If you want that plot, Welcome to the Empire is much better than the Ack version.

 

Ack stories are universally pretty boo boo. I kind of liked Recoil, at first, but it soured, the little of Security I read sucked hot ass, and I haven't really bothered with the others.

 

Have there been any recent worm fics that have been good, seems like the well dried up. Also if anyone hasn't yet try reading morphosis, abandoned but its pretty good.

http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/morphosis-a-worm-sandman-fusion.291136/

 

If you missed it on one of the previous pages, like I did for a while, there's this one by Heather Sinclair

 

So, I don't know if any of you have played the game "I Wanna Be the Guy". If you haven't, do yourself a favor and go play it a bit. Note that it's best enjoyed without spoilers first. After you ragequit (and believe me, you will ragequit), go read this.

If you read it without doing all that first, it won't make any sense. If you do, it's a pretty good crackfic. Enjoy!

 

It's pretty awful, even when viewed through a veil of crack.

 

Have you played IWBTG? The whole thing is poking fun at the game. I guess if you don't enjoy that kind of game you would find the story equally boring though. It's not exactly a work of art either way, but it got a couple laughs out of me..

 

I don't think smarts have much to do with it.

I think a semi realistic way would be "Yea, he's a E88 symphatizer, but he has some good traits." -> "Yea, the're racists, but I won't bring that up and ruin the mood." -> "Y'ea, the're racists, but I can't just let my friends get hurt." -> "Yea, the're hating on asians, but Bakuda did just kill xyz."

First she avoids the subject, then she keeps quiet, then she nods along, eventually she talks along and at some point she kind of starts believing.

But anyway, Acks writing is kind of blunt.

 

Dominion is a new Worm Fic by Materia Blade which is pretty good.

 

Only a couple of chapters and knowing Materia it won't be updated often, but yeah, it's been pretty intriguing so far.

 

Seconded. It's very intriguing. And then there's the whole S9 thing. You have to wonder what sort of awfulness he means to put Taylor through for her to actually willingly join them.

 

I liked it so far. I wrote a story where a S9!Khepri appeared for a chapter, but his take on the premise is more interesting for spinning a full story. I'm interested to see where it goes from here!

As a coincidence, I've been writing a 'canon hero tempted to join the S9' story of my own for a while now, but only just started posting it. I'm glad no one's accused me of copycatting him. It's an experiment with writing a short, complete story with alternate endings depending on the character's choices. If you don't mind the blatant self-linking, here's the link:

Glory Girl Returns (AO3, Spacebattles)

Victoria Dallon's family betrayed her and locked her in the asylum, but she never gave up hope. Now an attack by the Slaughterhouse Nine gives her a chance to escape. Victoria must fight with words and wits to win her freedom...and fight to save her soul, as well. Will Glory Girl return as a hero, or a villain?

 

That's so fucked up and awesome.

 

I've noticed in a lot of worm SI's that the first thing on their minds is helping Taylor with her bullying problem, but this kinda ends up fucking up more than it solves yet the author refuses to acknowledge that like Security.

 

I fucking hate when the SI's treat Taylor like she's some sort of S-class threat when they appear at the start of canon. And when they interfere in her life making it better they inevitably make it so she probably won't go through the whole convoluted series of events that made Khepri possible. And without that special brand of pragmatism and ruthlessness she's nothing special.

 

I wouldn't say the problem is just with SI's, it seems to be a problem with most fan fiction in this fandom.

At least for me, one of the main appeals of Worm was Taylor's 'special brand of pragmatism and ruthlessness'. It was not simply yet another good person always doing what is good, black-and-white, story. Most of the fan fiction I come across Taylor takes the hero route or the Wards route and loses a good portion of her single-minded determination in favor of fluff, relationship building, or angst.

With how many indy Harry fics that were produced, I wonder where the indy Taylor movement is. I suppose that would resemble canon Taylor too much and she would not be completely redeemed when that seems to be the driving desire of many of these writers. Even those that might eventually go with a darker feel closer to canon Worm seem to start with and spend far too much of the story with a Taylor that is weak, naïve, insecure, and too plagued by morality to do what is necessary. After having experienced her true character after she has evolved and been defined in canon is difficult to return to starting Taylor, over and over, and having all her weaker aspects highlighted as she takes character development routes that leave her not so much as resembling her canon self.

It is probably just my own taste but when I look through what I consider some of the best fan fiction for Worm, I find that most carry that determination or at least some of Taylor's darker aspects. Cenotaph, Wake, and Zenith all fit this. Even …Fucking Tinkers, which I would not classify as great, I find myself continuing to read as Taylor at least feels something like herself from the original.


Dominion and Glory Girl Returns each sound interesting and I will add them to my reading list. In regards to The Valkyrior I could not get into it. I read the majority but eventually had to drop it in frustration as the Taylor portrayed felt railroaded by the author. She would take on views and stances that would make her canon self cringe. There was a large amount of hypocrisy and her attitude did not resemble her canon self. I would say it was more of an SI into Taylor Hebert or she is simply very out of character.

 

Probably stems from the fact that most of those fics(SI) are "fix fics"


If only I could get in there and fix all the problems things would turn out better.

But they dont. Because the writer, gets on the canon train of rail road fame where everything stays the same.

As for "Indy Taylor" Try Journey of the Dragonfly? http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/journey-of-the-dragonfly-worm-time-travel-divergence.316221/

Pretty rapid update rate when the author gets going.

Edit: So much weird shit going on with the forum text software

 

I am not really against fix fics but admit it would be very difficult to create a good compelling story out of one. The problem of forcing everything to follow canon plot seems to exist not just with the Worm fandom but in most. For those not scared away by the thought of ponies, the open nature of the Friendship Is Magic universe allows that fandom to nearly completely avoid the canon train issue and explore a much wider genre of stories and types of storytelling.

For Journey of the Dragonfly, I will admit to liking Taylor there. Her character is refreshing in a way. The update rate is also good.

I still cannot like the story though. There is far too much forced plot, coincidence, idiotic character decisions, and completely ignoring the major events around the world that should have affected their actions early on. Those things along with forced crossover superheroes from The Incredibles and Static Shock pushed the fic over too 'bad' territory. Copacetic fell into a similar vein for me.

Maharal, on the other hand, does a fairly good job with plot and consistency, but has Theo instead of Taylor. I would not say it is bad but fails to be very good as the main character is too unmotivated and apathetic. With no drive or purpose the story feels bland. The writing style also has an issue with over describing each minute body movement of every character. For the reader, the this can be handled by skimming the descriptions and reading the dialogue.

Khepri Golden Dawn had a good premise and interesting few chapters but died far too quickly.

Riding Acromantulas and Understanding Magical Biology, Harry Potter crossover, is interesting as it takes Taylor during the S9 fight. It does suffer from dialing up her insecurities and reverting her a bit closer to starting Taylor in order to force plot and character interaction.

I must say though, that the idea of the fandom branching out to time travel stories and those that start at a later point allowing the characters to have already evolved to some extent is very appealing. If nothing else, I will applaud Journey of the Dragonfly and these others drag for that and hope that other stories follow in that vein.

 

Two short one-shot recommendations:

Reign by redshirt. An Alec/Taylor shipfic (yes really) that keeps true to the voices of both characters. Nothing too deep or lovey-dovey, but still sweet.

A Skidmark On the Path to Victory by Sir Bill. Rather than his canon power set, Skidmark triggers with Contessa's PtV power. Crackfic.