It might be the best of the Taylor travels back in time to fix everything fics (there's a few that all use the same mechanism), but if it were an HP time travel fic, it would be very bland and not really stand out.. I only really read it since it was quite long.

I've read all of Ryuugi's fics, and I will admit that I consider them amongst the top in the fandom.

I'm nearly finished with Atonement - I can't stop reading. It's quite excellent.

---------- Post automerged 10-29-2014 at 10:07 AM ---------- Previous post was 10-28-2014 at 08:06 PM ----------

Just finished the current arc (7) of atonement.

Spoiler

My only gripe is that I think the author must have watched too much DBZ, with Sundancer using her spirit bomb on leviathan. Also, Madison's mannerisms reminds me a bit of bonesaw

I do like how 110k words were posted over 4 days, but there's nothing in 4 days after, I wonder if that means the author had 110k saved up and now has to write more, or something else.

 

Read Amelia, which was a decent timewaster though it's sort of a generic OP superfriends fic.

Read all the new stuff with Atonement, and am sort of bored with it at the moment.

Read Weaver Nine, which was extremely good. The Leviathan fight is the most extreme I have read. Shame it hasn't been updated in awhile, but I can imagine the author wanted to right the fic with just that scene in mind, and thus no desire to continue it.

Just finished reading A Cloudy Path, which was recommended to me in IRC. Far better than I was expecting it to be. In fact, it may be my favorite fic at the moment. Only gripe is the generic explanation of Taylor's tinker gear - I think the author just uses the words 'Quantum' and 'Temporal' over and over again and hopes those sciencey words are enough handwaving. Also, the hidden text is a bit weird - I always highlight my page when reading to keep track of where I am and was surprised to see it pop up two or three times.

 

I don't know I read a lot of A Cloudy Path, and only 1 word comes to mind, boring. It was really really boring, and I tried to get into it too.

 

I'd say Cloudy Path is basically the best alt!Taylor fic updating right now. That SEEMS a bit strange given that, on paper, it's just another Tinker!Taylor fic with the tinkering being a relatively stable progression to moar powah but what else is there? What other fic is as good with the same update rate? (Don't say Atonement, haven't read it)

Cloudy Path has some actual soul to it. My problem with fics like say..Amelia is that they seem to focus too much on what could be done with powers and not who wields them (to be fair there is family drama in Amelia). This is why I ripped it apart for just skipping incredibly important CHARACTER moments in order to give us more parahuman power. CP doesn't do that. In between the fights you actually see Taylor being a person (and not just when the writer is forced to, like when she has to deal with Sophia), even if you don't like the actual specifics of the drama that alone puts it a step above most of the fics that feel like zombies, shambling towards some particular alt!power conclusion.

Also: it manages to have a good plot while ignoring all the other bullshit that plagues the Worm fandom. Coil isn't an obstacle to be removed post-haste in a way that breaks immersion. Taylor doesn't go out of her way to save poor, broken Amy Dallon (this is the worst part of the fandom imo) and Dinah hasn't appeared iirc.All the fanon shit that drags down even other good fics is missing.

tl:dr: It basically gets all the shit we whine about here right. Go read it. My biggest fear for the fandom is that it never gets over it's own "Ginny-hate", indy-Harry cliches and give us more of fics like that.

 

The problem with ACP, which I think was andy50's issue with it, is that it has a tendency to drag on endlessly about mind-numbingly boring shit for no apparent reason. I remember there was a chapter where he took the trouble to describe in detail how they picked up every piece of equipment in the lab, then put it in a box, then loaded it into the truck, then went back and checked to see if there was something left behind etc.etc....

It was an entire chapter of several thousand words that could have been written in 2-3 paragraphs an then had a chapter where the plot actually progressed. And this happens all the time. There is also waaaay too much angsting for my tastes. All that said, it's pretty decent, but I end up skimming a lot of chapters.

Amelia I thought was flat out one of the dumbest things I've read in a while. It's like something Ack would write.

 

I was complacently reading it as another piece of okay fanfiction until the starcraft chapter shocked me out of it.

The author replied with this:

Oh, god. I couldn't x out of the fic thread fast enough.

 

I x-ed out at the same moment. I didn't even finish the Starcraft-chapter. It just seemed too contrived and ridiculous.

