Is it? How does anyone hold together cape organizations then?

You get the right capes and leverage and you can deal with a lot of other capes who don't have powers that are necessarily destructive to the social order, even if they can kill a ton of people. The more capes you have and the better you plan the larger the tower and the harder it is for it to get knocked over.

 

I don’t think this has been posted yet, but I just read the whole thing:

Artifice: a single divergence causes an OC Tinker protagonist to move to Brockton Bay before canon starts, but that’s not the only thing that’s changed. Currently twenty-seven chapters.

This is an AU, not only because of the OC, but because of differing character motivations, new hero groups, and more than three Endbringers. It keeps the fic interesting now that some things can’t be predicted and the canon plot is already posed to go off the rails.

For an OC fic, it’s written surprisingly well. Nothing about the first few chapters made me want to stop, despite the immediate assumptions about OCs. The OC doesn’t seem to be a self-insert and his power is versatile and comes with strings attached, a natural consequence of his power. I liked him, nothing to really complain about.

I enjoyed this fic up until when canon starts. Then the writer made the bewildering decision to write a certain event in the most confusing and least suspenseful way as possible. It tripped up the pace, and I’m not sure if it’ll get back on its feet.

Spoiler

Kyle (the protagonist) and his family are Asian. While they’re not affiliated with gangs, the immediate assumption is that they’ll be fucked over by Bakuda. And it looked as if it was going in that direction with Kyle captured out of costume and about to be inserted with a bomb. Then the fic jumps forward to when Kyle has already been rescued with the bomb removed, and he and Amy (his friend in and out of costume) go over what happened through three damn chapters.

Also, his parents weren’t killed or anything. Way to turn Bakuda into goof.

After that, I skimmed the rest of the fic. It’s a good time waster, but I’m not sure if I’ll keep reading.

Before canon chapters: 4/5.
When canon starts: 3/5.

 

Copacetic updated. Things are heating up.

 

I'm fairly certain that both parties involved in the argument knew that already, but... we're talking about a particular fan fiction here. Not canon. Worm's WOG repository, in this instance, is like using Pottermore to dispute something in one of the various HP fan fics on our beloved DLP. It's fairly useless.

I don't think they were discussing her randomly receiving part of Jack's power. They were discussing the possibility of Weaver's QA shard being able to read parahumans in a way that is comparable to the aforementioned secondary power of Jack's.

When you think about, you have to wonder why it isn't an aspect of her canon abilities. Jack can "communicate" the edge of a blade over distances, and his communication shard enables him to "intuitively and instinctively" communicate with other shards. Taylor can "administrate" commands to various simple minded organisms via her administration shard; why then, other than by the whim of the author to nerf her, can't she "intuitively and instinctively" do something similar, given that her shard's purpose was to control the lot of them?

 

Her shard isn't just administrative. It's control. Everything about Taylor's power in canon and this fic pertains to absolute control of the things that fall under her purview. She controls her bugs on such a level that they cease to be individuals, more becoming extensions of herself. This extends to parahumans once she becomes Khepri.

If there's any secondary power beyond her multitasking, I'd suspect it to be an instinctive knowledge of powers, rather than of people. Throughout canon she shows an uncanny ability to understand powers and incorporate them into her strategies.

 

You're working backwards.

Given the particular expression of her powers Taylor can intuitively and instinctively control and administrate her minions.This is hammered home again and again.

All natural shards are "nerfed", inherently. The goal isn't to be consistent, or to create powerful parahumans it's to test out various expressions of the shard's abilities. This is a pretty clear explanation for all the supposedly "arbitrary" nature of powers*

She can't control mites, and, iirc, her control of "bugs" varies (some things that are not bugs, like crabs, may count). But you don't notice that.

You're taking a case you already know about and working backwards to then say that it should happen when the mechanics as designed probably excuse hundreds of other cases of the exact same thing as well as this one. Nothing can come of pulling that thread.

It's not authorial fiat, it's worldbuilding. Pretty consistent one at that.

Also: Scion outright says that he crippled, as opposed to limited, this particular shard so I could have just saved myself some trouble and shot the idea in the head with one line instead of a novella. Oh well :facepalm

--------------------------
As for Weaver's shard having an add-on: it's not impossible. But it's a bit like discussing whether Cauldron was subtly influenced by Eden's dormant shards as one Spacebattler posited; it's not even wrong.

I similarly cannot prove that any other character ever written in Worm fanfiction isn't a subtly altered funhouse-mirror version of themselves. Yet it's generally a good bet to assume that writers are aiming for harmony with the original work unless they say otherwise. That's why canon and Word of God is important.

