Fanfic / The Weavers Web

The Weaver's Web is a Worm fanfic by Fabius Maximus, author of Miraculous Escalation.

One day, after coming home from school, Taylor goes down to the basement to work on her costume, when she comes across her mom's The Shadow comics. Taylor starts to get ideas on how exactly to be a hero...

This fic is currently ongoing.

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This fanfic contains examples of the following:

• Adaptational Heroism:
  • After Taylor takes down the Merchants, Mush and Squealer rebrand as the independent Heroes Bulwark and FireTruck.
  • Grue is made a Probationary Ward and Aisha later joins the Wards of her own volition.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
• Adaptational Name Change:
  • Taylor has two Cape personas- the dominant disembodied voice of Orb Weaver, and the submissive in-person presence of The Investigator.
    • And her third, the never-seen Exterminator, an unofficial rogue that cleans a location of vermin for donations.
  • Following their Heel-Face Turns, Mush and Squealer rebrand as Bulwark and FireTruck, respectively.
  • When Grue is drafted into the Wards, he rebrands as Tenebrae.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Instead of being Imp, Aisha has the ability to create multiple shadowy projections that she can swap places with, like a combination of Crusader and Oni Lee.
• Age Lift: Sherrel Bailey (AKA Squealer, later rebranding as FireTruck) is of unspecified age in canon. In this fic she's only 18 years old.
• Amoral Attorney: Brian and Aisha's mother is consulting a particularly bad lawyer to win custody of Aisha, or at least drain as much money from everyone as possible. Taylor decides to set Carol Dallon on the lawyer in retaliation.
• Boring, but Practical: Rather than big flashy Cape Fights that risk injury and collateral damage, Taylor uses espionage (such as having informants dig up dirt on villains), intimidation, and alerting the authorities to defeat villains.
• The Cavalry: Taylor, Bulwark, and the PRT are the Cavalry for Aisha, when she is attacked by the Empire.
• Child by Rape: Squealer's Teen Pregnancy was caused by the mayor of her small town committing statutory rape.
• Cool Big Sis/ Cool Teacher: Taylor becomes both Aisha's personal tutor and a surrogate older sister.
• Department of Child Disservices:
  • Squealer's Start of Darkness was caused by one of these. Sherrel Bailey was a teen mom who lost custody of her own baby because of bribed officials.
  • Aisha Laborn is in custody limbo between Brian (who became a Ward after his Heel–Face Turn) and her mother (who is consulting shady lawyers). Taylor decides to tip the scales in Brian's favor by bringing in Carol Dallon.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Tattletale assumes that Orb Weaver is a middle-aged man with decades of experience... which is the persona that Taylor had deliberately crafted.
• Expy: Taylor deliberately crafts Orb Weaver to be an expy of The Shadow.
• Frame-Up: Coil frames Aisha for digging up dirt on Empire 88, in an attempt to get her killed. Not only does it not work, she Triggers and joins the Wards.
• Giant Spider: Taylor has thousands of bugs assemble into a giant spider-shaped mass, invoking this trope, to be Orb Weaver's "True Form" during her rescue of Greg and Mr. Lake from an Empire initiation.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Taylor created the persona of the Investigator so that she had a backup in case things went so bad that she had to personally intervene, such as when she had to contact Carrol Dallon to investigate an Amoral Attorney.
  • The one time Taylor has ever got physically into a fight in the entire fic was when Empire 88 attempted to murder Aisha.
• Heel–Face Turn: Squealer and Mush are prompted to do this as a result of meeting Orb Weaver. Grue also has one when he's drafted into the Wards.
• Ironic Nursery Rhyme: Orb Weaver recites one when interrogating Squealer:
  Sherrel Bailey, Sherrel Bailey,
  Found a man and made a baby,
  Nobody believed, everyone lied,
  Took her baby and then she died...
  Sherrel Bailey died, didn't she, Squealer?
  • This rhyme ends up prompting the Wham Line that in turn caused Squealer's Heel–Face Turn.
