The Cursed Teddy Bears Really Tie Everything Together.

the cursed teddy bears really tie everything together.

@heyitschartic how delightful!

Me: "I'm disassociating to pass the time."

Victoria Dallon without missing a beat: "Thinker 1- no, two."

little addon as I walk out the door; I'll write up a full little parahuman bio for her tomorrow. Tinker definitely, and her name is Tortuga I've decided; metatextually, because her mech is the Tortuga from Lancer (though Worm tinkertech rapidly expands on the capabilities of regular mechs) and in universe it's because she likes turtles, likes the stories of the pirate port of Tortuga, and because she won't come out of her shell okay bye bye

Writing something different - a mercenary tinker who has a mech and everything she makes goes into the mech in some way - and I intend for her to work for Coil. Now, she's been a parahuman and soon after that a cape for ~15-20 years, probably triggering around 1990's. The point of her is that she's been a smuggler and veteran tinker operating in the texas/mexico/columbia/brazil region, and now Coil's secured a meeting with her (probably through a favour owed to Accord since I like that) and she'll be in Brockton Bay around January 2011.

Expect this character to pop up in my feed a lot, since I'm hoping to make this my first released fanfiction (the Faerun character cross is going to take a lot more nerve and workshopping tbh). I'm rambling.

What I'd like some thoughts on; how long has Coil been a parahuman? Nilbog, Lady and Ellisburg was 2001, and Coil must've spent time in prison for his actions there. How long would someone spend in prison for killing a fellow (superior?) officer during a complete FUBAR? No real world situations really compare. Here's an interesting assumption I'll make; Cauldron arranged for Coil's sentence to be commuted in some way, without arousing enough suspicion that he can work in the same department as Piggot. Maybe 5 years in prison? Then he needs maybe 2-3 years minimum to establish himself in competition with the Empire I think. That fits the timeline with regards to Tattletale and the Undersiders, who have been together for a year or so.

I don't think he's been a parahuman for more than 4-5 years by the start of 2011. Probably took his vial around 2006, and I feel that the Merc will pick up on that quickly. She's meant to be OP in certain ways, and one of the justifications for that is being one of the oldest Tinkers around, with a vast horde of upgrades and refining done to her Mech. Only being able to build things that are best used when plugged in, wielded, fired by or grafted onto her Mech will explain why she's not a household name like Dragon or Uppercrust, the same for the fact that she wouldn't waste her time building more than one mech. Being more involved in the micro conflicts of central america will explain why she's not more well known outside of criminal and vigilante circles, and why the public aren't aware of her beyond cape geeks, both because of her obscure stomping grounds and that the PRT scrub non-hero parahuman accomplishments and activities to bolster PR.

I think I'm just rambling here before I go off to work. Coil's usual greed might not work out, and I feel she'd point it out to him. She respects Accord, but she's experienced plenty of criminal mastermind Thinkers, and he should be careful about what he's paying for.

YESSSS HER BIGGEST FAN

taylor and lisa

What was he doing?  Why was he so focused on getting Bitch to admit it was over? Reputation, yet again.  He needed to salvage this situation, and the surest way to do that, to recoup his losses and come out of this looking okay, would be to get the meanest, toughest, most notorious of us to bend at the knee and concede defeat. He really didn’t know Bitch, though. She pulled her cheap plastic dog mask off and threw it to one side.  It was only a formality, really, since her face and identity were public knowledge.  Her smile, as it spread across her face, wasn’t the most attractive.  Too many teeth showing. “Lung underestimated her, too,” she told him, looking at me.

okay, continued forcing myself to spend time analyzing rachel lindt instead of letting her live in my worm blindspot for no reason. to recap: at this point in the story, she's gone on the ABB raid with rachel & had that gay little moment where rachel gave her her jacket when she was cold walking back home + got so close to taylor to inspect her injuries from lung that taylor thought she was going to kiss her. it had deep connotations of blossoming romance and taylor narrated some shit about still kind of being cold despite the jacket but the warmth in her core keeping her warm all the way back to the loft. now, although taylor is still only consciously ranking rachel at "i don't hate her" in her mind, rachel has now started doing shit like this.

one of the primary rachel/taylor theses is that taylor isn't rachel's dog, rachel is taylor's dog. it's established over the course of the worm that she trusts taylor completely implicitly. there's the part in the behemoth fight where the entire world is falling apart around them and rachel is still smug and happy about taylor having a plan. there's the part at the end that makes all of us want to smash our heads into the wall:

she trusts taylor in the same way a dog would trust their owner even on the table for euthanasia. she sees taylor as smarter than she is not in a self-deprecatory way--there are plenty of people who you might call smarter than rachel that she'll happily call morons--but because consistently, time and time again, taylor goes up against smart pieces of shit who are trying to fuck the undersiders over and figures out what to do about it. and this scene here, where she's responding to armsmaster's attempt to put her down by insisting that he's underestimating taylor, seems to be the first instance of rachel's trust in taylor shining through. in fact, this happens even before taylor considers them to be friends, before they've had any significant bonding. one of the very first positive things rachel feels about taylor--maybe even the first positive thing--is that, when people are putting her and her team down, when odds look grim, taylor can be trusted to solve it. it's actually, like, kind of bonkers compelling that rachel's first seed of positive response to taylor isn't "well, actually, i guess she seems nice" but "my teammate taylor could beat up this dickhole armsmaster."

it's worth explicitly noting, by the way, that rachel interprets smiles as like dog growls. the reason her smile is a little too wide with too many teeth is because it's not actually a proper smile. it's rachel being a growling dog, placing all of her trust in taylor. I Love You Rachel Lindt

I AM FUCKING FAMOUS!!!!! THEY FUCKING LOVE ME I AM THE SECOND COMING!!!!!!!!!!

(1 positive comment on my fic)