So what is there to talk about? All that's left is how much you prefer that theory. \

For example: for meta reasons, I prefer to believe that Weaver has kept her canonical power set.

*Where other universes would actually resolve this arbitrariness by taking powers to their logical conclusion. (Why can you shapeshift your clothes as well? Well, you have a general transmutation power! Enjoy)

 

Clockblocker's comments about her actions in the Echidna fight show that the wards at the very least would believe that. Taylor also manipulates multiple groups over the course of the story and is the one to seize control of the Endbringers, I found her having a skill like Jack's cape sense to be a very natural extension of her canon abilities.

The society was the best part of Weaver 9 and I liked the idea a lot but there's more holding it together than Taylor. Tattletale went through a thorough screening before joining and had implanted failsafes. Bakuda was given everything she wanted as well as being offhandedly threatened about Sphere's punishment cube. Shards want conflict and the society certainly gave them that.

 

No, I'm not saying that it should happen. I'm saying why shouldn't it? And yes, you could've saved a lot by just saying Scion crippled the shard beyond the usual restrictions, lol. And, given that, it kind of is authorial fiat, in a sense, via the golden godling, as are all the other arbitrary aspects of various Worm powers.

Why does this work that way? Because Scion did it.

Why doesn't this work that way? Because Scion did it.

All Wildbow did was create an in-universe reason for the arbitrariness, which is a point in his book. Other established authors haven't been so wise.

As for Weaver 9 and the possibility of Weaver having some secondary power, I don't particularly care. The idea didn't occur to me until CleanRag brought it up. Given his example, I thought, "Hey, that makes sense. It's totally possible."

I wasn't thinking, "How does she control all these capes," while reading the story. I was thinking, "Why does Jack Slash have all these fucking chapters? Where's Weaver?"

 

It's like "manipulation". I can have a definition that includes everything we do under it but we generally attach a value judgement to it. So saying that someone is manipulating you inherently by talking is kinda absurd and an overly broad use.

It's same with authorial fiat. Everything is authorial fiat which makes statements vacuous. So it has to mean something else, and the usual one ime is "true purely by virtue of the author writing it so and not because of any established mechanics (often contradicting them)".

Otherwise,you end up with vacuous statements. Everything is fiat so there's no point in using the word.

So, under that definition, is it by pure fiat? No. The mechanics were clearly established. They are not arbitrary in-universe. Hell, they're probably not arbitrary to us.

Besides, what is the point of discussing "why shouldn't it happen?"? We'd be here all day if we took that seriously.

 

I wasn't looking for an answer to my question. I was just supporting CleanRag in his back and forth with whoever that was.

 

Possible mild spoilers ahead:

Well I read through Artifice, which is linked above, and its pretty damn good. New stuff, deviates a ton from canon, though some stuff still pops up. The OC is a good character with an interesting power with a lot of potential, though not yet OP. I love his friendship with Amy, hopefully it leads to a happier ending for her.

 

I was with you until "Amy".

Good fic...Amy...


*Sigh*...I don't have any good fics in the rotation right now anyway.

 

She's actually very tolerable in that fic. She's not as useless or as hesitant as she usually is in fanfic.

 

It's been a hundred pages, and every time I come into this thread I still wonder at those quotation marks around "fanfiction".

Amy's hard to write well, I think, for the same reason slash is hard to write well. If the emotional hurt/comfort connection is there, readers just look past the writing entirely in order to mainline the emotion. Ditto the lust/fantasy connection for slash. And no writer is not in part a reader as well, so... bad writing.

Usually.

Concur that Artifice is interesting. Haven't figured out what the single point of departure was, but there are clearly many changes. Too early to tell whether the similarities are deceptive, or just the drift of history. Current best-guess for the departure point is the creation/activation of Daedalus, which for narrative reasons might be tied to Hero... but that's guesswork, not certainty.

 

You aren't alone.

 

God damn it, Sree.

 

The only word in the thread titles in this subforum that deserves the quotation marks is the word "Quality" in Quality Naruto fics

 

I read it. But I also find it intolerable, to a degree. Taylor is basically acting like a big crybaby and it grates on you while you read it. The whole situation is deplorably set up. Taylor should just man-up and go play with the Wards. It feels like the author doesn't want her there (for obvious reasons, the wards are too safe for a powerful taylor story to thrive [barring massive buildup and exposition]) but acknowledges people like Danny and Piggot exist and that they have motives which are set in stone. The author's smart enough to realize she has to join the wards or the story has huge plot holes in the situation she's in, but is basically having her not concede to that demand of the story through sheer willpower (which doesn't make sense; Taylor doesn't have a good reason not to join the wards, all the reasons she uses are ill-founded or plainly contrived by the author; she can't even tell her dad why she doesn't even want to not join, she doens't even understand why).

