Other details in the notice were obviously cover stories, though only one jumped out at her. Thinkers reporting that the Slaughterhouse Nine had likely been 'removed from play' while powerless was obviously a fabrication, for example. One that would possibly be backed up by the group being disbanded in the wake of Ciara being able to solve the majority of their power urge issues and thus never showing up to attack anyone again.
While I understand this, it does have one significant downside: the S9 formerly acted as a magnet for these sorts of capes; they would try to find the S9 to join up (or, rarely, to kill as many of the Nine as possible before dying), and either get help (if they had power-induced needs) or die messily (if they were just superpowered assholes).
And so we come to the end of Mauling Snarks. The story may eventually get a sequel to show how the world continues to change going into 2012, but I've run out of story for the time being.
Honestly, I found this ending rather disappointing and lackluster. I knew when I started Ch. 287 that the fic was about to end because I'd already seen later alerts showing the new thread title "Mauling Snarks (Worm) (Complete)", but I didn't know how many more chapters had been posted. When I got to the end of 287, I concluded it was basically just a normal chapter, though obviously building towards an ending. Then I saw the next chapter was labelled 'epilogue', and was eagerly anticipating said ending - but I got to the end of it without it ever touching on Taylor or the rest of the cast again, which left me going 'Wait, where's the ending?'.
It's not just the lack of plotlines being wrapped up - though I agree with
@MaimakteriAnn; while keeping a few things around for a sequel hook is fine, this didn't feel like it resolved
anything we cared about - but the lack of any proper wrap-up or concluding scene. The last we see of Taylor is her getting her pet down from the ceiling before bed. This was especially annoying because there was a perfect opportunity for a good conclusion just a few paragraphs back: the party. For instance:
- Someone proposes a toast, says something witty/funny/poignant, "I'll drink to that!", laughter, fade to black.
- Party winds down, Taylor lies on the couch watching her friends and family and reflects on the year past, falls asleep feeling content.
- Taylor and Amy wind up under the mistletoe. If you wanted to (finally!) reward the shippers, they notice it and kiss; if you wanted to troll us, everyone else notices but the fic ends just before we see Taylor & Amy's reactions.
That's just off the top of my head; I'm sure you can think of others. The point is that an ending should
feel like an ending. As it is, it really does feel like the fic cut off one chapter
short of the end.
To stop getting updates of activity when I know there won't be any more author action in the thread
Even ignoring that, as
@Megagulp says, you can adjust your alerts for OP-only, this seems penny-wise but pound-foolish. With no more story updates, non-OP activity will peter off in a few weeks. On the other hand, the author
might post again at any time in the far future - for example, to announce 'Hey I'm starting that sequel and the thread for it is over
here'.