missing word
You're thinking of Gastropod. It hasn't updated since February but it certainly had an interesting Master ability.
Monster
- Thread starter Ghoul King
- Start date
- Location
- Here
Ah. Yes, that would explain why I thought it was Slug.
- Location
- Wherever
I stalled out for several months after Arc 5, then read Arc 6 and was reminded how much I hated the way the story was handling whatshisname the Fallen kid, and haven't gotten back to it in over a month. I haven't gotten far enough to see a Damsel of Distress Interlude, and so far there's been basically no temptation to pull elements from Ward for Monster -there's been like, one cape I made a note to myself to maybe use, mostly because it's slightly more convenient to work with a technically-canon cape than to whole-cloth create a new cape, and at this point I doubt I'll have cause to incorporate that cape into the plot on any level.
Added to the reading list with thanks to Unclouded for providing the actual link.
Added to the reading list, why not.
Corrected, thanks.
Firedon
Lazy Sleepy Cat
- Location
- Germany
I remember enjoying Changeling, and I'll probably reread it, but be warned that the last update was a year ago.
- Location
- Wellesley MA
Yeah, the guy posted nearly daily for a month straight before vanishing so fast, I was concerned he might have literally died. What else am I supposed to think when you go straight from daily posting to not logging into spacebattles in 3 months?
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GentlemanRogue
Spookmeister General
- Location
- United States
In addition to No Good Dead and Gastropod, there's Freaky Friday over on SB as well. Basic premise: Taylor triggers with the ability to swap bodies with people on a pseudo-line-of-sight basis and spends most of her time as Shadow Stalker.
She's decidedly non-villainous, it's pretty well-written and explores a lot of relationships between Taylor and the hero-types that you otherwise wouldn't get in canon. The pacing is good, the characters more-or-less act like their canon counterparts (to a degree) and has some rather interesting AU elements to it as well. Plus an author who's willing to explain - in detail - their choices, etc... post chapter. Worth checking out, if you have the time.
Only two drawbacks. It's been about a month since it's updated and every time I get an update, I'm immediately reminded of the Lil Dicky song - which inevitably gets stuck in my head. Rather than the movie.
'Cause I'm special.
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Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
That he's Rihaku.
- Location
- US
It is My Little Pony. That powerset was pulled straight from the show, I think.
- Location
- Australia
On the hero master track remember Satyrical? The New Vegas ward who ended up use Alexandra's body as a puppet?
Just a reminder they exist.
Just a reminder they exist.
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
Satyrical wasn't the bodyjacker, and also happens to be dead as of very early in this fic.
You're thinking of Pretender, who...um...ended up getting arrested, and then being broken out via the combined efforts of Number Man, some random Vegas villains, and his own former team.
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- Location
- Wherever
You do remember that the Vegas team was explicitly shady and that in fact there was a fair amount of dialogue that could be summarized as 'really, the heroes and the villains in Vegas are completely indistinguishable from each other by virtue of all being fairly awful', right? And that Pretender's introduction to the plot was having him being carted off to jail, to boot, which particularly stands out when you consider that the Vegas heroes default to shady?
Like yeah, he's technically a Protectorate Hero, but the emphasis here is on 'technically', not on 'hero'.
Contessa was involved too, actually. Cauldron really wanted Alexandria's body back in action.
I think it's the only time in canon Contessa is treated as having realistic limitations, which is part of why it tends to stick in my memory.
And... yeah, rechecking my notes Satyrical is indeed dead in Monster thanks to Ellisburg.
In addition to No Good Dead and Gastropod, there's Freaky Friday over on SB as well. Basic premise: Taylor triggers with the ability to swap bodies with people on a pseudo-line-of-sight basis and spends most of her time as Shadow Stalker.
She's decidedly non-villainous, it's pretty well-written and explores a lot of relationships between Taylor and the hero-types that you otherwise wouldn't get in canon. The pacing is good, the characters more-or-less act like their canon counterparts (to a degree) and has some rather interesting AU elements to it as well. Plus an author who's willing to explain - in detail - their choices, etc... post chapter. Worth checking out, if you have the time.
Only two drawbacks. It's been about a month since it's updated and every time I get an update, I'm immediately reminded of the Lil Dicky song - which inevitably gets stuck in my head. Rather than the movie.
'Cause I'm special.
'kay, more reading list material.
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As an aside, I've had a couple sets of omake ideas I've been considering writing but felt like maybe it would be vaguely obnoxious to do so when I'm already going slow on the updates proper and had a year-long gap and so on, and was curious if anyone cared to see them.
The first idea is pretty much 'hey what would happen if Monster Taylor and Cherie met the canon Undersiders, specifically after Leviathan has hit but before the Undersiders have really started taking territory'.
The second is more a set of shorter ideas, mostly revolving around swapping around powers on the cast and exploring how different power/personality combinations play out, since Monster has a fairly heavy focus on powers interfacing with personality so that's an interesting space, and it's one I'm unlikely to explore in this particular way in the story proper. Starting with Cherie and Taylor swapped, of course, though I've had some thoughts for eg Cherie/Mimi switching powers and how that would go. Though I suppose such would probably make more sense to come back to once Mimi has been more properly explored by the actual story...
