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The Moon's Fall (Worm AU, The Wolf Time sequel)

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My two cents about the story and a theory on its dwindling readership:

You started the story out with a great injustice: a character we like is being victimized, blamed for things that weren't her fault, and the perpetrators get away with it. This isn't the first story with that premise. Indeed, 'fugitive trying to clear their name' has been done many times. Unfortunately, the 'clearing their name' part never happens. In fact, every step that Taylor takes, she just gets stuck in deeper and deeper, most of the time through little fault of her own. She's railroaded onto the train to Miseryville and there's just no way to stop it. It seems that in almost every new arc, you find some way to beat Taylor down further: being smeared on television, being hated by the public, Armsmaster's dog collar... It just builds and builds and every time something shitty happens to Taylor we (the readers) get angrier at the antagonists.

Now, getting your readers angry is a good thing. It means we're emotionally invested in your story. It means we care, and that's probably the highest compliment a writer can get. However, when you build up negative emotions like that, there has to be a pay off at some point. A moment where the protagonists overcomes her obstacles and resolves the primary conflict, generating a release for that anger you've generated.

And there isn't.

The trio is never punished. In fact, the trio appears to be thriving. Emma is getting therapy and successfully buried the truth. Sophia is closer to and more accepted by her fellow wards than ever. Madison is a rogue now, but she hasn't learned anything or even acknowledged that what happened to Taylor was her fault and is getting money and a boyfriend on the side. They're all getting their happily ever after while Taylor is still a wanted criminal because of something completely outside her control. Yes, there's Coil and Legend knowing about Sophia, but nothing really happens with that in-story. Taylor's name is never cleared. There is no comeuppance or payback. We never get a scene where Armsmaster if forced to mutter a public apology while the Trio is carted off to jail. The protagonist never overcomes her obstacles, she only manages to find some semblance of happiness in spite of them. All this anger you've generated is still boiling inside us and there's no adequate release for it because the bad guys keep screwing over the protagonist and getting away with it. You can only make us feel negative emotions for so long before we just don't want to be angry anymore and stop reading.

And then Scion happens.

Suddenly, the entire premise has become largely irrelevant. There is a sudden and dramatic genre shift as the story shifts from a 'fugitive on the run' plot to a 'survival' plot. Taylor's (and the readers's) desire for justice no longer matters and any chance of a proper release for our anger at the injustices forced on Taylor is gone. So why keep reading?

TL;DR The 'Taylor is suffering' meme is like salt. A little is fine. This story has so much of it that it metaphorically resembles a pickled herring.

But that's just my opinion. I hope it helps in your future endevors.
 
Blackhole1 said:
My two cents about the story and a theory on its dwindling readership:

You started the story out with a great injustice: a character we like is being victimized, blamed for things that weren't her fault, and the perpetrators get away with it. This isn't the first story with that premise. Indeed, 'fugitive trying to clear their name' has been done many times. Unfortunately, the 'clearing their name' part never happens. In fact, every step that Taylor takes, she just gets stuck in deeper and deeper, most of the time through little fault of her own. She's railroaded onto the train to Miseryville and there's just no way to stop it. It seems that in almost every new arc, you find some way to beat Taylor down further: being smeared on television, being hated by the public, Armsmaster's dog collar... It just builds and builds and every time something shitty happens to Taylor we (the readers) get angrier at the antagonists.

Now, getting your readers angry is a good thing. It means we're emotionally invested in your story. It means we care, and that's probably the highest compliment a writer can get. However, when you build up negative emotions like that, there has to be a pay off at some point. A moment where the protagonists overcomes her obstacles and resolves the primary conflict, generating a release for that anger you've generated.

And there isn't.

The trio is never punished. In fact, the trio appears to be thriving. Emma is getting therapy and successfully buried the truth. Sophia is closer to and more accepted by her fellow wards than ever. Madison is a rogue now, but she hasn't learned anything or even acknowledged that what happened to Taylor was her fault and is getting money and a boyfriend on the side. They're all getting their happily ever after while Taylor is still a wanted criminal because of something completely outside her control. Yes, there's Coil and Legend knowing about Sophia, but nothing really happens with that in-story. Taylor's name is never cleared. There is no comeuppance or payback. We never get a scene where Armsmaster if forced to mutter a public apology while the Trio is carted off to jail. The protagonist never overcomes her obstacles, she only manages to find some semblance of happiness in spite of them. All this anger you've generated is still boiling inside us and there's no adequate release for it because the bad guys keep screwing over the protagonist and getting away with it. You can only make us feel negative emotions for so long before we just don't want to be angry anymore and stop reading.

