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

[edale]

Then Taylor must be certifiably retarded.

Because a teenager who's blindsided by a contract should IMMEDIATELY think of legality protests. And that protest is enough time to realize that no, this cannot possibly be legal. Followed by application of red tape.

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Few things:

Taylor was taken from the hospital, where she was being sedated. It's very likely she's still somewhat under the effects of this sedation (no timeframe has been given for how long between when Taylor was taken, and when Trichter talked to her)... Actually, that might be another VERY strong legal point against the first contract.

I believe it hasn't even been a full day in-story since the first chapter. Some sedation medications take several days to clear out of your system. This means Taylor might still not be thinking clearly from the drugs.

Taylor is used to not having anything done by authority when she's been screwed over. Something that has not once been overturned by anything happening to her so far at SL. At Winslow complaints were literally used as more ammunition against her. Literally the only thing to happen (to her, and our, knowledge) is a verbal warning, and a "Well... You could always take over his job so he doesn't screw over anymore people from your section of the multiverse, while he'll be busy screwing over people from a different section instead."

Everyone's telling her it's legal. Hell, Cindy told her that even if Trichter had lied, the contract would still be binding. No lawyers have looked over the contract so far.

And I'll say it again, if you expect competence from a teenager, you'll be disappointed 99.9% of the time.

Though now I'm considering ... (I really shouldn't) ... an SL fic of my own ... (oh, come on) .... not that I'm very up with the setting ... (I have other fics to write) ... It'll probably be a one-shot ... (oh, all right) ... okay, watch this space.

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That was almost as amusing to read as one of your fics, lol.

Eternal Thendony and The Erin Show (another SFW one) are good places to do some research on the setting. Both should really be continued...

 

[Dobb]

Though now I'm considering ... (I really shouldn't) ... an SL fic of my own ... (oh, come on) .... not that I'm very up with the setting ... (I have other fics to write) ... It'll probably be a one-shot ... (oh, all right) ... okay, watch this space.

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I'd be definitely interested. :]

...Damn it, I really shouldn't take this as encouragement. I really shouldn't...
...and yet there are so few 'popular female character goes through Slut Life' fics here, despite it being such an interesting concept...
It's not easy being the creative sort of person, is it?

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And in your work too.

Well, OK. Let's see what happens later there and if the changes mentioned would help.

 

[torac]

you seem to either be missing more then a half of an argument or skipping parts you can't answer to intentionally

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I'm hoping I've missed something. Would love to really understand the complaints.

First, laws are laws because they apply to everyone, be it CEO (like in example), a clerk, an unemployed citizen or a victim of a kidnapping.

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1) I have addressed this. Is it perhaps you, who does not read my posts?
2) To reiterate: That is not how laws work, or have ever worked. To bring in another direct real-life example where that is not the case: Modern laws only work in certain locations, mostly within a single country. International Waters are a popular feature in many films (though those have some laws anyway). More importantly, some remote places on earth, some space stations and any point in space is, to the best of my knowledge, lawless.
3) IF SL is beholden to actual law (instead of mere guidelines), they may also conduct unlawfully in locations outside of the law's jurisdiction. See USA and Guantanamo Bay.

Second, it's the author who paints Cindy and her boss as the good guys, not Guardian54.

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You are just acting as if your personal interpretations were unassailable and would trump even the author's direct word. Please point out where the author directly says such, or where the events in-story unavoidably require the characters to be good.

Again, I have addressed this already.

The story is told in third person, so we can't chalk it as a perception error or some character's bias

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As the author has said: its not an omniscient narrator. Even if it was, you would still need to point out direct judgment calls about the characters' intentions and alignment, which no one has provided.

Third, the main reasons of our apparent displeasure are plot holes, wild logic leaps and unnecessary complications along with author's reluctance to accept and correct his mistakes, not mere composition errors.

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I have nothing against complaining about those. It's certainly not a perfect story. I just think the concrete examples I have addressed are not actually convincing criticisms and still hope for arguments to the contrary.
The author has fixed and corrected a bunch of stuff. (I'm especially glad Cindy is not a lawyer anymore. Still acts like an inexperienced newbie, though.)

 

[Ack]

So, my take on Tayor Hebert being inducted into Slut Life:
How Taylor Hebert Agreed to be a Slut

 

[january1may]

Taylor remembers the Locker and blacking out, so there's a possibility they're going to stuff her back in there. To her it's "Sign this form or return to the locker".

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...I'll have to check on that, but if she thought it was "return to the locker", she would have mentioned that. In fact, I'm pretty sure Tricher explicitly told her that she'd be returned to the hospital, not the locker.

EDIT: sadly, no, it hadn't been told explicitly, as far as I could tell. There was a lot of circumstancial evidence that Taylor was probably taken from the hospital and not from the locker, but in principle she could have believed that they'd stuff her back into the locker (though, again, she probably would have mentioned that in her rant about what would happen if she thought it was reasonably likely).

Otherwise, you can abduct a CEO, dunk him in a fire, pull him out, and say that if he doesn't sign his company over you're dropping him back into the flames. There is no dystopia that would let that be legally valid, as it compromises the power base of those with power!

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The tricky part of this is "abduct a CEO". Why, exactly, would you expect a CEO not to have lots and lots of assorted protections and defenses? You don't just walk in to a CEO and abduct him, especially not in a corporate dystopia.

(And, for that matter, - unlikely for CEOs specifically, maybe, but very possible in many similar scenarios - the "dunk him in a fire, then pull him out" part might fail due to a suicide pill.)

Because again, if you're gonna have a villain doing something sneaky, figure out for yourself what he did, so you can explain it yourself to the readers.

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First part yes, and Jonakhensu's already doing that (to an extent, because.he doesn't want to be hamstrung by potential future plot holes involving insufficiently thought-out details of said explanations).

