History Literature / Ward

** This can also happen for regular triggers than happen in the presence of other parahumans. Turns out the reason parahumans pass out and re-experience a trigger vision when a trigger happens nearby is that the triggering shard "pings" the other shards for ideas or resources to potentially use. [[spoiler: This is how Victoria got her aura power. Dean was in the audience, and Fragile One received the ability from his shard.]]
** It can ''also'' happen when multiple shards budding and those buds combine into a single shard. [[spoiler: Victoria's shard was composed of buds from both her parents, though in her case their powers were too similar to really result in combo-platter powers.]]

* ScryVsScry: [[spoiler:The Simurgh gets into a contest along these lines with Fortuna. To outsiders, they're just standing there staring at each other for the better part of a day, but in reality they're both constantly updating their plans at the speed of thought and then revising them again when their powers inform them what the other will do in response.]]

* ComboPlatterPowers: Multi-triggers, also known as grab-bag capes. They're the result of multiple people triggering in close proximity at the same time. As per Wildbow, each person gets their own power at 75%, and then gets a variant of the other powers at 25%.

* EasyLogistics: Averted with the main characters. All of them except Rain live around the city, but the city is so big that just getting together takes several hours of travelling.

''Ward'' is the fourth WebSerialNovel written by Creator/{{Wildbow}}, following ''Literature/{{Twig}}'', and the second novel in the Literature/{{Parahumans}} series as the direct sequel to the hit web novel ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', taking place two years later. Following the events of the previous series, Victoria Dallon, previously known as Glory Girl of Brockton Bay's New Wave, is released from her asylum and is forced to find her way in a fractured world.

''Ward'' is the fourth WebSerialNovel written by Creator/{{Wildbow}}, following ''Literature/{{Twig}}'', and is the direct sequel to the hit web novel ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', taking place two years later. Following the events of the previous series, Victoria Dallon, previously known as Glory Girl of Brockton Bay's New Wave, is released from her asylum and is forced to find her way in a fractured world.

* EvilVersusEvil: Later on, [[spoiler:the ScryVsScry war between Fortuna and the Simurgh amounts to this, with Fortuna wanting humanity to die in an EarthShatteringKaboom in order to continue the cycle, and the Simurgh wanting to rule them as they suffer forever.]]

* PowerIncontinence: Breakthrough has a team made up of multiple parahumans who's superpowers are odd, act up, or simply make their lives worse.

* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: [[spoiler:Heavens 12.all, on top of the weird name, takes place from the perspective of Victoria's and March's shards. Victoria's uses first person narration, being the only interlude character in all of Wildbow's writing to do this instead of third person.]]

** Teacher was just one of several Birdcage inmates. He took relevance near the end of ''Worm'', but in ''Ward'' he's perhaps the main villain for most of the series, with his actions driving almost everyone. Due to his habit of recruiting people with interesting powers a similar spike in relevance happens to Ingenue, fellow Birdcage inmmate that joined him in the end of ''Worm'' and [spoiler: Scapegoat, a semi-GagCharacter that healed Taylor during the attack on Echidna. He goes through a FaceHeelTurn and becomes "The Black Goat".]]

** Taylor's bullies learned that while their school is indulgent of their bad behavior, it doesn't mean that other people would be: their bratty behavior at a hero convention got them chewed out by Victoria when they insulted a disabled girl ''in public''.

* AFamilyAffair: From Within reveals that [[spoiler:Carol had an affair with Neil Pelham decades before the story starts, meaning that Victoria might actually be Eric and Crystal's cousin ''and'' half-sister.]]

* AfterTheEnd: Takes place two years after Gold Morning, Scion's betrayal of humanity.

* UnfortunateNames: Invoked when Victoria points out that a superhero calling herself 'Fume Hood' sounds like she's calling herself a gangster.
** Darlene is absolutely terrible at choosing codenames, with most of her ideas falling under this trope. (She eventually goes with 'Syndicate'.)