Great Greedy Guts
Ceterum censeo Vigilam esse delendam.
I'd love to see this for Cherie's reaction to Regent being alive, even if I didn't imagine you'd make the rest of that into something pretty interesting as well.
She murders them? Please, please tell me she gets all stabbity-stab-stab with them.
- Location
- Wellesley MA
Hey, that only happened twice! And one of those times was an accident!
EDIT: Okay, it happened a bunch of times, but when she's trying to arrest super-criminals without murdering them she has about a 50% success rate! Half the criminals she doesn't premeditate murder against survive!
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Exactly! We clearly need more of it.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Would be a real luke Skywalker in the cave moment if she stabs skitter.
Callmesalticidae
probably not a spider
- Location
- Burlington, Vermont
- Pronouns
- Any
I'd love to see some omakes from you, personally.
serra2
Himouto! Sylvanas-chan
Better than a Luke with Leia on Yavin moment.
...
=lightbulb=
Whoa.
For some reason I wondered if you were going to drop Cherie and Taylor as the POV characters and tell the rest of the story from Reilly and Mimi's perspective.
For some reason that is where my mind went immediately... and it could be a really interesting angle to play- moving outside the current leads' heads and seeing them from an outsider's perspective from here on put.
I mean... It'd be a really risky move, but potentially amazing if you can pull it off.
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- Location
- Wherever
So okay, What If: Dumped In Canon is a go then, and I'll probably dabble in power-swapping set but focus more on the main chapters than on it.
The idea of trying to write Bonesaw and Mimi on a consistent basis long-term fills me with dread. I think I could pull off Mimi reliably, but don't think I'd enjoy it much. Bonesaw is hard, because she's got this whole thing of on the one hand being highly aware of Actual Reality and on the other hand doing a really good job of behaving as if she's oblivious to key points and in fact managing to on some level be oblivious to such. Then there'd be the issue of having to write a tinker, and to be blunt one of my backburner projects hasn't moved forward in years precisely because it's premised around a tinker viewpoint character and tinkers are a gigantic pain in the butt if you want organic writing rather than 'the world conveniently bends to the author's whim' writing.
Taylor and Cherie have both had major aspects of their arcs move forward, but while there would be a convenience element in terms of not having to bother to keep Taylor's internal narrative both consistent with prior stuff and clearly affected by her second trigger if I jumped viewpoints there's various reasons it's not going to happen.
I have been waffling as to whether I'll be giving Mimi a position as a tertiary viewpoint character. Not in the vein of How I Met Your Monster But Mimi Edition, but like having a recurring thing of chapters being from her perspective. Not sure, we'll see.
The idea of trying to write Bonesaw and Mimi on a consistent basis long-term fills me with dread. I think I could pull off Mimi reliably, but don't think I'd enjoy it much. Bonesaw is hard, because she's got this whole thing of on the one hand being highly aware of Actual Reality and on the other hand doing a really good job of behaving as if she's oblivious to key points and in fact managing to on some level be oblivious to such. Then there'd be the issue of having to write a tinker, and to be blunt one of my backburner projects hasn't moved forward in years precisely because it's premised around a tinker viewpoint character and tinkers are a gigantic pain in the butt if you want organic writing rather than 'the world conveniently bends to the author's whim' writing.
Taylor and Cherie have both had major aspects of their arcs move forward, but while there would be a convenience element in terms of not having to bother to keep Taylor's internal narrative both consistent with prior stuff and clearly affected by her second trigger if I jumped viewpoints there's various reasons it's not going to happen.
I have been waffling as to whether I'll be giving Mimi a position as a tertiary viewpoint character. Not in the vein of How I Met Your Monster But Mimi Edition, but like having a recurring thing of chapters being from her perspective. Not sure, we'll see.
- Location
- Australia
Obviously I didn't, otherwise I wouldn't have brought them up, and used the wrong name.
*Vaugely considers rereading Worm*
Later. Maybe.
Yea, anything that gets your muse happy I'm a fan of.
And then you can have the omakes from Cherish's view in the other thread
IvanDead
My bones are made of schadenfreude.
- Location
- Brasil
In order to throw ideas to see what sticks, what about writing in the pov of a new Wild Hunt's member (an OC or a little-known canon character)? Go ahead for a few months, have the dynamics between Monster, Pride, Riley and Mimi already kind of developed and then show it from a perspective that has just entered this dynamic.
- Location
- France
Honestly, I seriously dread Taylor's PoV in the future. Just her post-second-trigger dialogue read so goddamn weird, like she's trying to be Gandalf. Even worse is that it doesn't appear to be deliberate: you described her as "emotionless" in the comments, except that she doesn't read as emotionless. She reads like someone putting on a performance, which isn't what emotionless people do: why would they bother with that?
If a character spoke like that at the beginning of a novel I'd assume that they were someone pretentious or someone from a setting where speaking like that made sense. Except that Taylor is neither of those things :/
If a character spoke like that at the beginning of a novel I'd assume that they were someone pretentious or someone from a setting where speaking like that made sense. Except that Taylor is neither of those things :/
Yeah.
Some of that might need a second look. It felt...forced? Out of place? Pretentious it might be, but I'm not sure since I'm not sure WHY exactly she's talking like that...