Second part... not really. At the time, a lot of the "what he did" explanations are dozens of chapters away; some of them might not really make much sense, and that's the fortunate ones, because the others will be various kinds of heavy plot spoilers.
At best, you get the narrative equivalent of saying "actually, Loren Ipsum is a Martian[1]​" - so extremely out of context that if you're lucky it will be taken as a joke. At slightly less best... well, imagine if book 4 of Harry Potter had an interlude near the start about Barty Crouch Jr and his plan.
In this particular case... imagine if, near the start of Worm (arc 1 or so), when Taylor keeps complaining about the terrible state of Brockton Bay, there'd be an interlude with Contessa explaining the parahuman feudalism experiment. It's going to be at least that bad - out of context and a spoiler.


[1]​ sorry for Irregular Webcomic! spoilers, but it was about the best example I could think of, and it's not much of a spoiler

 

[Guardian54]

Some definitions for those unaware:

Criticism: "You can't do it that way"
CONSTRUCTIVE Criticism: "you can't do it that way, but you can get good results doing it this way"

Clearly, Ack and I are on a side providing constructive criticism.

The tricky part of this is "abduct a CEO". Why, exactly, would you expect a CEO not to have lots and lots of assorted protections and defenses? You don't just walk in to a CEO and abduct him, especially not in a corporate dystopia.

(And, for that matter, - unlikely for CEOs specifically, maybe, but very possible in many similar scenarios - the "dunk him in a fire, then pull him out" part might fail due to a suicide pill.)

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There are going to be those with hax enough powers. And without any semblance of law and order enforced by a coalition of those at or near the top of the power pyramid (you can't let small infractions of the rules against even minor underlings slide or they start pushing further) kidnapping a CEO won't be that hard.

 

[Ack]

Second part... not really. At the time, a lot of the "what he did" explanations are dozens of chapters away; some of them might not really make much sense, and that's the fortunate ones, because the others will be various kinds of heavy plot spoilers.
At best, you get the narrative equivalent of saying "actually, Loren Ipsum is a Martian[1]​" - so extremely out of context that if you're lucky it will be taken as a joke. At slightly less best... well, imagine if book 4 of Harry Potter had an interlude near the start about Barty Crouch Jr and his plan.
In this particular case... imagine if, near the start of Worm (arc 1 or so), when Taylor keeps complaining about the terrible state of Brockton Bay, there'd be an interlude with Contessa explaining the parahuman feudalism experiment. It's going to be at least that bad - out of context and a spoiler.


[1]​ sorry for Irregular Webcomic! spoilers, but it was about the best example I could think of, and it's not much of a spoiler

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I think you missed the point.

1) This is an episodic fanfiction. It's different from a full-length novel so of course you don't put an explanation of what the villain's doing in a novel. But if you're posting chapters of your fic in a site like this and a reader says "That looks totally illogical. How does that even work?" you can say "It works because of this".

2) What you don't ever do under any circumstance is set up a situation where you don't actually work out what the villains are doing and how they're doing it behind the scenes. There are three reasons for this.
a) You don't want to paint yourself into a corner. If the villains do (x), you want to know how the villains did it, so the heroes can figure it out onscreen, making both you and them look clever, and then fix it.
b) You don't want to get 9/10 of the way through the story then come to the horrific realisation that the villains couldn't actually have done that and so you have to go back and do a lot of retconning or pull a hasty rabbit out of the hat and hope like hell nobody notices.
c) Timelines. You want to know when the villains were doing what so that you can have the heroes interrupt at the right moment (I always wondered what Vader and the Emperor were doing with the Death Star for the twenty years between the end of Episode III and the beginning of A New Hope. Polishing it?)

Here's just one example: The victim to a crime has been mindwiped. It's a super-powered universe, and that's a power that conveniently prevents a witness from identifying people, so the writer goes with that. However, he hasn't actually defined who mindwiped her or what the duration or extent of the mindwipe is. Toward the end of the story, he's identified all the villains in the gang, and nobody in it can actually do mindwipes ... and as it happens, he forgot about the original mindwipe victim until someone asks "But who did that?"

 

[SystemSearcher]

I think you missed the point.

1) This is an episodic fanfiction. It's different from a full-length novel so of course you don't put an explanation of what the villain's doing in a novel. But if you're posting chapters of your fic in a site like this and a reader says "That looks totally illogical. How does that even work?" you can say "It works because of this".

2) What you don't ever do under any circumstance is set up a situation where you don't actually work out what the villains are doing and how they're doing it behind the scenes. There are three reasons for this.
a) You don't want to paint yourself into a corner. If the villains do (x), you want to know how the villains did it, so the heroes can figure it out onscreen, making both you and them look clever, and then fix it.
b) You don't want to get 9/10 of the way through the story then come to the horrific realisation that the villains couldn't actually have done that and so you have to go back and do a lot of retconning or pull a hasty rabbit out of the hat and hope like hell nobody notices.
c) Timelines. You want to know when the villains were doing what so that you can have the heroes interrupt at the right moment (I always wondered what Vader and the Emperor were doing with the Death Star for the twenty years between the end of Episode III and the beginning of A New Hope. Polishing it?)

Here's just one example: The victim to a crime has been mindwiped. It's a super-powered universe, and that's a power that conveniently prevents a witness from identifying people, so the writer goes with that. However, he hasn't actually defined who mindwiped her or what the duration or extent of the mindwipe is. Toward the end of the story, he's identified all the villains in the gang, and nobody in it can actually do mindwipes ... and as it happens, he forgot about the original mindwipe victim until someone asks "But who did that?"

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Okay. I'll spoil a thing: I've talked with the author on Discord somewhat extensively, and have actually looked at Jona's notes and some of the buffer.

He has thought stuff out. He has plans for how it worked out in the end, he just doesn't want to dump all of that into the first few chapters as explanation, nor does he want to just explain and spoil things, and you just assume that he has none in the first place. He simply keeps his comments vague and non-specific because all of it will be revealed at a later date for actual plot reasons. You are an author yourself, you should know that dumping tons of exposition in the first few chapters is a bad idea.

 

[edale]

Criticism: "You can't do it that way"
CONSTRUCTIVE Criticism: "you can't do it that way, but you can get good results doing it this way"

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There's nothing constructive about taking the same comments that have been answered multiple times already (almost exclusively other people's comments no less), and spewing them forth, verbatim, yet again.

