Well, this escalated quickly. I only mentioned killing Alexandria as an example because I had to go to work and only had about 2 minutes to type a quick paragraph. There's probably a dozen other examples of her badassery, but I still probably wouldn't label her as one. She's not quite in the same league as Stone Cold Steve Austin driving up to the wrestling ring in a beer van and giving the Stunner to the entire McMahon family.

 

I believe some of Taylor's actions to have been understandable.

At this point in the story, she is aware of Cauldron - and that Alexandria is one of it's members - and some of the length to which they will go to achieve their goals.

So when Alexandria tells Taylor that she killed one of her friends, she really has no reason to doubt it, she has every reasons however to doubt the circumstances in which this occured.

Consequently, when Alexandria goes off to apprehend another member of the Undersiders, Taylor believes she has no choice but to try to kill Alexandria to protect her friends.

Tagg maybe a bit different, but while certainly from his point of view what she did may have threatened ordered society, what he did - ignoring the unwritten rules and revealing Taylor's identity to the public - also did. The villains would have no reasons to help during Enbringer events, worse they would have no reasons to hold back and not kill the members of the PRT out of hand.

 

Yeah, I'll drop it here with one last word because my ego requires it. Taylor had good reason to believe that Alexandria was going to kill her friends. Her friends could really do nothing to stop it nor were they able to really do anything as Alexandria could easily snatch them all up into custody. Choosing to kill as opposed to surrendering to Alexandria was a moral wrong... but killing in cold blood (as she believed Alexandria was doing) is an even greater wrong.

That said, Taylor is just a memetic badass. Her skill is massively blown out of proportion because readers buy into the idea that her power is weak and Taylor is the strong one, when really she's a reasonably clever character backed up by a bullshit strong power, solid allies, and some plot armor.

 

Again, she became literally godlike and subverted the wills of every living cape in existence- except for Sleeper, because she didn't feel he was worth the effort- in order to horribly murder a literal wrathful god. She did not rally humanity with strong words, she did not sway them with her kind heart, and she most certainly did not allow them to run if they so chose.

She administrated their sorry fucking selves. She drove every single one of them to their mental and emotional knees, and turned them into the strongest, most divine swarm ever seen outside of a full blown entity. She used them, and she used them far better than they had ever used themselves. And after all but a few of them were set free from her, she continued to control them, this time by example. She used them to shatter the wrathful god's psyche, hammer a trans dimensional nail through his golden head, and burn his incomprehensibly vast self to ashes.

This is rather unambiguously the work of a tough, uncompromising, and intimidating person.

 

Endbringer fights carried on And when they did blow up well...it was more due to the fuck-ups of people like Cody and other shit.

The problem is seeing the "unwritten rules" as a single block that must be taken or left. This is the fault of fanon. They lump all sorts of stuff into a single cape Bible.

 

So I've still been reading Amelia, mainly because it updates at least twice a day. Also, out of a strange mildly masochistic desire to see how bad it's going to get.

Spoiler

In the latest chapter, the main team has scared off Behemoth by planning ahead and being badasses. Literally scared him away from the New Delhi attack. He pokes his head up, goes NOPE, and goes back down.

It's now gone so far past bad to me that it's looping around into hilarious territory.

 

Yeah. I suppose as bad as it is, the upside of Amelia is that I've gotten so used to having a new chapter ready every time I check the page. Literally wake up in the morning to read one chapter, and come back home after work to read another one. It's like my daily fix of junk food.


Now I'm not sure whether it's because I've been reading it one chapter at a time where I was smashing through it in one session previously, but I feel like my interest in Atonement is dropping fast. It also updates daily, but as I flick between the new chapters of Amelia and Atonement, they no longer feel all that different anymore.

Spoiler

Hell, both of them are at Endbringer battles at the moment.

 

Have you read the one after that?

 

Yeah, and it actually made me slightly annoyed.

Spoiler

If it had just been Behemoth running, it would have been hilarious. Amazing accidental comedy.

But now the Simurgh showed up, and I'm screaming "Endbringers don't work like that!" They track these things. They know where the Simurgh is. If she was attacking, there would have been some sort of notice. Not just "whoops! Apocalyptic bird here! And she's now a ninja!"

