Samantha Small has shark teeth growing out of her mouth.
Chum
by pseudonymous author BSTDev is a Web Serial Novel that tells the story of Samantha "Sam" Small, a young superhero living in Philadelphia in an alternate 2023, where heroes and villains have been a fact of daily life for the past twenty years.
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 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 beginning of the 2000s, the earliest superhumans began really 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, Marvel and DC have sold off most of their properties, and of course, Superheroes are real.
The story follows Sam in the aftermath of a fishing accident that left her with 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 Liberty Belle, Philadelphia's top dog in the hero hierarchy, Sam discovers with her blood sense that Philly's #1 hero is dying of stomach cancer, and, a day later, is invited by Belle to join the Young Defenders, the city's new up-and-comers.
She accepts, becoming the superhero-in-training known as... Bloodhound?
Chum has been lauded by many readers for the intricacy of its Worldbuilding, the realism of its characters, and the brutality of its fight scenes. Despite starting the story as a 14 year old, in the first arc alone Sam has been disemboweled, shot at, pistol-whipped, and had several bone-breaking run ins with unpleasant fists, 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.
Chum provides examples of:
- Abandoned Warehouse: As with many superhero stories, a frequent occurrence. Chapters 12-13 take place in a real abandoned warehouse in Philly, while the Delaware Valley Defenders' headquarters is in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse.
- Abusive Parents: Jordan's mother treats them like dirt, deadnames them, 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.
- Sam's maternal grandfather was bad enough that Sam's grandmother and mother agree that they don't want him in Sam's life.
- Achilles' Heel: Chernobyl's suit is very strong and resilient, but it has a noticeable input lag. Sam uses that to defeat him.
- All There in the Manual: The "World of Chum" side-chapters, which detail everything from fashion to media to politics in the alternate timeline of Chum.
- Alternate Timeline: While superhumans began appearing in the early 1980s, it took about two decades for the oldest superhuman newborns to mature and begin affecting the world, putting the point of major divergence around 2001.
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: Sam herself has explicitly shark-themed powers, and takes on the bloodhound-themed persona of, well, Bloodhound, and later the vigilante persona called the Big Bad Wolf.
- Anti-Hero: As part of the main cast, Safeguard, with Sam taking on some antiheroic traits as she learns under their tutelage.
- Anti-Villain: Chapter 61 shows Chernobyl to be a decent man who wound up with shitty powers he can't really control and wound up in a bad situation because of them.
- Bag of Spilling: After spending two weeks in a coma, recovering from near-fatal injuries, Sam loses most if not all of her physical strength and prowess.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Sam is a sweet kid, but can get downright vicious in battle or when otherwise provoked. 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.
- Blood Knight: Sam, as the story progresses, comes to realize that she really loves fighting.
- Body Horror: 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. When Deathgirl copies Sam's powers, her bones grow spikes.
- In Chapter 52, Sam discovers that she is indeed growing teeth inside of her body, and can force them to the surface much like Deathgirl.
- A large part of Chapter 62 consists of very detailed descriptions of Sam's near-fatal injuries and radiation poisoning, and how she's recovering after the Chernobyl fight.
- The blood of people who take Fly or Jump turns orange. Sam also describes it as 'feeling' like it's carbonated to her blood sense.
- Boxing Lessons for Superman: Frequent throughout the setting - it's mentioned that most superheroes have knowledge in at least one form of martial art, ranging from boxing to aikido to eskrima.
- Breather Episode: Frequent and often, typically featuring Sam's friends from middle school or interacting with her family.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: The finale of Arc 4 has Sam fighting 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 a gunshot to the gut, microwave burns to her internal organs and Acute Radiation Syndrome from absorbing a hideous 10 Gy of hard radiation.note
- Chrome Champion: Kate becomes one after taking Jump.
- Clark Kenting: Averted - Registered Superhuman Entities in the US have their identities accessible as a matter of public record through FOIA requests, as being a superhero is their full-time job.
- Cooldown Hug: Sam gives Chernobyl one after she breaks through his suit, and that's how she gets through to him.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Averted - it's mentioned that there is an entire segment of the global economy known as the "Metahuman Economy" that use their powers to cash a check. Additionally, CGI never took off in the setting since superhumans could produce practical versions of many effects we'd need CGI for in our world.