How many times have you used that CEO line (I'll give you a hint, you'll need more than one hand to count them)? and you know what, it was pointed out why that wouldn't work out the FIRST time it was brought up.

You aren't being constructively critical, you're being destructively critical, while trying to say you're being constructive.

destructive criticism: Criticism performed with the intention to harm someone, derogate and/or destroy someone's creation, prestige, reputation and/or self-esteem.

You fall under the "derogate and/or destroy someone's creation" section of that, btw.

 

[Ack]

Okay. I'll spoil a thing: I've talked with the author on Discord somewhat extensively, and have actually looked at Jona's notes and some of the buffer.

He has thought stuff out. He has plans for how it worked out in the end, he just doesn't want to dump all of that into the first few chapters as explanation, nor does he want to just explain and spoil things, and you just assume that he has none in the first place. He simply keeps his comments vague and non-specific because all of it will be revealed at a later date for actual plot reasons. You are an author yourself, you should know that dumping tons of exposition in the first few chapters is a bad idea.

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This is true.

However, the author has also admitted on here that the Contract Which Shall Not Be Spoken About was originally a throwaway plot device that he didn't actually think all the way through ... and see how much shit that stirred up.

I have no doubt that he's got what the villains are doing all lined up. That's not the problem. The problem is in the 'throwaway' points which have a very real and lasting effect on the plot. If he has more of these, and if they don't add up, people will jump on them.

Figuring out how something is done is just as important as what, sometimes.

For instance, in Recoil, I had Taylor back in time, then I had her encounter a time-displaced Aster Anders. It took a bit of figuring to work out how Phir Se could've sent them both back so that it didn't make a mockery of causality, but I managed it. If I'd just gone, "Oh she was sent back in time to help Taylor", I would've had half-assed explanations of how time travel should work clogging up my inbox for weeks. But I actually had it thought through, so they had an explanation which touched on all the points, and people went "Cool" and went back to reading the story.

In another example, also in Recoil, I had Taylor and Mrs Knott assassinate Heartbreaker. Quite a bit was said in the comments about Taylor's actions and her motivations for them. In the end, I wrote another whole chapter to cover what happened immediately after, including character reactions from Andrea and also from Kinsey when he figured out that something dodgy had happened.

As a result, Recoil is one of my most popular fics by far. Because I think it through and I'm not averse to writing entirely new chapters (and rewriting what I've got planned) to deal with upcoming issues.

Another instance: I've just posted the latest It Gets Worse. I'd planned to take out the entirety of the Nine three chapters ago. The Nine still aren't down. But there's been some kickass chapters. Sometimes you've got to write what you've got.

 

[Jonakhensu]

I refuse to put things into spoiler tags for major plot points because they don't stay there. This happened when I initially said the contract wasn't valid, and I have no reason to suspect any other plot point I spell out in a spoiler will stay there, either.

If you want me to explain various plot elements in detail, send me a direct message and I'll be willing to discuss my plans.

I have plans that go into at least the fourth arc, including a generic timeline that is going to be subject to change based on how various things work out.

I'm fairly sure that contract was the last thought it thing by far, and I've since turned it into an ongoing plot. Stuff like trying to remember someone minefield a witness is why I note have a file devoted to things that'll need to be taken care of later.

 

[Guardian54]

You fall under the "derogate and/or destroy someone's creation" section of that, btw.

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I wonder if someone in 1173 said that "hey, guys, a three-meter foundation on porous subsoil is a bad idea" when they got started on a certain Tower in Pisa.
It started tilting after they built the second floor. And they stopped construction for a long, long time because of that. Followed by building with one side of each floor taller than the other, and tons of various modifications retcons...

I started with a stance of "What the hell is this law and order debate? Sure it's SoD breaking but not that... oh... oh it actually IS that big of a deal!"
Followed by "I can't believe SL is shooting itself in the foot this badly..." and then the legal system dispute you well remember.
Followed by the conclusion of "So, this is what you're doing..." which you remember as an upturn in my argument methods.

By now, I (finally) get the impression that the author intends for the massive legal drama shitstorm Taylor starts from within the show to be what keeps this SFW. And that's a valid enough solution to the problems to let the apparent holes from earlier work. I read "Parahumans in Mareth" first so I have enough faith in the author to shrug it off and wait (well, that was what got me through to this point anyhow)

However, the author has also admitted on here that the Contract Which Shall Not Be Spoken About was originally a throwaway plot device that he didn't actually think all the way through ... and see how much shit that stirred up.

I have no doubt that he's got what the villains are doing all lined up. That's not the problem. The problem is in the 'throwaway' points which have a very real and lasting effect on the plot. If he has more of these, and if they don't add up, people will jump on them.

Figuring out how something is done is just as important as what, sometimes.

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Standing ovation as usual Ack. My big problem was always of the "If it was a throwaway thing, why are you so stubborn over it? This bodes EXTREMELY ill for any future slip-ups!" variety.

 

[january1may]

I think you missed the point.

1) This is an episodic fanfiction. It's different from a full-length novel so of course you don't put an explanation of what the villain's doing in a novel. But if you're posting chapters of your fic in a site like this and a reader says "That looks totally illogical. How does that even work?" you can say "It works because of this".

2) What you don't ever do under any circumstance is set up a situation where you don't actually work out what the villains are doing and how they're doing it behind the scenes. There are three reasons for this.
a) You don't want to paint yourself into a corner. If the villains do (x), you want to know how the villains did it, so the heroes can figure it out onscreen, making both you and them look clever, and then fix it.
b) You don't want to get 9/10 of the way through the story then come to the horrific realisation that the villains couldn't actually have done that and so you have to go back and do a lot of retconning or pull a hasty rabbit out of the hat and hope like hell nobody notices.
c) Timelines. You want to know when the villains were doing what so that you can have the heroes interrupt at the right moment (I always wondered what Vader and the Emperor were doing with the Death Star for the twenty years between the end of Episode III and the beginning of A New Hope. Polishing it?)

