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Progenitor (Amelia Hebert AU)

Who/What should the focus of the next interlude be?

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Fiori75 said:
I think my fellow reader that, that was the point. Yes, the life and times of Amelia Hebert and her adorable little sister is what draws us initially to this tale. However this is still Brockton Bay, which means this is still Worm. This is not going to be a "nice" story, fluff might happen, but the fluff is merely a trap to lull us into a false sense of security so that the existential horror of Worm can bite as deep as it really should.

Remember Taylor having a "good life" is tantamount to signing the death warrant for several billion people. As fucked up as it is, without an OOC problem for Scion t get smacked in the face with, Kephri is humanities greatest hope for survival. which means some rather fucked up shit needs to happen to build up to QA bonding with the future Queen of Escalation.
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There's a difference between lulling into a false sense of security and marketing yourself as a fluff story before drastic mood whiplash. Getting lulled into a false sense of security requires I have my guard up in the first place, and the way you talk makes it seem like people can't write a light hearted fluffy Worm fic without some kinda dark twist. See, I would have been less upset if there had been even mild foreshadowing; like say for instance following Amy doing capestuff (which she is implied to do but not shown doing) and observing some of the merchants behaving or looking odd, or whatever hint tickles your fancy. Horror with no foreshadowing is just a lazy way to shock the reader and just makes me feel lied to.

I'm not upset because there was horror, I'm upset because the story took a unprompted nose heel turn in tone, plot, and atmosphere with absolutely zero set up or foreshadowing.
 
Meh, I don't think it's a mood shift, per se. Just an interlude with a much darker tone than the rest of the story. I'm sure we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next chapter. And even if we won't, I personally like this chapter, since it was well-written. Depicted the whole "ambiguously psychotic trip" thing sorta believably, in my inexperienced view. Plus, this is 'Worm', here. In hindsight, I personally think I really should have seen this coming, considering the fact that a title like "Progenitor" doesn't exactly lend itself to fluffy high-school hijinks. When I think of the word "Progenitor", I think of something like the Zerg. So yeah. I might be biased, since I like nonerotic body horror, but I think I like this story more, now.
 
Uh, instead of editing the last chapter, couldn't you just posted the new content as an interlude chapter? I kinda get distracted by trying to figure out what was the edited out part.

...

What? The worm thing? The infection? What's wrong with that? It's not any different than the original Worm.

___
Edit: Nvm! It seems I missed a preview from the other forum with a prior release. Sry!
 
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Junk Warrior said:
Uh, instead of editing the last chapter, couldn't you just posted the new content as an interlude chapter? I kinda get distracted by trying to figure out what was the edited out part.

...

What? The worm thing? The infection? What's wrong with that? It's not any different than the original Worm.
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It wasn't edited out originally, but that the chapter itself wasn't completely edited and as such only that part was posted.

TMTM™ said:
There's a difference between lulling into a false sense of security and marketing yourself as a fluff story before drastic mood whiplash. Getting lulled into a false sense of security requires I have my guard up in the first place, and the way you talk makes it seem like people can't write a light hearted fluffy Worm fic without some kinda dark twist. See, I would have been less upset if there had been even mild foreshadowing; like say for instance following Amy doing capestuff (which she is implied to do but not shown doing) and observing some of the merchants behaving or looking odd, or whatever hint tickles your fancy. Horror with no foreshadowing is just a lazy way to shock the reader and just makes me feel lied to.

I'm not upset because there was horror, I'm upset because the story took a unprompted nose heel turn in tone, plot, and atmosphere with absolutely zero set up or foreshadowing.
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Also yes, there is going to be more fluff but this chapter was important plot-wise.
Also the original had it set with both parts switched in terms of reading order, but that was changed due to how it was incorrect chronologically.
 
Sigh...

I'm not sure how to feel about this.

When I wrote this chapter, especially the 2nd segment, I set out with the goal of making it scary. Somewhere along the way, I decided I also wanted it to be a hard tone change. And then I decided I wanted to try to make it as hard and swift a tone change as possible. Given the reactions, I succeeded. I'm just not sure if that's a good thing.

Overall, there seems to be a whole lot of "Holy shit, what the fuck." Which, I suppose, is largely what I was aiming for. But there's also a fair deal of, "Nope, didn't want this, I'm out." Which...I wasn't aiming for. And it's what I was worried about happening.

