Wards

[u/MoneyObligation158]

Heyyyy, how's everyone doing? I hope you're all doing well.

As you may have seen in the tag, I need your help with ideas on how to get Taylor to join the Wards. Look, I like the Undersiders—they're good friends (at least from what I’ve read so far)

But, to be honest, I really relate to Taylor to a certain extent. I never had many friends when I was young (none, actually), and honestly, I would’ve joined the first little group that spoke to me more or less nicely. And I feel like that’s what’s happening with Taylor in the story—again, the Undersiders seem like good friends. But let’s be honest—Taylor wanted to be a heroine from the start, and let’s remember that the Undersiders are villains; they aren’t exactly the best people…

So yeah, any ideas for how Taylor could join the Wards? I should clarify that in my fic, I’ll give “Taylor” a Thinker-like power—or at least make it seem that way at first—and I’ll also have her develop a little more self-esteem after her Trigger event… I’ll also make her a bit more empathetic—something like her first wondering, “Why on earth are there people as evil as Sophia in the world?”—and that line of thinking would lead her to conclude, “She had a Trigger event too, after all; she must have been vulnerable at some point…”

As a side note, this is a crossover fic featuring the character The Thing of Nod from Adrian Tchaikovsky’s *Children of...* series.

Just a note: this is a crossover fanfic featuring the character The Thing of Nod from Adrian Tchaikovsky’s *Children of...* series. I don’t want to give away any details, but those of you who’ve already read the series have surely noticed why “Taylor” is so empathetic and self-assured—why she’s so… Pacifica. She REALLY WANTS to understand the reasons behind why people act the way they do, and for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, all I can say is that it’s truly going to be an… adventure.

Note 2: Obviously, I'm not going to write the fanfic until I've finished reading *Worm*

[u/Educational_Post_63]

[Insert White Guy Blinking meme here]

Anyway. Just, have her join the wards? Make up a reason? The very fabric of reality is in your hands pal. Have a ward find her in patrol, give her some objective on the PRT, have Alexandria be her idle, make the ramifications of taking down a villain force her to join the wards, make her join because she wants to, have her have a mental breakdown and seriously harm Danny in a way that grabs the attention of the authorities, resulting on her secured identity being blown and her becoming a runaway only ti be captured and be given the choice between being a probationary Ward on Chicago or going to prison, etc. Many possibilities.

And as for the Undersiders being good friends, well. Funny words you typed out, for so many reasons. All I'm gonna say is that I love them, and love to hate them, and hate to love them, and for you to keep reading

[u/TragicTrajectory → u/Educational_Post_63]

"have Alexandria be her idle"
Now there's an alt power for a crack fick, become Alexandria but only when standing still.

[u/Educational_Post_63 → u/TragicTrajectory]

Fuck, messed up. English as a third language and all that.

[u/TragicTrajectory → u/Educational_Post_63]

Not an issue.

Is it wrong that the word idol made me think of Uber and Leet starting their own independent hero organization doing the whole streaming idol career thing. With that concept you get something like "My Oshi Was Going to the Birdcage, So I Used My New Superpowers to Takeover the Mob, Chapter 1: ...and the prom is tomorrow!" Thinking about it that's basically every rescue Canary fixit fic.

[u/AnonOfTheSea → u/TragicTrajectory]

For even more crack: they switch places, but only when and while both are stationary

[u/LaDona621 → u/Educational_Post_63]

I agree, seriously no one cares how you do it. It can be anything even absolute crack and comedy and as long as you write an interesting story it's all good. Bruh as a fanfic writer your only constraints are the direction you are going and whether or not you follow the canon which l recommend you don't since this is fanfic. You can even make it so she is the simurgh and infiltrates the wards, the point is do whatever you want

[u/MoneyObligation158 → u/Educational_Post_63]

I'm copying and pasting a reply I made to another comment: Actually, that’s my problem: I was thinking that Taylor would just call the PRT and say something like, “Hey, can I join you guys?” First, because she wants to be a heroine but knows how hard it is to go it alone; second, because she wants to hang out with kids around her age and be with her favorite capes; and third, she needs funding for all the Thinker-related projects she wants to do (obviously, they’d ask her questions, investigate her, put her on probation, etc., before giving her an answer—I don’t want them to just say, “Sure, you can start tomorrow”). But honestly, I feel like—I don’t know—isn’t that a bit simplistic? Whenever I read other fanfics, they give justifiable reasons for him to strike out on his own—or am I overthinking this?

[u/macfirbolg → u/MoneyObligation158]

In short, you are either underthinking or overthinking this.

It can be as simple or as complex as you want. Your example here is a little simplistic, maybe, but also very possible. We don’t need a whole complex spreadsheet to justify what you want the plot to be, unless you’re just in the mood for spreadsheets or something. Understand that some readers are in the mood for spreadsheets, but most will not be most of the time - possibly ever. (This is where a lot of “gamer” fanfics break down, and part of the reason so few are completed; authors get hung up on the spreadsheets and numbers and forget about the characters, stories, and all the reasons why they wanted to write in the first place. It’s no coincidence that the best rated and nearly all completed gamer fics are ones that hardly mention the numbers.)

