Yeah, kinda.

First off. What is the basis for this? I'm curious, because you seem pretty sure. And you have to be sure. I mean, it doesn't take much more effort to have someone, not even necessarily Piggot, call a Ward's parent and make such a thing clear to them y'know? So there has to be something going on here, and I think I missed it in canon.


Also: how often does that actually happen? I'm still of the opinion the Wards are far less involved than the Protectorate or the equivalent young parahuman gang on the other side, the Undersiders. I'm going through the interludes to see if there's any mention of massive knock-down fights like that before Leviathan and the near constant state of emergency but it's gonna take a while so any counterpoint would be appreciated.

Technically any superhero can leave at any time. The thing is though...never underestimate the bonds of society.

But that's not the point either way. You're assuming that I'm talking about Taylor staying and I think that's part of the problem. I'm not. I'm talking about Piggot and others playing fast and loose with Taylor's life and welfare.

The Youth Guard cannot mind control Taylor, they are there to prevent excesses by the government. So if Taylor feels stifled and wants to run...okay, she was running before. The point is that there is at least some accountability for Piggot and how SHE chooses to act wrt Taylor. And that is what Danny wants.

Are we sure?

It's not definitive, the causal chain is written one way but it could easily go the other (kid was convinced, then called Mom) and Chariot has his own reasons for joining but who knows? Often people assume that the unwritten rules trump government action but people still get charged, and someone still took Purity's baby. If there's any example of something violating fanon rules, that's it.

Either way, as I've said, I find Armsmaster's entire plot silly. This isn't the sort of guy that would take breaks, and we don't even know if he could. Not to mention security concerns with having new substitutes pop up. And what about the trust of the new cape? It can seriously backfire, as we saw, if the cape is a Thinker (or is even just recruited) and takes it the wrong way.

Why Armsmaster? Why not anyone else?

And yes, you're right. It brings the drama llama. Which is why I don't read those sections of the fic anymore.

And then there's the issue of the identities of Wards being worth nothing in the face of unilateral action by any parent. Cuzco?

 

About Weaver Nine:

Let me preface this with saying that I have only read some of the beginning and have not yet read the Leviathan fight or anything after that. I was reading it as you were releasing it originally so have not read any corrections you have made and I have not yet been able to pull up the motivation to continue reading it but plan to at some point.

My main issue lies in the main character of Jack. The main reason I have a hard time having any desire to continue reading is that he never felt like a main character to me as I had a hard time caring about him or anything he did. After a bit of introspection, I have come to the conclusion that this is because I could not relate to him. To me, he lacked drive, motivation, or an overarching goal.


This is not to say that some readers will not be able to understand him because he is a psychopath. It would only take a few lines, early on, to show a desire for wealth, power, new experiences, or excitement to help the reader connect with and understand the characters actions enough to be interested in what they do and what happens next.

I would also like to point out that the first major fight scene with Jack's crew vs. the E88 felt very forced and contrived. The fight itself, ideas used, and what happens are fine when thought about after the fact but the way the writing presents it during reading raises immediate issues that could easily be addressed with a line or two.

Many of the issues comes from confusing the reader, leaving them unsure of what exactly is going on and how it could be happening. This is almost always a bad idea. You do address some of these concerns after the fact but by then the bad taste is already left in the mouth.

If you have already corrected these issues in your revisions please let me know and I will be happy to retract them.

The only other things of yours I have read are the crack pieces, which have major issues as they are just that and it seems pointless for me to critique them in any way. I like to think of crack as a way for an author to continue to write and stay in practice and gain experience without going through the normal headaches and trouble of crafting something great. Even if I do not like practices myself I can only encourage more if they engender writing something vs. nothing.

As a side note, which of your works do you consider your best? It does not have to be a Worm piece.