Here's just one example: The victim to a crime has been mindwiped. It's a super-powered universe, and that's a power that conveniently prevents a witness from identifying people, so the writer goes with that. However, he hasn't actually defined who mindwiped her or what the duration or extent of the mindwipe is. Toward the end of the story, he's identified all the villains in the gang, and nobody in it can actually do mindwipes ... and as it happens, he forgot about the original mindwipe victim until someone asks "But who did that?"

Click to shrink...

Um... I'm not sure it works that way.

1) Yes, this story is episodic. So was Worm. (And, IIRC, so were quite a few "full-length novels" back in the day.) Your point? I'm not entirely sure why it would matter in the first place (which is probably worth another rant just by itself), but even if it did, it still wouldn't disqualify my Contessa comparison.
(Also, if you're consistently doing that, you're basically revealing large chunks of future plot, which, if anything, is worse in an episodic story, because the readers cannot even be assured that those future plot bits will ever be written out.)

2) This isn't actually quite as far-reaching as that. If the villains are sufficiently powerful that they could have done it easily in dozens of ways, it doesn't really matter which of those dozens of ways they chose, up until the offiical reveal (if it ever happens).
a) Neither do you want to paint yourself into a corner by saying "the villains did X, which they could have done because they have Y", and then having to make sure to write villains who necessarily have Y. Best case, if you truthfully answer the questions, you just revealed nearly the entire plot of the story (with the only remaining mystery, maybe, being how the heroes figure it out). Worst case, you slip up somewhere and end up saying that the villains have Y because they did Z, and then eventually realizing that they actually couldn't have done Z, in which case having them still be able to have Y because they could have done Q instead (which would normally be a retcon at worst) doesn't really help.
b) Again, with sufficiently powerful villains (even if later depowered), it's rarely a problem (you can always present an interlude at the end, or even before that, showing one of the above-mentioned dozens of ways - the third Porry Gatter book, and to an extent also the second one, did it masterfully). And outside of that... as mentioned just above, it's a lot easier to stumble into that trap if you have to present explanations for every single bit (and then explanations for those explanations).
[And, of course, an especially good author can probably pull off the "hasty rabbit" version too. But that's beside the point.]
c) No comment. As a former AH.com regular, I entirely agree with you on this subpoint (though it's funny for you to say that, given your timeline retcons in It Gets Worse). I just don't see how it relates to this particular story.

 

[Ack]

Um... I'm not sure it works that way.

1) Yes, this story is episodic. So was Worm. (And, IIRC, so were quite a few "full-length novels" back in the day.) Your point? I'm not entirely sure why it would matter in the first place (which is probably worth another rant just by itself), but even if it did, it still wouldn't disqualify my Contessa comparison.
(Also, if you're consistently doing that, you're basically revealing large chunks of future plot, which, if anything, is worse in an episodic story, because the readers cannot even be assured that those future plot bits will ever be written out.)

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You don't do it to reveal large chunks of future plot.

You do it to explain what has happened in such a way that the reader wants to see more. But you explain it, not just try to brush it off as unimportant.

Look, I've played RPGs (pencil/paper/dice) for decades, and the one lesson I've learned is that the PCs will latch on to the NPC or location you've spent the least amount of time fleshing out, and they'll demand detail after detail after detail. So you don't give them anything before you know its place in the whole narrative, how it got there, and how it works.

2) This isn't actually quite as far-reaching as that. If the villains are sufficiently powerful that they could have done it easily in dozens of ways, it doesn't really matter which of those dozens of ways they chose, up until the offiical reveal (if it ever happens).
a) Neither do you want to paint yourself into a corner by saying "the villains did X, which they could have done because they have Y", and then having to make sure to write villains who necessarily have Y. Best case, if you truthfully answer the questions, you just revealed nearly the entire plot of the story (with the only remaining mystery, maybe, being how the heroes figure it out). Worst case, you slip up somewhere and end up saying that the villains have Y because they did Z, and then eventually realizing that they actually couldn't have done Z, in which case having them still be able to have Y because they could have done Q instead (which would normally be a retcon at worst) doesn't really help.
b) Again, with sufficiently powerful villains (even if later depowered), it's rarely a problem (you can always present an interlude at the end, or even before that, showing one of the above-mentioned dozens of ways - the third Porry Gatter book, and to an extent also the second one, did it masterfully). And outside of that... as mentioned just above, it's a lot easier to stumble into that trap if you have to present explanations for every single bit (and then explanations for those explanations).
[And, of course, an especially good author can probably pull off the "hasty rabbit" version too. But that's beside the point.]

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You're still not getting the point.

Sure, you can pull off the "let's chuck plot elements at the screen and throw together a story" trick more than once. But it's not a good idea. Because it's lazy writing. You want to know not only what the villains are doing, but also how they're doing it. Doesn't matter if you plot it carefully on a storyboard a week before you ever put word to screen, or figure it out as you write the story. Just so long as YOU KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING AND HOW THEY'RE DOING IT. Not doing that? Leaving details to chance, or not even bothering to think them through? If someone likes your story enough to look hard at the details, that sort of thing jumps out at them and it gets noticed.

c) No comment. As a former AH.com regular, I entirely agree with you on this subpoint (though it's funny for you to say that, given your timeline retcons in It Gets Worse). I just don't see how it relates to this particular story.

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I did one timeline retcon in It Gets Worse (changed one date). What I'm doing now? It's called a parallel story, which exists alongside the previous story in the same timeline. It's only a retcon if I have to go back and change the already-written story.

 

[Mecrazyfang]

I don't think I've seen a debate this lively since I last braved With This Ring.

Considering the sheer fanbase on that, this is actually a pretty good sign. People don't tend to get this worked-up about something that isn't interesting and worth their time.
Though uh, @Jonakhensu? Considering that Taylor is intended to actually be making her own such contracts...
If your current betas aren't that keen on the fiddly details, you should probably bring in someone with an eye for that sort of thing. Not sure if Ack has the time, for example. Me, my schedule is unreliable right now but I'm more than willing to pitch in.