My editors know me from my previous works, which all tend to be much darker than this fic started out, so for them, this wasn't the same hard tone change it likely was for most of you. They were expecting a moment much like this to happen sooner or later. Hell, in Trav's first run of the chapter when it was whole he told me to make it scarier because he knew I was aiming for scary. It's also why I put in no warnings, because I didn't want to spoil the hard tone change. I wanted it to be as hard as possible, in large part because that's what I like in a story. Hard tone changes, especially to darker places, really stick out in a good way for me. If I have no idea they're coming, all the better. And as such, I aimed to make a scene that I would enjoy, and attempted to make it as abrupt and hard a turn as possible.

Which, again, may or may not have been a good thing.

I'm still thinking about and exploring the possibilities of how much I really like what happened, but at the moment I'm worried that I've burned a lot of goodwill I built up with various readers by making such a hard tone change, and that they've decided to leave for good. The question I have to explore there is whether or not I wanted them to stay.

This isn't to say, 'Good riddance, haters." That's not my intention at all. What I mean is this: Is this fic and what I'm aiming for with it simply not their cup of tea? If so, then that's fine. I'm not out to please everyone. However, if they would and could have been interested in this fic in the long run if I hadn't tried to make this scene as much of a hard turn as possible, then I feel like that's a failing on my part.

The whole thing was an experiment, one to go, "lets see what happens if I do this". I'm deeply concerned that, in one way or another, I've effectively killed my fic before it really got off the ground because of an experiment that pushed away a lot of people. Perhaps I shouldn't have done it here, but what better place to experiment with writing styles and techniques than Fanfiction?

Still, if you feel I purposefully mislead, tricked, or betrayed you, I am sorry. I suppose, in a way, I did. I attempted to surprise you, and whether or not my execution of the idea was good or bad is something I'm still trying to really figure out.

However, if you're still here and have questions, let me attempt to answer a few.

First off, this is not a crossover. The only way this could be considered a crossover is in the same sense Elder Scrolls is a Lord of the Rings crossover because it has elves. I've drawn a lot of inspiration from various IP's like Dead Space, Prototype, Resident Evil, and Halo, but it does not actually crossover with any of them. Though, I suppose one could argue a case for the Thing, but it's debatable. Venom played a very distant influence in the sense that he's a character I'm aware of and he falls in the same general category of what I'm looking at, but I've both not seen the movie, nor have I had any particular attraction to him in particular. I even came up with and starting plotting out this story about a year ago, well before the teaser came out.

There's even less of a connection to John Dies at the End. I actually find it hilarious that so many people refer to that movie after watching it. I find it funny because I've never seen it. I didn't even know what it was about. I assumed it was some stoner movie about two dudes, one named John, who do fun stoner things, and then John dies for some unrelated reason at the end as part of the joke. Don't know where I got that impression, I just did. Had absolutely 0 idea that it had anything to do with bodysnatching viral parasites. Looking it up, though, I can see the correlation. I can also see why people are thinking Venom and John Dies at the end.

The Truth is that, for this scene, I was inspired more by Uroboros(Resident Evil), Purity(X-Files), and the Black Goo(Prometheus).

As for going forward...don't expect this to happen too much. I mean, I'll definitely be writing stuff on this level of body horror again at various points in the story, but the plot isn't about Amy infecting the whole world with a super viral agent. The escalation is not happening like many seem to think it will. Mostly because what most people seem to think happened...didn't happen. This may be another example of my failings, but:

Most of the Merchants were hallucinating. No one got hurt, and Diane, as implied by the ending lines, was actually Amy the whole time. Thanks, Storyteller . The "infection" really took off when "Diane" unleashed her torrent of black maggots. After that, the Merchants paranoia-inducing hallucinogenics they'd just taken really kicked in and gave them an extremely bad trip that Amy instigated. Everyone present at the scene is totally fine. Well, physically. Maybe not so much mentally anymore. I tried to subtly convey that by having the drugs actually do stuff, having Jack see Trev and Manny as infected too despite their casual air, etc etc. Even Clank was just Amy's theatrics and trying to scare the shit out of some Merchants. Again, no one got seriously hurt. It was spooky because it was from Jack's perspective and it was supposed to be spooky to him.

If I wrote this from Amy's perspective, then it might be more lighthearted. Possibly still fucked up since she's scaring the bejesus out of some people, but you'd know that no one got hurt. I might actually end up doing that.

I think one of the things that this chapter suffers from, among various other things, is that I split it up because it got too long. I was going to have another segment with the PRT/Protectorate kind of doing a wrap up where they explain what happened. Went too long, decided to move it to the next chapter. In hindsight, it might have been better to put it here so you would know what is actually happening.

