History Fanfic / MaulingSnarks

* OffscreenTeleportation: A snark uses this to move the PRT's paperwork around where it needs to go. [[spoiler: The culprit turns out to be Doormaker]].

** Averted with Sarah Pelham (Lady Photon) and Sarah [[spoiler: Manton's daughter (The Siberian)]].

* PoorCommunicationKills: [[spoiler: Taylor is eventually authorized to execute a kill order on Echidna, and proceeds to do so, but the higher-ups were not informed that the executor was a Ward/minor until after it was done, and after both Taylor and Amy were badly traumatized.]]

Mauling Snarks is a ''Worm'' fanfiction written by [[https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/members/cmptrwz.17844/ CmptrWz]] and posted on [[https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/mauling-snarks-worm.41471/reader Sufficient Velocity]], that follows Taylor's new life as a cape with the power to communicate with and influence other powers, which it calls snarks, as well as the power to project blunt force.

As of March 13th, 2020, the fic is now complete [[DoorStopper with 312 chapters, and is approximately]] ''[[DoorStopper 1.6 million words long.]]''

** A fugue between ''a majority of heroic Tinkers in the U.S. and Canada'' led to [[spoiler: a way to neutralize persistent Master effects, and thus a way to fix Simurgh containment zones]].

* SuperheroPackingHeat: Maul and Vista, with permission, eventually get cleared for firearms usage to interact with her powers. Vista can [[{{Roboteching}} curve her shots]], while Maul can project the kinetic force of the spinning bullet sideways and effectively give each bullet ''SplashDamage''.

** The PRT deliberately avoids telling Wards about certain aspects of the job, like access to key classes, access to the garage, and certain secret passages in the building, in order to encourage them to ask the right questions instead of waiting for information to be given to them. Besides, it's all there in the PRT informational app; they just need to [[ReadTheFreakingManual look it up]].

* DullSurprise: The Hebert and Dallon families have been through so much weirdness that suddenly seeing escapees from a supermax prison on their doorstep warrants nothing more than mild curiosity. Miss Militia is much the same, and when asked about her non-reaction, replies that compared to learning that Slaughterhouse Nine, the most infamous group of serial killers around, are actually the good guys, this barely registers on her radar.

* ExactWords: When trying to discourage Aisha, Director Piggot tells her that getting tinker fugue biological enhancements drastically increases her chances of running into members of the [[TheDreaded Slaughterhouse Nine]]. Completely horrified, Aisha immediately gives up on this idea. What she doesn't know is that the Nine are actually the good guys and Bonesaw is one of the people ''making'' these enhancements.

* FlippingTheBird: Taylor's first official photo as AntiHero Maul has her flip off the camera. Armsmaster suggests something a bit less offensive.

* MegatonPunch: [[spoiler: Vicky]] ends up delivering one to Taylor when she admits that she had previously shut off her powers. If Taylor wasn't enhanced, the blow would've killed her, and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone hearing that fact isn't pretty]].

* BadPowersGoodPeople: Slaughterhouse Nine have powers that drive them to murder and violence, which is something they can't really stop, so much as take out their urges on the criminals who arguably [[PayEvilUntoEvil have it coming]] and try to minimize collateral damage. Even outside their villainous identities they try to do good: Jack Slash is a renowned therapist, Bonesaw is a medic who both heals injuries and grants enhancements, and Shatterbird is a Protectorate hero.

** [[spoiler: Doormaker and the Clairvoyant]] use their powers to deliver the PRT's paperwork (and also Troll a lot of people).
** Burnscar practices with her powers by making barbecue.
** [[spoiler: Contessa using Path to Victory in order to make sure (initially at least, still only partway through the story right now) every rainbow rosebush that Panacea makes is properly fed and watered just to make sure that the plant she'd long ago made an idle wish existed had come about even though she hadn't run the path that her power provided to result in that very thing.]]

* BaitAndSwitch: Taylor was expecting Armsmaster to be upset when he hears that [[spoiler: Squealer]] approached her to [[HeelFaceTurn defect]], due to having difficulty with her powers. He is, but it's because of the PRT not being approachable enough with capes with those kind of difficulties.

* GargleBlaster: The Palanquin apparently serves one, with Essence of Newter.

* ArtificialLimbs: [[spoiler: Amy]] gets a Tinker bud with a specialty in prosethics and implants. This comes in handy when [[spoiler: Dauntless]] loses his feet during [[spoiler: Leviathan's attack on Boston]].