And then Scion happens.

Suddenly, the entire premise has become largely irrelevant. There is a sudden and dramatic genre shift as the story shifts from a 'fugitive on the run' plot to a 'survival' plot. Taylor's (and the readers's) desire for justice no longer matters and any chance of a proper release for our anger at the injustices forced on Taylor is gone. So why keep reading?

TL;DR The 'Taylor is suffering' meme is like salt. A little is fine. This story has so much of it that it metaphorically resembles a pickled herring.

But that's just my opinion. I hope it helps in your future endevors.
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You're probably right on the money for a lot of this, but while it won't have any effect on the emotional problems you (and likely others) have with the story, I still feel the need to point out that most of this isn't true.

Wolf Time ends with the Alpha arc (and yeah, I totally screwed up the original posting of the chapters after that). Meaning that yes Taylor is beaten down over the course of that story. That's absolutely true. She also reaches the end of it and finds herself with friends she can trust absolutely, a rekindled relationship with her father, significant wealth and power, a functional pardon, and a loving boyfriend. She's living in a mansion on top of her very own armoured supervillain tower, and she is second in command of one of the most successful villain teams to date, without having had to sacrifice her morals particularly.

Taylor is suffering is indeed a shitty meme, right up there with the munchkin queen bollocks. Which is why I aimed to subvert it. She suffered, and she grew from that suffering, and in the end she was better off by far.

However its clear from your post that Taylor having a better life makes no difference to your feelings, and that's understandable and entirely valid. What you want out of the story isn't a life well lived. It's revenge.

Here again I'd point out a factual issue that does nothing to change the feeling the story is likely to create in a reader such as yourself. Namely that the trio absolutely did suffer. I have no idea what you mean by them getting happily ever afters. Emma was stuck in a pit of guilt and shame and then her city got blown up with everything she cared about in it, meaning she's probably dead. Sophia got a taste of everything she'd always pretended desperately not to crave, and then lost it all in about the most painful way possible, followed by about the most karmic result I could think of during the portal storm. Madison never got a boyfriend, and while she did gain some friends she also turned out to have a shitty home life and ended up just as screwed as everybody else.

Armsmaster did his job, and if it had been Lung he put that collar on nobody would have blinked, let alone called for him to publicly apologise.

Now none of that changes or invalidates your feelings, but it does leave me wondering what the hell I could have done differently. Other than revenge porn content I really don't know how to satisfy this urge for punishment.

As for the genre shift, well yeah, that's why I split things off into a new thread. It's a sequel. Things have changed. You make a good point that many readers likely just weren't as interested in the new story type, but frankly there wasn't much left to tell with the old one.

The Underdogs were way too powerful to go the traditional Warlord story route, and I hate following the stations of canon endlessly anyway. It would just have turned into an OP fixfic rehash of Worm.
 
Not really sure where the other readers went but I know that I (a rather persistent lurker) am actually more interested in the moons fall because the undersides are in charge, have power, and are open about it. This is a genre that I am interested in because it is so rarely done, we often see Taylor with power but less often authority or rulership, the social dynamic changes with this setting change.

Anyways please continue, even if less than often
 
Since you are worried about dwindeling readership I would like to note that i have been kutling since the original thread and have enjoyed the story throughout.
 
Another habitual lurker here, and I would like to point out that the draw for me is in seeing how the characters I like react in a new situation. Given that, this 'wolf pack in the wilds' scenario has quite some potential for me.
 
Draconikus said:
Another habitual lurker here, and I would like to point out that the draw for me is in seeing how the characters I like react in a new situation. Given that, this 'wolf pack in the wilds' scenario has quite some potential for me.
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That and the other big draw for me is the move to cut the Gordian Knot of the unavoidable points of canon; namely the Endbringers, Slaughterhouse 9, Cauldron and Golden Morning. Even in stories that subvert the canon or claim to "focus on the street level superheroism" those major beats are always looming overhead and ultimately unavoidable. And in stories do try to avoid them either have to rely on handwavium to resolve everything offscreen or winds up spinning their wheels in the pre-Endbringer arcs.

Here however, you went with a different approach, and one we did not see coming. You had everything happen at once and instead of Taylor being the messiah that nobody wanted but everybody damned well deserved, you had a more realistc desprate struggle to survive. And now that the canon board is swept clear, now you have plenty of freedom to take the characters wherever you want to go, without the dangling swords of Kaiju, Murderhoboes, and Space Whales overhead.