 

[Sleepyfoo]

1) Yes, this story is episodic. So was Worm. (And, IIRC, so were quite a few "full-length novels" back in the day.) Your point? I'm not entirely sure why it would matter in the first place (which is probably worth another rant just by itself), but even if it did, it still wouldn't disqualify my Contessa comparison.
(Also, if you're consistently doing that, you're basically revealing large chunks of future plot, which, if anything, is worse in an episodic story, because the readers cannot even be assured that those future plot bits will ever be written out.)

Click to shrink...

Actually, Contessa as the Narrator for the interludes makes an excellent framing device for Worm. It could open with Contessa talking to the reader directly, explaining the societal collapse, the potential end of the world, and how their experiment instead produced the girl that would save the world. Cut to taylor in the rest room.

It neatly handwaves issues that haven't come up yet (like exactly how brockton bay got so bad, and was allowed to stay that way) while putting some interesting spin on taylor's choices depending on how much, exactly, was revealed.

It does come with it's own problems, of course, but it's not an inherently negative choice for the story. Alternatively, put it after Danny's interlude, if you want the strength of the first arcs to pull you in, and it can still work as an excellent framing device for the story.

 

[Jonakhensu]

Recruitment 1.8

---

Cindy made her way back to the station, box in hand and a lot on her mind. Waving at one of the guards, she was surprised when he waved her over. "What's up?" she asked as she approached.

"Just thought you'd like to know," the man began. "We had a pair of magical girls show up. They were up there for a few hours and then left."

Cindy groaned. "Wonderful," she muttered. "I was hoping to be here when they showed up. You guys were observing, right?"

"Of course we were," the guard insisted, sounding offended.

"Right, of course you were," Cindy agreed, massaging her forehead. "Sorry about that. This whole situation has been getting to me. Anything happen that I should be worried about?"

The guard shrugged. "Probably not. Girl seems to have her head on right," he commented. "And had a lot of interesting ideas she wants to try." With a satisfied smirk, he added, "Ideas we'd like to see tested. Me and the boys got together a little care package for her, if you get my meaning. Hang on a moment, and I'll have one of the guys bring it out." Not waiting for a response, he thumbed his radio. "Johnson, Miss Matos is here. Can you bring out the package."

"You got it," Johnson replied through the radio.

"While we wait," the guard continued, "we have a message we'd like you to give to Miss Hebert."

"Go on," Cindy said.

"If she has any questions, or makes a decision and would like some experience first, let us know and one of us will make it happen," the guard replied.

"Do I want to know what you're talking about?" Cindy asked suspiciously.

"Oh, it's nothing bad," the guard denied. "She just had a fascinating idea, and more familiarity with the real thing can only help her chances of success."

Cindy blinked. "I still have no idea what you're talking about," she admitted. "But I'll pass along the message. If she gets upset over your offer, I'll let you deal with the bees."

The guard chuckled. "I'm not particularly worried," he replied. "And here comes Johnson with the package."

Another guard approached, carrying a cardboard box under one arm. "Ma'am," he said politely. "Here you go, the last six months of about eight magazine subscriptions or so."

"Damn it Johnson," the first guard complained. "You ruined the joke. I had her thinking I was talking about sex or something."

"I did," Cindy added, "until you weren't worried about the bees." She took the box and asked, "So, what kind of magazines do you think could help Taylor with whatever ideas those magical girls put into her head?"

The guard grinned. "Now, why would I want to ruin the surprise? It'll be more amusing to watch both of your reactions, after all."

"Fine," Cindy grumbled, turning back toward the gate. "What is it with people wanting to surprise me today?" she asked rhetorically as she walked off.

---

Taylor was looking over the sheet the magical girls had left behind when she felt something… odd. It felt like a mass of insects, yet at the same time didn't. She could tell they were there, but couldn't get any real sensation out of them. On the other hand, she could also tell they were coming closer, so that meant… "Hello, Cindy," she called.

"Hello, Taylor," Cindy replied as she walked into the room. "Have a good meeting with the magical girls?"

Taylor nodded. "Yeah, they were really helpful," she agreed. "I'm going to tap into the Well of Will when I get empowered, and they helped me sort through what sort of things I can look forward to." She paused for a moment and added, "Apparently, knowing it's coming helps a lot, since I can avoid making any really dumb choices in the heat of the moment."

"That's good," Cindy agreed. "Now, do you have any idea why the guards back on the surface would be giving you presents?" she asked, holding forward one of the boxes.

"There's guards?" Taylor asked. "Aren't we in outer space right now?"

"Yes, but you don't think we'd let just anyone come up here, do you?" Cindy asked in return. "The guards are there to keep people from sneaking up here without us knowing about it, as well as keeping an eye on you."

Taylor flushed. "So they're watching me every time I..."

"Yes, you're being watched at all times," Cindy admitted. "Though there are privacy protocols involved, since you aren't on the show yet. They don't see you naked or anything like that."

"That's good," Taylor muttered. "Now, what's this?" she asked, giving the box a little shake.

"No idea," Cindy replied with a shrug. "Apparently, they wanted it to be a surprise for me, too. Apparently it should help you with something about becoming a magical girl, though."

"Huh." Taylor pulled the box open and looked inside. "Modern Mercenary?" she read, before reaching in and pulling out a stack of magazines. "Locked and Loaded, Moore's Dakka, Multiveral Rifleman," she listed as she sorted through the titles. "Comparative Marksmen, Scientific Gunsmith, Guns and Tulips, and Scope. That's a lot of gun magazines."

Cindy stared at the magazines and burst out, "What the hell did you talk to those girls about?!"

Taylor hesitated for a moment. "Well, you see," she began, "some magical girls can use guns they make out of magic."

"That's reasonably well known," Cindy agreed. "Most of them look fairly cartoonish or like they're antiques. That still doesn't explain why you need these magazines."

"Well," Taylor continued, "I wanted to know what would happen if you made a gun that was exactly like a real one. Then Meagan and Liana didn't know, so..." Taylor trailed off. "I guess I want to see if it could fire real bullets as well."

"Thats… Huh," Cindy began before giving the idea some thought. "You know, I don't think I've ever heard of something like that being tried before. It either works, but the girls who figured it out kept quiet about it, or it doesn't work."

