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Transposition, or: Ship Happens [Worm/Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio | Arpeggio of Blue Steel]

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So, basically among the Worm readership the majority response is "PHO segments are okay to insert, provided they are done right". What "right" is, though, varies from reader to reader. And there is a small portion of readers that simply don't like PHO segments at all. As your post clearly states you have already settled in including a PHO segment, you can count on those who don't like them complaining loudly and repeatedly.

The example Mr. runes posted works only in a Kaiser interlude, for example, but not as a straight PHO segment or interlude of its own. So it might not be a good example of a "generic PHO segment done right".
 
Don't do a PHO interlude just for the sake of having one. Have an interlude because there is something the story gains by having a PHO interlude that it needs. Ask yourself what the PHO interlude is doing to push the story forward. If you don't have an answer then it probably isn't a good decision to have one. Also have the interlude from someone specifics perspective. Who are they? Why are they reading this? How does showing them read this further the plot?

In canon it was from Gregs perspective. Showed the general state of the city from the perspective of a normal person. It pushed the story forward by having him piece together the clues together about Taylor being skitter and set his later actions in motion leading to Taylor being outed at Arcadia.

GlowWorm was from several perspectives but teased bits about multiple new characters that would be important in Worm, and communicated what has been happening in the multiverse since Worm ended.

Answer those questions for yourself and then most of the rest will fall be much easier to put together.
 
My two cents is to instead do a series of "reaction snippets" if that's what you want. Have three characters from Brockton Bay - say Miss Militia, Armsmaster, and Battery - talking about what they are seeing. They're writing up the "heroic parahuman briefing" that Colin will have to take to Piggot. Then jump to someone else. Say Uber and Leet. They're deep into the media bubble so they're talking about how PHO is blowing up. Combine that with them having gotten better readings on Relentless from their definitely-not-a-Deathwing-ripoff surveillance and you've got something unique for them to talk about. And how they are soooooo glad they've relocated to the west coast.

.. wait, if she can make boats she can reach the west coast .. I hear Denver is nice this time of year ..

It gets across some of the points you seem to want to cover without diving headlong into tinfoil hat, xxVoidCowboy, or having to write something that looks like a forum discussion.
 
Darth Thanatos said:
...And you seem to forget the first thing she actually built was a jet plane. Nowhere is safe.
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No, I don't. What you are missing is that not all characters know everything. Last I checked Uber and Leet know about Relentless being dangerous and the boats. They don't know about the plane-slash-spacecraft. Thus they won't think about that when they are thinking of places to hide from a potentially upset Relentless.
 
Darth Thanatos said:
...And you seem to forget the first thing she actually built was a jet plane. Nowhere is safe.
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Still relevant but way away from the current topic, was the space fighter based off of anything in AoBS or was that just made up for the story? I seem to remember FOG planes (and hence carriers) not being all that great (for a fog vessel) because they were too small to employ wave armor or the more exotic weapons. Am I misremembering or just misinformed? Just trying to figure out if I missed something from AoBS or if it's an element introduced to make the crossover work.
 
I have a question. Will Taylor break the paradigm? Right now she's... recovering, re-discovering patterns that existed before her... But will she make something new? Or it'll be all the same?
Because Fog only fixated on WW2 vessels because it appeared on the Earth in 1945. Fog agents copied that which was at the time the pinnacle of war technology (warships and submarines) and stayed content with it because it was only visual appearance.
Here there is exactly ZERO reason to stick to that pattern. Fog is not "inherently connected" with marine theme and Taylor should have her own ideas on the most appropriate form.
 
Viper5delta said:
Still relevant but way away from the current topic, was the space fighter based off of anything in AoBS or was that just made up for the story? I seem to remember FOG planes (and hence carriers) not being all that great (for a fog vessel) because they were too small to employ wave armor or the more exotic weapons. Am I misremembering or just misinformed? Just trying to figure out if I missed something from AoBS or if it's an element introduced to make the crossover work.
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There are planes in Arpeggio but they're all (externally) copies of ww2 planes. As for the reason they were bad was because the planes when flying seperate from the carrier(you know, like a carrier based plane is supposed to do) the Core which was still in the carrier couldn't deploy Wave Force Armor on them. Which when combined with this being before the Cores of the Fog became Mental Models and thus fighting like stupid RTS bots the human forces all but roflstomped them.

So the Fog reacted to this by turning carriers into Assault and Suppression Vessels. Basically the missile boat to end all missile boats and they also happen to be able to fly.

As for being too small to use WFA, no. We see Cores without any nanomaterial unable to use WFA and needing to be rescued. On the other hand we see Kirishima in a large teddy bear sized body(80cm in height maybe? Something like that.) using WFA. So a plane which is easily in the 10m+ range with the accompanying several 100kg nanomaterial could easily make WFA. There was just something about the planes flying separately that prevented the Fog from using WFAs on them.
 
TheQwertyOne said:
I have a question. Will Taylor break the paradigm? Right now she's... recovering, re-discovering patterns that existed before her... But will she make something new? Or it'll be all the same?
Because Fog only fixated on WW2 vessels because it appeared on the Earth in 1945. Fog agents copied that which was at the time the pinnacle of war technology (warships and submarines) and stayed content with it because it was only visual appearance.
Here there is exactly ZERO reason to stick to that pattern. Fog is not "inherently connected" with marine theme and Taylor should have her own ideas on the most appropriate form.
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Well, she did make a high performance aerospace craft, so there's that.