Plus, I do want to see where this brave new world ultimately ends up. Will they eventually make contact with the Wardens of Earth-Gimel, joining the Ward era network of settled worlds? Or will they ultimatly go native, building a new Werewolf civilization? Not to mention the potential conflicts and growing pains that will happen on the road to these potential outcomes.
 
Raven1138 said:
That and the other big draw for me is the move to cut the Gordian Knot of the unavoidable points of canon; namely the Endbringers, Slaughterhouse 9, Cauldron and Golden Morning. Even in stories that subvert the canon or claim to "focus on the street level superheroism" those major beats are always looming overhead and ultimately unavoidable. And in stories do try to avoid them either have to rely on handwavium to resolve everything offscreen or winds up spinning their wheels in the pre-Endbringer arcs.

Here however, you went with a different approach, and one we did not see coming. You had everything happen at once and instead of Taylor being the messiah that nobody wanted but everybody damned well deserved, you had a more realistc desprate struggle to survive. And now that the canon board is swept clear, now you have plenty of freedom to take the characters wherever you want to go, without the dangling swords of Kaiju, Murderhoboes, and Space Whales overhead.

Plus, I do want to see where this brave new world ultimately ends up. Will they eventually make contact with the Wardens of Earth-Gimel, joining the Ward era network of settled worlds? Or will they ultimatly go native, building a new Werewolf civilization? Not to mention the potential conflicts and growing pains that will happen on the road to these potential outcomes.
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That was the major driving force behind the early Golden Morning, I wanted to clear the board of those plot elements since it was either that or be stuck dealing with them at canon's pace.

Plus it was a fun twist. I'm still kind of amazed that nobody else beat me to it.
 
This came up in the QoB thread, figured it needed to be put here, since it wasn't appearing.

Anzer'ke said:
Well if you don't mind a biased opinion, and with the understanding that I'm not saying you have to read it or anything like that, I'd like to defend my story a bit.

People seem to have gotten this impression and run with it, but The Wolf Time isn't some horrible pit of darkness and despair. It actually ends with Taylor
Happy, reconciled and reunited with her father, having found friendships as close as family, fallen in love, and become one of if not the most powerful person in the city. Basically a legitimised Warlord, since the shitty legal stuff everyone kept complaining about ultimately gave her something to blackmail the white hats with, while she and Bitch together formed a ludicrously potent power combination.

Saying she has no relationships outside the Underdogs is misleading, because the Underdogs are not just a name change for the Undersiders, but a massive expansion of their ranks.

Taylor faces difficulties, but to say she is constantly beaten down is only even slightly true if the next story in line is Hope Through Overwhelming Firepower.

Slith10 said:
Not sure if it counts as spoilers but what happened in the Leviathan fight at the beginning of the sequel leading into Scion doing his thing was kind of sudden and changed the course of story quite a bit than what was expected to be a fairly normal 'Leviathan Fight', felt a bit like the author wanted to write a different story and just continued on with what was already written.
Considering the story stopped updating just as things were beginning to happen afterwards, it might have been that.
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Nope.

What happened there was planned from the start, my big twist on the usual stations of canon and something I always wondered why nobody else did. Post Scion stuff is interesting, it takes a while to get there, so bringing it forward always seemed to me like the obvious solution. In other words a normal leviathan fight was never on the cards. In the same vein the sequel and the final part of the trilogy are both planned out and have been more or less from the start, albeit with steadily rising detail as the story went on, since I have changed bits of my outline along the way.

The problem came from me changing where my break point was. Where The Wolf Time ended and The Moon's Fall began. From the end of Wyld (now the first arc of Moon's Fall) to the end of Alpha (previously the second last arc of Wolf Time) because I realised it fit much better. However my fuck up here, likely combined with the hiatues I took and other factors, led to a drop in readership that depressed the shit out of me. Since I was writing chapters that hardly anyone was reading. That eventually lead to me losing motivation to continue it and marked a long break from me writing anything at all.

About a month ago I started back to writing regularly and I'm currently powering through a Dresden Files fic. When that's done Moon's Fall may start back up.

In any case this probably isn't the place for this discussion. If anyone wants to take it to the thread for the story in question I can probably cobble together an omake or something so nobody gets angry about a necro.
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I just read the story. Thanks for giving me something to do while I was pretending to work last night :)

A couple of thoughts and questions, if you don't mind.

I really like how you had a different POV character for each arc. It was a refreshing decision and I think it worked out pretty well. It also conveniently means that you can more frequently switch POV here in the sequel, since we already know what's in their heads, so there's that.