"Or no one else thought about it before," Taylor added. "As far as I can tell, most magical girls aren't really given much time to make decisions, so I'm not sure how many would be able to come up with a fully functional gun on the fly. And, once you have a working gun, why would you try something different?"

"So, the magazines are for research?" Cindy asked.

"Pretty much," Taylor agreed. "I was going to ask you for a way to look guns up, but this'll be a good start."

"Once you've narrowed down what you're looking for, let me know," Cindy added. "Some of the guards have volunteered to help you out, which probably means they've got a bunch of guns for you to look through and try out."

Taylor nodded her approval. "That'd be useful. I'm going to need something that wouldn't be out of place on Earth Bet, so that I can get more bullets or whatever once I go back home."

"And on that note," Cindy said, handing out the other box. "I talked to my boss. He gave me this to give you."

"I was wondering what is in it," Taylor mentioned, taking the box. "It feels like a bunch of bugs, but not," she explained. Opening the box, she revealed a mound of silk. Stuck to the inside cover of the box was a note. "Miss Hebert, as an apology for the inconvenience of your situation, and as a welcome gift to someone I hope will soon be a valued employee, I procured an egg sack of Darwin Bark spider eggs. They have the strongest known silk of any terrestrial spider and should be of use in your future endeavors. Remember, they are cannibalistic and solitary spiders, so you will need to take care to separate them if they are not under your control." Turning to Cindy, Taylor said, "I'm going to need more bugs."

Cindy nodded, her eyes wide. "Yeah. I'll see what I can do. Flies shouldn't be too hard to get and grow."

"For now, I'm going to go put this someplace safe," Taylor added, gesturing with the box. "Then you can tell me what you found out." She started to make her way back to her room with Cindy following.

---

"Now that that's settled," Taylor began, looking at the corner she'd placed the spider eggs in, "what did you find out?"

Cindy cleared her throat and said, "Quite a bit, actually. Let me start with the owner situation, since that'll be faster."

"Sure," Taylor agreed. "What was up with the amazons and the supervillain?"

"It's basically the bean counters' fault," Cindy began. "Apparently, the amazons and all of the supervillains wanted to be paid more than they usually are, and Accounting decided it should come out of your payment instead of allocating more funds."

"They can do that?" Taylor asked.

"If they make the change before you start filling out the paperwork, yes," Cindy replied. "I looked, and both groups managed to get enough information to make that decision the first night you were here. That said, I'm not sure why they weren't replaced by different options."

"Well, I wasn't likely to pick either of them, anyway, so I guess it's no great loss," Taylor decided. "Now, what's up with the mad scientists?"

"Yeah..." Cindy began, rubbing the back of her neck. "That's going to take some explanation." Pointing at a section of the screen, showing the contract form once again, she asked, "You've noticed how there's too many hours in a week, right?"

"I was wondering about that," Taylor admitted. "What's up with that?"

"Well, we usually send our contestants to another planet. In your case, it looks like they're going with Yiobos, Jeyter, or Babnockorty. All three have thirty-two hour days." She noticed Taylor's disbelieving look. "Don't worry about it," she said reassuringly. "You get used to it surprisingly quickly, and you already decided you wanted to take the sleep mod, so that'll help."

"I'll take your word for it," Taylor replied. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Almost everything," Cindy answered. "Due to certain issues with your abilities, there's a concern that you can't leave the planet safely," she explained.

"Why not?" Taylor asked. "If it was an issue with the Simurgh, I'd already be dead, right?"

"The Simurgh?" Cindy asked. "What do mythological birds have to do with anything?"

"The Simurgh is one of the Endbringers destroying my world," Taylor explained. "She sits in orbit until she attacks. Behemoth and Leviathan just kill you, but the Simurgh? She breaks you, plants suggestions in your head or something. It can be right away or years later, but eventually, her victims go crazy and try to kill everyone or blow something up."

"That's horrible!" Cindy exclaimed. She paused for a moment to regain her composure before continuing, "But, no, it has nothing to do with her. The scientists are worried your powers might not work if you get too far away."

Taylor blinked. "Why would distance make a difference if being in a parallel universe didn't?"

"And this is where the explanation gets a bit weird. You're going to have to bear with me a bit," Cindy said. "Basically, your powers, and that extra lobe in your brain, are part of a biological supercomputer. It seems able to connect through the fifth and somewhat the sixth dimension, so you can be on Earth Bet while the supercomputer is on a different Earth entirely. The problem is that we don't know how far the connection can stretch in the third dimension, especially not while we're also stretching it through the seventh as well."

"I'm sorry, what?" Taylor asked. "I don't want to sound stupid here, but, I'm a high school sophomore."

"Right, sorry," Cindy replied. "I keep forgetting that not everyone is used to working with eight dimensions. Slut Life and our sister companies routinely deal with nine, but I'm not really comfortable dealing with different laws of physics." Shaking her head, she started over. "Alright, you should be familiar with the first four dimensions."

"Yeah," Taylor agreed. "Length, width, depth, and time, right?"

"Yes," Cindy agreed. "The fifth dimension is basically a plane of worlds with the same starting point but different histories. The six dimension just adds more possibilities to the mix.."

"Like Earth Aleph!" Taylor explained.

Cindy checked a few notes on her laptop before replying, "That Earth your Professor Haywire reached through the fifth dimension? Yes, exactly. Of course, if you did the same thing through the sixth dimension, there's a very good chance you wouldn't find an Earth there. The seventh includes a set of infinite universes with different starting conditions. To use an analogy, if a story book was a universe in the fourth dimension, general fanfiction about it would be in the fifth dimension while Alternate Universe fics would be in the sixth. The seventh dimension would be a library. The best way I can describe the eighth dimension is as a collection of libraries, but I think the analogy is starting to fall apart..."

"Just a bit," Taylor agreed, "though I think I got the gist of it. At least enough to get a headache trying to keep it all straight."

"I'll be honest," Cindy confided, "keeping the terminology straight still gives me headaches sometimes." Stretching a little, she continued, "The part that's important to take away is that we're currently on an Earth, even if it's not remotely similar to your Earth, and we've kept a small pinhole open for your powers to connect to you through. Or your connection to the supercomputer has done so for us. I'm still not completely clear on that bit."