* ArtificialLimbs: [[spoiler: Amy]] gets a Tinker bud with this as a specialty. This comes in handy when [[spoiler: Dauntless]] loses his feet during [[spoiler: Leviathan's attack on Boston]].

* GrowsOnTrees: With a little bio-tweaking, a plant to grow cubes of carbon and even carbon nanotubes is soon developed. Though it's still in the experimental phases.

* ExactWords: Missy gets a chance for Taylor to answer one question, so she asks her if there is an easy way to bypass the list of requirements to apply for a tinker fugue. Taylor answers "Yes".

** In one of their outings, Slaughterhouse Nine destroy a bunch of buildings, but deliberately leave the one with a knitting club inside untouched. The members of PHO message board confusedly wonder what's going on, with one theory being that the Siberian knits and thus doesn't want to destroy the club. Over a ''hundred'' chapters later, the Siberian starts knitting during another outing.

* PayEvilUntoEvil: [[spoiler: When Sophia ends up escaping prison, she runs into the Nine, and Bonesaw proceeds to put an experimental Bluetooth device in her brain. An ''[[KryptoniteFactor electrical]]'' Bluetooth device.]]

* ARareSentence: When Taylor pays a visit to the Boston Wards, she never expected to hear that Brockton Bay is among the top 10 ''safest'' cities in New England.

* TheAllegedCar: Brian ends up getting one from a dealer and mechanic that turned out to be an Empire 88 front. [[spoiler: Thanks to her Tinker snark]], Taylor has to visibly restrain herself from fixing it once she sees everything wrong with it. Wrench Wraith/[[spoiler:the former Squealer]] invokes the trope by name.
* TheCallHasBadReception:
** Turns out to be the case for [[spoiler: Case 53s who were given experimental power vials. The snarks were never told how to connect to humans properly, so the snarks end up mutating the host body when establishing those warped connections.]]
** [[spoiler: When Taylor is kidnapped by Trickster, being locked in a nearly-airtight steel box causes her to Second-Trigger. Or it ''would have'', except Taylor is linked not only to Broadcast Administrator but also Shaper and Understanding, Maintenance and Repair, which have different Trigger conditions than BA. Also, she's linked to Amy through BA and Shaper, and ''she'' isn't undergoing Trigger conditions. The attempts, however, leave both girls unconscious with brain damage.]]
* TheDreaded:
** The Nine are this purely from their reputation, as in canon.
** Taylor soon grows into this, after she proceeds to [[spoiler: show off a SplashDamage bullet trick that upgrades her to Blaster ''9'', and talks down Eidolon after he tried messing with her, and demonstrates the ability to drain, weaken, and even ''remotely kill'' parahumans]].

* ThePrankster: Taylor has garnered a penchant for pranks, especially when she found out she can do them legally with the right paperwork.
** One example involves Lisa, who has to retake several school tests due to hacked school records, and Taylor suggests a form that allows her to do it all digitally. Lisa takes a while to go looking for the form before she realizes Taylor made that up. Which she should have known, because she'd told Brian that the schools hadn't digitized when ''he'' was taking those tests.
** Another example is putting a lock on a door, so that someone with a lower security clearance (in this case Assault) can't get through it. It takes him calling a few technicians before he finally asks to open the door. And the security cameras recorded it for posterity.
** Then there are the directional duck speakers, and everything she uses them for.
** At a conference in Las Vegas, there is a challenge to see who can hack a lucky draw machine without being caught. Taylor puts up a few funny results thanks to her mental Bluetooth connection and [[spoiler: her new Tinker power]].
** Later on, it transpires that Taylor's example has caused ''Contessa'' to develop an equal penchant for pranks. [[spoiler: One of her pranks accidentally sparks off a CUI civil war. Even Contessa isn't sure how that happened.]]

* ExactWords:
** Missy gets a chance for Taylor to answer one question, so she asks her if there is an easy way to bypass the list of requirements to apply for a tinker fugue. Taylor answers "Yes".

* {{Expy}}: Five of the PRT's power testing scientists are named Whitney, Franklin, Masaru, Paul, and Elizabeth. Now, look up the middle names of the Series/{{Mythbusters}}.