I also like that it wasn't just Taylor that got crapped on from a great height. In every case where the media was involved whoever told their story first was believed, notably with Victoria. If it was just Taylor then it might have strained credulity, but as is it's clear that this is just how the universe works on a narrative level.

Now for my questions. Apologies if they have been answered before, but I only read the story posts.

Why did they just hit the Empire over and over? Most of them were villains for the money, only Grue and Bitch actually had a grudge against them. Also, why did they hit them so often? Was it because they were a little drunk on power after getting Werewolf'd?

What was the blackmail they used to get Legend to back off, how and when did they get it, and why did Legend take it so personally?

Regarding the faulty personality assessment the Protectorate had of Taylor, how did that happen? I know that Sophia caused the initial garbage, but once it was obvious that Taylor was a Big Deal shouldn't the Thinkers have taken the time to look her over for weaknesses and found something better?
 
A good chunk of it was a personal grudge from both Brian and Rachel. Meanwhile Coil was paying them well for it since he wanted to crush the Empire, and they were happy too since the Empire lacked a Lung to counter them, but had way more money than the Merchants. And yes, they were very much drunk on power.

The blackmail was the truth about Taylor and her trigger. Gathered by Coil and stripped from his computers by Lisa before the PRT raided the base. By that point Sophia had become a major PR coup for the heroes and hence a massive humiliation if she was revealed. Not to mention she had become an effective member of the Wards, and Taylor had become a major threat. Revealing the truth made for a nasty stick, while the option of peace with the Underdogs served as a carrot. Legend was mad because of learning about Cauldron shortly before that fight.

Lisa is abnormally powerful for a Thinker and even she is subject to garbage in garbage out. The thing a lot of people seemed to miss is that after the initial report it wasn't like they kept bringing Sophia in to repeat herself. It became someone steadily higher in the chain of command reporting her claims, citing someone below them in a chain that reached down to her. Much like is sometimes seen in academia with garbage citations becoming widespread due to a few people being lazy with their research.
Not to mention that there really wasn't more than a short while between them learning how powerful Taylor really was and the Undersiders taking the Fortress and becoming the Underdogs.
 
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Anzer'ke said:
The blackmail was the truth about Taylor and her trigger. Gathered by Coil and stripped from his computers by Lisa before the PRT raided the base.
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Huh? I thought Lisa was already in custody before Taylor and Brian busted into the Fortress and downloaded stuff off of Coil's computer? Cuz if they'd already had that info before Halbeard busted into the hideout, why weren't any threats made about releasing the data before the big werewolf parade to The Rig and back?
 
JumperPrime said:
Huh? I thought Lisa was already in custody before Taylor and Brian busted into the Fortress and downloaded stuff off of Coil's computer? Cuz if they'd already had that info before Halbeard busted into the hideout, why weren't any threats made about releasing the data before the big werewolf parade to The Rig and back?
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Woops, not Lisa. The others. Give me a break. It's been like a month since I looked at my notes .

:p
 
JumperPrime said:
Huh? I thought Lisa was already in custody before Taylor and Brian busted into the Fortress and downloaded stuff off of Coil's computer? Cuz if they'd already had that info before Halbeard busted into the hideout, why weren't any threats made about releasing the data before the big werewolf parade to The Rig and back?
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Remember how Lisa requested as part of her blackmail half an hour in Coil's systems before the PRT heads in? From the sounds of it, the truth about Taylor and Sophia, while a devestating PR blow, would ultimately be survivable by the PRT. But the full extent of his operations to destabilize Brockton Bay, including weakening the PRT and police via his moles, potentially setting up the Empire's big push, and other acts all while serving as a major PRT consultant without anyone knowing about it? Forget a PR disaster, Taylor could cause the biggest political crisis since Watergate.

And to cap things off, as Anzer'ke said Legend had found out about Cauldron before the fight. Want to place any bets that Alexandra and Doctor Mother told him to do whatever it took, just make sure Coil doesn't talk? Because with Leviathan's arrival coinciding with Golden Morning/The Great Disporia, I bet the rest of the Inner Circle wanted to make sure there were no distractions before Armageddon.

Edit: Imped Pupped
 
While the thread is open and active, I'd like to ask people for their most brutal and honest opinions of the Lost arc.

I'm still not sure whether, whenever I return to this story, I will scrap it or not.

