Recently he has been dragging story threads into morality debates.

 

He's just stubborn, opinionated, and tends to disagree with most people on a variety of issues (most notably being ethical/moral concerns). He's also not terribly eloquent and has trouble conveying a point.

Naturally, this leads to a lot of derails whenever he makes his opinion known and earns him a lot of enmity. Whether or not it's deserved, I'll leave up to you.

 

I've read a good deal of Go Gently. The writing is good, and I like Taylor's characterization, as well as her relationship dynamics, but the whole radio show thing is just... strange. I'm not familiar with the cross over, but given the build up, the trigger event, all the lying from her father and bff's, and her budding "friendship" with Lung, I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping for something more, after the first arc.

 

WTNV is a web series of radio shows on YouTube. It's not necessary to have listened to the to enjoy the story, bit it helps you get into the right mind frame. It also helps that they are amusing and addictive to listen to.

 

I don't think Go Gently would be very good for someone completely unfamiliar with WTNV. Like half the jokes are references, and the story really only makes sense with a certain mood in mind. The story itself, I think, doesn't do a good job of putting the reader in that mood, and relies on them already being in that mood when they start reading.

 

I was super excited for Cape-based WTNV shows when I first opened that fic, and then when I realized it was bringing in world elements from WTNV I was slightly less excited but still pretty excited. But we never did get any actual WTNV. As far as I read (which seemed pretty far), it would always kick us out at the beginning/end of the show, and then give us everyone's reaction to it, because the author couldn't be bothered to even attempt to capture the same mood and creativity. Saddening.

 

I really liked it when it started but I feel like the plot has slowed to a crawl. If the plot actually start moving along again I might start enjoying it again as well. Menace should consider posting it on the story thread she might take it into consideration.

 

Part of the issue is that WTNV is almost plotless. There are year-length long plots, with hooks set earlier in the season that pay off in several plot-heavy episodes at the end of a run... but the average episode aims more at a slice of familiar life made strange, with a dash of horror if the listener rouses to consider the words.

The fic does likewise.

 

I just don't see anything attractive about the WTNV fic. The Taylor in that story takes ages to figure out she's a cape, and is immensely passive when she does find out. Her father is incapable of acting like a normal father figure, practically abandoning her to go fight crime in Boston.

And I understand that's all explained by [insert excuse about shards messing with hosts' brains] but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. And the tone doesn't mesh with canon Worm in the least, what with the weird apparitions and phenomena (the weird trees and women, Taylor on the radio) not at all fitting the Worm patterns of capes or powers acting in certain ways.

Just overall, not a very compelling fic.

 

True, but it's better than another shitty cannon rehash.

 

Clearly you people are too ignorant to appreciate the awesomeness that is Taylor/Alec, the beauty of Taylor being Kenta's dog reborn and the sheer Aisha-ness of Aisha. For shame.

Taylor/Alec OTP for life.

 

A lot of stuff is better than a shitty canon rehash. But if the canon rehash wasn't shitty, it would be better than this.

 

I've been re-reading Worm and it's made me realise how shit nearly every fic in the fandom is. One of the problems is that giving Skitter a different Shard means she doesn't turn out as creative or as ruthless as she was originally. Even the best fics like Cenotaph doesn't quite compare.

 

Fanfiction doesn't compare to the source material? You must be new here.

This has nothing to do with the powerset Taylor has and everything to do with the author. If they were as good as Wildbow, they would probably be writing their own shit. Beyond that, fanfiction authors are simply exploring an idea that they had and it often struggles because the canon challenges Taylor faced are not geared for the new tricks she has. Wildbow was able to carefully pick the opponents so that she always struggled with something just outside of her powers ability to deal with.

When I read a fanfiction with a new power I am not looking for a masterpiece. I simply hope for a cool idea to occupy my imagination for a few hours with. To me the beautiful thing about the worm fandom is the new shard stories. They allow poor but grammatically competent authors to inject some creativity into their story making them at the very least readable.

 

It is technically possible for fanfic to outdo the source... but that's uncommon.

To put it mildly.

The thing I like best about Worm is how straightforwardly it treats writing as a craft. 'Like this? Want to do stuff like this? Write ~1k+ words per day.' I don't mean to overlook the story, which does great things with scale and intensity, but the example set in writing it is remarkable.

I do think that's had a major impact on the fandom, too: that sense of the possible.

 

To be fair Wildbow had a lot of draft versions of Worm before he started publishing it as a serial. He spent years fleshing out the universe and the setting in his head. I believe in the first iteration Faultline was supposed to be the main character - it could have been a very different story.

Any fanfiction is going to pale in comparison it just doesn't have that scope of world building behind it.

One possible exception I remember reading a semi-lengthy worm fic (sorry can't recall name it was on spacebattles) set after golden morning. In it Taylor (with new powers) had infiltrated the Yangban as part of some scheme she'd cooked up with The Number Man it kind of died abruptly but I thought it did a good job expanding on the CIU and it had some pretty nicely developed OCs, I kind of want to see more fics like that which expand on things that were only hinted at in cannon.

 

Zenith, by Ryuugi.

 

Are there any good Worm/X-Men crossovers?

 

I can't think of any, good or otherwise.

 

Chibipoe is running one (Firebird), in which Taylor hosts the Phoenix force.