* FuelMeterOfPower: A few snarks that Taylor meets are "hungry", all of whom are [[spoiler: Cauldron powers]]. Taylor eventually figures out a way to get Grue's snark, which absorbs light and energy, to feed them.
** Some of them, like Gallant's and [[spoiler: Eidolon's]], actually get mental fuel gauges after Taylor talks to them.

* {{Hammerspace}}: With a little prodding from Taylor, Missy learns how to create long-lasting hyperspace pockets. She applies them to Taylor's jacket, so she can carry her weapons, their {{Utility Belt}}s, and even their suitcases.
** Since the one in Taylor's jacket was for her maul, it was ''literally'' a hammerspace.

* MagneticHero: As shown under HeelFaceTurn, Taylor has made a lot of new recruitments; in fact, she's made more in the last few months than most other PRT or Protectorate members do in years.
** She's already received her second recruiting bonus, when most Protectorate members never earn their ''first''.

* OneSteveLimit: Averted with Sarah Pelham (Lady Photon) and Sarah [[spoiler: Manton's daughter (The Siberian)]].

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness:
** Everyone is taken aback when the Slaughterhouse Nine actually uphold the Endbringer Truce and Crawler and Mannequin actively go to a rallying point to join in the fight.

* ReadTheFreakingManual: Thanks to Jacob, Taylor is the first Ward in ages to actually look through the PRT's phone app to see everything it has available, from finding all the available amenities like gyms and junkyards, to all the classes and courses she can take.

* ShipTease: Virtually the entire population of Arcadia High believe that Amy and Taylor are a serious couple.
** [[spoiler: Scion asked Amy and Taylor to invite him to their wedding.]]

*** Then later, while communicating with [=L33t=]'s snark, [[spoiler: she and Amy try to connect with it to try and calm it down after it suffers a FreakOut, and the resulting backlash (and Broadcast Administrator and Shaper's machinations) somehow connects both girls to ''both'' snarks, giving each of them a PsychicLink with the other, ''all'' of the other's powers, ''and'' a Tinker snark bud each to boot.]]

*** Later, [[spoiler: her husband Kurt takes a similar vial-snark]] and becomes a Case 53 with a Tinker power specialising in alcohol consumption and modification.

* TheCallHasBadReception: Turns out to be the case for [[spoiler: Case 53s who were given experimental power vials. The snarks were never told how to connect to humans properly, so the snarks end up mutating the host body when establishing those warped connections.]]

** One example involves Lisa, who has to retake several school tests due to hacked school records, and Taylor suggests a form that allows her to do it all digitally. Lisa takes a while to go looking for the form before she realizes Taylor made that up.
*** Which she should have known, because she'd told Brian that the schools hadn't digitized when ''he'' was taking those tests.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: Absolutely averted. Jacob is one of the PRT's most acclaimed cape therapists there is. Jessica Yamada also counts.
** With how much her powers communicate with both people and snarks, Taylor is slowly shaping up to be one.

* VastBureaucracy: Zigzagged (but overall averted) by the PRT. On the one hand, internal logistics and clerical errors kept users from accessing important documents as they were secured at too high security levels. On the other hand, once this error is pointed out, it is resolved quickly and efficiently, and the PRT network is actually very comprehensive once you know how to navigate it. Wards can sign up for firearms courses with permission and even request for security clearance upgrades, there are forms for parahumans with less public-friendly powers to register as {{Anti Hero}}es, and there are even forms for playing pranks.

* BrickJoke: Taylor saying that she would be [[spoiler: kidnapped from her bedroom after recruiting Squealer/Wrench Wraith. Which turns out to be true after Trickster kidnaps her in his interlude.]]

** A fugue between ''[[UpToEleven a majority of heroic Tinkers in the U.S. and Canada]]'' led to [[spoiler: a way to neutralize persistent Master effects, and thus a way to fix Simurgh containment zones]].

* TakeAThirdOption: What happens when Taylor is trapped with Quarrel in a pocket dimension that'll only let her out if someone dies, knowing that killing Quarrel would mean becoming the Butcher herself? [[spoiler:Kill the Butcher shard instead!]]

** [[spoiler: Leviathan, Behemoth, and Simurgh all named as well - Margaret, Gordon, and Elizabeth respectively. There are also several other Boojums/Endbringers/Conflict Engines: Helvetica, Clive, and Rin (Emulation, Barrier, and Stealth respectively), with Helvetica implied to be Tohu. Gordon's first interlude (aptly titled '?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?' also reveals the existence of three others: Akseline, Cheng, and Jørgen.)]]