EDIT: Also, thanks for clearing that up @Alayne
 
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PHO

1. What i have seen done: PHO thread in RP section, and author takes or rewrites from there. Probably works better for short drop-in sections, than dedicated PHO segment.

What i think good use of PHO segments:
2. Worlbuilding - when PHO provides information that not available to protag's PoV, or unlikely be his focus.

3. Advancing the story from different PoV - when we see (hear of) character actions that was not covered by main PoV.

Most importantly:
4. If you want to make reaction chapter but don't have inspiration for multiple people reacting - it's far better to summarize and move on, than be anxious about it.
 
I've personally never understood the hate of PHO interludes. Done poorly, yeah, they can be pretty aggravating, especially when people try to get all clever and start fellating their meta-knowledge cocks a bit too much, but that said, that's a shortcoming of all written stories, and not PHO interludes specifically. Done well, I think they can make for a couple good laughs and help to flesh out the world a bit.
As far as whether or not it would be a good idea to do a PHO thread for the next chapter, I'd say it's question of "Is it covering events that are relevant to the story, but not important enough to warrant an entire chapter to cover?"
 
NemotheUnknown said:
I've personally never understood the hate of PHO interludes.
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Let me break it down for you:
NemotheUnknown said:
Done poorly, yeah, they can be pretty aggravating, especially when people try to get all clever and start fellating their meta-knowledge cocks a bit too much
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That's why people usually dislike them.

It's just that while that can happen in any part of any fic, the default nature of a forum is to react to things, so there's a higher chance of getting dross.
 
I've seen hilarious PHO segments, I've seen forgettable ones, and I've seen ones that I just had to skip past. That last in particular was, as I recall, drawn from an RP thread...with very little editing. It was long. It was many pages long.

I'd say that if you're going to include such a segment, keep it constrained. Snippets from fictional threads, rather than a 300-post conversation in its entirety. A page or two from one of the ongoing topics in the Bay, then move onto another. Things like...fallout from Lung's escape, What Happened To All That Junk, mysterious business interests moving into the Bay, and whatever new information you can come up with that's difficult to work in organically otherwise.

But with that said...if the muse isn't striking, there's no iron-clad law saying A Worm Fic Must Have A PHO Segment. If it's not flowing, if you don't like the way it's going, skip it and do a different form of interlude.
 
If doing a PHO segment is too trying, how about doing a segment from the PoV of a single person? If you're looking to do a reaction to the Boat Graveyard missing (for example), then a segment from the PoV of the PRT and the Protectorate investigating it would be fine.
 
One of the best PHO segments Ive read took place while everything was falling apart. The numbers of posters started low, and dropped lower as Leviathan was subtly foreshadowed. It ends with Bagrat asking "is anyone still here?" with no response. The sense of foreboding and isolation being conveyed through a PHO post of all things was frankly incredible.

But that was one of the best, and its a shame I forgot what story it came from. Frankly, as long as it advances the plot in some way and isn't cringy, character wank reaction BS a PHO segment is generally OK in my books. But I doubt Ensou would put something like that out considering how stellar her writing generally is.
 
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RDJ said:
One of the best PHO segments Ive read took place while everything was falling apart. The numbers of posters started low, and dropped lower as Leviathan was subtly foreshadowed. It ends with Bagrat asking "is anyone still here?" with no response. The sense of foreboding and isolation being conveyed through a PHO post of all things was frankly incredible.

But that was one of the best, and its a shame I forgot what story it came from. Frankly, as long as it advances the plot in some way and isn't cringy, character wank reaction BS a PHO segment is generally OK in my books. But I doubt Ensou would put something like that out considering how stellar her writing generally is.
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Ah, that was the one where Taylor was Magneto's granddaughter, I believe.
 
I don't mind PHO segment as long as they're used well. Mostly, they can be useful to establish how much the public is aware of and its general leaning. Good for quick and dirty background establishment, not that great for plot progression.
 
There is, AFAIK, one story that starts with PHO, and uses it to tell the story up to a point, in which normal prose takes the reins. More or less.

It's called "Working as intended" and it basically has Taylor triggering as a cape with the ability to change other capes' powers and appearance. The changes happen when she publishes a "patch notes" post in PHO.
 
Darth Thanatos said:
...And you seem to forget the first thing she actually built was a jet plane. Nowhere is safe.
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Wait... i just got this crazy idea, she got the space-plane (she can go to the space as she dont need air for the engines, they use gravity) she could just take it and go around the world flying match *moarh* and drop some little highballs (bouncing bomb) of nanomaterial on the rest of shipgraveyards of the world and maybe contaminated places after Behemoth and do more nanomaterials for the Bet-Fog

Will extradimensional Fog loging in PHO like in one of the Omakes?
 
Segev said:
This is one of those I am very sad seems to be dead. It was fun and interesting, and seemed to be building to something.
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My favourite part of that is that there was a poster in the story calling Admin out for being kind of a monster (what with the horror inherent in a capricious and unknown entity altering something fundamental to a person's identity for kicks) at the same time as someone IRL doing the same thing. Both IRL and in story they got more or less the same reaction (people getting pissy that someone was pooh-poohing all the fun) despite the fact that they were 100% correct. I just loved the synchronicity.

... That being said this isn't that thread. Probably shouldn't have posted this, just wanted to gush about how good it was in a meta way.
 
Now how did I ever miss this gem?

So little days and action actually happened in story, yet it feels like the actual days were passing and so much has happened.

Wonderful work.
 
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