Oh man Panacea Quest. I was following it, and liking it, and then it just had an interlude so awesome that it pretty much defies all description.

Spoiler

The interlude character is Uber and it's pretty much the best portrayal of Uber and Leet I've ever read.

The story also has a lot of incest, mindrape, and terrifying power in it, so you know, it might be right up DLP's alley.

 

Manager

Taylor triggered differently and now she basically has the ability to steal powers from other parahumans. It's pretty good so far.

And her cape name is Slenderman.

I do. Propagation is awesome.

 

I'm gonna quote this despite it being ancient.

Glory Girl isn't actually a Main Character. She's not even close to being a Main Character outside of Arc 3 - all my notes have her taking a sideline role after the absolute fiasco at the PRT HQ. I needed someway to get Taylor into the spotlight, and out of "I must run away" mode, and on the main stage.

I don't tag fics with names unless I mean it. The two main characters, who will get the most focus, are Legend and Taylor. Mainly because Legend is one of the few characters in Neurocracy who took on a life of his own - he wasn't supposed to come to Brockton Bay, he wasn't supposed to encourage Taylor to become a hero. He was just a man, for all the wants and faults that that means. He breathed life into himself, and became far, far more then I wanted him to be. So I ended up with a hero character who is far too strong, too noble, and too all encompassing for his minor role.

So I elevated him.

Neurocracy isn't Taylor's story, it's hers and Legend's story. It's a mentor story, but not about powers or strength or any of that. About morals. Legend mentors Taylor in Neurocracy through words and phrases that mean something to him, no matter what he's saying.

Wildbow always said that Legend was the least corrupt of the Triumvirate. That he was too noble, too honorable to truly delve into the cesspit of corruption and deceit that the other two were in with. So what does that mean?

Every Batman, every Wonder Woman, needs a Superman. Every bit of corruption, no matter how sickening or depraved it is, needs a hero.

That was always my main problem with Worm. There were no heroes. Not one. There were people who were brave sometimes, noble sometimes, but never a fucking hero. So I turned Legend into one. Because everybody, no matter who they are, or how much they like anti-heroes or villains, Worm had too many of those.

And everybody loves a hero.

(also because I'm going to update Neurocracy again huehuehue)

 

Chances are there were plenty of heroes throughout Worm. They just didn't have hax powers, aka Scion/Eidolon, or authorial fiat (omniscience) like Superman so when they went against the Endbringers they unsurprisingly died. Have you forgotten the 12 year old girl who willingly choose her first fight against an Endbringer even knowing the chances of survival were minimal?

There are plenty of stories that have the heroes that you want. Where they have less than one percent chance to save everyone, and yet they not only do it once but are capable of doing it a million more without flinching or failure. The issue is that they are for children.

 

Frankly I find stories filled with nothing but antiheroes and "shades of gray" (I'm referring to Worm in case you missed that) far more childish than the ones you describe.

 

That is not what he said(and so far off I wonder if you actually read his post). What he said is that there are heroes just like in real life there are heroes, it is just in no way a guarantee that they will survive or even succeed. Morality, belief or whatever are not magical things that by themselves will ensure victory.

Stories where the hero will never compromise on anything and succeeds against all odds without any true long-lasting harm are childish. They ignore that no one is perfect(and thus no belief is), that there are no perfect solutions, that you don't know everything about the situation, that shit happens and so on.

There is nothing that makes a hero more meaningless than authorial fiat making him succeed absolutely. The guy/girl who has no awesome super powers, just an average one and stands for what he believes him against something like Endbringers is far more heroic than any god-like being can ever be.

It is very telling that people define heroes by success. As if the guy who did his best and gave his all but died doing so is no hero while the guy who won the superpower lottery and thus had enough power to simply blow through obstacles is.

 

I kind of haphazardly posted a quick thought and left it. It's this thing I do. I'll try to elaborate a bit more, but I've kind of been stumped trying to relay my thoughts properly, so, forewarning.

