Title: Go Gently
Author: Shana the Short
Genre: Alternate/Crossover
Fandom: Worm/Welcome to Night Vale
Pairings: Taylor/Alec
Summary: (No official summary, this one written by me.) A different shard and a choice from Danny lead Taylor's life in a new and mildly interesting direction. She gets new neighbors, spends time with her friends, and ignores the shadowy figures coming out of the Dog Park, like any good citizen.
Link: http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/go-gently-worm-wtnv.5756/

This is a crossover of Worm and Welcome to Night Vale, one of my favorite podcasts. From the itunes store,

Basic premise is that Danny triggers after an attempted suicide and destroys the house. He and Taylor move, and I can't really say anything else without spoilers.

Fair warning, this fic moves pretty slowly, and is much more slice of life then other stories. Which I love. But some of you might now.

5/5

 

Read this a while ago. Keep meaning to pick it back up now that there's more. It's solid-to-good.

Taylor has her own distinct voice, and that's good. It's different from her canon voice, and that's... well, I can't say that's bad, but it's not something I enjoy. Normally that's totally fine, for fanfic, but Taylor's characterization and voice in canon is one of the highlights of Worm, for me, and I want fics that do her justice, dammit.

This is good, though. There are a few eye-rolls at how everyone and their dog gets superpowers before Taylor, and how in the dark she is for the first bit, but that's a fairly minor gripe.

Writing is strong enough to carry a slow-moving, slice of life story, and that means it's well above average.

Lung is probably the highlight for me. Those late-night interactions on the balcony are real good. And man, that interlude when he thinks about his dog...

Spoiler

And the girl was his, as surely as the dog had been and for much the same reason; he didn't feed her, had no particularly deep interest her, and certainly hadn't whelped her, but she was, like the dog before her, a not unpleasant point of familiarity in his life. At times, when he was feeling particularly whimsical or drunk, he half-wondered if the girl was the dog reborn. She certainly had the ridiculously chipper tenacity for bothering him.

And they had tried to kill her.

On his territory.

Lung stood up, rolling his shoulders. The grunt's voice squeaked out to an inaudible murmur, but he paid that no heed. He walked past the boy, forming a handful of fire and idly allowing the flames to lick up his arms.

"I'll answer this insult personally," he decided.

"At times, when he was feeling particularly whimsical or drunk, he half-wondered if the girl was the dog reborn" is a killer piece of writing. It's funny and true and amazing.

A solid 4/5

 

Alright, time to dust off my long-ass rant I wrote last year... Actually, no, it's a bit too long. Let me paraphrase.

To enjoy this fic, you need to suspend your disbelief quite a bit. Danny leaves Taylor alone in Brockton Bay at age 12/13 with no consequences. PRT doesn't care, the law doesn't care, Taylor's friends don't care. Danny doesn't set Taylor up with any contacts. Taylor’s only adult supervision is the people in her apartment building, who Danny doesn’t know and hasn’t met. She interacts with Kenta, her only neighbor, but it’s normal for her not to see him for a month. Danny doesn’t send any of his cape / PRT associates to check in on her.

Spoiler

Sure, Emma and Sophia are in the Wards and can watch her, but that’s not a substitute for a parent and they don’t live with her.

Taylor’s personality is... lacking. The best way to describe her is ‘3D anime character.’ For one, she’s stupid. Taylor is very smart. She’s twelve/thirteen and can be oblivious, but not this damn oblivious. She should notice something weird happening to her remaining parent, especially so soon after Annette’s death. This brings me to Taylor’s depression and anger at being abandoned by her father so soon after her mother died. Oh wait, she’s not angry or depressed. She shows moments of anger to Danny, but there’s no long-lasting effects. She’s 12/13 and is perfectly all right at living on her own. She’s not scared or depressed at her situation, which she should be. It's not supposed to be cool.

Taylor is an anime character. She feels real, with reliable emotions and personality, but it’s shallow. It doesn’t go in-depth enough, and misunderstands the consequences of her history.

