So what's really going on in Worm?

[queermunist]

Given the background you'd have to contrive it to oblivion to keep Taylor from being bookish and actually learning something from them.

Conclusion: Taylor's background is just flavour text with no bearing on her character.

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Or, maybe depressed people don't engage with hobbies like they used to and have a difficult time self motivating themselves to learn new things?

 

[Dakkaface]

1. No, there is easily more than enough kinetic power available to anyone in the US with its large number of private guns to mulch his thinkmeat or whatever the hell he uses regardless of Bonesaw's efforts.

2. That requires he have enough warning to do so

3. Hmm? It was another fic? Perhaps I need to reread ACP then if the sheer amount of STUPID starting at the Bakuda fight must be smogging up my memory of it.

And Siberian would have popped if Manton was caught in the blast. He would not have had the time to react to the event. Crawler would be another story, but every other member of the Nine would have been wiped easily.

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I had forgotten about this, but sure, this deserves a response, because it's so silly.

So glad you are intimately familiar with the exact limits of tinkertech material and bodily enhancement in the Wormverse. Where's the source on that?

Siberian has enhanced senses and would react faster than Jack would, sans-shard-fuckery. And if you miss, you're fucked.

Manton's range is measured in miles. That's a preposterously large explosion if it's catching Manton's meat body as well as the Siberian.

Also ignoring the 'dude with a knife' defense.

Are you serious? Small children like just about whatever their parents like.
Don't believe me? Even after you go to university, hell even after you have kids of your own, your mother's cooking is going to taste the best when you come home. And guess what Mom makes? A compromise between what she likes and what's healthy. So you like most of the foods your mom likes.

Getting small children to like something when they're still young is easy, which is why indoctrinating them into reading and independent learning before they are three is a huge deal. Letting them run wild until they're three is going to get you kids who are more active, but when reading and knowledge acquisition is a good predictor of prosperity (given one controls for starting socioeconomic status)? Well, good luck.

An Arts prof is almost certainly going to go for early habituation of reading. It might start as "Mommy, whatcha doin?" and reading together, but eventually when Mom's not at home Taylor's going to pick up a book on her own. Given the background you'd have to contrive it to oblivion to keep Taylor from being bookish and actually learning something from them.

Conclusion: Taylor's background is just flavour text with no bearing on her character.

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Do you have any children or experience in childcare? Because this just reeks of armchair parenting advice.

Children like what they like. There's a certain attachment to the familiar, which is seen in your food example, but while the familiar is always at reach for comfort, it is not guaranteed that everything familiar is liked. Children are their own people. They can turn out similar, but it's not as simple as 'just indoctrinate them early.' Were that the case I'd be functionally bilingual instead of only having the most tenous of grasps on my first language.

 

[Guardian54]

Do you have any children or experience in childcare? Because this just reeks of armchair parenting advice.

Children like what they like. There's a certain attachment to the familiar, which is seen in your food example, but while the familiar is always at reach for comfort, it is not guaranteed that everything familiar is liked. Children are their own people. They can turn out similar, but it's not as simple as 'just indoctrinate them early.' Were that the case I'd be functionally bilingual instead of only having the most tenous of grasps on my first language.

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I'm 10 years older than my younger sister.
For all intents and purposes, I'm another adult as far as she cares, and participated in the parenting as a role model, though our parents liked to tell me to go mind my own business whenever I tried to be more active. Not quite armchair parenting, more like walk-alongside...

There are a few core differences between us, such as her being much more hyperactive and more prone to blaming others, but overall my parents managed to get her around to being able to sit still and study on her own (even though she still has a tendency to blab about fun/cool facts within a few hours of learning them), and she's bilingual enough to verbally communicate in Chinese better than a lot of kids who immigrated in middle school or even high school.

She'll probably lose some of her abilities in Chinese if she doesn't work on it later, but overall roping her into studying didn't encounter nearly as much resistance as you seem to be suggesting is normal. Yes, she liked to go outside whenever we brought up the idea when she was younger, but she's settled down enough that suggesting she go shopping with our parents is a "lolnope".

The intensive parenting is for the most part because my Dad got bitten on the ass pretty hard by lack of cultivation of his intellect by his parents, which Danny does not have, but given intensive parenting the large majority of children can be brought around into just about anything. And very young children are overwhelmingly "monkey see, monkey do".