* RealityEnsues:
** As of ''Glow-worm'', anti-cape sentiment has skyrocketed in the last two years, both because of the Cauldron/Alexandria reveal, because of how many people got killed by Scion before he was finally taken down, and because the amnesty established at the end of ''Worm'' (Every crime a cape previously committed is essentially forgotten, allowing them all to start afresh) has resulted in many, many villains who were not punished for their crimes either going free or even joining the heroes. And even the ones who were punished for their crimes are still seen as getting away with it because their previous deeds are now forgotten. Understandably, the non-capes don't like that at all, especially since the collapse of the PRT means that non-capes now have virtually no authority over the capes.
*** More than that, the people are looking for someone to blame and the capes are the most transparent of them to do so.
** Earth Bet has been rendered essentially uninhabitable because Scion's attacks left cities and countries shattered, and because clean-up was basically impossible, various industrial plants and sites have been left to seep into the surrounding land and water. The universe hasn't been written off entirely, but making it livable is going to take a lot of effort and they simply don't have it to spare.
** Brandish's ''[[SarcasmMode brilliant]]'' idea of having Amy and Victoria resolve their issues by inviting them both to a family barbecue and not telling Victoria goes about as well as you'd expect. Her defense that Victoria should have known because she said 'Everyone' would be there also goes about as well as you'd expect.
** Capes as a whole decided at some point between ''Worm'' and ''Ward'' that the non-capes should not be told about Khepri or how she defeated Scion. But, as Victoria pointed out in ''Glow-worm'', they can't stop word of mouth, so the full story will get out eventually.
** The Hollow Point villains have little cohesion and don't work together well, despite being big in number and having lots of firepower, because that's what generally happens when a group of mostly strangers form a team under someone who doesn't have much experience at leading and can't keep control of his people.
** The battle against the Fallen almost instantly becomes a total clusterfuck when it starts, because when both sides have multiple groups with differing desires involved and the communication between them isn't good, the idea of staying on the rails becomes more like a pipe dream than a plan.
*** Beast of Burden continually antagonises and eventually assaults a powerful, proud cape with little reason to respect him or to hold back. [[spoiler:And Ashley winds up blowing a hole in his chest for it.]]
** Tattletale and Victoria may technically be on the same side now, but all attempts to work together go about as smoothly as sandpaper, given their history and Tattletale's personality. Victoria having Kenzie as her liaison doesn't exactly help either, given Kenzie's lack of boundaries.
** Cauldron is no longer subtly manipulating public sentiment, there's no real Parahuman Response team, the Birdcage prison is shut down without Dragon to run it, several of the world's most powerful heroes are dead, and the legal system hasn't really been formalized yet. Because of this, the "unspoken cape rules" have gone out the window. Villains (and some heroes) with potentially lethal powers are shooting to kill. Those without powers are not hesitating to use guns against capes and each other.
** Damsel of Distress was a proud, vindictive teenager with a power she could barely control, no real backup or organisation, and an inset refusal to be acknowledged as anything other than the top dog. She managed a few small victories, but inevitably, the bigger dogs would come along and effortlessly knock her down, and she never took it well.
** Goddess is far less competent than she's thought to be, because she's A) a spoiled, sheltered ditz who's unused to being opposed, and B) incredibly powerful, so much so that she's not used to going up against anyone on her level (especially since she was dropped on a world of much weaker parahumans shortly after triggering). While she's still a legitimate threat and exceptionally powerful, she's not infallible, and is shown to be at a distinct disadvantage against Teacher, who has considerably more experience at out-thinking people.
** As of ''Dying'', we discover the source of the instability of the portals... [[spoiler:killing Scion/Zion may have actually made things worse in the long run, as the death of a multi-dimension spanning EldritchAbomination means that the shards he left behind are either malfunctioning (the [[BodyHorror Broken Triggers]]) or ''coalescing'' of their own accord, threatening to break reality itself apart in the process.]]
** During the raid on Teacher's compound, Breakthrough and Imp manage to [[spoiler:free and wake up Contessa. Imp thinks that they've automatically won now that she's awake; unfortunately, life isn't that simple, and Contessa winds up offering them three plans, each with a long list of pros and cons attached.]]