Cloudy Path I tried two times to get into, but it was just so boring and the power seemed destined to end up curbstomping the entire setting. Maybe I should try again with a lot of skimming, since there are some actual recommendations for it?

 

I actually enjoy reading Cloudy Path quite a bit. There's really no signs of the curbstomping yet (though really, given the setting, it's still necessary given what Taylor will have to eventually beat).

 

I've been following A Cloudy Path for several months now, although I stopped with his hiatus before arc 11. It's really difficult to build up the enthusiasm to continue. It's my favorite story that's still regularly updating, but that says more about the dearth of good stories rather than the strengths of Cloudy Path. There's just way too many words. I really hope the author at some point goes back and edits it all down, because I can't imagine jumping into the story now.

 

Amelia is in many ways rushed, but was still a decent read, if your could suspend your disbelief.
But the Starcraft thing, which just didn't fit very well, and to some extent Respawn, makes me regret posting it here. The author obviously writes without any kind of restraint and wanted to insert one of his favorite games and a character that could geek out over it.
Considering that Respawn is apparently annoying as some sort of coping mechanism, one could hope that it would be toned down in future updates, but probably not, it is SB after all, the readers will probably egg the author on to make him worse.

 

God, I love being vindicated.

But this whole thing came up with the other Skitter/Amy team-up. Where it was basically impossible for the forumites to see beyond Skitter/Amy curbstomping everyone in one battle. Because that's inevitable.

I honestly feel as if Amy is the worst character in fanon. She's in BB, she has the sort of OP power that SB/Vers cream themselves over and she has this whole family drama that everyone feels the need to resolve,often pausing the actual story to do so, usually taking the most extreme interpretation of her family life to do so.

Why would I do that? The fic lost me with "Riley". It spent all its disbelief-suspenders on that.

I dunno, I can kinda get finding it boring but the word count is something I don't understand. Like I said, it really does fill out the world, like an actual Worm story. Take the last two arcs: we can clearly see movement. The Butcher is acting like an asshole and actually making progress and being a proactive villain (something that you often miss as every fic just has Coil wait around to be fucked), someone else is and we're getting updates on the city and stuff.

I feel like it essentially moves at the pace of Canon!Worm while most fics gloss over everything that isn't important for their next battle or meeting, making them feel empty.

Christ, I've sucked so much Cloudy dick in this thread. Where's my Listerine?

 

A lot of the words do help to fill out the world, but a lot are also spent detailing every single bit of the tech, or going into long In Flight-style internal monologues describing Taylor's feelings or what she did wrong. None of these are offensively bad, but they completely kill the pacing for me. Canon Worm had quite a bit of downtime, but I never felt a chapter was completely pointless, unlike several Cloudy Path chapters.

 

Canon Worm is like 2 million words long, so taking 300k words to get to having the Teeth in town isn't all that long, but I do agree some of the chapters are longer than they have to be. That sort of comes with the territory I think if you're trying to have Taylor have meaningful relationships with the people around her, such as her Dad. I really haven't had any problems with the pacing, nor does anything truly feel like filler since there are a lot of fights with new elements involved. It's written well enough and is compelling enough for me (and I am a very picky reader) that it's my current favorite fic in the fandom.

I do agree with the Amelia comments. Like I commented before, it is pretty much just a timewaster, and yeah, that starcraft scene was ridiculous, but it's pretty obvious from the first chapter that it's just going to be an overpowered stompy story where the author just takes his favorite characters and puts them in a gang - and that's pretty much exactly what happens. Definitely nothing mind blowing, and probably a 2/5 if I were to apply a rating, but it was enough to occupy my attention for an hour.

 

What happened to Morphosis? It just kind of stopped updating. Is it on hiatus or just abandoned?

 

Is it fucked up that I only made it halfway through Worm before I stopped reading it and started reading Worm fanfics?

 

I was reading fanfics long before I even visited the wordpress. Still haven't read more than patches here and there.

 

Since the Worm fandom has maybe 5 good & 10-15 barely readable stories, and all of them are abandoned... Yes.

That's just because I can't imagine what you are reading at this point though. I haven't found anything good to read related to Worm in a very long time.

 

Atonement is alright, but it's swiftly becoming a Super Best Friends fic.

 

Yeah, Knuckz, you're crazy. Get back to the actual story!

 

Shit. Was just about to start it.

Please just tell me Panacea and her bullshit aren't involved?