 

Being unable to care about Jack was my main problem with Weaver 9 as well. He straddled that awkward line where he wasn't a character I could root for, but also fell well short of being a glorious bastard that I wanted to see what he could pull off. I don't think I would have mustered much of a reaction beyond "meh" if he'd died at any point in the story, and that also makes it hard to have much of reaction when he triumphs. There were a lot of bits and pieces that I enjoyed greatly, but the story as a whole never managed to overcome the fact that it had a boringly unsympathetic main character.

 

Well I'll throw my review in even though I've talked about it before, but some of my critique is new:

I loved the core idea and the creativity you displayed with powers and their combinations, and the characterization of characters like Jack, Sophia, Parian, and Amy. Jack is ruthless but attractive as a main character (though emphasizing/increasing his affection for Danny and (slight) affection for Sophia would probably go a long way towards making him marginally more human), Parian is fun when caught in moral quandaries, and Armsmaster is refreshingly balanced between an excellent hero and a hero searching for major-league success. I found Riley very endearing, but her antics slightly over the top, especially when she was telling Amy about her Tinker designs for creatures.

The story is also just cool-- you've got no problem making up cool powers, cool power combinations, etc. that feel right at home in the Worm universe. Stuff like that range extender changing people's perceptions of their bodies felt very Worm-like, though very OP. You kept Weaver's Society on the edge of overpowered most of the time, and mostly didn't go over.

The bad:

In retrospect a big issue is how Weaver managed to keep the society together. Jack keeps the S9 together with his social magic, the Protectorate is kept stable by already (mostly) heroic capes who are helped along by Cauldron Cape Sanity and liberal doses of Contessa!intervention, the UNdersiders in canon are a small group that still occasionally struggle with issues, etc.

If you're ever thinking of redoing early parts of the fic, you should really figure out why Weaver has succeeded in keeping together a group of capes with relatively few problems of capes rebelling, etc. Given that she makes a policy of avoiding recruiting Cauldron capes (IIRC, but I might be misremembering on this), her capes are even more likely to have issues.

You can paper this over with Tinker devices to ensure loyalty, parasites-- but it then raises a further question of why less moral governments haven't done the same. So maybe drop in hints that the Society devotes a TON of resources to this problem. You mention Weaver needing to manage the Society's opinions when she makes the decision to fight Endbringers, but giving it more screen time would help.

And of course, my perennial issue with the Leviathan battle, in which all (IMO) reasonable extrapolations of Endbringer durability to Sting (not to the railgun or other exotic effects, which are pretty consistent with canon) and their behavior when they become more serious are violated with a Leviathan who's core can withstand dozens of piercings and a lack of Manton effect. But I've beaten this one to the ground, so overall I'll focus on: some moderate plot issues/holes, minor characterization issues.

 

<ItBegins.gif>

notes has posted the first chapter to Legacy, the sequel to Cenotaph and Wake.

 

Also here in WBA.

 

You didn't miss it. I am arguing from the fact that Taylor wants nothing to do with her father and she has the power to set a lot of conditions on her joining the Wards. If she wants to live on base and asks that Piggot limit communication to the bare minimum, Piggot will agree to get rid of the headache. Nobody complains about less work.

Youthguard wouldn't push because she is a flight risk. If the YG is that big of a pain in the ass for them the PRT would love it if they could sing to the presses about how the restrictions made a ward bolt.

Personally my solution to Piggot's dilemma would be to offer Taylor a lawyer and stable income for an emancipation case. The situation is almost begging for one, Danny signed her up against her wishes for a government combat program with people who had proven untrustworthy. The amusing irony is also a plus.

This is where I think you are wrong. Danny doesn't care how Taylor is treated as long as she is safe. She may be safer with Piggot, but she will still be in danger. That, combined with his lack of control and information is what is going to keep him awake at night.

I agree with your belief here. The Unwritten rules aren't so much rules as guidelines. That said whenever they play fast and loose with them I think they need to do a risk analysis. There could be consequences and they should try to mitigate them.