I don't think Frantic Author was referring to heroes that always won without fail and without effort like you're describing. Just... heroes. Someone with faith in good and ideals and the strength of will to act accordingly. nath1607 was right in that Worm didn't completely lack them. Some of the Brockton Bay Wards seemed pretty heroic to me, as did Dragon I think. But it did lack any that were main focuses of the story, and who really succeeded in ways that mattered.

I guess basically I think that Worm suffered from having too much "black" (the Endbringers, the Slaughterhouse Nine, etc.) and not enough "white" to really counteract it. I mean yeah, you did have plenty of heroes, and plenty of villains with heroic sides, but it didn't feel like it was enough. You thought you had Scion to counter the Endbringers, at least, but he turns out to be worse than any of them. And that would have been fine to me if that changed by the end with the appropriate effort needed, but they seem to win through awful means such that the victory feels hollow. Which then introduces what you might call "Darkness-Induced Apathy," or even antipathy. It's the same feeling I get from ASoIaF.

And... I just think that having a world skewed more to the so-called white than to the black is fundamentally better. A world where the good guys ultimately win -- not without effort and sacrifice and where everything's perfect as you were describing, but at least where their beliefs aren't totally compromised and their faith is rewarded. That's the preference and belief I've developed over these last few years, and that what I'm sticking to. Worm didn't have that. Neurocracy may not either in the end, I don't know, but at least so far it seems to try and provide a balance, which is preferable, and I'll keep reading it unless it changes too much from that. Even if the whole Frankenstein's monster thing Taylor has going on is pretty freaky. I'll keep reading Cenotaph too, unless it follows canon too closely in this regard.

And yes, I'd say a hero's success does matter. It's not the defining factor of a hero, no. I'd say that's the qualities I mentioned above. But it certainly gives weight to the meaning of a hero's actions. If no heroes ever win in a story then their efforts were for nought -- but even one victory gives all those other attempts tangible meaning as well.

 

I kind of think you missed the point of Worm. In said universe, if everyone did come together and actually communicate while working towards a common goal, we'd have had a far happier world. Worm is inherently that the idea of "hard people making hard decisions" is a self perpetuating cycle. You start compromising and it's damn hard to stop while dragging everyone else down with you.

Worm's core message is about how trust and fellowship are necessary and far better than the alternatives. The biggest problems in canon came from a lack of communication and an inability to have faith in your fellow man.

 

I am pretty sure he said he didn't like the way Worm worked out. He did not miss it, he just did not like it.

 

My point is that Worm is very much not an inherently dark or "black" universe. That's one of the most core aspects of the story. There's the ability to be great, to be heroic. People can rise above, and if more had we'd probably have had a much more positive ending.

 

Manager isn't long enough to get a good read on it, but Taylor's powers already have the potential to be really broken. She needs to touch to steal powers, and she can use her shadow form to help do that.

Spoiler

Not to mention that Skidmark's power conveniently turned into a an power enhancement AND nullification zone trump/shaker power. That's where it lost me.

Slenderman is cool, but I'd be happier if Taylor could only take one power at a time.

 

I know that Worm is about hard men making hard decisions. But the universe is inherently dark, by authorial fiat. When I spoke to Wildbow about my problems with Worm, he said that he didn't believe that there were heroes left in the world, and that belief extended to Worm.

Nobody in Worm is really a hero, even if they do heroic things from time to time. They do them for the wrong reasons, or because they want something or because they think that they're right. There's never someone who does something noble and good and just because that's the right thing to do. You have people like Chevalier in the end, who do the right thing, but they do it because nobody else will, not because they believe that's what people should do. Every single character has something like that, and it gets old after a while.

Skitter wants to save Dinah, not because it's the right thing to do, but because she feels that she has done so much wrong that that would make it okay.

The Triumvirate sans Legend allow Cauldron to do so, so much wrong because the end result is all that matters, not how they get to it or who is hurt by it.

Chevalier saves people and steps up because he believes that it will help make the PRT legitimate; not because it's right to save people.

You never see a character, even if they are a hero, say "I am going to save that man, because it is what I should do." There's always a catch, some reason that they do it, because heroes don't exist in Wildbow's world.

