Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

[Spillbaw]

Does the clone of Evil Taylor made by Blasto have powers?

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Mangled corpses typically don't have powers, but it is the clone of a clone that's powered by undead gods, so solid maybe.

 

[zapking5]

The way I see it, original Taylor* intended to turn in the corpse of the Echidna!Clone, but Echidna!Clone secretly had a clone of herself made by Blasto and substituted it, leaving her free to disappear.

So, no matter whether the second generation clone could have connected to the original's shard, it's dead now. And Echidna!Clone has good reason to believe she can get away, since both the PRT and original Taylor think she's dead.

*Let's not call her 'good' or anything crazy like that.

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Oh, I was thinking Taylor would have used Pattern Spider Touch to turn a random into a copy of her body and then kill the random.

 

[kax321]

YOU MADE SAINT INTO AN ACTUAL PERSON?!

Capable of seeing the big picture? Of realizing their own self limitations and mastered status and willing to commit self sacrifice for the actual greater good instead of the hipocrite he did shown himself to be in canon?
What is this unnatural state of the world? Witchcraft I tell you.

I'm flabbergasted, good job.

 

[KyleDaScourge]

Is this meant to be threadmarked or something? Or is it a non canon post?

Does the clone of Evil Taylor made by Blasto have powers?

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Pretty sure the clone Blasto made is dead, that's the corpse Imp is turning in for the Kill Order Bounty, while fucking over Tagg.

If I'm understanding the events right...

Dragon and Defiant showed up to arrest Taylor for... some reason?

Taylor fought back and escaped, blowing her Low-Key, DD, and possibly Smith identities, also getting Armsmaster in an oath not to further free Dragon and inadvertently turning the Dragonslayers into very temporary allies.

Tagg signed the Kill Order that Piggot had written up in case Low Key were discovered to have "broken the Endbringer Truce" by lying about losing her powers.

This was presumably announced, Taylor heard about it, and decided to have Evil Taylor killed and turned in while she presumably just stops shapeshifting back into her original form and abandons the Taylor, Low-Key, DD, and maybe Smith identities.

Evil Taylor foresaw this when the announcement was made, and swapped herself with a clone she'd had Blasto make.

Taylor and/or Team BITN kill the Blasto-Clone and go to turn in the body on live tv and fuck over Tagg. Unfortunately the Dragonslayers hear about and believe it to, so Taylor never gets to be their friend after all.

Evil Taylor escapes, breaking a bunch of charm-enforced promises and such, but gambling that she'll be able to survive 17 terrible fates. Possibly pregnant with... something Abyssal flavored and planning to fuck Original Taylor at every chance she gets without revealing she survived (until dramatically appropriate at least).

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

She is not that bad off the VED curses only come into play if Taylor calls them due. The double oath on the other hand yeah that is going to suck.

 

[ses]

Is it bad that I kinda wanna follow Good(?) Taylor's adventures now rather than Current Taylor? 51 ill-timed botches is probably going to be less grimderp than Current Taylor's future anyway.

 

[Aegorm]

How on earth does evil Taylor think she's going to be able to bring that baby to term? She has like 19x the bad karma that was enough to kill the other Evil Taylor's baby.

If it doesn't die somehow, or kill her during birth, or whatever else cruel irony that might happen, then it really makes no sense.

Also, shouldn't the clone hate the baby? Since it's the child of Fenrir, who Taylor loved, so the clone should hate it.

Edit: the clone's potential is also completely annihilated right? Because of the emptiness endowment or whatever. So it's not like the evil clone will ever be able to match Taylor's pace, and she's starting from scratch powerwise.

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

If I'm understanding the events right...

Dragon and Defiant showed up to arrest Taylor for... some reason?

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I think the idea is that abyssal!Taylor used the skills and time she was given to 4D chess the whole thing, starting with the return to school as bait too juicy for Tagg to pass up.

 

[ses]

How on earth does evil Taylor think she's going to be able to bring that baby to term? She has like 19x the bad karma that was enough to kill the other Evil Taylor's baby.

If it doesn't die somehow, or kill her during birth, or whatever else cruel irony that might happen, then it really makes no sense.

Also, shouldn't the clone hate the baby? Since it's the child of Fenrir, who Taylor loved, so the clone should hate it.

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Fenrir's baby wasn't killed by bad karma, only the Shadow Stalker rape was. And it's certainly possible if Good(?) Taylor keeps her head down and doesn't engage in any cape shenanigans. The bad karma enforces failure at the worst possible moment, but it can't bring about danger on its own, only wait and ensure you can't escape when the opportunity arises for something Bad to happen to you. It'll be a challenge for sure but it's not impossible to delay the doom long enough to come to term.

I think the idea is that abyssal!Taylor used the skills and time she was given to 4D chess the whole thing, starting with the return to school as bait too juicy for Tagg to pass up.

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Between this and the Fenrir's Children Good(?) Taylor is waaay better an Eclipse-type than Taylor ever was.