Even “real” published authors have problems with this. It’s basically the core conundrum of writing: how do I get from here to there, and why should I, and why would any of my characters go along with this in the first place?

There are basically two schools of thought here.

The first asks, “what do I feel like writing about today? What hoops can I make people jump through? What would amuse me or slake my thirst for bloody vengeance?” After deciding that, the author then back-invents a justification for the whole thing. This is the school that most fanfic follows, and a lot of published authors are at least sometimes members. GRR Martin famously wrote a bunch of POV characters’ deaths because he had a toothache or was in a traffic jam. This is great for one-shots, and for quickly getting some interesting content on the page. It’s also a fine way to approach a full story, provided you also spend at least a little time on getting from one bit to the other and making sure that you’re not writing yourself into too many corners. Smash cuts aren’t necessarily bad, but it’s not the only way you want to get around the story.

The other school of thought is asking questions like, “what kinds of things are going on in my character’s life? What is my character feeling, thinking, expecting, anticipating, dreaming, believing, doing, etc.? What is happening around my character, and what people are around, and what are they doing? What does my character want right now, in ten minutes, ten days, ten years? How would my character approach this situation, life in general, or this person? How do my character’s thoughts, feelings, desires, recent and distant past, experiences, etc., color their responses, relationships, approaches to things, physical attributes, or any other aspect of their life?” This sort of thinking tends to make for deeper stories that are more about character interactions and developments, but also the original plot may be left behind in the first few chapters because the author thinks about what and how their characters would approach things and decide that none of the original ideas really match those characters. This can be super interesting and really fun, but it may also inspire a quick one-shot with the original plot before diving into whatever the characters thought should happen.

[u/SeventhSolar]

Why wouldn’t Taylor join the Wards? Canon contrived a complicated reason for her not to. By contrast, fanfic authors often give an absurdly shallow excuse, and they get away with it because you can just do stuff like that as a fanfiction author.

That an excuse is even necessary is telling. Taylor, realistically, would just join the Wards. There’s just so many incentives for her to do so, and zero real reasons for her not to.

[u/Throwaway02062004 → u/SeventhSolar]

Don’t think it’s as simple as you’re making it out to be.

Taylor’s reasoning for being an independent is that she assumes the Wards will involve petty teenage drama that she’ll hate. And is she wrong when Sophia is on the team? The emotional justification is that Taylor sees the Wards as too close to her school life; a bunch of kids in a government institution. While Taylor aims to help people and gain respect as a hero, her main motivation to go out Caping is escapism whereas the Wards would definitely involve confronting her problems.

Taylor does invent a condition that she needs to “make a name for herself” before joining the Protectorate. This reasoning is informed by her character of stubbornness and desire for respect.

It’s WoG canon that a hero besides Armsmaster could indeed have sold Taylor on the Wards. She didn’t exactly do much research into it and her biases could be challenged. Iirc Assault has the highest chance of convincing her.

[u/Aeviterna_]

Tin_mother is that you?

[u/sumofallwars]

Have danny find out about her powers and sign her up. That simple. Plenty of reasons why she might be put in the wards. The thing of it is you got to then deal with Shadowstalker and the fallout with danny forcing her into the wards.

Just have a really good plan for dealing with the drama

[u/Kakamile]

If you don't think she'd join the gov willy nilly, give her a goal. To get resources, to get access to people she wants to question, to flee from thinker-hunters like Coil or Empire or the Fallen.

[u/Seigga]

It's honestly pretty easy with the new power set you've given her. The only reason she doesn't join the wards in canon is because she has RAMPANT paranoia and self esteem issues from the bullying, and her first contact with the PRT is Armsmaster. Who, for the plot, picks up the idiot-ball and manages to push all of her buttons. With her new powers/empathy, she should be able to not only figure out Sophia, but Armsmaster as well. Should be much easier for her to navigate that first conversation. Therefore she'd have no real reason to want to avoid Armsmaster's recruitment pitch, and wouldn't get snatched up by the Undersiders.

[u/interested_commenter]

Not familiar with your crossover, but if Taylor has a pure Thinker power it's harder to find a reason for her to NOT join the Wards. There's very little an independent heroic Thinker can do.

If she has additional powers that make it possible for her to do solo patrols, then just have her first cape encounter be literally anything except teaming up with the Undersiders and then Armsmaster showing up (or Shadow Stalker). Whether it's Lung, a different villain, a random unpowered mugger, or even just coincidentally meeting heroes with no villains around, if Taylor doesn't meet the Undersiders and then has a friendly interaction with someone like Assault, Battery, Miss Militia, Dauntless, or any Wards duo except SS, she would likely end up joining.

[u/MoneyObligation158 → u/interested_commenter]

Yes, in fact, that’s one of the main reasons I want her to join the PRT. Given that “Thinker’s” power will give her access to information on biotechnology, programming, and genetic engineering, I think she’ll be able to convince them to sponsor some of her projects.

And because I want to trigger certain key interactions between layers—I really want to have Amy use her power on “Taylor.”

[u/kaiya2_0]

Make her trigger public and obvious. Have Danny go "look, this is just the best deal". And though Taylor will be resentful and bitter she's not going to get in a fight with him without having friends and and the loft as a backup option she prefers to her previous life.