Fanfic / Hope Comes to Brockton Bay

Hope Comes to Brockton Bay is a Worm fanfic by ack1308 on FanFiction.Net (here) and SpaceBattles.com (thread 1, thread 2, thread 3). An expurgated version, lacking some of the tropes below, can be found on Sufficient Velocity.com (thread 1, thread 2, thread 3). The full version is 127 chapters long.

Approximately one week after Leviathan hits Brockton Bay, there is a newcomer to town. Her name is Hope, and she's definitely Not From Around Here. As time goes on, she becomes influential in more and more people's lives, and more good things start to happen than bad.

Hope has come to Brockton Bay.

Beware spoilers for canon!

---

These tropes have come to Brockton Bay:

A-E

• Adaptational Sexuality: Amy discovers that she is bisexual after meeting Newter, and, while Lisa is asexual but without her powers would otherwise be straight, here she's in a lesbian three-way with Hope and Amy.
• All for Nothing: In the best possible way; After their massacre of Fenrir's Chosen for killing Shatterbird (and moreso for the barefaced cheek to display her head on a spike for all to see, mocking them), The Slaughterhouse Nine went to the trouble of letting Bonesaw have her wicked way with several of the still alive bodies to create a gruesome monument to those that disrespect them. Not hours later, Amy comes along and completely undoes all her handiwork. Jack Slash is not impressed.
• Amoral Attorney:
  • Alan Barnes was bad enough in canon, but here in chapter 90 he hires a photographer to try and get incriminating shots of Taylor.
    District attorney: He's a divorce lawyer, and he knows all the tricks, and he's got the morals of ... let's just say, I don't actually like the man.
  • Subverted with Quinn Calle, who indirectly admits that he's only handling Emma and Madison's case because of the money rather than any actual support of them.
    • Not in My Contract: He steps down as their lawyer after Alan Barnes tries to urge him to out Taylor as a cape, which would be breaking the law.
• Anger Born of Worry: Lisa is quite upset with Hope for getting swallowed and almost killed by Noelle.
  Lisa: You idiot! If you got killed ...
• Anti-Air: The "Airspace Denial Unit" used in a bank robbery can identify any flyers over a certain size, track them, and riddle them with minigun fire.
• Anti-Regeneration: Amy slows down Crawler's healing by making his own body fight against it. She can't stop him healing entirely, but it's enough for Bitch's dogs to savage him.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • Mannequin has two of his limbs torn off by Hope before Skitter kills him.
  • Menja loses an arm as a result of her battle with Crawler. Amy grows it back for her, in Chapter 54.
  • Averted: Armsmaster has the arm he lost to Leviathan grown back by Amy. He could be more grateful about it.
  • Accord literally loses an arm and a leg to Cody (Perdition) in chapter 123. Amy reattaches them.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Director Piggot questions Armsmaster about his actions during the Leviathan fight, and he insists that his treatment of villains was justified, until she asks, "What about Skitter?" and points how how Skitter saved his life even after he tried to have her killed. At which point he doesn't have an answer to give.
  Piggot: Explain that to me in terms of heroes and villains.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In chapter 110, Robin, who is a Time Master able to leverage it into Super-Speed and flight, thinks Legend's ability to make lasers turn corners is bullshit.
• Asleep for Days: Hope and Amy, as of Chapter 125. At the end of the chapter, Amy is still asleep.
• Back from the Dead:
  • An unnamed bystander (in Chapter 5), Kayden Anders (Purity), Rory Christner (Triumph) and Dr William Manton (Siberian), all courtesy of Hope. Accord joins the list in chapter 123, along with several unnamed capes.
  • In Chapter 124: Eden.
  • Dauntless, Jotun and Alabaster, courtesy of Citrine, as a favour to Hope.
  • In chapter 125 we learn that Amy was clinically dead after helping Hope resurrect Eden and it would have stuck if not for Riley. Though through inconvenient timing of Scion reclaiming the loose Shards it would appear that losing her powers was the price to pay.
    • Which makes Riley a Chekhov's Gunman.
• Badass Bystander: In chapter 87 Danny punches one of the Fallen's minions, distracting him long enough for Newter to attack.
  • An in disguise Othello and Citrine at the Homeless Shelter, which saves Tattletale and ends with a very dead Coil.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: Mark Dallon sees Carol packing a suitcase, to storm out and stay with her sister, and he insists that "You can't do it this way." Then he proceeds to repack the clothes neatly.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Hope and Amy are starting to form this with Lisa.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Almost nothing can stick to Hope's skin, so after a fight, she doesn't have any grime, sweat or blood on her. Weld notes that that could actually cause her problems sometimes, since it can give people the impression that she never needs any help.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Falkor the Luck Dragon(fly) is larger than Taylor, and correspondingly disturbing to those who don't have her tolerance for bugs.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In chapter 69 Imp saves Regent from Shadow Stalker.
  • In chapter 123 Hope does this for Lisa against Cody.
• Blessed with Suck: Robin sees her power this way, because she was an adrenaline junky, and her subjective time slows down any time she gets up to a potentially dangerous speed in a car or aircraft; she also has to deal with a lot of boredom, since while she can effectively teleport to anywhere on Earth in everyone else's frame of reference, she experiences it as walking however many hundreds of miles at a normal pace.
• Body Horror: Bonesaw does this to the surviving Fenrir's Chosen in Chapter 41. This nearly drives Hope into a Break the Cutie moment, but Amy steps in.
• Boom, Headshot!:
  • Miss Militia snipes Hack Job — from behind, no less.
  • She also executes Jack Slash with a shot to the head.
  • Lisa takes a headshot at Coil, and later pulls off a variation of this using Accord's sword cane against Cody.
• Boring, but Practical: In Chapter 76, Amy creates relay bugs for Skitter, and she uses them ever since. They aren't flashy; all they do is sit there and extend her range but that in itself is a huge force multiplier. It's notable that these show up in nearly every Worm fic that has Amy and Taylor working together.
• Bothering by the Book: When Shadow Stalker complains about Hope flying above her first patrol, Weld responds by agreeing that as a team, they should stick together, and asks Hope to come inside their four-wheel drive, to Hope's dismay. Then he does the same for Kid Win. And Shadow Stalker herself, who hates having to stick with her teammates, but who can't afford to refuse a direct order without violating her probation.
  Weld: If Hope has to ride in the car, and Kid Win has to ride in the car, then you have to ride in the car.
• Brandishment Bluff: Everett scares off a pair of thugs threatening Taylor, using a "panic button" that's actually his car key fob.
• Bring My Brown Pants: In chapter 100 Hoskins wets himself after being dropped by Falkor at the Heberts'.