Ergo? The story is just shit at this point. I also don't see the value added by the new OCs (are they from xmen? I don't know).

It's well written for what it is, but it'd have been a better story if Danny had just died and Taylor had done something villainous on accident, or some other plot point actually prevented her from joining the wards.

The story is also a powerwank fantasy which I don't mind; that's fun to read, but Taylor's powers are honestly too fucking good. It's going to be hard to write any seriously conflict with that power set.

The correct flow I feel for this story is as follows:

Taylor gets phoenix powers, whatever you can even skip this part and just imply the trigger event -> Taylor goes out and uses them, whatever; she gets into a right mess and makes a name for herself with new friends/enemies -> She attracts the attention of Coil, 'cause, you know, she's got precognition and that's his fetish -> the PRT wants her too because she's a stupid brat with powers (they don't really need a reason, it's their job) -> Her Dad finds out about her powers / her school situation goes south -> She joins the wards even though she likes the independence her powers have given her (so she has a slight distaste for joining them - but it's also tempered by the fact she gets to be a hero, which is what she wants) -> Taylor makes friends with people in the Wards, but there's Sophia drama that tempers those strong, good feelings -> Coil does something through extension of PRT / Taylor avoids his plots through precognition -> Coil uses one of her friends to get to her -> Taylor gets kidnapped and drugged by Coil (A) / Taylor kills Coil in a long drawn out confrontation that involves some kind of convoluted strategy - I don't even know how this plays out, but I'm putting it as an option since some people would get turned off by A; but the point is, killing Coil should be hard - he has money, influence, and multiple contingencies that Taylor can't know about easily; she has few resource to battle him with directly (B)

If (A) -> Wards try to rescue Taylor -> Considering Coil has means to know protectorate shit and they don't really have any good way of knowing it, they fail utterly due to spies. Taylor has a shit time being his plaything. But, maybe she's able to influence the Travelers? Can her powers positively effect Noelle? That feels like too much of a bullshit plotpoint, but maybe it would be believable if you foreshadowed it from the very first part of the story. The alternative is the Undersiders feel sorry for Taylor and she guilts them into it. In either case, this is how we divorce Taylor from the Wards. She goes through a traumatic event (kidnapping by a amoral villain that also tortures her in alternate realities she sees) and finds herself disenfranchised with her hero ideal (Undersiders are nice people / Travelers just wanted to go home and help Noelle / She kills Coil and does not regret it or maybe she feels guilt/shame over it and this dampers her resolve) How she ultimately escapes being his toy is a big plot point as the actual details should influence the next arc in the story, but technically I can't think of a conceivable way she escapes on her own power once she's captured. Coil's not one to take chances. She needs an outside ally to help save her.

If (B) -> Coil uses his death to cause havok. He frames Taylor for killing a PRT agent (himself) and unleashes a certain cloning monstrosity which causes the Wards team to be mentally/physically incapable of continuing (most members killed or just way too stressed out; families pull them out of the program?). Taylor's rep is besmirched? Or if it's not, she should be unwilling to go back to the Wards, possibly because someone dies while she kills Coil and people blame her for it? I guess you need some kind of drama/blowup here, which most readers will react negatively to? Nothing here feels good to write about either.

The pitfalls to avoid are: Too much Sophia drama, too much school drama, too much Danny drama, and too much bullshit asspulls (like being able to easily kill Coil - this guy shouldn't just roll over like he does in most stories). It's okay to have this drama, but if you rely on it too much your story gets this whiny sort of shallow tone - like the conflict is artificial.

At the same time, Coil is a shitty antagonist. His powers are bullshit and make writing him hard (he cheats but do readers want to read dozens of versions of reality he cancels over and over? No. So he often reads like an asspull antagonist). He's also unpleasant to write because he has his fingers in both cookie jars, so there's no way to safely plot against him or for Taylor to accumulate allies on either camp.

That's my take on it anyway. Feel free to disagree, but the current flow is just wrong to me. I have a feeling Coil is going to be easily dealt with too - and if he is - it's just going to kill the story dead for me. You can't build up Coil as the first major antagonist and then knock him out quick.