"I guess that makes sense."

"The problem is," the redhead continued, "that we want to take you to a planet light years away from earth, and again in a different section of the multiverse, and we're not sure everything will still work when we get you there."

"That would be a problem," Taylor agreed, having trouble processing everything.

"Luckily, one of the scientists has agreed to help get the source of your powers there," Cindy added. "And I just realized that we need to get an actual name for the things, or else talking about them will always be a pain. I'll add it to the list for the scientists to figure out."

"So, if you have a way to move it, what's the problem?" Taylor asked.

"We don't know if it has an equivalent to DRM," Cindy replied. "It'd be bad if we got you out there and then found out the computer refused to function without being around earth."

"That would be bad," Taylor opined.

"Especially with it plugged into your brain," Cindy agreed. "Now, the scientists think they have a way around the issue, but they'd need your permission to try it, hence the bribe."

Taylor thought for a moment. "How dangerous do you think it'd be?"

"Not terribly dangerous," Cindy began, "and they'd pull back at the first sign of any issues." She paused for a moment before adding, "This is also for the forty credit payoff. They'd pay you the twenty credits just for letting them examine you and your connection more."

Taylor thought on it a bit more before asking, "Be honest with me, is there any reason you can think of to not take the offer?"

"There's always some risk," Cindy admitted, "but they'll do what they can to mitigate it. And some of the testing may be somewhat uncomfortable, but I don't know what they have planned, so I can't give you any advice there."

"And reasons I should do it?"

Cindy grinned and replied, "You mean besides not wanting to fill out all of the paperwork again to fit with being on Earth? We'd basically have to scrap two thirds of it at this point." Shaking her head ruefully, she continued, "More seriously, the extra forty credits is a rather large advantage for you. It's significantly better than any of the other owners will offer, and can help negate the need for some of the more annoying punishments. Besides, they're nerds. If you keep them occupied enough with actual science and research, they won't have time to do anything too weird to you."

"All right," Taylor decided. "I'm convinced. Add them to the list."

"The potential list?" Cindy asked to clarify.

"Might as well make it the final list," Taylor replied after some thought. "I don't think there's going to be that many more options I'm going to want to jump at hard enough to knock them off."

"True enough," Cindy agreed. Making a notation on the screen, she added, "All set. Now, shall we continue?"

"We might as well," Taylor agreed. "What's up next?"

"Well, we've reached the thirty-five credit owners, so they're going to be getting more demanding, in one way or another from here on out," Cindy said. "First up we have an incubus or succubus. They're literal sex demons and are very much capable of making you cum repeatedly and having you beg for more."

Taylor flushed in embarrassment. "How do they do that? By controlling your mind or something?"

"No," Cindy said, with a fond smile. "They're just that good. One of my owners was an incubus named Euclid. I still meet up with him occasionally for tea and nookie."

Taylor blinked. "Do you mean tea and cookies?"

"No, no I don't," Cindy said smugly. "Anyway, they left a message for you, if you want to see it."

"They can't use videos to hypnotize you, right?" Taylor asked.

"Well," Cindy hedged, "they can, but we screen for that. The message should be safe. Want to play it? If nothing else, it should be interesting."

Taylor sighed. "Sure, go ahead." Cindy pushed play on the screen.

"Greetings, Miss Hebert.," a stately and mature looking woman said. A pair of wings poked over her shoulders and she was wearing a fairly conservative button up shirt. "I am Matron-Assigned-to-Daughters-Awaiting-Romantic-Affections. As I am sure you are aware, I am a succubus. What you may not be aware of is that we have a number of clans, and we rotate which clan will supply a candidate for a contestant to choose from. Our clan much prefers our members and affiliates to be happy long term than to simply focus on the greatest short term gain. As such, it is my duty to choose which of our youngsters should be given an opportunity to participate with Slut Life in the hopes of finding a life mate among you or your roommates, neighbors, or other owners. I should warn you now, we are not a monogamous species, so any succubus I sent would not be having sex with you exclusively, even if you were to become life mates."

She paused for a moment and continued. "The purpose of a life mate is to provide emotional support and companionship. Yes, there is also the production of food to consider, as well as simple emotional and erotic closeness, but that mostly takes a back seat." She looked to the side for a moment and photograph popped up in the corner of the screen showing a somewhat embarrassed girl with greenish hair, elvish ears, and green wings sprouting from her back. "This is one of our daughters, She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday. I've read up on your situation, and I think the two of you would be good for each other. While she's definitely more… platonically affectionate than most of our kind, she is still a succubus, so, if you choose to accept her, she will feed upon you, a process I guarantee you will enjoy, even if she were to use the less… direct methods of feeding. With all of that said, I really do think the two of you would help each other immensely, so please, do consider accepting her." The video zoomed in on the image of the younger succubus before pausing.

"Well, that's a thing," Cindy muttered. "Euclid definitely isn't from that clan. His clan's all about the feeding, with friendship being a secondary concern." At Taylor's look, she elaborated, "Willing friends are less effort to bed than random strangers."

"That… makes sense," Taylor admitted uneasily.

"So, what do you think?" Cindy asked. "Want to give She-Who-Always-Needs-Hugs-In-Large-Doses-Everyday a shot?"

"I'm a bit curious why she didn't deliver the pitch herself," Taylor admitted.

"I can think of two possible reasons off the top of my head," Cindy suggested. "Either she's shy or the matron is the one who does all of those messages."

"I guess that makes sense. Sure, add her to the maybe list," Taylor decided. If nothing else, she thought with a blush, it could be fun, and it sounded like this one would also want to be friends more than anything else.

 

[CrimsonFate]

I wonder would being a psychic would make her connection to her power better? If Taylor is too connected to her swarm would people be able to use some sort of power against her through her swarm?

 

[Lolth]

Well that isn't a name I was expecting from a succubus.

 

[Ack]

Well that isn't a name I was expecting from a succubus.

Click to shrink...

I was half expecting to see Dabbler from Grrl Power.

Here she is in her element, so to speak.