• Bulletproof Vest: Amy designs a set of spiders to produce a composite of silk and shear-thickening fluid, which will stop just about anything. The regular silk outer layer resists cutting or stabbing, and the inner fluid layer disperses the impact of bullets or other high speed projectiles. In Chapter 116, it's only after Miss Militia and Glory Girl are shot multiple times that it is shown that they are wearing Weaver-made spider-silk bodysuits under their costumes. They get away with heavy bruising.^note Real world tests of shear thickening fluid combined with kevlar have found it to be more effective than pure kevlar with much less weight, so this is plausible.
  • Understatement: "Remind me to commend Weaver on the quality of her work."
• Came Back Wrong: Downplayed; the downside of Hope's resurrection power is that the revived person is a bit less capable than before.
  • Shadow Stalker; her transport to the Birdcage is attacked by The Slaughterhouse Nine, and her attempts to save her own skin are recorded to further seal her doom. Her subsequent transport crashes after she has a (possibly broken) Second Trigger and comes out of it basically a Vampire with a really bad case of Horror Hunger.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Justified in chapter 123 because the talkers are the Siberian, an Omake-clone thereof - the former two have almost total Nigh-Invulnerability - and capes under their protective effect.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: In chapter 123 Scion only arrives after Behemoth has been killed.
• Chekhov's Gun: There are many.
  • The adjustable lights used to kill Shadow Stalker were revealed in Chapter 83, and finally used in Chapter 102.
  • Ketamine wasps are proposed in Chapter 79, created in Chapter 90, and used twice, in Chapters 100 and 101 respectively.
  • Newter hornets are revealed in Chapter 95, and used in Chapter 101.
  • Flash bugs are created in Chapter 79, and used in Chapter 82.
  • Bang bugs and glue bugs were introduced in Chapter 105 and used in Chapter 116.
  • Miss Militia's new scarf. Is demonstrated in Chapter 109; saves her life in Chapter 116.
  • Omake would count as a Chekhov's Gunman; she went through her change and then didn't do much that was important until Hope and Amy needed her assistance in dealing with the Butcher shard, for which she was ideally suited. Also, Behemoth.
  • In Chapter 95, Accord spoke with Citrine and Othello, after finding out about Hope's progress with the Hope Accord. They finally appeared back in the narrative in Chapter 116, saving Lisa from Coil - because she's helping Hope carry out Accord's plans. Citrine also helps free Dauntless, Jotun and Alabastar from the Time Bubble created by Bakuda's bomb.
  • Snow Tiger (previously known as the Siberian) would also be a Chekhov's Gunman. It comes into play in chapter 123, and again in Chapter 126.
  • The entire Brockton Bay Protectorate owe Hope for things she's done, with and without Amy's assistance. As does Director Piggot. Vista, Clockblocker and Flechette also feel obligated toward her. This probably counts as a Chekhov's Army. And that doesn't count the villains she's got on side.
  • It's repeatedly said that the way Danny tried to paint a skull on his motorcycle helmet visor in imitation of Grue makes him unable to see out of it when it's down. In chapter 86 the visor gets dislodged at the right time to save him from Valefor's power.
  • In Chapter 45, Contessa opens a Door for Hope. Hope asks if she can do that too. Contessa replies, "If we believe you have a need." In Chapter 122, Hope opens a Door to get the Travellers from Brockton Bay to New Delhi.
  • In the very first chapter, the Simurgh receives a message, momentarily freeing her from the Endbringers' compulsion to fight humanity and allowing her to pull Hope from her own world into Earth Bet. In Chapter 125, Lisa tells Eidolon to have the Simurgh send that damn message back in time before shutting down the Endbringers for good.
• Chirping Crickets: Inverted during Mayor Christner's speech, where thanks to Skitter, not only are the crickets silent during each pause, there's not even a buzzing fly.
• Coitus Uninterruptus: In chapter 124, Amy asks Noelle for a clone of herself while she's in the middle of having sex with Trickster. She complies, then tells them to go away so they can get back to it.
• Concealment Equals Cover: Discussed in chapter 97, where PRT troopers bring only sidearms rather than rifles so as to avoid accidentally penetrating walls and hitting bystanders.
• Conflicting Loyalty: In chapter 114 the Travellers are told that they have a way back to Earth Aleph. Jess can't decide if she wants to go home or stay on Earth Bet with Brian. She eventually chooses the latter.
  • Averted in Chapter 116 when Hope intercedes on her behalf.
• Coup de Grâce:
  • Mannequin is overpowered, restrained into helplessness, and given a painkiller, before finally being stabbed.
    She wasn't sure how she felt about this. On the one hand, it was murder. Pure, cold-blooded murder of a vanquished foe. But seen another way, it was an execution, a retribution for the deaths of so many others.
  • In chapter 123, an omake of Flechette uses Miss Militia's sword to finish Behemoth. Also counts as Defeat Equals Explosion and Sword over Head.
• Courtroom Episode: (actually covers episodes 99-105). The trial of Emma Barnes and Madison Clements.
  • Lured into a Trap: The entire trial is a trap for Shadow Stalker.
    • But at least she gets to do some Evil Gloating, and Backstabbing the Alpha Bitch before the One-Hit Kill takes place, all for the purpose of completely shredding the defendant's credibility.
• Creepy Cute: In-Universe, Amy and Hope have rather mixed feelings after witnessing William Manton, with some of his mental damage fixed, interacting with a more sane and stable version of the projection of his daughter.
  Hope: That was ... is there a word for really creepy and really sweet, at the same time?
• Crocodile Tears: Emma cries these in chapter 102 in an attempt to gain sympathy.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Kid Win becomes quite concerned when he hears a crunching sound and an aborted scream over Hope's radio. It's actually the sound of Stormtiger's poorly healed knee being re-broken so Hope can fix it properly. (Stormtiger refused pain relief for reasons of warrior honour.)
  Kid Win: What happened in there? I thought Hookwolf had brained you!
  Hope: I'll tell you later. Just ... never ask Hookwolf to assist with corrective surgery.
• Cuddle Bug: Hope hugs people whenever she can get away with it, and her wings just make it easier to enfold people.
  • Glory Girl is taken aback when she offers a handshake and it's used to pull her in.
    Hope: Silly Vicky. I don't just shake hands with my friends.