And maybe my opinion of Endbrigers was influenced too much by Weaver 9. I really liked the explanation of all of them in that one. Leviathan is the city killer, Behemoth the army killer, and Simurgh the individual killer. So I think she'd have a better plan then swooping down and engaging them in direct combat.

 

Spoiler

Read the latest Simurgh interlude? Despite the fact it may seem like she was opting for direct combat, she was still doing her thing - subtle manipulation and being able to read everyone.

Author wasn't really able to get down Simurgh's narrative down well, but apart from that, didn't mind it. In comparison to the rest of the story, I thought the whole Endbringer fight was dealt with decently.

On another note, it really *is* perfectly synced with Atonement. First the Endbringer fights, and then the Riley reveals.

 

I never thought I would but I am about to recommend an Ack fic.
For those bored and wanting to read some Worm fanfiction, Ack1308 is writing a self insert story of pretty good quality for the first 23 chapters, end of Coil arc, called Security! I, personally, would not recommend reading past that but that still leaves a good 150,000 words to keep you busy and it is a good stopping point.
Up until that point the events are not overly forced, the writing and QC quality is fairly high, and perspective switches are executed well.
Considering some in this thread enjoy the terrible stories of Amelia and Atonement, there should be a few that like this.

Everything else decent I have read I have seen recommended in this thread before so I will not waste your time but had not seen this one posted up yet.

 

Well, maybe some people will like it, but let me just quote some of what was said before about it:

 

And here I did not remember it being mentioned before, thank you for the quotes.

I would dispute neither point as both are correct. But the problems in Security! pale in comparison to the atrocities in storytelling committed in the other two stories I mentioned that have been consistently spammed throughout this thread.

Most stories have problems like that that can be easily pointed out. What matters is how good the story is overall. Or in the case I mentioned for those 23 chapters.

Agayek's criticism can easily be applied to the lauded Cenotaph. But the overall quality of the work makes it one of the best of this fandom.

In any case it was meant to be a recommendation to sate people's appetites until other recommendations come forth to satisfy those desires.

 

A taste of what's to come:

“I would rather fight Behemoth himself in melee combat, than talk to her for five minutes.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. She’s a 16 year old teenager.”

“Easy for you to say. But you know, just as well as I do, that the Simurgh excepted, there is nothing in the world half as terrifying as the Whisperer of Lies.”

In another world, Taylor Herbert is every bit the hero the world needed to slay a dimensions-spanning, omnicidal God. In another world, Taylor Herbert is a very different person, with a mind sharp enough to cut steel and crush hearts. But in this other world, some things remain unchanged, remain broken.

 

Sounds overly dramatic.

 

SPOILERS ahead:

Spoiler

Amelia has descended to suck-- the Simurgh fight was disappointing. Had the worst of the Weaver 9 fight (over the top, strange IMO extrapolation from canon) with none of its good parts (tension, interesting characters, creativity.)


Simurgh pulls off the most stupid final 'fuck you' ever (a tinkertech mirror/reflector constructed in the short battle?!) but the fight itself was short and completely anticlimactic.

That's not even touching on the characterization of that fic. The Taylor/Amelia relationship/friendship is disturbing and nonsensical. Its the worst parts of a permanent friendzone with constant sexual tension and two emotionally disturbed characters.

And the worst part is there's no reason for it. They have access to tinkers who can easily fix Amy's sexuality (her Glory Girl fixation/addiction) like Bonesaw, Rapture or if they trade with her/him, Cranial probably.

And then there's the stupid drama over Emma and Zach, the plot stupid way to introduce armor immune to the Simurgh precog/postcog which isn't even needed since they have access to Coil, Tattletale, and if they pay her, Dinah, all of which disrupt the Simurgh's sight or make it harder for her.

Then there's the ceaseless flow of more and more OP characters into Pantheon-- Vista and Theo being only the most egregious and jarring addition.

I give it props for originality but if fails at a lot else.

 

To do spoiler tags, use the following:
(spoiler)Text Goes Here!(/spoiler)

Replace the parenthesis with brackets.

 

Weaver Nine updated.

 

Awesome. Was a bit sad when I thought it may have been abandoned. Loved Sophia in this chapter. Status just jumped up a lot higher than just one of Jack's unfortunate pawns.

Copacetic also updated, and will be going back to bi-weekly updates after that hiatus.