 

[Guardian54]

I wonder would being a psychic would make her connection to her power better? If Taylor is too connected to her swarm would people be able to use some sort of power against her through her swarm?

Click to shrink...

Unfortunately, this is a Taylor that's too reactionary and closeted to even think of that synergy. And Cindy for whatever reason didn't point it out.
If only the Insect Queen option was blacked out with a "look, if she takes Telepathy and amplifies her power even MORE, ahahahahaha NOPE" message signed by ALL the hives, to kick Taylor's head out of her ass about psychic powers... (assuming she doesn't end up discovering Magical Girl has default psychic powers, especially with her over-dominant lemming train tendencies will)

Jonakhensu is there any particular reason no one pointed out that glaringly obvious synergy to her yet? Or are you saving it for the Mad Scientists to make Taylor actually start looking for exploits instead of being super-reactionary? Besides the whole Legal Comedy when the contract law bubble pops, having the scientists help her learn to optimize--IF we make it so that reserve credits can be used for mid-season upgrades--would be another potential way to keep this quite SFW.

EDIT: wait a second, when the Legal Drama pops, that's almost certain to be a contract re-negotiation, and by then hopefully the Mad Scientists will have dislodged Taylor's head from her ass sufficiently, ohohohohoho...

BTW: You can consider us commenters to be your Mad Scientists if you like. Our exploits are certainly cheesed enough...

 

[SystemSearcher]

I was half expecting to see Dabbler from Grrl Power.

Here she is in her element, so to speak.

Click to shrink...

I mostly expected Fall-from-Grace from Planescape Torment, but knowing her, her Brothel of Intellectual Lusts and the fact that she's practically chaste, something tells me that her clan doesn't involve itself with SL.

 

[DarkthShadow]

Huh, I think the succubus option would actually be pretty interesting to see happen actually.

 

[D'znn-Xy'lll MetaChthonia]

Daw, adorable succubus! Is she a Futa to! She needs a Hug and so does Taylor! By the end of this Taylor will have a Hug Pile!

time

Click to shrink...

Expansion.

Time is an illusion caused by the expansion of the universe, it does not truly exist and it's why moving close to the speed of light at the current expansion of the universe (which is faster then the current speed of light) causes time to get... Weird... If Time Travel could happen it would either destroy the universe vis explosion (time travel into the past and be X×Y=Z the size of the universe with X being the number of Seconds and Y being the Light Seconds the universe expanded in the time resulting in you being Z which is your size. For reference the Sun is roughly 8 Light Minutes away at any given points in the year (it's 7:48 at closest and 8:11 at longest)) or implosion (same equation but in reverse) and that's if Vacuum Decay isn't real, if it is then it would just straight delete the universe through a Qauntum Cascade.

Teleportation is easier then Time Travel, you don't have to worry about destroying the universe when you're killing and unkilling yourself (this is also why you can't just open a portal to two points on the same side of the universe, you're folding and tunneling isn't going to reach right next to you! Try folding a rubber ball so two parts of a single atom touch without destroying the ball), Electrons do it literally all the time (they can only move at four specific energy states and never between nor can they stay on a singular state for long they also never stay in the same pathway. They're also simulatiously singular partical and a enclosed wave).

Of course this is Worm where freezing someone in time doesn't cause you to zip off the planet at infinity miles and hour. So Real World Science doesn't apply.

 

[Lolth]

I was half expecting to see Dabbler from Grrl Power.

Here she is in her element, so to speak.

Click to shrink...

I know of her, although this is a pretty good subversion-but-not of a typical succubus. I really need to catch up on that webcomic.

 

[edale]

Unfortunately, this is a Taylor that's too reactionary and closeted to even think of that synergy. And Cindy for whatever reason didn't point it out.

Click to shrink...

Erm.. pre-Leviathan... When is Taylor not reactionary?

Taylor had an intense drive to train and prepare, but actually taking action? It was always in response to outside factors; even her decision to go out the first time was in reaction to The Trio's pranks.

It's wasn't until post-Leviathan that Taylor started getting more proactive.

Also... MASSIVE taboo about psychic powers on Earth Bet.

 

[Guardian54]

It's wasn't until post-Leviathan that Taylor started getting more proactive.

Also... MASSIVE taboo about psychic powers on Earth Bet.

Click to shrink...

Hence my "still too reactionary" sentiment. A later Taylor would have taken this more seriously and with a more open mind

Taboo? Oh yes, Miss Walking Biblical Plague, be hindered by later taboos when you are already breaking one of the oldest taboos humanity had about massed arthropod foes...
Eventually Taylor would have reached a point where she would have had to shrug off her taboos. And besides, there's the heroic blackmail of a Taylor disgusted with PRT ineffectiveness of "If you ever want to fix someone who's been mind-fucked... er, besides the physical insertion variety that is... well, this is how you could do it. Heroes do what is right and helps as many people as possible, not just prance around in front of cameras and on impotent patrols that make them look good."
Which means another run through the game is in order once that comes around.

 

[edale]

You know, a thought occurs to me. A PERFECT person to be Taylor's first recruit on Earth Bet... Tattletale.

Because:
A: it'll get her away from Coil.
B: her parents will never be able to find her again, thanks to her spiffy new body.
C: you KNOW SL will find a way to get rid of TT's squick factor from her powers, because she's not naturally asexual.

 

[Ack]

You know, a thought occurs to me. A PERFECT person to be Taylor's first recruit on Earth Bet... Tattletale.

Because:
A: it'll get her away from Coil.
B: her parents will never be able to find her again, thanks to her spiffy new body.
C: you KNOW SL will find a way to get rid of TT's squick factor from her powers, because she's not naturally asexual.

Click to shrink...

... I'm not sure how, unless you count brainwashing.

 

[SystemSearcher]

... I'm not sure how, unless you count brainwashing.

Click to shrink...

Toggle switch? Eye/ear/nose/skin augmentations that can slightly distort everything sense-wise that gets into her brain when turned on, thus not letting her power analyze anything properly?

And besides, the scientists do intend on studying Queenie, so who knows what they'll end up figuring out about powers. They might figure out how to install a literal toggle on the Gemma/Potentia organs.