  • Skitter likes the hugs, but has to let the bugs out of her costume first so they don't get crushed.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Hope pulls one of these on the Slaughterhouse Nine with the assistance of the Undersiders, the Wards and Miss Militia, using a Contessa Path-To-Victory plan. The Siberian is killed by a combination of Kid Win, Tattletale and Skitter tracking down the van William Manton's in, forcing their way inside, and letting Skitter's venomous bugs and the Canon-Alexandria-Trick do their stuff. Hack Job gets 4 nice doses of Boom, Headshot! from Miss Militia's Sniper Rifle. Bonesaw is apprehended by Weld (who's mostly immune to anything she can throw at him) with some help from Grue (and though we don't know it at the time Imp). Cherish is tasered and mastered by Regent (Imp helped again) and told to get out of town or he'll make her "walk into traffic". Crawler has his Adaptive Ability and regen dampened by Amy and a Flechette crossbow bolt through the brain before Bitch's dogs go to town on him, eventually ripping out his brain, and with it the connection to his powers. Hope takes Jack out of the fight early on, stripping him of his blades one by one. Once he's disarmed, she has Amy neutralise his internal bio-plague failsafes and his Bonesaw upgrades. He has a Villainous Breakdown from all his plans falling apart, more so when Miss Militia enacts Judge, Jury, and Executioner and puts a bullet in the back of his head, dying on his knees like the Bitch he is. Slaughterhouse Nine casualties: All but Cherish. Cape casualties: Zero. And then Cherish is killed in a Backalley by Shadow Stalker.
  • Skitter pulls an even more brutal one from across town, while sitting in court, on the Teeth, using Amy's specialised bugs.
  • Saint and the Dragonslayers try to hijack the Dragon transport carrying Hope and Amy to New York, in Chapter 120. It does not go well.
  • In Chapter 123: Snow Tiger and an Omake-projection of same vs. Behemoth.
  • Chpt 126; Piggot, Gully and Marquis vs Nilbog and his subjects. Marquis beat most of them by himself.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Weld's durable metal body allows the Wards to get more creative with threats.
  "If you say no," growled Flechette, "I will shoot you in the middle of the forehead, with a metal arrow. So it makes you look like a unicorn, only stupider."
• David Versus Goliath: Skitter is hired to clean out a rat infestation, and the residents find it bizarre to watch a line of cockroaches marching out of the house afterward bearing rat corpses on their backs.
• Decapitation Presentation: Hookwolf and his Chosen take great pride in mounting Shatterbird's head on a pole — but it draws retaliation.
  But still ... a head on a pole. That was such a blatant challenge.
• Deleted Scene: All of the omake segments (containing most of the smut) on Questionable Questing have since been deleted by the author; Ack was starting to get hassle over the age of some of the participants in some of his other fics (regardless of what actually happened between them) and in trying to become a serious published author felt that this was a hot potato and potential career killer they really didn't need.
• De-power: In Chapter 125, we find out that this has happened to Panacea as a result of overclocking her power. Hope also loses her power to resurrect the dead doing the same thing.
  • In a funnier turn, it happens to Glastig Uaine when Scion & Eden reclaim all the currently unused shards, which means she loses her flock. While she's asleep. She promptly wakes up & throws a hissy fit.
  • Butcher, when Amy unplugs all of her extra powers.
• Despair Event Horizon: Hope has a habit of pulling people out from beyond these, giving them a hug, and sending them on their way. Amy stayed, though.
• Devoured by the Horde: Bitch's dogs tear Crawler into many small pieces after Amy disrupts his regeneration, eventually shredding his brain and killing his powers so he dies properly.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Scion being the Cthulhu. He conscripts Hope and Amy to heal/resurrect Eden, but Hope refuses unless Scion and Eden agree to leave Earth behind unmolested, He says yes, but a quick consultation with Dinah's probabilities instantly makes it clear he's lying, and she gives him a verbal grilling for it until, suitably cowed, he honours the promise.
• Dissonant Serenity: In chapter 89 Night talks about teaching the Protectorate an unsettling amount about violence, then offers Fog tea as if she had not been saying anything odd.
• Do You Trust Me?: Hope convincing Glory Girl to let Amy fix what was done to her.
  Hope nodded. “She can fix what she did,” she affirmed. “She will fix what she did. You can be free of whatever it’s doing to you. All you have to do is trust me.” She held out her hand.
  After a long, long moment, Glory Girl took it.
  • In Chapter 123, Hope has Dragon pull Legend from the Endbringer fight; she doesn't actually say the phrase, but it's implied.
• Easily Forgiven: Averted with Amy, as Victoria takes a long while to get over things, and Carol still hasn't gotten over it. Victoria takes a while to forgive Skitter for the bank job. All good as of Chapters 117/118.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Hope gets the heroes and villains to work together to destroy the Slaughterhouse Nine.
  • In a discarded Coil timeline where an attempt to grab Tattletale goes wrong and results in Amy's death, Hope gets everyone together again and goes for Coil's base.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Hope, despite being aromantic, asexual and lacking in the necessary equipment can elicit attraction in just about anyone. Once she and Amy fix Noelle and she generates a Hope clone, she's even moreso; the author explains that as Hope is a GURPS character, she has talents make her incredibly attractive and that normalises and averages out that attractiveness between both genders and sexualities. The clone, who has something of Noelle in her as well, lacks the latter ability, so she's more attractive to those who would naturally feel that way, including Sundancer it would seem. The original is also the object of affection for both Amy and eventually the canonically also asexual Lisa.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: A lot of people cannot believe that Hope wants to be nice for its own sake rather than out of seeking some future favour.
• Evil Gloating: Sophia/Shadow Stalker does this in chapter 102.
• Evil Twin: For a fancy-dress party, Vista goes as Shadow Stalker's good twin.
  Vista: Can't you see the smiley on the mask?
• Extreme Omnivore: Amy builds Falkor with a digestive system like a cockroach, able to handle almost anything organic.
• Eye Scream: Hope loses one to Mannequin in Chapter 44. Amy grows it back for her.

F-N

• Facepalm:
  • In chapter 30 this is Gregor's reaction to being teased by Newter about him and Hope.
  • In chapter 89 this is Weld's reaction to Raymancer asking what's so useful about bug control.
  • In chapter 91 Newter does this when Gregor teases him about him and Amy.
  • In chapter 95 this is Danny's reaction to a bad pun from Taylor.
  • In chapter 110 Hope does this to a comment from Robin.
• Fade to Black: Happens with Hope and Amy, Hope and Lisa, Hope with both Amy and Lisa ..., Flechette and Parian, Amy and Newter, Taylor and Everett, and Brian and Jess.
  • Ack actually wrote all of the sex scenes except Flechette and Parian in gloriously smutty detail; they're posted in the "Ack's Omake Corner" thread in the NSFW Creative Writing Forum on Questionable Questing, with links from the first post of the thread.