I don't like that. I understand why he did it; because Superheroes are a childish concept, and he wanted to make them into something serious. But I don't like it, not at all. Because even if you don't think there are heroes, there still should be a few characters who do heroic deeds for heroic reasons; even if it's only once or twice. Taylor, Skitter, Weaver, none of her many iterations do something because it is the right thing to do, despite her being the protagonist.

I just wanted a character who, no matter what, no matter how much it hurts or how hard it is, to do the right thing, for the right reasons. Because it's what everyone should do, even if they can't bring themselves too. I wanted the character people look up to, the person people say "I wish everyone was more like that man."

I wanted a Superman, a Captain America, even a Spiderman. I wanted a character who knows that with great power comes great responsibility, and takes those responsibilities with all their heart. No matter what.

 

Dragon? Endgame Defiant? Hell, I'd argue that some of the Wards exhibit heroic tendencies. Man, Imp in the epilogue had distinct Spider-Man vibes.

Regardless, I think we're talking at slight cross purposes here. I feel the "white/black" divide is one where the rules of the universe effectively reward/punish you for positive moral decisions. Worm really isn't a place where being an upstanding hero gets you killed anymore than being a glory hog. In fact, most of the problems can be traced to poor moral choices, the "hard men making hard decisions" which gets thrown around. In Worm you end up choosing the lesser of two evils often because someone back down the line decided not to trust people. That's not a black world, that's a fairly neutral one (in so much that you don't necessarily have a good choice).

Now, personally I don't think Worm ended up suffering from being too dark at the end. I think it suffered from Wildbow working far outside his strengths coupled with a few poor design choices, but it was still a solid ending. Taylor was an incredible character because she wasn't your standard superhero; you were instead put in the mind of a damaged young girl and Wildbow managed to put you on her train of thought perfectly.

We didn't get to step inside the heads of your iconic Captain America or your Superman for the most part. Which is fine, because people have the little selfish motivations which make them human. Yes, Chevalier wanted the legitimacy, but that's because he believed it to be the best thing for the world. You have Dragon whose epilogue really reiterates my points. Legend is someone who does the right thing for the right reasons; the fact that he's flawed makes him more interesting even if we don't see him as much as I'd like.

At least, that's my take on it. Flaws make heroes human, and they make them far more interesting to read about. Worm is not a universe where being morally upstanding it punished, and the issues in its endgame had far more to do with the almost genre shift than the tone.

 

To be fair,

Spoiler

She can't use other powers while in her shadow form and Skidmarks power (Taylor version) needs it's zone of effect to be drawn manually, which she can't do with her mover power. And not only can only be used with one zone at a time but it is disrupted by changes of terrain. So it is a power that can be used in traps and ambushes (in which case she would need something to attack/contain that is not power related or a really long ranged attack, both of which she does not have right now) or working with a team to distract the opponent that does have those measures that she doesn't have either. The other option is to use it like she is so far, as a power amplification zone, which has a limit with how much it increases the power and varies from power to power and it is not earth shattering with those she has right now. Though the Skidmark/Squealer combo comes close.

So her powers do have certain restrictions and the author seems to be using plot devices to keep her away from the stronger capes when she is stealing them.

 

Could Taylor kill Grey Boy with it? Get him into a nullification field, then shoot him in the head a couple of times. I don't know if that would be enough to block his shard from reviving him, but it could potentially do so.

 

If you can get close enough to touch Grey Boy, he's close enough to trap you in an infinite time loop. Possibly not the best of choices, but useful if he's brought back to life again.

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I'll also second the motion that Dragon is a true heroic figure. She doesn't have to be a superhero. Hell, she could do pretty much anything and still have a huge effect on the world, but instead she chooses to build/maintain the Birdcage, equip the entire Protectorate with Tinker-tech and personally go out to fight villains even after she looses her immortality.

She's pretty much the only character in the series that always tries to help people without resorting to dubiously (im)moral methods.

 

Isn't it sad how the most heroic person in Wormverse is an AI. XD

 

An AI with several very valid reasons to hate humanity at that.