History Literature / Chum

* {{Deconstruction}}: The Ricochet fight thoroughly deconstructs Miss Mayfly's view of herself as a competent hero by showing all the ways she completely fucked it up: Crossroads and Playback had a plan, but Miss Mayfly randomly inserting herself into the fight prevented them from carrying it out. Her stink bombs did incapacitate Ricochet, but they also incapacitated ''everyone else'', aka the other heroes. She then attacked him with her baton, which was worse than useless against an enemy who can redirect force. Everything she tried was either ineffective or just led to him fighting back even harder, so they would have been much better off if she hadn't been there.

* ThemeNaming: The Kingdom's members are all called Mr or Mrs [letter], with there presumably being a member for every letter of the alphabet.

* HealingFactor: Sam has a pretty high level of regeneration, which is one of her most valuable assets. Patches is also a regenerator, but hers is one of the strongest on record.

* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: The finale of Arc 4 has Sam fighting [[spoiler: Chernobyl]] to a standstill and actually convincing him to surrender... but at the cost of putting her in the hospital for her accumulated injuries, including [[spoiler: a gunshot to the gut, microwave burns to her internal organs and Acute Radiation Syndrome from absorbing a ''hideous'' 10 Gy of hard radiation.]]

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Sam is a sweet kid, but when a skinhead walks into a metal concert she's at, tries to pull her girlfriend's hijab off and calls her a 'dyke bitch', Sam beats the shit out of him until some bigger guys pull her off him.

* MaliciousMisnaming: The US Government gave Illya Myronovych Federov the codename 'Chernobyl'. Illya understandably loathes this name and hates being addressed by it, but there's not much he can actually do about it.

* PowerCopying: This is Deathgirl's power, but her copies are stronger than those of the person who has them.

* ShoutOut: Chernobyl quotes ''Literature/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream'' from memory.

* SpottingTheThread: When Sam and Jordan infiltrate a club that villains own and pretend to be waiters, one of the villains note that Sam's wearing the wrong shoes for a waiter. They manage to talk their way out of it, only for the villains to see the stamps on their hands that show that they're minors and realise that they can't be waiters because the club doesn't employ minors.

* TranshumanAbomination: 'Visually-Apparent Metahumans' or 'Complex-Condition Metahumans' are metahumans whose powers have changed their bodies so that they don't look recognisably human. They range from Sam herself, who looks almost entirely normal as long as she doesn't expose her teeth, to people like Chrysalis (who has wings) and Pumice (whose skin is made of stone), and then to people like Miasma and Chernobyl, whose bodies produce harmful substances and need to wear suits to contain them.

* AnimalThemedSuperbeing: Sam herself has explicitly shark-themed powers, and takes on the bloodhound-themed persona of, well, Bloodhound, and later, the Big Bad Wolf.

* OldShame: Sam's Pop-Pop Moe's engineering firm was involved with the construction of Daedalus, the first superhuman prison in America. In an in-universe interview, he said that he knows it would have been done regardless of their involvement, but he wishes he hadn't been involved and that their having been involved is a stain on his firm's legacy.

** Aaron [=McKinley's=] second interlude is one long one, with the Phreaks and his doctor making it clear that he isn't cut out to be a supervillain. He eventually realises that they're correct.

* AbusiveParents: Jordan's mother treats them like dirt, acts as if she deserves praise and thanks for being a parent, thinks that they owe her money they earned themselves and, upon discovering that Jordan has powers, calls them a freak.

* TranshumanAbomination: 'Visually-Apparent Metahumans' or 'Complex-Condition Metahumans' are metahumans whose powers have changed their bodies so that they don't look recognisably human. They range from Sam herself, who looks almost entirely normal as long as she doesn't expose her teeth, to people like Chrysalis (who has wings) and Pumice (whose skin is made of stone).

* {{Tykebomb}}: Deathgirl is one, and her interlude reveals that [[spoiler:the people who trained her (presumably the Kingdom) are doing experiments with multiple other children.]

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: [[spoiler:Puppeteer]] snaps and gives Sam one out of stress, resentment and jealousy.
* RelationshipUpgrade: Sam starts dating Gale midway through the story.
** Jordan starts dating [[spoiler:Spindle]] after he switches sides.

* TranshumanoidAbomination: 'Visually-Apparent Metahumans' or 'Complex-Condition Metahumans' are metahumans whose powers have changed their bodies so that they don't look recognisably human. They range from Sam herself, who looks almost entirely normal as long as she doesn't expose her teeth, to people like Chrysalis (who has wings) and Pumice (whose skin is made of stone).

* OldShame: Sam's Pop-Pop Moe's engineering firm was involved with the construction of Daedalus, the first superhuman prison in America. In an in-universe interview, he said that he knows it would have been done regardless of their involvement, but he wishes he hadn't been involved and that their being involved is a stain on his firm's legacy.

* SchoolIdol: Much to her surprise, Sam becomes one after word gets out at her school that she survived a supervillain fight- not that she's a hero, but that she happened to be in the vicinity of a fight and made it out. She also gets a reputation as a BullyHunter for reasons she isn't sure about, but is happy to go along with it.