• Fate Worse than Death: Jack Slash loves inflicting these. Sophia, trapped in a containment cell, is confronted by the Slaughterhouse Nine. The entire roster votes her down, so, desperate, she asks Jack to sponsor her. Jack laughs in her face due to her repeated failures, and reveals he's recorded her plea, before leaving the transport taking her to the Birdcage, ensuring any cred she has evaporates and dooming her to the absolute bottom of the prison.
• First-Name Basis:
  • Piggot grants Hope and Amy that privilege after they heal her old injuries.
  • Piggot and Armsmaster while in the gym.
• First-Step Fixation: When Hope's presence seems likely to derail Cauldron's carefully laid plans, by bringing down the Siberian and delaying the end of the world, Alexandria and Doctor Mother are insistent on removing her from the board — until Contessa points out that letting the Siberian escape was only ever a means to an end. Their true goal is to ensure humanity survives, and working with Hope offers better paths to that without needing a serial killer to run free.
• Fix Fic. Also, Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Hope has indeed come to Brockton Bay. With all that implies.
  Brian frowned as he opened the car door for Lisa to enter. “So ... what would the world be like if she hadn’t turned up?”
  Lisa looked up at him as she sat on the seat and moved across. Her bottle-green eyes were uncharacteristically sombre. “You really, really don’t want to know.”

  Hope Comes to Brockton Bay, Chapter 103
  • Cuts short the Slaughterhouse Nine crisis by ending the Nine. This saves thousands of lives in the long run, possibly billions if you factor in completely preventing Gold Morning from occuring.
  • Averts the fight with Echidna, saving the lives of quite a few capes and civilians, and ensuring that the Protectorate does not lose public trust.
    • Which also paves the way for Noelle/Omake to be around when needed.
  • Realizes that Director Piggot has health problems and has Amy fix them, thus paving the way for her transition from Obstructive/Beleaguered Bureaucrat to Formerly Fat Reasonable Authority Figure.
  • Champions the Hope Accord and its proof of concept, The Christner Initiative, both of which will make life better for everyone.
  • Works hard to foster hero/villain cooperation.
  • Specifically notifies Weld of the bullying of Taylor Hebert, and Shadow Stalker's part in it, when she finds out, thus setting in motion the events that lead to the trial of Emma and Madison, and by association, Taylor meeting Everett, her eventual husband.
  • Saves Battery's life twice (once by omission, once by commission), thus gaining the trust and gratitude of both her and her husband.
  • Her relationship with Amy has the latter in a vastly better headspace, allowing her to enjoy helping people.
    • Including permanently curing Clockblocker's father of recurring leukemia. Which puts him into a better headspace.
    • Also, making new and interesting bugs for Skitter. And unlike canon she chooses to include basic functions like feeding and reproduction, though in the latter case Skitter has to consciously order them to to avert potential population growth of an unnatural species and the myriad problems that could cause.
    • Which assists Skitter in having a much easier (and less stressful) transition to her heroic identity as Weaver, as a result.
  • Helps Danny and Taylor reconcile.
  • Together with Amy, she brings Eden back to life, and convinces Scion to leave. And Eden used the residue of Hope's power to create a way of replenishing an Entity's energy reserves without having to destroy worlds to do it.
• Friend to All Children: At the Slaughterhouse Zero party, Sierra unhesitatingly tells the children she's responsible for that if they need an adult and can't find her or Skitter, they can go to Hope and she'll take care of them.
• Friend to All Living Things: Hope can decide that someone is unredeemable and needs to die, such as Jack Slash openly telling her that he'd destroy the world if given the chance, just to make his mark on history. But she does her very best to care about and help everyone, far beyond what anyone else even thinks of, from visiting every gang in the city, even the most dangerous and unwelcoming, to offer medical supplies and information, to rehabilitating three members of the Slaughterhouse Nine, to visiting Carol Dallon after her husband leaves her and helping her to reconcile with her daughters.
  Hope: I like to help people. You know that. And you're my friends.
  Trickster: Name someone in Brockton Bay who isn't.
  Hope: Um … I don't think that way?
• Friends with Benefits: Newter and Amy. Maybe Sveta and Gully.
• Genki Girl: Recent addition to the cast, Robin Maestra, a friend of Hope's from back home.
  • Once her body's been fixed, Noelle.
• Good Feels Good: Hope describes the feelings she gets from helping and pleasing others as fulfilling the same purpose as sexual pleasure would for most people.
• Good Is Not Soft: Hope hates killing, but she absolutely can do it if there’s no other way — and she's basically Alexandria lite, so she can really deliver a beatdown if she's pushed that far. Jack Slash proved he was beyond all redemption, and she delivered him for summary execution.
  Clockblocker: I gave you some tips about Skitter the other day. Here's some about Hope. Do not ever underestimate her. She is sweet and kind and nice, and she will literally give you the shirt off her back or her last bite of food, and she will bring you back from the dead if she can possibly do so ... but she's also the one who planned this whole shebang, caught Jack Slash, and held him down so that Miss Miltiia could put a bullet in the back of his head.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: The Simurgh, via creating a Stable Time Loop by Eidolon ordering her to send a psychic message to her self to bring Hope to Earth Bet, thus setting up her own defeat.
• Happily Adopted: As with canon, thoroughly Inverted with Amy; her life and self image doesn't begin to improve until she strikes out on her own.
• Headscratchers: How did The Barnes', included a served-her-sentence Emma, get invites to Taylor's and Everett's wedding when the entire family is basically Personae Non Grata?
• He Knows Too Much: Cauldron sends the Number Man to deal with Battery, Miss Militia and Triumph. Fortunately, he gets interrupted before he can finish off Miss Militia, Triumph breaks the restraints killing Battery, and with Clockblocker to freeze him, Triumph gets brought back by Hope.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: By Amy; once on Dr William Manton (Siberian) and once by request on Reluctant Psycho Mimi (Burnscar). In both cases, the alternative was death (in the latter's case, at their own request).
• Heel–Face Turn: Several villains undergo this after associating with Hope for a while, but the most notable example is Cauldron (yes, Cauldron), by Contessa's recommendation.
• Heroic RRoD: Hope and Amy at the end of Chapter 124. It nearly turns into a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Director Costa-Brown notices that giving the title of Hope Accord does this to the fact that the plan was Accord's.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • In Chapter 44, Skitter kills Mannequin with the nano-blade that he took from Armsmaster.
  • Chapter 85 has a comedic example where Aisha asks Noelle to create a clone of her and promptly gets on the receiving end of her own Perception Filter power.
• Horrifying the Horror: Regent is very disturbed in chapter 69 by the new Shadow Stalker.
• I Choose to Stay: Hope finds that she can go back to her world but realises that she actually considers Earth Bet to be her home now.