I am almost certainly very biased though in ideas of how children work, since I was paranoid as a kid. The first time my mother tried to feed me a banana I refused to eat it until I saw her take a bite for herself... yeah, compared to my sister almost eating a cockroach (nice hand-eye coordination catching it alive with bare hands, I wouldn't have been able to do it at 11, let alone 1...) I was a total nutter. And then there was being terrified of boats and boat rides until I learnt to swim...

 

[liberty90]

Not all people that like to read fiction are highly intelligent, and not all people that like to read fiction (or even pop-sci) are great in school; especially if they have mental issues.

 

[Guardian54]

Not all people that like to read fiction are highly intelligent, and not all people that like to read fiction (or even pop-sci) are great in school; especially if they have mental issues.

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Studying literature helps you avoid some common mental pitfalls though, like how reading about the rules of the road help you learn how to drive. And "mental issues"... you mean Taylor already had her inability to absorb lessons before Annette died?

Hmm... the only mental issue I can think of that fits Taylor would have to be "simply stupid" if you're suggesting these issues.

Alternatively, she only liked a few types of literature and thus had cloud cuckoolander blindness-to-reality syndrome.

 

[The Unicorn]

Not all people that like to read fiction are highly intelligent, and not all people that like to read fiction (or even pop-sci) are great in school; especially if they have mental issues.

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While this is true, Taylor in canon is not only quite inteligent but does very well in programming class, and given her interest in cryptography and how good her memory is (as indicated by her learning an encryption system well enough to read it (as opposed to slowly decipher short messages in it), I find it extremely unlikely she'd have any issues with math, or science classes. If she was also well read I'd expect her to do well also in English, History and similar classes.

That said, I think it's certainly plausible to have a kid who's mother is an English teacher and father is also a bookworm, to grow up with a strong interest in math and computers and little to no interest in books - that describes my brother, who I'm not sure read any fiction he wasn't assigned to read before he graduated high school.

 

[kinglugia]

What's really going on in worm? Despair, depression, and derpgrim.

 

[prussiastones]

Studying literature helps you avoid some common mental pitfalls though, like how reading about the rules of the road help you learn how to drive. And "mental issues"... you mean Taylor already had her inability to absorb lessons before Annette died?

Hmm... the only mental issue I can think of that fits Taylor would have to be "simply stupid" if you're suggesting these issues.

Alternatively, she only liked a few types of literature and thus had cloud cuckoolander blindness-to-reality syndrome.

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Guardian, I'm gonna be honest with you. You're really shitting up the Thread. Just please move on because you're being needlessly confrontational, like all the time.

We get it, you don't like Worm.

 

[The Unicorn]

Guardian, I'm gonna be honest with you. You're really shitting up the Thread. Just please move on because you're being needlessly confrontational, like all the time.

We get it, you don't like Worm.

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While you might have had a point if you'd posted this two weeks ago(I don't think you do, but it's debatable), bringing up a discussion that everyone forgot about just to tell people to stop it is completely counter productive.

 

[MissileTeatime]

I don't think you do,

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(They totally don't, because that is literally the entire point of this thread.)

(I happen to agree that Guardian should drop Worm, but even if you take that into account this thread of all threads is the last one to try to kick him out of.)

 

[Azerick]

Okay so, I remember reading a quote that I believe was from the actual story shoeing that Coil is not the hidden bit player that fanon portrays him as. Does anyone know what, at the start of canon, Coil and Skidmark's reputations were like with citations please? As I recently heard someone say that the merchants were not prominent at all before Leviathan and that Coil is a lot more prominent than fanon often portrays him and would like to rectify those two pieces of fanon

 

[Radek]

By canon start both Coil and Skidmark are busy carving themselves little fiefs out of territory nominally belonging to Empire 88, so they can´t have been total unknowns. Merchants are not mentioned at that point; Skidmark and Mush are working together to grab aforementioned territory, Squaler is doing the same on her end and no one so much as mentions Whirlygig.

 

[Xicree]

By canon start both Coil and Skidmark are busy carving themselves little fiefs out of territory nominally belonging to Empire 88, so they can´t have been total unknowns. Merchants are not mentioned at that point; Skidmark and Mush are working together to grab aforementioned territory, Squaler is doing the same on her end and no one so much as mentions Whirlygig.

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Merchants weren't carving anything. They were Hit and runners, ducking into places which no one else cared about as their main strongholds. And I'm pretty sure neither they nor the Empire were solely based in Brockton Bay, just that was the place of their main operations.