They didn't even talk to Sirin and let her know they knew her identity. They just up and told Danny before alerting her. If Taylor talked to the press to about how Armsmaster revealed her identity and scared her father to force her into the wards it would damage their efforts to recruit other young parahumans, whose identity they don't know. Plus the bad press. Oh yeah, that is also walking a very fine line on child labor and slavery, the youth guard would eat them alive. It was a very stupid violation of the rules here.

With Chariot they had some cause to bring him in. Either he was pushing boundaries or was committing crimes. Sirin had yet to do anything wrong. Risking fallout just isn't worth it here.

There was a scene where Weaver was talking about managing Bakuda and Shatterbird that discussed this. She was basically evaluating their personalities and providing them just enough of the excitement and recognition they crave to stick around. I typically hate scenes like that, where the power of talking things out is the ultimate fix it. Here though, I took it as a sign of her shard at work in a subtle fashion. Other shards are just going to listen to her and accept her guidance even if she isn't directly mind controlling them. A subtle trump power, like Jack's.

Notes, I am happy and excited that you are writing again. Cant wait for the updates.

 

But Weaver doesn't have a subtle trump power that lets her manipulate capes. She manages the Undersiders in canon because they're a small enough group that personal relationships overcome personality clashes and subtle shard influence. Same thing with the Wards; even there, we see some personal issues crop up between her and her team. I'm sorry, but there's no indication in canon (or Weaver9, actually) that she can do that.

 

In canon she has a god tier power to manipulate capes. Every shard obeys her's. End of story. Literally.

Not every fanfiction author will spell things out for you, generally the good ones make you hunt for answers following vague hints. Worm itself is designed to entice the reader into looking for an explanation. It isn't that Wildbow doesn't know the answers to how his world worked. He just kept those answers close to his vest. Even after completion there are probably hundreds of unanswered questions as to how powers work.

You asked how she was able to keep all the capes working together when they have no business doing so? As I said she manipulated them. Gave them what they wanted and asked for their obedience in return. That is shown in the story, read the chapter I linked again. The question isn't how, but why they listened to her.

Bad fanfiction writers often have characters talk it out and find solutions like Weaver did with Shatterbird and Bakuda. It is a very shitty trope when they use it because nobody is that easy to control and it is very hard to truly grasp all of a persons motivations. And I think Thinker6 is better than those hacks that write about Harry and Draco talking through their differences and getting along after one or two meetings.

Taylor's shard is intended to be followed by the others. Her getting subconscious hints from it guiding her on manipulating other capes is well within the realm of possibilities.

 

Taylor is only capable of controlling bugs for the vast majority of canon. She only gains the ability to control people when Panacea fucks with her brain. There are no hints whatsoever that she is able to influence people in the same way Jack could in canon.

 

Taylor's abilities to manipulate people in canon were very similar to Jack's in canon. They both managed small crews of people and pushed and prodded to keep them in line. Different personalities but a similar approach. Not sure what you are trying to argue here Aekiel.

 

No. Jack had a literal voice in his head telling him what to do and say in each situation. Taylor had good instincts and a great capacity for leadership, nothing more. Well, being able to multitask better than a strong AI probably helped as well.

But still, you're trying to equate the two's methods when they're completely different.

 

I don't remember Jack having an active voice in his head talking to him. But I skimmed a lot of the later chapters. I thought it was just a hyper-natural instinct from his shards ability to communicate freely with other shards. Link?

All I am saying is that in Weaver9 there is a possibility that some other power of Taylor's has manifested. Whether or not it did or even could have existed in canon is irrelevant to the point I was making.

If you need an explanation beyond 'she is ridiculously good at manipulating people' for the Society in Weaver9 like I and Garden do, that is the best I have. I also feel that it is often best to leave those types of questions open for interpretation. Reading scene after scene of Taylor forming the Society by manipulating hundreds of capes would get dull very fast. Thinker6 started the story at the correct place in the timeline.

 

It's a voice in the same way that Tattletale's information is a voice, or Dinah's predictions are. Jack always knows exactly what to say or do to get what he wants, which is why he was capable of keeping the Slaughterhouse 9 together as murder hobos for so long.