All the characters are anime. Sophia in particular. She’s a sociopath. You can feel her real personality in the interludes with the Wards, but in this fic, it’s treated as a quirky character trait. Taylor and Sophia would never be friends, because Sophia is so into her predator/prey mentality. Making fun of weaker people, bullying, looking down on anything she considers to be a prey characteristic. In canon, she pushed Emma to live out her predator dreams, and I don’t see why Taylor staying friends with Emma would change that.

When I posted this review a year ago, the author replied and gave some spoiler details to 'explain' all this. I'm not sure if this has even been revealed in the fic yet, so be warned for those who have caught up:

Spoiler

The explanation is that Taylor's shard is so powerful she's reality warping everything, from being left alone with no consequences (in real life and in her own mind), to everyone's personalities, i.e darker aspect being softened.

I'd rather the explanation just be inadequate writing.

The problem with reality warping is that it paints all the interactions in this story as fake. Emma / Sophia / Lung's affection towards Taylor is now called into doubt. It's not the real them. They're being manipulated into liking her, and it seems like there's no way they can fight it or even become aware of it. That takes all the fun out of this fic. I adore Taylor / Lung interactions, but here, it's just an illusion. What's the point?

One last thing: the shard interludes are dumb. I like Welcome to Night Vale, it’s a fun series, but giving shards personalities with human senses of humor makes so little sense that I’m baffled. Adding to that, the story is treating having multiple buds as being a stronger cape, instead of just influencing what Taylor’s base power is going to be.

There are good things about this fic. It's unique. Different from the usual “in locker, triggers with a different power -> Lung -> Whatever team Taylor’s on -> Leviathan -> S9.” It’s also well-written. Small details, like the kotatsu, that lends the fic a sense of realism. While Taylor is too oblivious and unaffected by her situation, she does seem like a normal child. Writing a legit child character is so hard to do, the author should get points just for that.

TLDR: This fic has big problems, mostly with Taylor and other anime characterizations. It's different from the usual fics around, but you need a large suspension of disbelief. I don't have that.

I can't in good conscience give this story more than 3/5.

 

It has been a while since I read it but I think the fact that no one is checking in on Taylor is a plot point, something to do with her powers.

 

Eh.

Pre-bullying Taylor doesn't exactly sound like her canon self. It stands to reason that her internal voice/thought processes would be different too. I think Go Gently Taylor sounds very similar to how she did pre-bullying in canon, in character voice at least.

As for the story, I love it. There are times when its difficult to follow what's going on, but the writing is good, the atmosphere is great, Lung is awesome without the author resorting to the dreaded Draco in Leather Pants trope, and Aisha is Aisha. Also, Regent/Taylor is surprisingly awesome. 4/5.

 

I do actually agree with @Vira that everyone feels a bit like slightly exaggerated anime characters, but I suppose for me it was of benefit to my enjoyment of story. Taylor has an upbeat, friendly demeanor that I found cute and endearing. Sophia's psychopathic disposition is treated more as a comical character quirk. And so on. But I felt the lighthearted way the story deals with these issues was internally consistent enough that it didn't feel awkward to me.

I love the characterizations, their interactions and the general premise between them in the story. I usually find AUs where Taylor remains friends with Sophia and Emma irritating, but I liked their friendship here. Lung's relationship to Taylor was a fantastic idea. Aisha is fun. And of course, AlecTaylor (or more specifically, this particular Taylor) is perfect.

Where I lost interest is anything to do with Taylor's power. It was fantastic when it was about Taylor being surrounded by all these people with powers and very slowly realizing it. (But with admittedly zero familiarity with WTNV), I found everything related to Taylor's power dull and boring. I think I'd have liked it if Taylor never got powers, and the story continued exploring her role as this one person connected to opposing groups at war with each other.

I'd really love to give it higher than a 3/5 for the fun character interactions and the state of Taylor's relationship to the various people in the story, but that's not really enough to carry a story. I only see myself getting less and less interested as the (slow) updates continue.