An alternate universe of the already alternate universe roleplay, What Happened In Oregon, that's based on the YA novels Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson, Vanilla Sabotage: Bad End is the dark interpretation of a What If? scenario: How would the story be affected if the four main human characters became Epics?
Yes, it’s fanon of fanon. It’s actually more complicated than it sounds, considering the original work featured a multiverse, and the upcoming Apocalypse Guard is set to explore that in more detail.
Both this story and the original roleplay, along with its sequel, can be found on the Brandon Sanderson fan site, The 17th Shard.
Tropes:
- All Deaths Final: Lightwards could bring people back but only as zombies. Some Epics can return, but they don’t count as ever being really dead unless their weakness is involved.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Corpsemaker pulls this, much to the rage of Alastair and Darkrose.
- Call a Human a "Meatbag": Unpowered humans are known as vanillas, while their Canadian counterparts are maples.
- Characters Dropping Like Flies: The natural result of a fanfic about at least three characters going on murder sprees based on a roleplay with several dozen characters and players.
- Darker and Edgier: To the original source material and to the Crack Fic version of the premise. Whether it’s darker than the role play is debatable.
- Death by Mocking: A large part of why Lightwards is killed by Alastair. You can argue that he'd only known Alastair as a vanilla pretending to be an Epic up to that point, but…still. Best to play it safe around a precog.
- Evil Costume Switch: Nathan trading his duster for a dark double-breasted waistcoat is Lightward's first sign that something is different about him. More or less averted with Sam. Her goth clothes are more elaborate afterwards because she has access to them, but her style didn't change.
- Evil Counterpart: All of the Epics are this to their canon-to-fanon counterpart.
- Evil Feels Good: It's easier for the new Epics to give into their dark side than fight it, especially considering they've seen how miserable resisting it made Funtimes.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Alastair's modus operandi, and also a guiding philosophy for Darkrose.
- Meaningful Rename: All Epics chose their own names. Some characters put more thought into it than others.
- Upon becoming an Epic, Nathan takes the name Alastair, a reference to controversial mid-century English occultist Aleister Crowley, who spoke of (among other things) mankind's recent passage into the Aeon of Horus, an age in which humans would take greater control of their own destiny.
- Darkrose is the first ominous and goth sounding name Sam thought up.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Played with. Although the drastic difference in confidence before and after they get their powers shows, Nathan is still a nerd, Sam is still snarky, and Revolution is still a hippy.
- Strong Girl, Smart Guy: Darkrose and Alastair. Not that she’s an idiot and he’s far from weak.
- Tarot Motifs: Alastair picks up tarot as a hobby, with Death as the most commonly referenced card.
- The Dog Bites Back: The guiding theme of the situation— how would these decent but overwhelmed and ultimately powerless people react if given the motivation and ability to punish those who hurt them?
- Took a Level in Badass: All the new Epics were powerless vanillas...
- Troperrific As to be expected from a story written primarily by two tropers.
- Villainous Fashion Sense: Alastair wears a double-breasted waistcoat over an maroon oxford shirt, while Darkrose has a black gothic dress with purple highlights.