  • In Chapter 126, it is revealed that Jess has made the same decision.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Triumph is convinced that he made a hard but necessary choice to carry out Cauldron's orders rather than risk losing his powers and no longer being a hero. His fellow heroes mostly don't agree.
  She could see the arguments for and against what he'd done, and she wasn't altogether certain she'd make the right choice in his place. She hoped she would. She also hoped she'd never have to find out.
• I Owe You My Life: Kayden is brought back to life by Hope, who also saves Theo and Aster from mortal wounds. She just about worships the ground Hope walks on (or flies over) after that.
• Idiot Ball: Amy gets hold of this when she comes to the (mistaken) conclusion that Hope is only being her lover so that she won't go off the deep end and unleash plagues upon the city. Because she can.
  • Another time, she thinks that Lisa has taken Hope away from her, and runs away rather than face them.
    • Which is ironic, given later developments between the three.
  • Somewhat justified, as she is a mass of issues and neuroses when Hope first finds her; she's gradually getting better though.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...:
  • Danny has a chat with Brian about the fact that Taylor has a crush on him, making sure that Brian realises Danny will come after him if he hurts her. Brian agrees, but privately thinks that if that happened, Taylor wouldn't leave enough of him for her dad to find.
  • He has another chat once Taylor and Everett are getting serious. Danny knows better than to try to stop Taylor doing what she wants, but he makes it clear that she'd better not get hurt.
• I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That: Piggot's reaction in chapter 87 when Aisha tells Amy to make Valefor feel like he has maggots in his eyes.
• Immune to Bullets: Amy tinkers around with different bugs and comes up with a combination of optimised spider silk and shear thickening fluid that is not just stab-resistant, but absorbs the impact of bullets ridiculously well. The initial demonstration involves wrapping six eggs in it and having Miss Militia cut loose, with a series of different firearms escalating to a 0.50 caliber sniper rifle with armour-piercing bullets.^note 0.50 calibre is not really designed for use against mere humans; it's for anti-air and anti-tank weapons, or extremely long range sniping. When she's done, one of the six eggs is cracked.
  Miss Militia: I'd need an open combat range to test anything heavier.
• Indy Ploy / Loophole Abuse: When it comes to light that Alan Barnes knows Taylor's secret identity, she outs herself to Piggot, Miss Militia, Tecton and Raymancer as Skitter (her dad already knew). Piggot quickly comes up with a plan to turn this to their advantage; Taylor was looking to join The Wards anyway, so they just bring it forward to the following morning, and as a Ward her Secret Identity is now legally protected, forcing Alan and Emma to sign an NDA or them both risk going to Prison.
• Insecure Love Interest: Amy; a lot of the tension between her and Hope comes from her inability to accept that Hope loves her for who she is, that Hope has a special place for her even though she is an All-Loving Hero, and Amy's paranoia about it makes her say some stupid things that causes quite a few headaches for all involved. It happens more than once.
• Insistent Terminology: After she distances herself from her adopted family and reconnects with her birth father, Amy reverts to her birth name and declares That Man Is Dead regarding her adopted name.
• Irony: In canon it was Neil and Carol who were unfaithful. Here, it's their spouses.
• Kill It Through Its Stomach: One of Nilbog's dragons makes the mistake of swallowing Snow Tiger, the reformed Siberian, and is quickly torn apart from the inside.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Coil, in Chapter 116.
  • Hookwolf also executes Shatterbird as she's trying to warn him of the retribution that would result. It turns out not to have been such a good idea for him.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Saint floods the interior of a Dragon craft with tear gas, then opens it up to check on the passengers. A moment later, Hope yanks him inside and tears his helmet off. Hope is resistant to noxious gases; Saint isn't.
• Last-Second Chance: Hope offers Jack Slash one in chapter 50. He refuses.
• Laugh Themselves Sick: Skitter's bug-assisted Darth Vader impressions leave Flechette and especially Vista gasping for breath, with tears streaming down their faces.
• Logical Weakness: Valefor's powers require eye contact, so they don't work if he can't see his target, which Grue abuses to let Genesis get the drop on him.
  • Perdition's power automatically rewinds his place in spacetime by a few seconds of he ever gets hurt (he retains no memory of what followed). Anyone with a suitable thinker ability (like Lisa) can work out how far back it sends him, calculate where he was at that point and know where he is going to re-materialize. Lisa abuses this by, having done the mental jujitsu, placing a foreign object (in this case Accord's sword cane) where she knows he will be, and watch his power kill him via reverse Tele-Frag when he skewers himself through the brain with it.
• Loophole Abuse: How Butcher is disposed of. Amy succeeded in disconnecting all the bits of Butcher from its current host, but inadvertently ended up taking them into herself. Luckily she had planned for that; Omake (i.e Echidna) generates clones of Amy and Hope, the latter to absorb The Butcher leaving the real Amy unharmed, the former to fly them both miles out to sea. Clone Hope dissipates first, then Amy. As she technically died of Natural Causes and with no soul for miles to hitch onto, Butcher dissipates as well. Problem solved.
• Love Triangle: Downplayed then averted for Hope/Amy/Lisa.
  • Amy is angry when she realises that Lisa set her up with Newter so that she could spend the night with Hope, but they end up as One True Threesome anyway.
• The Makeover: Hope and Amy take this up a notch with Noelle (Omake), Sveta, Gully, and Newter.
• Mass Super-Empowering Event: In Hope's home world, rather than powers occurring in response to individual trigger events, there was one event about six months before the story started, which gave powers to a large number of people, and those who had the Required Secondary Powers survived...
• Mercy Kill:
  • Hope considers the possibility that killing Mannequin was in some ways a mercy, given the life he led.
    She could only hope that he was at peace now.
  • In chapter 69 Regent shoots a minion who's been caught by Shadow Stalker. Given that the minion was literally screaming "KILL ME!!" at the time...
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Alan Barnes refusing to pay for the photos leads to the photographer revealing to Skitter that Barnes knows that she and Taylor are the same person and plans to bring it up at the trial to discredit her.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Which leads to Piggot's Indy Ploy and Barnes' entire case falling apart, having to take a plea bargain, him being dis-barred and Emma at best looking at time in Juvie.
• Morality Chain: Amy intentionally makes Hope a chain on her ability to modify brains, as a replacement for her previous blanket rule against doing it. She figures that if Hope tells her a modification is okay, it probably is. So she's able to heal William Manton, without having to trust herself to just use it freely.
  Amy: Not gonna do it unless Hope says it's okay.
