Holy crap, that was a hell of a week of sleep you stole from me. LOL.
Okay, first things first, this story is pretty wonderful. There are times your foreshadowing gets me frustrated, even pisses me off, but that's only because you are so good at building the tension on what exactly these crazy villain capes are going to do that I am continually bound to keep reading until I find out.
Feature, not bug. Will not fix
You are doing a pretty damn fine job also of presenting the characters as fully realized people rather than simple caricatures. There is occasionally a moment or two when I'll lose track of who is talking, but frankly, I think that's mostly on me. I read damn fast and as a result, I will occasionally miss a word or two here and there. I've yet to come across a point when I had lost the thread when I couldn't easily pick it back up just by panning my eyes up a paragraph. I do want to point out that some of the characters can be just a touch one-dimensional, but... It's fanfic. There is a reality to the fact that a lot of these one-dimensional characterizations are in the source material, so your upholding that unless you want to do something interesting with them is perfectly acceptable. Expected, even. Besides, when the cast of characters gets beyond a certain size there is something to be said for the fact that if you want bit players to be memorable at all, they pretty much have to stand out in some way.
I try to work on the basis that all characters have some sort of backstory to them, and generally also attempt to flesh this out where I can. It's not always possible without adding words, and some people don't like words in their stories for some reason
And of course sometimes there just isn't a good place to insert the backstory in a way that fits properly with the flow of the story itself.
I also prefer my characters to, by and large, be reasonably intelligent since most people
are reasonably intelligent. Yes, you see all too many people who don't
use that intelligence, but there are a quite small number of genuine imbeciles running around in public. And a half-way competent villain is much more interesting that a total lackwit, which is so often the sort you actually get in a story. Especially a fanfic,
especially one of Worm which is basically Idiot Ball World...
And yes, with a cast of thousands it does become slightly difficult to give all of them enough screen time to do this sort of thing universally.
If I had to point to one thing and basically sigh and scratch my nose a bit, it would be the reality that your main character is so grossly overpowered that the only real conflict comes down to whether or not she can actually stop the bad guys before they do real harm. This is something that you obviously know and are going for, and it is working unbelievably well. But it does occasionally make me roll my eyes a little. That said, overpowered crack fics are something I and many others enjoy... And something I have written more than one of myself. So take that slight snivel for a grain of salt.
The humor in the story is truly a joy and had me laughing out loud at multiple spots. As an example, I am deeply curious where the relationship between the potential future Imp and the diabolical Cloak will go in the fullness of time. I see levels of absolute hilarity coming from that team-up that have me giggling just thinking about it.
Taylor OP, pls nerf...
Yes, I realize that, and in many ways that was the challenge I set myself. Take a character who
is excessively powerful for pretty much
any setting and avoid writing a complete curbstomp. Those can be entertaining, and indeed I've written a couple myself, but this story isn't that sort of thing. It's much more one where a smallish group of friends are working out not only what they can do if they work together and for the good of society rather than hitting everything very hard indeed,
and trying to figure out what the hell is going on with the world. I also don't see
conflict in a story
requiring literal combat as I've said many times in the past. Literary tension is still valid for that role, and as you've already pointed out, this story has that...
There's also the point that Taylor and her demon turned out even more bullshit than I initially expected, which is entirely in keeping with them and their personalities.
Basically, in true Taylor Hebert style, they escalated far past my initial expectations. This is a thing.
A few specifics:
Your characterizations of Armsmaster, Piggot, Militia, and to a lesser extent Dragon are notable not because they are beautifully done, though they are. But also because they are receiving better treatment in this than almost any other fanfic I have ever read. All four of them lend themselves to being pigeonholed into ridiculously retarded over-the-top and bullshit stereotypes that it's almost a given that this is all you'll see from them. You aren't going that route and I am deeply grateful for this. The same can also be said for many other characters, including some of the wards, but those four are almost always defiled in such a way.