* WouldHurtAChild: Members of The Kingdom are more than willing to try and kill Sam and Jordan, both of whom are minors. The pair's first interaction with the gang lands both of them in the hospital.

->''Samantha Small has shark teeth growing out of her gums.''

* MyGreatestRegret: Sam's Pop-Pop Moe's engineering firm was involved with the construction of Daedalus, the first superhuman prison in America. In an in-universe interview, he said that he knows it would have been done regardless of their involvement, but he wishes he hadn't been involved and that their being involved is a stain on his firm's legacy.
* OccupationalMentorshipHazard: As mentioned above, Liberty Belle is dying from cancer, and is shown to be frustrated that she has so little time left to help her team and mentor the younger members.

* BodyHorror: Sam's powers cause her to constantly be growing new teeth, much like a shark. Her medical exam in Chapter 14 indicates that this might also include growing teeth ''on her skeleton''.

* AnimalThemedSuperbeing: Sam herself has explicitly shark-themed powers, and takes on the, well, bloodhound-themed persona of Bloodhound, and later, the Big Bad Wolf.

Chum has been lauded by many readers for the intricacy of its {{Worldbuilding}}, the realism of its characters, and the [[ViolenceIsDisturbing brutality of its fight scenes]]. Despite starting the story as a 14 year old, in the first two arcs alone Sam has been disemboweled, shot at, pistol-whipped, stabbed, and [[EyeScream had her eyes set on fire]], among other injuries - and the up-close nature of her own powers require her to dish it out just as bad on her opponents. The story began in July 2023 and is currently updating frequently, with guaranteed updates on Wednesdays and "sporadic extra updates as I feel fit" quoth the author, which translates to about 2-3 updates per week. Additionally, gaps between updates are filled with "World of Chum" articles that detail the lore and worldbuilding of the story's version of 2023.

''[[https://www.royalroad.com/author-dashboard/dashboard/71347 Chum]]'' by pseudonymous author [=BSTDev=] is a WebSerialNovel that tells the story of Samantha "Sam" Small, a young superhero living in UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} in an [[AlternateHistory alternate 2023]], where heroes and villains have been a fact of daily life for the past twenty years.

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The story follows Sam in the aftermath of a fishing accident that left her with [[AnimalThemedSuperbeing shark powers]]: sharp, constantly regrowing teeth, enhanced bite strength, the ability to sense bleeding organisms around her, and, unbeknownst to her, the ability to regenerate from even near-lethal wounds. After a chance encounter with [[TheParagon Liberty Belle]], Philadelphia's top dog in the hero hierarchy, Sam discovers that Philly's #1 hero is [[LifeWillKillYou dying of stomach cancer]] by sensing her internal injuries, and, a day later, is invited by Belle to join the [[SuperTeam Young Defenders]], the city's new up-and-comers.

''Chum'' takes place in an alternate history that begun diverging in the early 1980s with the arrival of the "Genesis Births" - children that begin developing unnatural powers during difficult childbirths. Soon thereafter, it becomes recognized that certain people with the potential will spontaneously develop superpowers [[DieOrFly when faced with certain death]], giving them "what they need" to survive. Although the timeline generally trundled along as normal, with all these new super-babies slowly growing into adults, at the [[UsefulNotes/TurnOfTheMillennium beginning of the 2000s]], the earliest superhumans began really [[ButterflyOfDoom butterflying]] the world up. Obviously, this has lead to a 2023 that's quite different - Jazz is back in style, the internet is still in a Web 1.0-like state, [[Creator/MarvelComics Marvel]] and [[Creator/DCComics DC]] have sold off most of their properties, and obviously, {{Superhero}}es are real.

''[[https://www.royalroad.com/author-dashboard/dashboard/71347 Chum]]'' by pseudonymous author [=BSTDev=] is a WebSerialNovel that tells the story of Samantha "Sam" Small, a young superhero living in Philadelphia in an [[AlternateHistory alternate 2023]], where heroes and villains have been a fact of daily life for the past twenty years.

Chum has been lauded by many readers for the intricacy of its {{Worldbuilding}}, the realism of its characters, and the [[ViolenceIsDisturbing brutality of its fight scenes]]. Despite starting the story as a 14 year old, in the first two arcs alone Sam has been disemboweled, shot at, pistol-whipped, stabbed, and [[EyeScream had her eyes set on fire]], among other injuries - and the up-close nature of her own powers require her to dish it out just as bad on her opponents. The story began in July 2023 and is currently updating frequently, with guaranteed updates on Wednesdays and "sporadic extra updates as I feel fit" quoth the author, which translates to about 2-3 updates per week. Additionally, gaps between updates are filled with "World of Chum" articles that detail the lore and worldbuilding of the story's version of 2023.

''[[https://www.royalroad.com/author-dashboard/dashboard/71347 Chum]]'' by pseudonymous author [=BSTDev=] is a WebSerialNovel that tells the story of Samantha "Sam" Small, a young superhero living in Philadelphia in an [[AlternateHistory alternate 2023]], described by its author as the "Anti-Literature/{{Worm}}"