* GeneticEngineering: Rampant in a setting with super geniuses like Tinkers. [[spoiler:Blasto creates a giant plant Kaiju by mixing several cape's DNA together, Chris was designed to be an imprinted clone by Lab Rat, and the Shin Defense Initiative is the unholy byproduct of Chris and Red Queen's tampering of Cape DNA]]

* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Victoria is blonde and one of the most geniunely heroic individuals in the setting.

* HeartbrokenBadass: At the series start Victoria has lost the love of her life, her sister betrayed her and left her crippled for years, and the rest of her family is {{Innocently Insensitive}} at best and aggressively ignorant of her issues at worst.
* HeroicWillpower: In fighting [[spoiler:Grasping Self in Rain's Dream Room, Victoria ends up on the receiving end of a tinker tech flamethrower with little to no cover. Despite having her flesh ''literally'' melting off of her body, she still remains conscious for the most part, even summoning up the strength to pull herself up and scream to get the enemy's attention]].
** Shown even earlier in arc 11, when Victoria rips out Nursery's combat tentacles from within her own throat, despite the fact that she was losing air circulation and that the tentacles dig in to prevent this from happening. A brief moment to vomit once she succeeds, and then proceeds to dive right back into the fight with a vengeance.

* GeneticEngineering: Rampant in a setting with super geniuses like Tinkers. [[spoiler:Blasto creates a giant plant Kaiju by mixing several cape DNA’s together, Chris was designed to be an imprinted clone by Labrat, and the Shin Defense Initiative is the unholy byproduct of Labrat and Red Queen’s tampering of Cape DNA]]

* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Victoria is a gorgeous blonde, and one of the most geniunely heroic individuals in the setting.
* HalfHumanHybrid: Victoria is revealed to have the latent DNA of various animals such as cats, dogs, and insects due to Amy using their biology to fix her injured body.
** [[spoiler:The Titans and Shin Giants are the fusion of Shards and their human hosts, with powers ramped up far beyond the average cape]]
* HammerSpace: Where Kitchen Sink pulls out his random projectiles, including living centipedes!
* HappilyAdopted: Not officially, but Kenzie definitely sees Ashley and Victoria as her adoptive mother figures.
* HarmfulToMinors: Several of the worst supervillains, such as Cradle, are more than willing to harm or kill children to achieve their goals.
** [[spoiler: Victoria fighting Chris ends up with her breaking several of his limbs.]]
* HeartbrokenBadass: At the series start Victoria has lost the love of her life, her sister betrayed her and left her crippled for years, and the rest of her family is [[InnocentlyInsensitive]] at best and aggressively ignorant of her issues at worst.
* HeroicWillpower: In fighting [[spoiler:Grasping Self in Rain's Dream Room]], Victoria ends up on the receiving end of a tinker tech flamethrower with little to no cover. Despite having her flesh ''literally'' melting off of her body, she still remains conscious for the most part, even summoning up the strength to pull herself up and scream to get the enemy's attention.
** Shown even earlier in arc 11, when Victoria rips out Nursery's combat tentacles from within her own throat, despite the fact that she was losing air circulation and that the tentacles dig in to prevent this from happening. A brief moment to vomit once she succeeds, and then proceeds to dive right back into the fight with a vengeance.
* AnIcePerson: One of the ways Byron's power expresses itself is as a mist that deep freezes anything it touches.

** Vista is attracted to [[spoiler:Capricorn, but unfortunately for her, Tristan is gay. And he's also forced by his powers to share a body with his twin brother Byron. He's straight, but he and his brother can both see and hear what the other does while in control of their body, so it's never going to work out.]]
** Amy is romantically and sexually obsessed with Victoria. Not only is Victoria straight, but she's also her [[NotBloodSiblings adopted sister]]

** In a more conventional example, this is standard operating procedure for Teacher, whose power allows him to enthrall and give low-level superpowers to basically anyone he can touch. He then throws the thralls at his enemies to keep them busy while his heavy hitters do the real damage.