Either way, the full details will be coming out in the next chapter. I didn't want to wait to explain things for five chapters or anything, and it might be better to put out some fires now rather than later.

Next chapter we'll also be picking up with some Amy and Danny time, one of many I hope to have in the fic. Family and attempting to find good mental health is going to be one of the long-running themes of this story, not how Amy takes over the bay, infecting one example of criminal scum at a time. As you may be able to tell, Amy has a ways to go on that front. Which is sort of the point. One of the many reasons for this chapter was to exemplify that Amy is not OK.

And I think there may be some other things, but I'm tired and I'm sure I'm going to regret all the things I missed and fucked up explaining when I wake up in the morning, so I'm just going to get to this last point.

For some reason, people keep freaking out about this:

Metaldragon868 said:
Two golden eyes stare back at me. A head of mottled gray and brown. A twisted facsimile of a beetle's carapace made into a human head, monstrous mandibles made into a sinister smile. A ring of spikes in an insectile imitation of a crown.

For all its dark appearance and terrifying visage, there is a certain nobility in this helmet. A certain…air of nostalgia, of care with this hand-crafted item.

To some, it might inspire fear or awe.

To me, it brings back bittersweet memories.

"Hey, mom."
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I don't know what I did, maybe it was my flowery language, maybe it was the tone, but this is a mask.

A MASK.

Well, a helmet, to be precise.

For all its dark appearance and terrifying visage, there is a certain nobility in this HELMET. A certain…air of nostalgia, of care with this hand-crafted item.
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I honestly don't know why so many people keep thinking it's some kind of creepy abomination. I mean, yeah, sure, I describe it as bug-like and being a head. But as far as I remember, much the same could be said of Skitter's mask/helmet. It's creepy, sure, but again, much the same could be said of Skitter.

And yes, it was Annette's, and it's just a mask.

So that's all I've got for you right now. I suppose I'm sorry for any misunderstandings, but I did mean to do what I did, I'm just not sure if what I did was something desirable or not. If I've burned you off what you hoped would just be a nice fluffy fic with Amy Hebert, well then I suppose I am truly sorry for burning you in such a way. Again, I'm sure I'll regret something I posted here or find some other thing I fucked up when I get up, but that's a problem for future me.

Present me needs sleep.

Here's hoping this helped.
 
Metaldragon868 said:
Spoiler: What Really Happened
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I'll be honest, I actually thought that was the case at first but as the chapter went on it seemed less and less like that was the case until I started believing that it was real. So for me at least (can't speak for others) you managed to convey the exact opposite of what you intended to.

I mean... I assumed that Amy had built contingencies and such in so that it wasn't gonna turn into an apocalypse because that just wouldn't make sense at this juncture, but I thought that otherwise things were exactly as they appeared by the end of it.

I'm a little glad to know I was wrong.
 
One of the issues with web novels that print novels don't have is that of compartmentalization; web novel chapters get posted individually, which means that each chapter needs to be able to stand on its own to a degree. This probably would have worked fine in a print novel, as at the end of the tone shift chapter a reader could then go 'holy fuck what' and read the next chapter immediately. But with a WN readers are left hanging until the next chapter is published, which means anyone who takes the tone shift badly is likely to just nope out rather than wait to see what happens next.
 
Metaldragon868 said:
Spoiler: What really happened.
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Jeez, that explains a lot. Like, completely recontextualises it. My original issue was that the interlude felt like it was setting up some future threat that was tonally inconsistent with the story thus far. I feel like a hint at the end of the interlude of who the culprit was would have alleviated quite a few gripes.
 
While the chapter did seem to give me mental whiplash with the transition, I wouldn't say that it put me off reading it. That said, I was apparently one of the ones who missed the implications you mentioned at the end of the chapter about being Amy so directly involved with it. My original thoughts had been that either it was some sort of Bio Tinker creation you brought in to the story to act as her nemesis, or else Amy herself created some sort of unholy combination of Blacklight and the Zerg then set it loose to take out the Merchants (and possibly the other gangs after).
 
This started out (IIRC, extremely tired atm so might be confusing it) as a slice of life-y fic with maybe family drama. For some reason, the worm fandom loves slice of life fics. Of course people leave, things happened here so it sucks.

Same thing happens to many fics on Levi/S9. People just stop reading because they won't read something that has them.
 
The tone shift was rather sharp. I can see where it might bother some but I was ok.