If you're going to put a character into your story you kind of owe them enough respect to do it right, for better or ill, in my view. And one has to think that those people are all ones who are at least competent because otherwise they wouldn't have got to where they are in the first place, nor managed to stay there, especially in a shithole like Earth Bet. So they deserve being handled properly
I am still not sure why you felt the need to wipe out the nine the way you did, though if I had to guess it would be because, in the end, you are trying to keep the fic generally upbeat while still being respectful of the source material. The nine make that hard, if not impossible. I somewhat expect that the 'Teeth' will have a similar end. Maybe not the Micheal Bay treatment that the nine got, but something oddball that short-circuits that issue before it can become a disaster. My money is on the Varga being immune to the Butcher and Kaiju accidentally stepping on him when the lunatic decides they want to be an eighty-foot enormous monster.
A few things I want to point out, just because I saw them, and am curious if I will end up being correct.
The S9 are a hack job put into canon
Worm merely to make the story even more grimderp and horrible than it already was, which to be honest is quite difficult. Wildbow rose to the occasion nicely though
I see no reason to stick to the stations of canon at all when I'm writing a fanfic
unless I'm deliberately doing that on purpose, which for most of my stories I certainly am not. As a result, why would I want an evil deus ex machina popping up to fuck things up beyond belief when they could be handled like they deserved and in a more realistic story
would have been? It's one of the many problems I have with the internal logic, or lack thereof, of
Worm where a group like that wasn't simply blown to fuck by a very large bomb far earlier in their exploits. Because if nothing else I strongly suspect the air force or army might well have had an '
oops' moment with their ordnance at some point in a more sensible world
If they don't see it coming, and they're not going to see something like a bomb from 50000 feet coming, they're basically boned. No Parahumans required at all. Crawler is the only one who can realistically be expected to survive that assuming that Manton was also close enough to buy it, as he was in this case.
So I arranged things in a way that was a lot closer to what I suspect would actually happen.
First. Dragon can't make multiple copies of herself. But can she multitask? With instant, unblockable, untraceable, and untappable communication lines, I would imagine that an AI of her ability won't necessarily need to copy herself at all. Just pile on the processing power and send out avatars rather than download herself into a unit.
As has been stated elsewhere, she's got a hard cap on most of her potential which precludes things like this too.
Second. Amy has access to the premier transportation tinker and the preeminent 'jack of all trades and master of anything...once' tinker in the entire world. Why has the only modification to her truck been to make it into a ball? And even that only just recently? Not passing any kind of judgments, truly I am just curious. As soon as the truck and she-who-was-once-Squealer were in the same spot I just assumed it was a given and am legitimately confused as to why it hasn't happened. While we're on the subject of cars, if Danny doesn't use that light-cycle tech to have a removable roof and ask Taylor to put an EDM coating on it like the visors have, I might cry. Because to me, that means your plan is to somehow befoul it. I think having it in here is wonderful.
Again, other people have pointed out some plausible reasons for this sort of thing. I agree with pretty much all of them. Her truck is a nice truck, and now it's one she can take with her in her truck pocket, but it doesn't also need to be a tank. If that is required, rest assured it will certainly happen, but for now it's fine just being a large blue truck
The Jag is another matter. It's a very, very rare and expensive collectible car in mint condition, almost entirely original, and as such no one wants to pollute the purity of it by hacking it around into something it's not. Every car collector in the world would curse them for that! And covering a vehicle in EDM is a damn good way to end up killing people aside from anything else.
However, when they're done they're certainly plausibly likely to add a few useful extras... They're just not going to defile the vehicle itself
And third. At some point, you really do need to have Taylor and Mouse Protector in the same spot. Preferably somewhere Piggot can see it It doesn't need to be a huge scene or anything, but the migraine that would induce in the director could be used as an anti-depressant for anybody but her.
This...
may happen.
If I was forced to complain about something? It would probably be that Bitch has gotten so little screen time. She's a bit of a favorite of mine. But since her court date marches slowly towards us, and you definitely haven't forgotten about her, I am almost ashamed to even bring it up as a snivel. You'll get to her story I am sure. I'm just an impatient bastard.
In any case, I want to thank you for providing us with a wonderful story, and I will await with bated breath the next installment.
She's likely to have quite a few more scenes of her own as time goes on...
Thanks for the compliments and I hope you enjoy the story as it continues. And, of course, I have to ask the obligatory question, have you read the 650k words of omakes too? If not, you have another week's work to do...