Coil was on the other hand directly contesting and carving out a space for himself but I am assuming that it was basically starting in areas which were either not originally Empire controlled or had been considered not that valueable by them. Remember while the top gangs in canon are on top... they weren't the Only gangs in the Bay, alot of minor gangs tended to pop up. Territory for even the major gangs was somewhat fluid and not held with an iron grip save for stronghold points.

Coil would have presented himself at first as just another one of those minor gangs that tend to pop up ever so often and by the start of canon would have been only recently making it apparent that his gang was more than just some set of new nobodies looking to make it big. Also there was him sponsoring the Undersiders and using them as distractions at points as well.

 

[Firedon]

Matter generated by capes gradually vanishes afterwards. It was one of the things established long before canon started.

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Saw someone say this recently on the viability of putting someone like Kaiser to use producing resources.
Anyone can confirm this is actual canon?

 

[Nekraa]

Saw someone say this recently on the viability of putting someone like Kaiser to use producing resources.
Anyone can confirm this is actual canon?

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I don't remember anything about it, aside from maybe Genesis' projections (and projections in general?).

Powers that create materials tend to create flawed materials. Panacea remarks on how Rachel's dogs, though they create flesh, are effectively zombie dogs once grown, and the flesh doesn't work for her purposes. Echidna creations, Kaiser growths, Golem hands, and so on, they tend to suffer from this. If you use Kaiser to produce monoliths of a material and then try to smelt it down, you're going to run into shenanigans. Not necessarily ones you could easily detect, either.
Shards don't necessarily want parahumans just sitting back and working a 9 to 5.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans...apricorn_do_construction_work_and_why/dudcmdh

The above (warning, link can lead to Ward spoilers) seems to indicate that the "summoned" materials stay.

 

[Prince Charon]

I don't remember anything about it, aside from maybe Genesis' projections (and projections in general?).


https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans...apricorn_do_construction_work_and_why/dudcmdh

The above (warning, link can lead to Ward spoilers) seems to indicate that the "summoned" materials stay.

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They stay, but apparently are not usually viable as material resources in the long term; so, the effect is the same, more or less, as if they disappeared.

 

[MissileTeatime]

Normally my inclination would be to argue that projection-types (Labyrinth, Siberian, Genesis, Ursa Aurora, Prism) are different from matter-generation types (Kaiser, Golem, Flechette's chain-generating gizmo). Inside Worm's alternate-dimensions shtick, there's enough grey area that I'm not sure.

Canon literalists should note that "they are not viable long-term" is from WoG, not something that's directly in canon. It sorta makes sense -- at no point do we see any indication that any matter-generating cape is using their matter generation to make a profit, so if we're going to poke at that idea thread there must be some reason for that. But canon gives us no idea what that reason might be.

 

[The Unicorn]

They stay, but apparently are not usually viable as material resources in the long term; so, the effect is the same, more or less, as if they disappeared.

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Not really.
1)"Flawed materials" are still quite valuable, especially in large quantities - "flawed" doesn't mean useless, at worst it would mean "not usable without some processing".
2)In the Kaise of Kaiser he makes blades that appear to persist as blades, and at least in fanon used his power to make his armor and the twins weapons, so it would appear that the flaws in the material his power produces are small enough to be ignored.

The only way it can work is if the "shenanigans" referenced are the shard deliberately ruining the material, which it would only do if it didn't like the plan.
i.e Theo plans to retire from being a cape and make a living selling scrap metal his power produces - something will be wrong with the material he made.
Theo decides to use his power to produce enough Americium 241 to ensure he takes Jack (and everyone else within several miles radius out) - the shard is very helpful and interested in seeing what happens next.

 

[MissileTeatime]

least in fanon used his power to make his armor

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Does it in canon in Purity's interlude. It could be argued that may not be his "real" armor, but as I recall Purity seemed to think it was, and in at least one instance WoG when asked about it has reinforced the idea that's how he creates his armor, rather than contradicted or shrug-of-god/mathematician's answer.

I have no idea where "and he makes the twins' weapons" comes from however.

---

"Not usable without some processing" could end up meaning "too much work to be worth it". Granted, in the case of Kaiser or Golem I don't quite see how that could happen, as it seems to me that should also make them useless for stuff we see them doing, but.

 

[The Unicorn]

"Not usable without some processing" could end up meaning "too much work to be worth it". Granted, in the case of Kaiser or Golem I don't quite see how that could happen, as it seems to me that should also make them useless for stuff we see them doing, but.

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Given that even iron ore, or radioactive iron, or similar would be valuable the second part is why I stated you'd need the shard actively interfering to ruin stuff.

 

[kentter]

Question, when does Taylor learn that Sophie was Shadow Stalker?

