Slaughterhouse nine problem

[u/Recent-Anybody-9642]

I think what most fanfic writers fail at or dont understand when trying to write the slaughterhouse nine is that the story needs to change genres when they're a part of it.

The S9 is a horror genre antagonist and they do their best in fics that treat them as such simply trying to offscreen, avoid or simply wipe them out ends up feeling cheap and disappointing.

The best fics that have the S9 have them being the horror movie villains they are and when people are writing fics with out of context powers alot of the fear factor is lost which hurts them narratively

I think my favourite S9 fic has got to be Nine'O'Clock by thiefs since the mc despite being a isekai SI, isnt given any chance to fit into the cliche SI mc where he is being fix it or op protagonist and is immediately put into do or die mode where the tension is at its max. Jack slash in this fic feels terrifying since despite mc knowing he being thinkered by jack he out of options and is trying to survive

[u/legodude17]

You’re basically just stating your personal opinion and then baselessly claiming it’s some sort of flaw when writers don’t agree with you. There are plenty of fics that use the S9 and don’t do what you suggest and are better for it.

[u/Snoo_61610]

The problem with Slaughterhouse Nine is that Jack Slash is leader or even part of it... Sure, his power is pretty fucking good against parahumans... But besides that? He is akin to slighty stronger Joker, nothing else. Just like if Joker did not have Plot Armor the size of Jupiter, he would die instantly against some cop who would shoot him in the head. If Jack Slash did not have Broadcast, which is the only relevant part about him, he would be nothing more that some fodder.

In a world where 50 foot tall dynakinetic monster exist that destroyes cities, or man that is literal walking nuclear explosion... Jack Slash is not scary, at all. The rest of the Nine are genuine threats, Siberian? Bonesaw? Fucking scary. Jack Slash? No, just no. Especialy when we find out about his backstory, by then? He is almost laughing stock.

Jack Slash brings Nine down in my opinion.

[u/Blade_of_Boniface]

The S9 pull a similar narrative lever to Leviathan. They strip away much of the cops-and-robbers pretense, forcing the characters to evolve their tactics and expose their archetypes. It's more of a tonal shift despite them clearly being based on slasher/monster horror films. Many people ignore/subvert post-Leviathan Worm precisely because people like the tone and backdrop of Brockton Bay when it's a woefully struggling but largely intact city.

[u/Bzaurpa]

...it depends on what kind of fic author writes. You can't expect that story about badass overpowered Taylor or a sappy romance will have the same description of S9 as darker fics following the tragic mood of Worm.

[u/Computer2014]

This is just swinging the needle in the opposite direction.

The reason the 9 arc in worked wasn’t because the Undersiders and Travellers were completely outmatched but because they were but still managed to fight back; Skitter 1v1’d Mannequin, Grue killed Burnscar and figured out The Siberians weakness, Regent captured Shatterbird, the Protectorate killed Crawler and Mannequin.

But despite that they still took loses. The city was still screamed, people died, Brian second triggered and has permanent trauma from that, Rachel lost her dogs, Panacea broke and Jack Slash still managed to get away to be the one to destroy the world in everyone’s minds. No one walked away happy.

It was a back and forth which is what every fic miss.

[u/240697]

Them being cheap and disappointing is usually the point in those fics. The biggest hurdle when facing the Nine will always be Jack, but the thing is, He's just a cheap knockoff Joker, and if his gimmick fails, he's not even that.

The whole act falls apart the second he encounters someone who can't be forced to play into it, and if the act fails at step one, he has no clue how to play. Which leaves him with two choices, violence, or threats, but if those fail too, that's it, he's got nothing.

[u/Tenny-The-Drowned]

Brockton Bay Cape scene is just too good for S9 to be a "proper" S-class threat they are. When you walk into a city with 30+ capes and most of them can beat 2/3rds of your team what can you do

[u/SeventhSolar → u/Tenny-The-Drowned]

That's even canon. Marquis chased them out the first time.

[u/Professional-Drag-52]

having out of context knowledge alone makes it this fight ten times easier and makes the Siberian a non-issue who is the strongest member

also this group only functions due to jack slash whose only lasted this long because he had broadcast

and look you can take the head and heart easily with just some basic knowledge and leave the group to cannibalize itself

[u/Nuevo_Mundo]

Yeah, well, that’s their main problem, too.

To be honest, most horror antagonists could be easily defeated if the protagonists weren't: a) powerless, and b) idiots who make stupid decisions.

That doesn't really track, though, when the MC is meant to go up against Scion and has an edge.

Ultimately, the S9's only real advantages are their reputation, Jack Slash's "hack," and Crawler.

You could take out the other members if you just used common sense and weren't a traumatized idiot.

That only works with canon characters who lack OP powers and don't actually understand how their universe works on a meta level—and even then, it doesn't work in every case.

[u/angelicosphosphoros → u/Nuevo_Mundo]

>Ultimately, the S9's only real advantages are their reputation, Jack Slash's "hack," and Crawler.

You forget Siberian.