 

[Dakkah]

How on earth does evil Taylor think she's going to be able to bring that baby to term? She has like 19x the bad karma that was enough to kill the other Evil Taylor's baby.

If it doesn't die somehow, or kill her during birth, or whatever else cruel irony that might happen, then it really makes no sense.

Also, shouldn't the clone hate the baby? Since it's the child of Fenrir, who Taylor loved, so the clone should hate it.

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Her karma was wiped after the rape, also her pup died because she had a brainfart and lost the initiative, same thing happened to Lisa.


Also why would she hate hers? Raising her pup well would be the biggest knifetwist she could possibly inflict on Taylor
(outside of some rather gratuitous tortureporn.)

 

[tronax]

Could Blasto actually produce a Plant-Clone that'd pass the expertise? It's reeally far from his specialization, after all...

 

[John Doey]

Ha, fucking called it.

 

[ses]

Could Blasto actually produce a Plant-Clone that'd pass the expertise? It's reeally far from his specialization, after all...

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Blasto's tech was the source of the S9k (Incidentally butterflied away now). Clones are his literal exact specialty. He's a clone/minion-type tinker, not a plant tinker. No Bonesaw collaboration this time but Bonesaw's contributions were likely on the Trump side of things of giving the clones powers and reconstructing from old DNA rather than the cloning side.

EDIT: Wait a second, was that Valefor? Hypnotic Tongue Technique get, also wooo Fallen arc let's goo. Also surprised at Taylor spouting off that pack of blatant lies about Smith considering Armsy's lie detection. I wonder what conclusion's they'll draw from all the [LIE] flags that get thrown up.

Shit, considering the golden scales vs golden tinkering, I wonder if they'll come to the conclusion that Smith was the late Danny Hebert and that Taylor was second-gen? It would explain Low Key saving Smith's life at Ottowa as well as her orichalcum knife. Inb4 "Low Key's radicalization was caused by her father having sexual relations with a black teenage girl"

 

[Rask]

I think the clone is in for a terrible surprise, briefly. Mechanically, breaking an Eclipse oath doesn't cause something terrible to happen to you. It makes you botch something at the worst possible time. Thus, the effect on Taylor was her losing the fight to Sophia, not what came after. Taylor would have died there if Sophia had been more direct about killing her.

 

[tronax]

Blasto's tech was the source of the S9k (Incidentally butterflied away now). Clones are his literal exact specialty. He's a clone/minion-type tinker, not a plant tinker.

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I remembered him being plant/fungi tinker, but now that I look at his wiki, yeah... And damn, he's bullshit, isn't he? Like, holy shit, how could he be a minor villain of no global importance...

 

[Daniel Snuts]

Is this meant to be threadmarked or something?

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Look, just because some sentimental dumbass writes a shitty omake trying to inject a sliver of happy ending into my Glorious Grimderp Dystopia doesn't mean I have to acknowledge it.

At least it's better than the 'fixing the moral failings of this fic' omake that one guy on SB wrote, where Taylor did a mass shooting gunning down everyone in the Empire bar in cold blood (though she spared Rune because she suddenly realized she was bisexual after all, and Rune she'd rather rape).

 

[Dakkah]

I think the clone is in for a terrible surprise, briefly. Mechanically, breaking an Eclipse oath doesn't cause something terrible to happen to you. It makes you botch something at the worst possible time. Thus, the effect on Taylor was her losing the fight to Sophia, not what came after. Taylor would have died there if Sophia had been more direct about killing her.

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IIRC it isn't limited to *one* thing, I believe Dan made a post about it being three. (From getting caught offguard, unmasked/raped, and waking up near the end of it, the little Bloodbath she made in retaliation also came back to haunt her something fierce.)

Edit: KyleDaScourge Pretty Sure Tay killed her evil clone because she not only did 'another betrayal' but made her burn two identities, and two trump-cards. AKA she officially became more effort trouble than she was worth.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Look, just because some sentimental dumbass writes a shitty omake trying to inject a sliver of happy ending into my Glorious Grimderp Dystopia doesn't mean I have to acknowledge it.

At least it's better than the 'fixing the moral failings of this fic' omake that one guy on SB wrote, where Taylor did a mass shooting gunning down everyone in the Empire bar in cold blood (though she spared Rune because she suddenly realized she was bisexual after all, and Rune she'd rather rape).

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Um, yes. Yes it was.

 

[ses]

I mean don't get me wrong, lesbian nazi rape is totally my jam and I'd read the fuck out of any NSFW omakes about it. But not in the way that guy intended. Taylor running the empire while secretly Mastering and sexually abusing Rune and/or Purity sounds like something worthy of a Cecelyne exaltation. The turbocucking of Theo Anders.

IIRC it isn't limited to *one* thing, I believe Dan made a post about it being three. (From getting caught offguard, unmasked/raped, and waking up near the end of it, the little Bloodbath she made in retaliation also came back to haunt her something fierce.)