But on what you were trying to communicate vs what I read. You were too damn subtle. Might be the graphic body horror but even after your spoiler I still can't read it the way your spoiler described it. You need to make it less subtle or add an Amy POV at the end that makes it clear what happened.
 
Metaldragon868 said:
Which left them here. Staring at a vial of thick black liquid.
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While the following bits were indeed pure awesome and I'm still not sure how reliable our narrator Jack is, I still really wish this had been the Soy Sauce drug from "John Does at The End" that I originally thought it was going to be.
Can't wait to see what comes next.
 
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Metaldragon868 said:
However, if they would and could have been interested in this fic in the long run if I hadn't tried to make this scene as much of a hard turn as possible, then I feel like that's a failing on my part.
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Yes. It was.

I don't read horror. Ever. I came in enjoying a slice of life fic, then got slammed into something I actively hate.

Not only will I not be bothering to read this fic (heck, the only reason I'm still reading the thread was in the faint hope that maybe you'd posted a chapter from the wrong story), I won't be reading anything else you post. Ever.

Because I wouldn't be able to enjoy it, always worrying if you're going to pull this shit again.

To boil it down? A hard tone shift like this is always, always, always a mistake. Don't do it.
 
... I can't help but feel that some people skimmed past sections of this story, as even though I'm not very familiar with the author, and suck at deciphering all but the most blatant plot twists, I saw something like this coming as soon as I saw "Merchants = acceptable targets". From her first introduction, Amelia had had a feeling of being ever so slightly off, and very protective of those close to her. This? Going by the author posts? Well, I'm only surprised that she left them as unharmed as she did.
 
Marika Oniki said:
... I can't help but feel that some people skimmed past sections of this story, as even though I'm not very familiar with the author, and suck at deciphering all but the most blatant plot twists, I saw something like this coming as soon as I saw "Merchants = acceptable targets". From her first introduction, Amelia had had a feeling of being ever so slightly off, and very protective of those close to her. This? Going by the author posts? Well, I'm only surprised that she left them as unharmed as she did.
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Yeah, thinking about it, the dialogue where Danny gives the go-ahead is actually way more disturbing than the actual going-ahead.
 
Marika Oniki said:
... I can't help but feel that some people skimmed past sections of this story, as even though I'm not very familiar with the author, and suck at deciphering all but the most blatant plot twists, I saw something like this coming as soon as I saw "Merchants = acceptable targets". From her first introduction, Amelia had had a feeling of being ever so slightly off, and very protective of those close to her. This? Going by the author posts? Well, I'm only surprised that she left them as unharmed as she did.
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Ehh...

On one hand, the scene as it actually plays out? I definitely saw something like that coming, it was clear that Amy was gonna pull some serious shit on her victims. That said, the scene as it appears to play out on the other hand is way harder than what I would have expected and is something of a darker tone shift, enough of one that I can very much understand where people were coming from if they say they found that to be an unexpected twist.

The issue is that it was not at all clear from an initial readthrough that everything going on is part of a hallucination, and as soon as that's part of the scenario is not assumed, the entire sequence becomes far far darker than anyone should reasonably expect, even with the foreshadowing introduced in the story thus far.

(Also of note, even with that little fact in mind the sequence is still incredibly disturbing to read for some people and I do not begrudge them departing the story over it. Real or not, some people simply cannot stomach such imagery, and that is no mark against them.)
 
Spectral Waltz said:
Ehh...

On one hand, the scene as it actually plays out? I definitely saw something like that coming, it was clear that Amy was gonna pull some serious shit on her victims. That said, the scene as it appears to play out on the other hand is way harder than what I would have expected and is something of a darker tone shift, enough of one that I can very much understand where people were coming from if they say they found that to be an unexpected twist.

The issue is that it was not at all clear from an initial readthrough that everything going on is part of a hallucination, and as soon as that's part of the scenario is not assumed, the entire sequence becomes far far darker than anyone should reasonably expect, even with the foreshadowing introduced in the story thus far.

(Also of note, even with that little fact in mind the sequence is still incredibly disturbing to read for some people and I do not begrudge them departing the story over it. Real or not, some people simply cannot stomach such imagery, and that is no mark against them.)
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Yeah, I was thrown specifically because it wasn't at all clear it was a hallucination. I can see people not even wanting to read it at all, but I was mostly thrown by how this was apparently a very different story to the one I was expecting. I'm not one of the people who decided to stop reading, though.
 
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Alright, so I've thought about it and slept on it, and here's what I'm gonna do.