• Offscreen Karma: Sherrel Bailey's baby-daddy was later arrested and thrown in prison for "playing hide the cabbage with a 14-year-old intern."
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Villains who get a visit from Orb Weaver tend to have a Villainous Breakdown before they get defeated and arrested.
  • Madison Clements has one over the prospect of going to Prison.
  • Taylor herself has one when Squealer breaks down crying over losing her baby.
  • Brian has one when Tattletale starts hanging out with Aisha.
  • Taylor also has one when the Empire attempts to murder Aisha, and Aisha Triggers as a result.
  • Brian also has one when he finds out about Aisha's Trigger Event.
  • Taylor has a minor one when Greg gets kidnapped by Empire 88, to get beaten up in an initiation ritual. Mr. and Mrs. Veder have a much bigger reaction when their son goes missing, and then when Orb Weaver shows up after Greg is safely returned home.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Lung would normally rather not be caught dead working with Cauldron, since Contessa was responsible for his Trigger Event. However, Lung apparently considers Empire 88 enough of a threat to contact Doctor Mother and obtain Cauldron vials for his lieutenants.
• Pædo Hunt: Sherrel Bailey got pregnant as a teenager after being coerced into sex with the mayor of her town. Said mayor was later arrested for having sex with a 14-year-old intern.
• Pet the Dog: Orb Weaver immediately changes plans from arresting Squealer to prompting her Heel–Face Turn after Sherrel breaks down crying over her baby having been taken away.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Sherrel Bailey moves to New York City after her Heel–Face Turn.
• Shout-Out: Ungoliant is name-dropped as the inspiration for Orb Weaver's "true form".
• Start of Darkness: Squealer's was when she had a baby as a teenager and was denied custody of her child.
  Orb Weaver's informant: "And Sherrel Bailey got knocked up and claimed it was the local mayor. Community closes ranks, bad seed, she delivers the child, parents disown her.. and next week she's in the Bay driving a truckosaurus, right before she runs into Skidmark."
• Sweet Polly Oliver: Orb Weaver is presumed by everyone as male. Even Taylor refers to Orb Weaver with masculine pronouns.
• Talking to Themself: Taylor stages convesations between herself as the Investigator and herself as Orb Weaver, to prevent anyone from realizing she is both.
• Teen Pregnancy: Squealer's backstory involves her being a teen mom as a result of sexual coersion by her hometown's mayor.
• Terror Hero: Taylor deliberately crafts Orb Weaver to be this.
• The Voice: Taylor uses her ability to speak through bugs to make Orb Weaver a disembodied voice.
• Too Dumb to Live: Greg Veder apparently can't shut up with his speculations about various Parahumans in the city, even when the Unwritten Rules would suggest discretion. This almost gets him beaten up as part of an Empire 88 initiation ritual, but Orb Weaver intervenes in time.
• Trauma Button: Taylor deliberately mashes Squealer's- her Teen Pregnancy and loss of custody over the baby- in order to get her to submit. Sherrel's breaking down crying prompts Taylor to give her a Heel–Face Turn instead.
• Troll: Aisha has this as her personality, as usual. Exploits this after her Trigger Event when she uses her powers to annoy the PRT.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Taylor has three separate Cape personas: Orb Weaver, the Investigator, and the Exterminator.
• Wham Line: Two in consecutive chapters, both involving Squealer.
  • When Orb Weaver's informant provides dirt on Squealer:
  Okay, first of all, I got her DOB. She's 18.
  • When Orb Weaver starts questioning Squealer about her backstory, she suddenly blurts out "THEY DIDN'T EVEN LET ME HOLD HER AFTER I'D HAD HER!" and breaks down crying. Taylor promptly has a change of plans and decides to give Squealer a Heel–Face Turn.
• The Worm That Walks: When Orb Weaver's "True Form" is finally revealed, it's a Giant Spider made of thousands of smaller bugs.
• You Have Failed Me: Kaiser personally executes the idiot who thought attempting to murder a Ward's sister was a good idea.

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