- Chernobyl claims that he struck a deal with the US Government- they supply him with what he needs, and in return, he uses his radiation powers to help their power plants.
- David Versus Goliath: Most fights with Sam against people not her age turn into this, given her petite stature.
- 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, which just made things worse because nobody could act on the opportunity. She then attacked Ricochet 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.
- Description in the Mirror: Done by Sam in chapter 2.
- Enemy Mine: Sam and Safeguard's relationship after their first fight, until they end up becoming Vitriolic Best Buds.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Overlapping with Pragmatic Villainy, despite many superheroes having their names and faces be public information, most professional supervillains refuse to assassinate them outside of a designated fight. As Mr. Nothing says in Chapter 12:Mr. Nothing: You know what cops do to cop killers, now imagine what they do to the superhero killers.
- Everyone Has Standards: Spindle defects from his team because the Kingdom are encouraging Patches to do worse and worse things, and he doesn't want to be part of that.
- Eye Scream: In 21, Aaron attempts to burn Sam's eyes out, but only successfully ignites her eyelids.
- Frame-Up: Miasma breaks into an NSRA office to find some files, without the intention of hurting anyone. The Kingdom then kills several security guards and frames him for the deaths.
- Friendly Enemy: During their confrontation in Chapter 44, Chernobyl and Liberty Belle address each other by their first names and converse in an almost cordial manner, with Chernobyl repeatedly trying to talk her out of attacking him.
- Greater-Scope Villain: After four arcs involving the Kingdom, who are explicitly only around to make money, arc 5 introduces Rogue Wave, a mysterious new faction responsible for making and selling the Super Serum variants 'Jump' and 'Fly'.
- Healing Factor: Sam has a pretty high level of regeneration, which is one of her most valuable assets- later in the story, it's revealed that Sam's regeneration actually gets stronger the worse her injuries are. Patches is also a regenerator, but hers is one of the strongest on record.
- I Have No Son!: Jordan and their mother mutually disown each other in Arc 4.
- Incompatible Orientation: Part of why Jamila and Sam break up is because Jamila's asexual and Sam isn't.
- The Last Dance: Liberty Belle, who's dying of cancer, attempts to kill Chernobyl. She gets some good hits on him, but he wins the battle and kills her.
- Like Reality, Unless Noted: Most locations mentioned in the story, from cities and towns down to individual locations such as the Dobson Mills Warehouse and Sam & Jordan's headquarters in the Tacony Music Hall are real locations in the Delaware Valley area.
- Long-Lost Relative: Sam's maternal grandmother, Camilla, abruptly turns up during the 4.5 arc.
- Mad Scientist: Dr Xenograft's specialty- she's a bioscientist whose creations range from a greyhound that's twice the size of a normal dog and has a long lifespan, to a raccoon thing with eight eyes.
- Malicious Misnaming: The US Government gave Illya Myronovych Federov the codename 'Chernobyl'. Illya understandably loathes this name and hates being addressed by it - comparing it to him being called Hiroshima if he were Japanese - but there's not much he can actually do about it.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: 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.
- Never Be a Hero: Multiple characters try to talk Miss Mayfly out of being a hero, mostly because she doesn't have any powers. Miss Mayfly ignores this, but Sam manages to get through to her a bit by pointing out that what she's doing is actually illegal- you need a license to legally fight crime, and Miss Mayfly can't get one because she doesn't have powers, so if she was ever arrested, she'd be considered a criminal regardless of her actions or intentions.
- Non-Powered Costumed Hero: Miss Mayfly, who uses drones, pepper spray, stink bombs, noisemakers and a baton as her weapons.
- Old Shame: 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 feels that their having been involved is a stain on his firm's legacy.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Derek got werewolf powers- he turns into a wolf every night, and keeps himself locked up to avoid hurting anyone else.
- Parents as People: Sam says in chapter 11 that while she knows that her parents love her, her father is cold sometimes and her mother only cares about Sam getting into a good college, and nobody seems to care about what Sam actually wants.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Sam is a tiny teenage girl, but her teeth, her training and her regeneration makes her a serious threat in a physical fight.
- Power Copying: This is Deathgirl's power, but her copies are stronger and less controlled than those of the person who has them.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Puppeteer snaps and gives Sam one out of stress, resentment and jealousy.
- Aaron McKinley's second interlude is one long one, with the Phreaks and his doctor making it clear that he's a jumped-up thug who isn't cut out to be a supervillain. He eventually realises that they're correct.