Taylor just has her bugs. Right up until she went Khepri her only powers were her bugs and her multitasking. It made her effective as a battlefield commander and combatant, which is how she garnered the respect and fear necessary to have people listen to her words.

She doesn't need a power like Jack's because she built up her reputation. Remember how terribly her first meetings with Armsmaster went? How she was unable to fight back against Emma, Sophia and Madison despite having powers for six months? How her first contact with Bitch was a kick in the teeth?

If Taylor had a power that helped her manipulate people, none of those situations would have unfolded as they did.

In Weaver 9 she already has the reputation from both being a member of the Slaugterhouse 9 and from killing King. She also had the loyalty of one of the single most effective capes in the world, both of which she used to gather more support and capes to her cause. I doubt at this point that she actively deals with more than a handful of capes on a regular basis by the start of the fic. She has enough people working with/for her that she can delegate a lot of those tasks to others.

 

I'm pretty sure that is Contessa's power not Jack's. There is nothing supernatural about Jacks ability to handle the SH9. He is just a charming manipulative sociopath. What is supernatural is his ability to survive fights against the best the protectorate and villains can offer with nothing more than the ability to extend his blades. There is something else there. Which is his ability to know instinctively what other capes are about to do. That is the ability I am speculating on Weaver having in Weaver9. Instead of knowing what capes are about to do, she understands their motivations, or they pay an extra bit of attention to her words because her shard is the boss of their shards.

As for the rest I mostly agree. I disagree that her reputation for killing King would have carried her that far. No way that she and the Numberman could have maintained a group filled with hundreds of psychopaths all with their own motivations superpowers and a shard pushing them towards conflict. Theoretically yes it is possible. It just stretching past what I am willing to believe without looking for another solution. Like with those authors that sit down Harry and Voldemort for a chat and end it with them hugging it out, I call bullshit. And that sit down chat is infinity more plausible to me. They have way more to bond over with.

The people who Weaver controls are the type to enjoy slaughtering entire cities just 'cause. Shatterbird is a hundred fold worse than Voldemort. She is just one of many recruits just like her in that group. You actually think that a reputation and having the Numberman could let you control those people? I don't think Contessa could have managed it without killing 90% of them off, or you know she would have done that rather than letting them slaughter each other in the birdcage.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I am positing a factual interpretation. This is nothing but speculation to cover what I see as a major plothole in Weaver9 and I never intended to sell it as anything else. You are trying to prove nonexistence, get off my back.

I wouldn't be surprised if Thinker6 came out and said we were both wrong. Neither would I be surprised if there was nothing else going on than Weaver's mundane manipulation abilities; just disappointed.

 

There seems to be a disconnect in your thoughts there.

 

Yeah there is. Thank you for noticing that I pointed out how knowing someone is about to chuck a fireball at your face and being able to sweet talk them are two different things.

 

I get what you're saying CleanRag. It's entirely possible that a secondary aspect of Taylor's QA shard manifested in Weaver 9 that enabled her to lead the Society.

 

Jack's ability to manipulate the 9 comes from his personal charisma AND his shard:

"Jack cheats. He instinctively, intuitively knows how other parahumans operate, their weak points and their motivations, and was able to leverage original Gray Boy in this way, and the new Gray Boy in a similar way."

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/worm-quotes-and-wog-repository.294448/page-3

Jack has a secondary power that makes him good at this. Weaver doesn't. Weaver learns it from others, builds a reputation, and still struggles with capes sometimes.

 

More importantly, whilst Thinker6 could have chosen to have Weaver get a power that dealt with that, there aren't any hints in the text that point towards it, and it would be a pretty odd divergence from its premise (which is a straight character-swap, and thus rests on the assumption that nothing more happened to put in place the changes - Weaver randomly getting part of what allowed Jack to rule would be strange).

So I think the statement, that it is rather unbelievable that she is able to hold her super-society together, is a fair one.