• Mugging the Monster: Saint really should have paid more attention to exactly who Dragon was going to be transporting, before deciding to hijack the craft. Once he downs the craft and cracks it open, Hope promptly rips his mask off and makes him breathe his own tear gas.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Omake's reaction to pretty much everything. She's Noelle after having her powers and body fixed, and having been deprived of basic comforts and stimulation for so long is making up for lost time.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Hope's wings are long enough to scratch Bitch's dogs under the chin when they're super-sized, in places Bitch herself can't reach.
  • In chapter 86 Trickster uses his power to get him and Omake front row seats.
  • In chapter 91 Tecton helps the Dockworkers' Union with demolition.
  • In chapter 119, Trickster uses his power to clear the Boat Graveyard so as to earn the Travellers enough money to get home.
  • In chapter 125 Flechette's power is used to puncture Hope's skin so a IV needle can be let in.
• Mushroom Samba: As with canon, Newter's go to way of dealing with problem individuals is to make them experience this. It ends up saving Danny's life.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In chapter 56 Weld and Miss Militia tell Flechette that they're glad the latter came to them about dating Parian rather than bottle it up until led to do something stupid, like defect from the Wards.
  • Chapter 58 has "Seriously? Echidna? What sort of name is that?"
  • In chapter 73 Tattletale tells Skitter to use butterflies when the latter worries about her image.
  • In chapter 75 Skitter tells Tattletale not to joke about Danny going to the victory party dressed as Coil because she had a nightmare about that.
  • In chapter 83 Brian dismisses the idea of getting romantically involved with Taylor. In chapter 93 Taylor says it from her end too.
  • In chapter 85 the Undersiders and Travelers joke about creating Alexandria clones.
  • In chapter 87 Imp suggests that Skitter pack Valefor's eyes full of maggots.
  • In chapter 98 Taylor says upon spotting Quinn Calle that he would have been her go-to lawyer if she had been publicly outted as Skitter before the amnesty offer.
  • In chapter 103 Tecton says that Taylor would probably have been recruited for the Chicago Wards.
  • In chapter 109 Taylor sends Alexandria a mask to protect her against drowning.
  • Chapter 125: Puppy therapy.
• Never Found the Body: The PRT forensics specialists aren't able to find any trace of Shadow Stalker, after she was dissolved by spotlights. However, Dinah is able to confirm the kill, verifying that there's a 0% chance of return.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Skidmark insulting Hope at the meeting of the gangs to discuss the Slaughterhouse Nine's incursion into Brockton Bay diverted Hookwolf's ire and gave him an out that let him accept Hope's compromise to keep the Travellers and Undersiders in the alliance without losing face.
• No Kill like Overkill: After Valefor makes a power grab at the Slaughterhouse Zero party and is defeated by Genesis' constructs, Amy suggests she can either screw with the visual processing areas of his brain, dissolve his optic nerves, or give him regenerating cataracts. Piggot tells her to give him all three. While she rejects Imp's proposal for Skitter to do to him what she did in canon, she does turn a blind eye to her idea to just leave him with the sensation of such.
• No Nudity Taboo: Since Hope has no male or female anatomy, she doesn't place any great weight on clothes. She wears them, but isn't troubled by changing in front of someone, and doesn't hesitate to strip if they'll get in the way (eg because they're not as fireproof as she is).
  Hope: There's nothing to see here. I’m about as naughty as a Barbie doll.
• Noodle Incident: The girls' movie night, referenced in Chapter 122.
• Not Hyperbole: When Butcher promises to pull over the van and kill anyone who sings the "bottles on the wall" song during their road trip, the Teeth don't think she's joking.
• Not What It Looks Like: Subverted when Clockblocker just laughs at Vista walking in on Hope and Amy naked in bed. He assures Vista that Hope is asexual and so it's strictly platonic. It isn't.

O-Z

• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In chapter 86 Taylor is surprised to see Armsmaster apologising to "Skitter".
• Occam's Razor: Bites Coil in the ass in chapter 115 when he asks himself who is undercutting him to supply the PRT with armor - he can't believe that any Tinker would offer their work to the PRT for such a low price, and proceeds to write off the possibility that any other cape could have been responsible... thus overlooking the fact that it's Weaver who's making the new armour out of silk from her new Amy-custom spiders.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Cherish realises that not all the people around her are fleeing in fear and that there's an ambush, but too late to avoid it.
  • Lisa realised that Valefor is party-crashing just in time to internally swear, but not soon enough to do anything about it.
  • Emma's reaction in chapter 102 to the reappearance of Shadow Stalker.
• Official Couple: of the non canon couples, we have Hope x Amy (x Lisa), Brian x Jess (married), Taylor x Everett (the wedding in 126), Flashbang x Photon Mom.
• One-Man Army: Skitter approaches this even in canon; with the specialised bugs supplied by Amy, she is very versatile indeed. And very creepy.
• Open-Minded Parent: Danny takes Taylor hooking up with Everett very well.
• Ordered to Die: Once Bonesaw's spider bot is finished with controlling the motel receptionist, she makes him go out the back and tamper with a gas stove to get rid of him in a massive explosion.
• Our Angels Are Different: Hope is a four winged angel with crystalline 'feathers', but she has no discernible divine origin. Despite this, she's almost supernaturally nice.
• Papa Wolf: Alan Barnes is a villainous example, willing to go quite far in defence of Emma.
• The Penance:
  • Dr. Manton refuses to let Amy heal his remaining medical problems so that he is reminded of his past wrongdoings.
  • Triumph does the same regarding his voice.
• Plausible Deniability:
  • Hope suspects that the Mayor has an idea of where the "Christner Initiative" really came from, and isn't asking so that he doesn't hear the answer.
  • She later goes into business with Accord, partly because she's more diplomatic than him, but also so that clients don't need to be officially aware that he's involved in making their plans if they don't want to be.
• Plea Bargain: Alan Barnes gives up his licence to practise law, and has Emma confess to everything she did to Taylor, rather than have the District Attorney come after both of them full force.
  DA: Accept the deal, pay the Heberts restitution for the mental anguish and physical trauma you helped cause to Taylor, revoke your own license, and the rest of it doesn't happen to you.
• Poor Communication Kills: Defied. Hope literally cannot misunderstand what someone else is saying if they are trying to get their point across, and vice versa. It's one of her powers.
• Power Perversion Potential: Hope's healing ability lets her sense what's going on with the body of anyone she touches as a Required Secondary Power, and Amy's biokinesis does the same thing even better. Lisa's intuition lets her fake it almost as well as the other two. As a result, they're very good at pleasing each other, in spite of Hope's lack of a sex drive or sexual anatomy and Lisa's presumed power-induced asexuality.
• Powered Armor: Subverted in Chapter 116, when Weaver takes down the Tech Crew single-handedly. They would have been better off without it. Not much, just some.
