can enjoy one last kiss without being distracted by the screaming in agony that tends to be a side effect of being burned alive
-They wake up to find out they've come back to life as Endbringer zombies, and talking it over, realize that they can't be turned back into human from that state, and with what Amelia learned from touching Scion, they need to come up with something else to stop him because the existing powers that people can call upon won't do the job, and come up with an idea.
- Then they shunt over into another dimension & break into Cauldron's base, where in the ensuing stand-off when Contessa & Doc Mom realize what Taylor & Amelia are planning, Lisa & Rebecca turn on Cauldron & disable their brain trust.
- Lisa then explains that from the moment the Taylia bond & interaction started, she knew that Taylor & Amelia were headed for what she considered a bad end, and everything that she's done has been an effort to try & head that off, whether by trying to halt the bond, or come up with some sort of alternative
-Scion drops in, and they all jump to the basement where Eden's being stored, and while Lisa's going on about power interactions & what Cauldron's been using the body for, Amelia discovers that although they can't use Eden's body to hand out extra powers, she's just braindead, and they can take over.
- They're out of time, so Taylor, wanting to keep Amelia from undergoing a radical transformation has herself absorbed by Eden's body, but it's too much for her, so Amelia has herself absorbed as well, and together, the shards are strong enough.
-Taylia merges into a single thing, which become the consciousness of a space whale (now going by the name of Avalon?), complete with new thought processes.
-Scion drops in to say hi to the new space whale.

Just wow.

And for the grand finale before the epilogue segment(s), Taylia go and find a way to stop Scion from doing any more damage to the Earths, one way or another, and then what... become our new, hopefully more benevolent, space whale overlady? Go roam the cosmos like the other space whales? Try & find a way to become human again? Something else?

And that has me wondering whether Taylia's ultimate fate will become an illustration of a certain quote from Nietzsche:

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

TanaNari said:
LoveDefianceThatIsNotHowWeDie. Taylor sloughed her tattered armor off her shoulders, and leaned into me. Our kiss was slow, sensual. We weren't comforting each other so much as we were confirming everything we stood for, and throwing it in Scion's face. There was little doubt, now, that he would win this war, had already won. No one was left who could fight back. But he would live on an empty world until he died, alone and miserable. We would die together, happy, in love.

One final act of mercy and trust before the end, I disabled her ability to feel pain and reshaped one of her fingers into a claw. With our shared medical training, with my perfect knowledge of anatomy, and with our bond to guide us, she sank that claw into the the base of my skull, paralyzing me and cutting off my ability to feel pain. It wasn't a clean or pretty operation, the kind of thing that would require someone like Clarice to save my life.

We achieved what we needed to achieve, we would not die screaming when the golden flames finally reached us.

TanaNari said:
Taylor put her hand over mine, and her other onto the flesh. I'mPreparedForThis. I looked at her, objecting. Just because Lisa thinks you'd rather be a monster doesn't mean I want you to be one. NoLoveYouHaveToProtectYou.

Those two bits certainly brought the feels

TanaNari said:
YouWon'tIt'sJustABodyTransplant.

Says something about just how much as happened in this story, when not only are the characters treating what ought to be eldritch horror in such a manner, but how at least some of the readers seem to have glossed over that until it got brought up in the comments....

dasstan · May 23, 2015

I don't think I mentioned this in my last comment, but I really enjoyed that Zion and Avalon both use toponyms.

Also, it will be truly interesting to see what QA and Shaper can do without their restrictions. Let alone all the other unrestricted powers.

Gendie07 · May 23, 2015

Lets hope Tananari can get over his dickesh tendencies, and NOT wait to post the last chapter until next week, or month, or (gulp) year.

GiftofLove · May 23, 2015

Bool1989 said:
Lets hope Tananari can get over his dickesh tendencies

A fool's hope.

Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

A Variety of Cheese

Well worn.

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A

Shun the sun, night so nice

A Variety of Cheese

Know what you're doing yet?

Experienced.

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'Twas love that did this to you.

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'Twas love that did this to you.

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Getting some practice in, huh?

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