 

[ShadowStepper1300]

Question, when does Taylor learn that Sophie was Shadow Stalker?

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End of 8.6, when she flees what she believes to be impending arrest and ends up in a hero treatment room.

 

[Prince Charon]

End of 8.6, when she flees what she believes to be impending arrest and ends up in a hero treatment room.

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Yeah. Was one of the more railroady bits of canon.

 

[Xicree]

Yeah. Was one of the more railroady bits of canon.

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Not really... a Bit contrived yes but not exceptionally so since the entire area was basically one small cross-section of capes.

And what drove Taylor to go looking was a distinct combo of Amy fucking things up by taunting her, Taylor being fucked up because she intrinsically cannot truly trust any authority save her own, and the PRT Fucking up cause they wanted to keep her isolated until someone could come and make a powerpitch to her for joining the wards and leaving behind her life of Villainy.

The biggest contrivance was Sophia not being given at least a makeshift 'dignity mask' in case of random occurrences.

 

[Prince Charon]

Not really... a Bit contrived yes but not exceptionally so since the entire area was basically one small cross-section of capes.

And what drove Taylor to go looking was a distinct combo of Amy fucking things up by taunting her, Taylor being fucked up because she intrinsically cannot truly trust any authority save her own, and the PRT Fucking up cause they wanted to keep her isolated until someone could come and make a powerpitch to her for joining the wards and leaving behind her life of Villainy.

The biggest contrivance was Sophia not being given at least a makeshift 'dignity mask' in case of random occurrences.

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I'm too tired to go into detail, but there were too many things pushing that exact thing to happen, with Taylor just happening to be caught in/near Sophia's room specifically, while Sophia was unmasked, just being the topper. I think Taylor not having been told, by anyone, why she would be handcuffed, and that it was standard procedure, was the start, but there may have been some stupidity before that.

EDIT: If I could remember where it was, I'd quote or link to the post that goes into detail about how ridiculously railroady that situation was.

 

[TRm]

something that I've seen a lot of people mention before is that Wildbow's WOG often contradicts canon but haven't actually seen much to support that; could someone provide some examples of that taking place?

 

[PlasticSoldier]

Yeah. Was one of the more railroady bits of canon.

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My head-canon is that the Simurgh arranged that. Given that it can communicate with the other Endbringers, is the world's greatest precog, and has global range telekinesis it could have set everything up perfectly.

 

[Xicree]

My head-canon is that the Simurgh arranged that. Given that it can communicate with the other Endbringers, is the world's greatest precog, and has global range telekinesis it could have set everything up perfectly.

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I kinda hate assigning 'blame' to the Smurf for... most things actually.

She's really good at surgically creating terrible situations... but beyond that I simply consider her to be a Paranoia Machine. 98% of her job gets done by making people Afraid that she's done something.

 

[Sartek]

Guardian brought up way back in the thread how silly it is that Jack was not shot to death by normals, stating Usa Bet should have way more guns than ours

WoG states that Contessa has spent decades tightening up gun laws and also making it seem that guns are ineffective against capes.

For example, local hero gets the idea to snipe a villain. Contessa sets the situation up so the cape notices immediately and kills the gunman. It gets featured in the news heavily. The whole entertainment industry ( movies, games etc) are influenced by Cauldron to make it seem that normal people cant fight capes.

If you grow up in a society were everything tells you its suicide to fight capes... You probably dont want to do it. Normals also have less access to guns.


On Kaiser's metal and other created materials, I assumed it slowly started going back to its home dimension. Slowly enough its barely noticeable, fast enough you dont want to use it for anything really.


Also, I too have seen so often people talking about contradictory WoG posts, yet so far, nobody has brought anything up.

Although I have seen WantonBasebuilding say that he might go back on some WoGs while writing Ward.

Thus post took forever with a broken hand

 

[Guardian54]

WoG states that Contessa has spent decades tightening up gun laws and also making it seem that guns are ineffective against capes.

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The number of times we see capes being shot at during a gang gunfight would suggest that Contessa has to constantly coordinate bullet deflectors to basically every gunfight involving an actual cape or suspected-by-public cape on Earth Bet as well as N other Earths.

How does she have any time to do anything else then? "Cause Contessa" is not in fact a valid handwave to every worldbuilding crater ever.

If you grow up in a society were everything tells you its suicide to fight capes... You probably dont want to do it. Normals also have less access to guns.

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Gangers are shooting at capes pretty freely in canon in case you didn't notice...