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Not quite, a broken oath is three botched rolls, not three bad things happening. Sophia successfully ambushing Taylor and winning the fight burned through all three botches, 2 from both Fenrir and Taylor failing to spot the ambush, and one from Fenrir failing to take down Sophia on his own.

 

[zharshoul]

Not really sure what happened with Imp turning in the dead clone? Taylor. Is first Taylor leaving Brockton or perma assuming another identity?

 

[1minus2]

So, the slaughterhouse nine thousand is back on the table? yay!

 

[zapking5]

So, the slaughterhouse nine thousand is back on the table? yay!

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They still would have to take down Blasto and also Toybox for Cranial. And Dinah never made her apocalypse prophecy in this story so Jack doesn't have that motivation to go for it.

 

[Dakkah]

Come to think of it, MM is probably not going to take this turn of events well, as she had pretty much latched onto Taylor. (Considering how she was normally a "Orders are orders" kinda gal. )

Wonder if she too comes to the conclusion that Armsy/Dragon were involved in the hitjob.

 

[bornagainpenguin]

At least it's better than the 'fixing the moral failings of this fic' omake that one guy on SB wrote, where Taylor did a mass shooting gunning down everyone in the Empire bar in cold blood (though she spared Rune because she suddenly realized she was bisexual after all, and Rune she'd rather rape).

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Wait, what?

Umm anyone have a link to that for haw-haws? In addition to that are there omakes from this story? I must confess I've completely forgotten to look, I've been so entranced by the story itself.

EDIT: just checked. Only three omakes.

 

[Zax Zaubererglück]

Can goth clone Taylor survive? Let us think about this in more detail.

The many, many depts from Verdant Emptiness Endowment only come into effect, IF original Taylor calls them due. The original must for this make demands of goth clone Taylor, which, if resisted, trigger botches. Taylor is unaware of the clones survival and fails therefore to call these depts due.
>> Goth clone Talyor is safe from this. As long as the original is none the wiser or fails to deliver demands.

The oath on the other hand is already triggered.
This means 2x 3 Essence = six botches. Botches are 'rolls' and can be pretty much anything, which instead of going 'normal' end horribly bad. Imagine a single botch turning cooking a meal into accidentially amputating your own arm OR setting yourself on fire.
Goth clone Taylor is also very, very squishy. The botches are likely deadly, but stopping bloodloss is very useful here.

I wonder how she could/would avoid the worst botches from the oath.
- Stay out of endbringer range (no cities, no power plants, no other targets) >> Doable, but annoying
- Stay out of parahuman range >> Her sorcerers sight makes this actually doable
- Stay away from ALL roads >> Roadkill. Enough said.
- Stay away from anything with electric power / flammable / tools >> Hospitalised, crippled, maybe dead
- Any social interaction >> Have fun being randomly murdered or worse
- Any decision making >> Choose the worst option out of a set. Invent a new, worse option.

>> No matter what. This will be scarring. Maybe not lethal. But still super bad. Botches CAN be survived after all.
Taking her chances with fate is in my opinnion still much, much smarter, than taking chances with original Taylor.
I think goth clone Taylor can survive this. Many accidents are survivable because of her kind of exalted status. But.... It will be ugly.

Is it possible to 'provoke' botches?
Get into bad, but not murderous, situations. Like gambling. Or fistfights.
Anything where the skills of clone Taylor would make the difficulty trivial and need a botch to turn bad should do.

 

[Flashbunny]

All of them, or just some of them? Not that I can do anything but wave the AU flag if the answer is 'all of them', I decided on Dinah's payment long before I looked up Cuff's timeline on the wiki - in my original outline Taylor got her power immediately after Coil, before the S9.

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Pretty sure it's all of them, sorry.

 

[Vealie]

Didn't Taylor de-power bonesaw when she used PST on her? Definitely no S9k in that case.

 

[ses]

I think one of those 51 botches was already taken by "Man. You defect to the side of the jews, and they can't spare a single shekel for the good goy?"

 

[zapking5]

Didn't Taylor de-power bonesaw when she used PST on her? Definitely no S9k in that case.

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Taylor used the hearth stone to mentally cure Bonesaw temporarily, don't think she used PST.

The many, many depts from Verdant Emptiness Endowment only come into effect, IF original Taylor calls them due. The original must for this make demands of goth clone Taylor, which, if resisted, trigger botches. Taylor is unaware of the clones survival and fails therefore to call these depts due.

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I think it counted from the clone disobeying standing commands by fleeing?

Taken together with all the commands she just broke by running away, she had no less than 17 such fates to look forward to, one after the other.

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[5ColouredWalker]

I will point out Clone!Taylor surviving is a unthreadmarked omake, so probably don't count it as canon. More likely she ate the botches trying to flee.

Whether Blasto is dead anyway or there is a second Taylor clone is up in the air.

I don't remember the spacebattles omake but it'd be hard to check as the whole thread was nuked. That said there are people stupid enough to do it.