  • Subverted again in Chapter 120, when Hope takes on the Dragonslayers.
• Prehensile Hair: Sveta's tendrils manifest as this after she's been cured.
• Prison Rape: Robertson threatens Alan Barnes with this to persuade him to accept his plea bargain so Emma only goes to Juvie till she's 18 instead of 5 years in Prison.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Quinn Calle and Martins only oppose Taylor due to Alan Barnes hiring them as lawyers for the Emma case and don't actually have bad feeling about it.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes:
  • Miss Militia gives in to Hope's gaze and starts arranging the death of the Slaughterhouse Nine, but forbids her to ever use puppy-dog eyes again (because she's far too good at it).
  • Lisa is able to cajole Taylor into attending a victory party just by threatening to have Hope unleash her puppy-dog eyes.
    Lisa: I hear Director Piggot hugged her the other day.
• Refuge in Audacity: The Fallen going to the costume party celebrating the ending of the Slaughterhouse Nine dressed as Bonesaw and Jack Slash.
  • The problem is it doesn't work; Lisa spots them a mile a way, and while she quickly gets mastered, several people immediately realise something is wrong, meaning quite a few people are ready for them when they make their move, and they promptly get their arses kicked.
• Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Chapter 117 has a multitude of these regarding Amy.
• Removed Achilles' Heel: Taylor provides Alexandria with a silk face mask that allows air through but is highly water resistant. When Alexandria tests it, the full force of Niagara Falls only pushes three drops through. (This would have prevented her canon death at Skitter's hands.)
  Alexandria:
  I understand you still have to breathe, and that is a vulnerability at your power level. Please accept this with my compliments.
  Skitter.
• Revenge: In a timeline where Coil causes Amy's death, Hope comes for blood — and she brings most of the capes of Brockton Bay with her. Coil sees glimpses of the powers of the Undersiders, the Travellers, Faultline's crew, and even the Wards, before he dies with Hope's fist through him and the timeline closes.
• Running Gag: A rather subtle one is Hope's apparent inability to keep a cell phone for any length of time without it getting lost or broken. She's always having to borrow Amy's, or Lisa's, or whoever else's is near at hand, and people trying to get in touch with her likewise have to call or text one of her companions. (E.g. Contessa texting Amy in chapter 60; she has the advantage of knowing who Hope is standing next to via Path To Victory.) A corollary gag is that Lisa, being Lisa, always knows it's her calling no matter what phone she's using.
• Sadistic Choice: Subverted when Jack Slash makes Hope choose which of Kayden Anders' family to heal, not knowing that Hope can revive the recently dead.
  Jack Slash blinked in turn. Apparently, he had not expected her to make her choice so quickly.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: The reason Hope leaves the Wards.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In chapter 95 a goon hired by Alan Barnes to bribe Taylor into silence decides to leave as soon as he's paid. He doesn't make it; in chapter 97 he and his partner get caught by Skitter and the PRT before they can get out of the city.
• Serial Escalation: In chapter 109 Miss Militia uses increasingly powerful weapons to test out the new scarf she's been gifted. She gets up to a Barrett 50-cal and only barely damages the carton of eggs, including cracking just one of the six within the box the scarf's been wrapped around.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: A lot of people wonder if Hope being so nice and helpful has any sort of hidden agenda behind it, when the fact of the matter is that she is nice because that's just who she is. Several find the concept of helping people for free very puzzling.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Everett about Taylor in chapter 95.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Hope switches off her radio to have a private conversation with Taylor, she remarks, "Boring conversation anyway." Taylor recognises the reference, and later (when in costume) uses her swarm voice to give Darth Vader impressions for Vista and Flechette.
  • Because Google does not exist in Earth Bet, Robin Maestra chooses to give the name 'Google Earth' to the homeworld she shares with Hope.
  • Subverted in chapter 89; author has stated that Clockblocker's saying that Skitter can bring someone down in ten. Seconds. Flat. is NOT an intentional reference.
  • "Is he Legend- wait for it... -dary?"
  • "You're just a poor girl. Can't get no sympathy. Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality."
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Hope's patience and forgiving nature qualify as superpowers in their own right, but even she quickly tires of Jack Slash's shtick.
  "Oh, come on," urged Jack Slash. "I'm the bad guy! I've killed millions!" He paused. "Well, thousands. I wanna go out with a bang. Not sit in some dinky little jail cell for the rest of my natural. And if I escape," he added brightly, "I'll just kill again. You know it and I know it. So stop it before it ever happens. Kill me right now. I double-dog-dare you!"
  "Jack ..." said Hope.
  "Yes?" he said cheerfully.
  "Shut up."
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Everett to Taylor in chapter 100.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Lisa doesn't really mind Hope and Amy cooing over each other, but she does warn that, "You two are about to put me into a diabetic coma."
• Skewed Priorities: Jack Slash considers Hope's resurrection power to be rude.
  Jack: How am I supposed to keep track of my body count when people keep bringing my kills back to life? It’s messing with my statistics.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Hope is on one end. Brockton Bay is on the other. Guess who's winning.
• Spit Take: Lisa has just taken a drink of water when Hope asks her if she would like to make love to Amy. Doubles as Foreshadowing.
  "Congratulations," she wheezed at last. "You can join a very short list of people who have managed to totally and utterly blindside me."
• Stable Time Loop: The Simurgh receives a message temporarily freeing her from her orders, which is how she's able to pull Hope into Earth Bet. Once Scion is gone and Eidolon learns that he can control the Endbringers, Lisa reminds him to tell the Simurgh to send that message.
• Stunned Silence: After Faultline asks what kind of payment Amy wants for helping the Case 53 crew members, and Hope gives a confused response of "Payment?" there's a long pause as Faultline wraps her head around the idea that she's not charging.
• Swallowed Whole: Happens to Hope via Noelle. Amy saves her.
• Sword Cane: Miss Militia has an ivory-topped cane beside her in court, which Taylor suspects conceals a sword. (It's about as non-threatening a form as her power can take.)
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Brian and several of the Travellers break down laughing at seeing Imp getting trolled by a Noelle-clone of herself.
  Brian: So how does it feel?
• Tempting Fate:
  • In chapter 41 Hookwolf reassures Menja that the Chosen are safe from attack mere moments before Crawler crashes the party, the rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine following behind.
  • In chapter 86 Flechette remarks that no one seems to be causing trouble. The Fallen and minions show up at the end of the chapter.
  • The second-last part of chapter 96 has Amy thinking that good things will happen to Brockton Bay. The very next part has the Teeth discuss their imminent "visit". Considering the outcome of that visit, it's not so clear which party was tempting fate, though.