- Sam cops another one from Kate, who is really mad about Sam leaving her friends behind.
- Relationship Upgrade: Sam starts dating Gale midway through the story.
- Jordan starts dating Spindle after he switches sides.
- Required Secondary Powers: Subverted with Aaron McKinley- his power lets him create and control fire, but it doesn't give him immunity to the smoke that's created as a result. When he starts really exploring the depth of his powers, he breathes in so much toxic gas that his doctor tells him that in the space of two weeks, his lungs have gone from healthy to sounding like he's been smoking for decades.
- Also subverted with minor villain Ricochet, who takes Jump and gets super strength, but he isn't immune to his own power, and his body starts breaking itself.
- The Resenter: Chapter 85 reveals that Kate is really angry about how Sam got powers, went to a fancy school and left her friends behind- and worse, that she wanted Kate to give up being a hero. There's also a lot of resentment about how Sam has two parents who have good jobs, while Kate only has her father and is much worse off, socioeconomically.
- School Idol: 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 metahuman fight and made it out. She also gets a reputation as a Bully Hunter for reasons she isn't sure about, but is happy to go along with it.
- Shout-Out:
- Chernobyl quotes I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream from memory.
- When Sam asks a member of the Kingdom what she does, the villain replies "I make it rain on them hoes."
- Spotting the Thread: 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 realize that they can't be waiters because the club doesn't employ minors.
- Super Serum: One starts turning up in the form of the street drugs 'Jump' (powers for only a few hours) and 'Fly' (powers for much longer, possibly permanent).
- Theme Naming: The Kingdom's members are all called 'Mr/Mrs [letter]', with there presumably being a member for every letter of the alphabet.
- There Are No Therapists: Played with at first and then averted: in the early part of the story, Sam has a counsellor at her school, but she intentionally avoids being honest with them. When Sam ends up in hospital after the Chernobyl fight, she gets a lot of therapy.
- Time Skip: There's a few over the course of the 4.5 arc- Sam is in a coma for two weeks, and there's more skips as her condition progresses.
- Transhuman Abomination: '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, compound eyes and chitin instead of skin) 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.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Universal for the setting. The Activation Events which result in a superhuman gaining their powers are the result of a near-death experience, and result in powers related to the event in question. Sam got her shark powers when she fell off her grandfather's boat and got disemboweled by the propeller.
- Tyke-Bomb: Deathgirl is one, and her interlude reveals that the people who trained her (presumably the Kingdom) are doing experiments with multiple other children.
- Vigilante Man: Sam and Jordan become vigilantes (besides Sam's job as a hero), taking on gangs and minor criminals.
- Kate becomes a vigilante as 'Miss Mayfly', despite not having powers.
- The Villain Knows Where You Live: After Sam and Jordan infiltrate their club, the Kingdom's response is to send a couple of members to trash Sam's house as a message.
- Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Sam has to balance being a hero with going to school. Later in the story, she's juggling going to school, being a hero and being a vigilante.
- Weather Manipulation: One of the Kingdom's villains, Ms Zenith, has this power.
- Wham Episode: Chapter 45: Liberty Belle (with Sam's assistance) vs Chernobyl. Chernobyl wins and Liberty Belle dies.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Aaron McKinley teams up with the remaining members of the Phreaks to kill Sam. Their first attempt would have worked- Chrysalis knocked her out on the rooftop and they could have killed her there- but instead they took her back to their base. Even then, they still could have killed her- they tied her to a chair- but Aaron wanted to torture her before killing her, which gave Sam the opportunity to escape.
- With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: When Jordan asks Sam why she became a hero, Sam admits that she doesn't know, but her best answer is that it's the right thing to do. Jordan proceeds to defy the trope by telling Sam that she doesn't have to be a hero if she doesn't want to be one, she could still contribute to society by using her powers as a paramedic, and that if she wants an out, here it is.
- Would Hurt a Child: 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. Later, the Kingdom tells Aaron McKinley that he can join them if he kills Sam, which he's more than willing to try doing.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Chernobyl doesn't want to fight or hurt a kid, even if the kid attacks him.
- You Remind Me of X: Inverted in Chapter 61, when Sam guesses that part of why Chernobyl doesn't want to fight her is that she reminds him of his daughter.