In the words of Luke Cage, "Sometimes backward to move forward. Always.". This probably isn't exactly what he meant, but I'm going to be doing what amounts to a flashback from Amy's perspective of everything leading up to the end of chap 3 and roll that together with moving forward by having it be written from the perspective of explaining it all to Danny. I'll be trying to do that quickly, so it'll probably be done it two shortish(maybe?) chapters, possibly 3, that I will attempt to post as quickly as possible with no schedule. Once I finally finish that, I'll start moving forward with the plot again, and I'll just tweak a future pre-written chapter's PRT perspective to include what they know about what happened with the Black Maggots. Once I get to that point, I'll go back and edit things so that the only version that exists is Amy's perspective of events leading up to it.

This way I'll technically get a rewrite in and do Amy's perspective, all while giving you guys the answers you want. It's also probably a slower progression to full black maggots, though I'm not going to lie and say Amy's perspective is light and rosy.

It's either that, or I just keep moving forward with the originally planned chapters and not affect changes to chapter 3 for a good long while, if ever.
 
One thing you might want to do is write a horrific prologue chapter, so people who walk into the thread get a glimpse of what's coming.

Then proceed with fluffy slice-of-life / gruesome horror, intermingling as you wish.
 
Just a suggestion but if your intention for this story to have body horror it would be better to put it in the tags , that way anyone else that would read this later would not get surprised after the prologue full of fluff to change the tone
 
I was expecting body horror from Amy casually mentioning hacking her own brain, getting cleared to target the Merchants by Danny, and reading a letter from Marquis.

I was just expecting her to go Alex Mercer on people.
 
earthboy said:
One thing you might want to do is write a horrific prologue chapter, so people who walk into the thread get a glimpse of what's coming.

Then proceed with fluffy slice-of-life / gruesome horror, intermingling as you wish.
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That would be neat. A prologue that showcases the light and dark sides of the fic shows people what they're getting into and simultaneously adds on rather than simply remaking.
 
Metaldragon868 said:
Most of the Merchants were hallucinating. No one got hurt, and Diane, as implied by the ending lines, was actually Amy the whole time. Thanks, Storyteller . The "infection" really took off when "Diane" unleashed her torrent of black maggots.
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I only just saw this and the rest of your explanation post. I can't tell you how much I enjoy your story less now that we've gotten a peek behind the scenes as it were. I'm not even going to go into the terrible taste in style and media that you've shared with us(mostly joking here, but seriously Prometheus? :eyeroll:) and just going to dive right into the massive plothole that you're "what really happened" section opens up and proceeds to swallow the rest of your story whole.

" Amy is really Diane, OMG/WFT!1!" now maybe I'm misreading you (in which case this plot device is even worse) but you seem to have set it up that Diane has always been Amy here, which makes zero fucking sense if we are to believe anything Jack says before he gets high. In this situation your Amy is not a hero, anti- or otherwise, swooping in to punish the "bad people", she's a rival Merchant taking out her competition.
What? Why? You might ask, because you've had Jack treat her as an established and successful Merchant dealer. Now either Amy as Diane is indeed such, which again is moronic and completely craps all over the characterization and plot that has gone before, or you somehow think it make sense for Amy to pull off some sort of switch with the real Diane to pull this off, which again is even less believable since while we have been given fuck all info on her powers, it's jumping the damn shark to suddenly go "oh, BTW she's a cut-rate Alex Mercer. "


I know you said you're trying to experiment with writing styles, and that's fine IF YOU WARN PEOPLE BEFORE THE FIRST CHAPTER.
Otherwise these sudden tonal shifts, and or arbitrary abilities with not even a hint of foreshadowing simply come off as cheap gimmicks.

We actually have threads here for writing advice that you may want to look into if you're really interested in trying out different styles and ways of storytelling. Springing such on a reader unprepared though is incredibly foolish and you will rightly lose most of your audience over it.

A good writing rule of thumb when writing is that if your are actively trying to be "clever" is to stop, at that point you've already failed and need to go back to the drawing board. You should be focused on writing a good story that draws a reader in, not on "clever" or "cool" scenes in isolation, that never ends well.

After this I think I'll be dropping this story as well. I actually enjoyed chapter 3 until you tried to explain what really happened, before that it was very interesting on its own, it had no business being in this particular story but certainly could have been a neat jumping off point for its own, but your "explanation" just ruins everything that was interesting in that chapter.

I'm sorry, but abrupt tonal shifts are just terrible writing and I can't imagine how you could possibly enjoy such. :sad:
 
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