  • In chapter 98 Emma takes comfort in the thought that Sophia can't show up at the courtroom to contradict her. Guess what happens shortly afterwards?
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Amy presents three possible options for confining Valefor: reformat his visual cortex, dissolve his optic nerves, or give him massive regenerating cataracts. After confirming that none of the three is unduly painful or dangerous, Director Piggot instructs her to apply all of them.
• This Cannot Be!: This more-or-less is Eidolon's reaction in chapter 125 to learning that he created the Endbringers.
• Throwing Off the Disability: This happens to Jess (Genesis) and to a lesser degree, Director Emily Piggot after Hope and Amy get through with them. Also, for a mental problem, Elle (Labyrinth) and Mimi (Burnscar).
• Too Much Information:
  • Danny's reaction in chapter 81 when Taylor tells him about Lung's sensitive bits rotting out.
  • Brian's reaction in chapter 84 to Aisha talking about hooking up with Alec.
  • Taylor's reaction is definitely this in chapter 93 when Brian and Jess, as well as Lily and Sabah, start doing... things. She gets this reaction again in chapter 105 when Amy tells her... something.
  • One of the NSFW omake scenes for Chapter 105 posted on Questionable Questing includes Lisa chanting "I didn’t want to know that" several times after her power fills her in about why Amy is so grateful to Lisa for fixing her up with Newter (and particularly about what he can do with his prehensile tale). Of course, TMI is one of the major drawbacks of Lisa's power generally (along with the migraines from overusing it).
• Try Not to Die: Hope is actually impressed by Rachel telling her, "Don't get killed," since for Rachel that's practically friendly. (There are very few people whose survival means anything to Rachel.)
  That's the nicest thing she's said to me yet.
• Understatement: In Chapter 123, Accord is attacked and killed by Cody, losing his right arm and leg in the process. Hope brings him back to life, but his response to finding out that he's down two limbs?
  "This is not optimal."
  • And since it's Accord, one suspects his main issue with it is not the loss of mobility and function, but the asymmetry. Becomes a Funny Moment once he has his limbs reattached and Lisa gives his suit a quick re-tailoring, which he approves of.
• Unflinching Walk: Done by Tecton in chapter 91 as a demolished building collapses behind him.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee:
  • In chapter 96, the plan to cure Sveta.
  • Chapter 104: The plan to get rid of Butcher once and for all.
  • Chapters 122 and 123: the plan to destroy Behemoth.
  • Subverted in Chapters 49 and 50 for the plan to take down the Nine - Hope explains it, and it still works.
• Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object: Robin is perpetually bored due to her practically infinite Super-Speed, so she's intrigued by the prospect of testing how it interacts with Clockblocker's time freezing power.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them:
  • Mannequin is executed with his own nanothorn blade after being pinned down.
  • Nilbog's creatures make spears out of bones. Throwing the spears at Marquis... does not end well for them.
• Vampiric Draining: One of Shadow Stalker's new talents.
• Villain Ball: Even after Dinah's warnings about the consequences of attacking Hope and the catastrophic failure of his first attempt to abduct Lisa, Coil just can't leave well enough alone. It gets him summarily executed.
• Villain's Dying Grace: In Chapter 126, William Manton goes out this way.
• Weakened by the Light / Weaksauce Weakness: After Shadow Stalker's second trigger, becoming a living mass of shadow, she becomes vulnerable to bright light. She's badly injured by a road flare, and eventually buys it when she barges into Court proceedings and is hit by a battery of spotlights.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 8. Shadow Stalker ambushes Hope and stabs her with a broadhead crossbow bolt, and the Undersiders make their first appearance and save her life.
  • Chapter 26. Hookwolf executes Shatterbird, irrevocably diverting the Slaughterhouse Nine from their canonical actions in Brockton Bay.
  • Chapter 38. Hope resigns from the Wards to go live at Tattletale's refugee shelter/supervillain headquarters.
  • Chapter 44. Hope and a few friends take down Mannequin, and Hope is abducted by Cauldron.
  • Chapter 50. Slaughterhouse ZERO!
  • Chapter 100. Taylor reveals she is Skitter to the PRT, and Quinn Calle declares he's not going to do the Emma case any more.
  • Chapter 109. Tattletale has Labyrinth open a door to Hope's Earth.
  • Chapter 112. Glory Girl breaks from New Wave to join the Protectorate.
  • Chapter 123. Behemoth is killed by Omake and William Manton, using a plan crafted by Tattletale.
  • Chapter 124. Hope and Amy bring Eden back to life. Eden and Scion leave.
• Wham Line:
  • The last line of chapter 36.
  "I'm saying that it's best for everyone if I leave the Wards."
  • The end of chapter 77.
  It was the mask from Skitter's costume.
  • In chapter 90.
  It was identical.
  • Chapter 103.
  "Oh, shit," she managed. "I think I'm Butcher now."
  • Chapter 123.
  Scion had arrived.
  • Midway through Chapter 125.
  “Behemoth happened on the twenty-sixth. It's the fifth of August. You've been out of it for ten days.”
  • Literally the last line of the story. The last word. Spoken by Scion and Eden. The word is HOPE.
• What Did I Do Last Night?:
  • Gully and Sveta after a night of getting absolutely trollied to celebrate the former being cured of her Case 53 status. Complete with Bedmate Reveal and That Didn't Happen.
  • Mark and Sarah in chapter 115.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Chapter 126 and the actual Epilogue.
• You Do Not Want To Know:
  • Lisa assures Hope that super intuition is not always a good thing.
    Lisa: Having all the gaps filled in, all the time, even when you'd be much happier for them to be not filled in, can be a real pain sometimes.
  • In chapter 115, Crystal's response to a certain event is to invoke this on herself by deciding she doesn't want to know.
  • When Amy goes to Omake for a clone, she catches her in a ... compromising position.
    "Uh, why is Noelle naked?" asked Hope curiously.
    "You don't want to know," Amy replied, still blushing.
• You Have Failed Me: Coil is lethally displeased with Reynolds, who repeatedly went off the rails and tried to kill Hope and Amy despite having specific orders not to engage them. In multiple dropped timelines, Reynolds killed them and brought extreme retribution down on Coil. In the final timeline, Coil shoots him.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • This is Director Piggot's reaction, verbatim, when she hears that Skitter now owns a six-foot dragonfly, but she quickly recognises that Hope is almost certainly not kidding.
    Piggot: Sorry. You don’t pull jokes like that. But seriously, I need details.
  • Yes, Hope and Accord really did discuss how to solve all the world's major social problems in less than a quarter century.
    Amy: You're kidding. <Beat> You're not kidding.
  • Clockblocker loudly refuses to believe that he's seeing Tecton kissing Skitter.

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