So opinions would help a lot. Was it just filler? Was character stuff enough to make it worth reading? etc etc

Chojomeka said:
I'm actually really glad that you're posting in this again @Anzer'ke because I wanted to ask what would Skitter look like under Runt's power in a hypothetical crossover.
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QA is exactly the kind of Shard to get very into things, so lots of bonuses.

She'd become a kind of living hive, her fur becoming something very similar to silk and weaving into an outer layer of combined armour and hive, ensuring that anything attacking her is getting a whole lot of bugs to deal with. Plus they'd be tunnelling through her flesh puppet body as well.

Her bugs would get a much larger boost (I'm firmly of the headcanon that Skitter's bugs were getting boosted) and become proper scary little fuckers. Like tiny little wolf bugs.

As for appearance, the silk would be constantly moving and weaving together and reforming into different hive forms. The body beneath would be dark furred, but only a short layer of it. Much of her body would be hidden by this silk, only her eyes and teeth showing through much of the time. Though this would of course be further exacerbated by her maintaining a massive swarm around herself. As for body shape, just like Runt she'd be tall and lean. Not as well toned though, since Runt has a huge advantage there.
 
Anzer'ke said:
While the thread is open and active, I'd like to ask people for their most brutal and honest opinions of the Lost arc.

I'm still not sure whether, whenever I return to this story, I will scrap it or not.

So opinions would help a lot. Was it just filler? Was character stuff enough to make it worth reading? etc etc
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I enjoyed it.

You created the scene, and kept things moving in a "real" way.

Worked for me.
 
Anzer'ke said:
While the thread is open and active, I'd like to ask people for their most brutal and honest opinions of the Lost arc.

I'm still not sure whether, whenever I return to this story, I will scrap it or not.

So opinions would help a lot. Was it just filler? Was character stuff enough to make it worth reading? etc etc
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Bear with me as I try to recall my thoughts.

Overall it was good. It was a necessary breather part for the story after the very action packed and rather emotionally heavy Leviathan fight, especially after the earth shaking ending that broke the playing board. It gave both readers and characters time to catch their breath and start to get accustomed to the new situation. Multiple POVs was a good idea as well, showing us how things are going from multiple points, as well as giving us the glimpse of the new cast we'll be following.

On the more negative side, I don't think it required an entire miniarc to gets its points across. I think it could have been put together to fit as a maybe two chapter long interlude, or it should have been a few chapters longer to give us a better look to see who else from BB is now on this world and how they different groups are actually going to handle being on this alien planet, separated.

Sorry if this was rambly.
 
I liked the Lost Arc. Could be nice to explore the post-Scion world without having to go through the stations of canon. What I really liked about the whole story was your characterization, especially Bitch's, but also for example Amy being the judgy-snarky bitch she is in canon instead of the fanon woobie. Oh, and Lisa's. The whole Vixen Arc was just beautifully written.

I hope you continue The Moon's Fall, and explore whatever plot you thought about.
 
I also enjoy the Lost arc, it's a needed piece of connective tissue, bridging the end of the previous arc, which featured the end of the world as they knew it, to the post-Golden Morning survivors start to rebuild on an alternate Earth. It shows how various characters ended up on the same Earth as the Fortress but widely separated. Some are inside and sealed in due to a sloppy landing putting the doors underground while others are far away and need to hike to the only beacon of civilization in this wild planet. How they cope and how they manage the issues resultant from the displacement, the seeds of which are planted in the Lost arc
 
I enjoyed it. I think it worked well as a bunch of short chapters, although that could easily be changed into a few larger chapters that have two or three PoV each. It just highlighted how little anybody knew at the time. It's just a shame that it went of hiatus just before they all reunited. I think that would have made a more palatable (not sure if this is the right word) break point.
 
After the high energy of the Leviathan fight, having a cool-down section gave us as readers a chance to catch our breath as it were, and prepped for the less frantic action to come. I liked the cycle of different viewpoints as the various characters started picking up the pieces from the life and death struggle, and if things seemed to drag a bit at places, it was reasonably linked to something specific to the character in the spotlight at the time. Maybe it could be tightened up a bit, but I'm not sure the effort would be profitable in the end.
 
Anzer'ke said:
While the thread is open and active, I'd like to ask people for their most brutal and honest opinions of the Lost arc.

I'm still not sure whether, whenever I return to this story, I will scrap it or not.

So opinions would help a lot. Was it just filler? Was character stuff enough to make it worth reading? etc etc
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Not particularly brutal (and it's been awhile since I read it obviously), but I remember enjoying it a lot while I was going through it. It was good to see the various perspectives and like others I appreciated the slower pace after the climax of the previous series.
 
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