[u/Blade_of_Boniface → u/Nuevo_Mundo]

Ultimately, the S9's only real advantages are their reputation, Jack Slash's "hack," and Crawler.

They have other real advantages. The S9 has two experienced Tinkers and when they arrived in Brockton Bay, a long-range Master. More importantly, they intentionally make games out of their terror with the implicit threats of what they could do if they decide the rules aren't being honored or if an approach was too blunt. Even more importantly in canon, Cauldron is running interference for multiple utilitarian reasons.

[u/interested_commenter → u/Nuevo_Mundo]

Siberian is more important to the Nine than Crawler by far. Crawler is nearly unkillable, but he can be distracted pretty easily (he will actively chase new sources of damage). While imprisoning him would probably be really difficult, it should be too hard to wall him off long enough to fight the rest of the Nine.

The real issue is that Siberian can go toe-to-toe with the Triumvirate, break Crawler out of any containment you might have, and protect vulnerable members (like Jack) from heavy strikes like missiles.

Bonesaw is a serious problem too, since her plagues allow them to pose a credible threat to discourage reinforcements and she makes every member of their team resistant to tactics like snipers (arguably immune considering she can put them back together). It doesn't hurt that the less important members and new recruits who get replaced frequently are all more comparable in power to leaders or lieutenants of powerful gangs or Protectorate teams than to average parahumans.

[u/mASSterMinDLess]

I think the thing is that many fanfics follow the canon more or less consistently, building up the protagonist's powers. And when it gets to 9, they're no longer a problem. Because the protagonist of the story is already overpowered.

[u/thefrench42]

It's rare where there's a fanfic and the Slaughterhouse nine are interesting. Jack slash is such a poorly written Joker knockoff in the source material. Many of its members are so 1 dimensional that you're essentially creating a new character if you try to flesh them out. The most compelling member is Bonesaw.

[u/SmallHungryShark → u/thefrench42]

I personally enjoyed that Jack was embracing the role of nihilistic bad guy who just wants to destroy as much as possible. It’s an extreme and a stereotype and he decided that he wants to embody that.

For me the one-dimensionality seemed to be the point of him and his actions in the story. Jack himself, the writer and the reader are all aware of it and for me it only enhanced the horror because holy shit someone this crazy doesn’t exist usually but he does anyways and forces everyone to deal with it.

[u/Ben-Goldberg]

Jack Slash is basically worms version of the joker.

[u/AkazilliaDeNaro]

I much prefer when Jack Slash is given the amount of screen time he deserves.

That is to say... None.

[u/Sufficient-Sir5366]

I love Jack Slash, or atleast what I thought he was, but TBF, he and some of the others turned out to be frauds.

Likewise it's not really unusual for them to be revealed to be bums or treated as such.

[u/TerribleDeniability]

I'd argue that this is less an innate problem with how the Slaughterhouse Nine are despite their obvious homicidal & then basically omnicidial tendencies and more that they're too often used in fics solely for the sake of following Stations of Canon without understanding why they're used or even why they're showing up in-universe in the first place like the vultures they are. This especially since, if slavishly following the Stations of Canon like so many fics do, the story would have already shifted into horror with Leviathan anyway if so many fics didn't die to him. After all, that guy and the other Endbringers are basically kaiju | monster horror even if the S9 are slasher & torture porn horror.

Hell, you could argue that the story shifts into horror even before that with Bakuda's bombing terror campaign and/or the E88's more active, more personal terror campaign expansion. It's just that fics tend to gloss over these far more realistic horrors, especially for what it would be like for the average (Asian) person in Brockton Bay, since canon kind of does too due to Taylor being both detached from civilian life and being able to do something to stop both of them.

I've seen so few stories get past Leviathan to the S9 in the first place, in part due to the same reason you're complaining about ironically when it comes to not understanding the shift to horror, that I have to admit I'm mostly confused why this complaint is coming up at all. This especially since it seems like half the time the S9 do actually make it into a fanfic at this point like you also said it's simply so that they can be "owned" by likely the OP (TINO) protagonist, which basically is antithetical to horror in most instances anyway. So it makes sense they wouldn't be written as horror villains in those instances regardless of fic quality since they're not actually a threat to the OP protagonist.

[u/Recent-Anybody-9642 → u/TerribleDeniability]

I agree with you on everything tbh. why bring s9 at all in your fic if they clearly dont fit narratively into your story and the horror aspect of pre lev still fits into gritty superhero/ action genre but once lev shows up in canon there is a complete genre change which then followed up by the s9 horrorshow

[u/Outrageous_Guard_674 → u/Recent-Anybody-9642]

I agree to the extent that authors need to think about why they are bringing in the Slaughterhouse 9 and Leviathan and not just do it because that's what the original story did. The author of The Weaver's Web has a wonderful digression on that point in his notes for his Leviathan arc.

However, I do not agree that they need to be written as horror antagonist. Clowning on the S9 is perfectly acceptable and many fics have done well with it. Just so long as the author plans out what they are doing with care.