Not quite on topic, but I think it fit's best here.

In case you didn't know already, there is a Worm Audiobook Project. It's exactly what it sounds like, a group of fans records a worm audio book. It's pretty good. Up to the S9 arc now and no sign of stopping too.

http://audioworm.rein-online.org/

 

Just read the Dragonfly ending. That was bloody awful. I think I've realised what Narco's problem is. He's writing as if Journey is a TV show or movie. The whole unidentified character montage at the end? Straight out of a movie, but it translates horribly to writing.

Goddam, what a waste of an initially promising story. A few decent scenes ruined by appalling dialogue and poor writing. Definitely a 2/5 for me.

 

That scene certainly does read like the epilogue scene to a season of a TV show or a movie. Don't think I despised it as much as you guys though. Wasn't great, but didn't find it that awful either.

Overall, enjoyed Journey of the Dragonfly. It was something a bit different in the fandom, kept the tension up and always made sure there was something to keep you interested.

The main detractions, in my opinion was Taylor's lack of internal conflict. She fell into this warlord mindset fast and hard, but there seemed to be basically no resistance from her. No lamenting what she's become. No conflict. And in a story like this, I'd have liked a lot more of that.

This isn't her as Skitter, where she always felt she toed but never crossed the line. She has to know she went right over the line repeatedly.

 

Yeah. In some ways, I respect that choice because I think there is a point at which Taylor has had enough and decides to go full-tilt in one direction as hero or villain instead of trying to play a painful balancing act. I can understand why she would do that - it's too exhausting to constantly question yourself. But we also don't see this as being the case either, there are no notable scenes where she's seriously challenged by anyone for her choices (so she's never forced to say, "I'm doing this because I have to, because I've given up trying to be something I'm not"). It's good she's accepted who she is and what she's become, but it's not good there's no serious antagonist for her.

Ideally, she should accept what she's become and then be forced into a situation where she must change herself again or suffer the consequences for not growing. But this doesn't happen either.

The alternative is for her to continue waffling and for herself to be the antagonist, which I'm a little sick of at this point, but that too does work well in Worm.

Dragonfly's okay, a couple fun moments.

Edit: What I think is a missed opportunity here is the possibility of a TRUE rival for Weaver/Lung. Nobody really rivaled them, among the heroes or the villains. But honestly, Armsmaster and Mouse Protector were set up perfectly to be those rivals. Imagine it - you have an embittered hero Weaver and a powerful stalwart Lung facing off a ridiculously idealistic kid-like hero Mouse Protector and her ally a... well, how is Armsmaster at this point? Full of himself? Stuck up?

Both Armsmaster/MP are great characters to build and they would grow a lot by fighting Lung/Weaver frequently. They would make a great foil duo for Weaver/Lung. MP is mobile enough to play keep away from Weaver/Lung and Armsmaster can keep escalating conflict with new gadgets designed to counter Weaver/Lung. Ideally, I think we should have seen more conflict between these four and let that build up the reputation and philosophies of these four characters. You'd get a better feel for Lung's stance, Weaver's stance, and you'd introduce additional fun physical conflcit.

The best moment for me at the end of Dragonfly was Armsmaster attacking Weaver and whacking off her false hand, MP coming in and assisting. That was a nice moment - but they spared like four lines for each other. It was so short, I wanted more.

Also, Weaver being knocked out by Eidolon before they could converse? Worst move made by the author. We needed a defining monologue from these two squaring off to close the story out, instead we saw Eidolon as a stupid dick get killed by a raging brute. Anticlimax.

Besides, with that bullshit postcog power, we might've gotten some closure out of Weaver's behavior. A more personal understanding of her perspective. Since Eidolon was going to die, the power could have been even more ridiculous, like allowing him to understand and empathize with Weaver...right before Lung offs him. Would have been great honestly.

 

Journey of a Dragonfly was a Michael Bay film. Lots of cool explosions and fights, but not much going on under the hood despite allusions at depth.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuFS-yaq9J4

Gentlemen and Ladies~

Tanuki are happy to give you another new post of Goblin Queen, thank you for having waited warmly.

https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/17744723/ - SB Archive
http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/3650469/ - SB Archive
https://forum.questionablequesting.com/posts/343417/ - QQ Archive
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9683187/132/Goblin-Queen - FFnet Archive

"Let me ask you a question, you have an egg," The Rose Knight held an ordinary chicken egg up. "You have a few choices of what to do with it. You can incubate it, and eventually get a chick. You can crack it open and fry it or even boil it in its shell. You can only pick one."

 

Are there any stories where Taylor becomes a "moralistic villain", that is, a villain like Marquis? Like, she has boundries - protecting kids, destroying corruption, murdering people who need it, etc.? Following a code of ethics, but disregarding law? Most of the time I see her written as a hero or as a reluctant villain. It'd be nice to read something where she embraces the freedom of being a villain, to do right without cause for the law.

It's maybe a guilty pleasure? But it's a fun type of story - because then you have many multifaceted enemies - heroes that need to capture her and put her on trial, villains that want her dead, and everyone in between. I think that's what I really liked about Worm, was that sort of dynamic. Less Endbringer/Scion/Jack Slash shit (though I guess that can't really go away), more morally ambiguous conflict.

I guess I would settle for batman!Taylor.

 

Um, isn't that mostly canon? Like, killing Coil because kidnapping children crosses the line?

 

Skitter's great, yeah, but pretty much after that she goes and becomes Weaver. Which, whlie she continues to do some shady things... it doens't have the same connotation when you're working for the Protectorate, playing by the rules Glenn and co. establish.

Besides, Alexandria's an awesome foil/antagonist for Taylor. I wish she hadn't died when she did.

 

Just went on a binge through spacebattle's to catch up on the latest and greatest.

I thoroughly don't advise Queen of the Swarm, as it has the problems that every other piece of fiction written that divides the characters into good and evil with no shades tends to have. Every one that's good likes everyone that's good bar a few token gestures, the main character has the rest of the cast literally written to reassure her that she has some self worth, the main character gets a ridiculous power up and in doing so completely removes what was amazing about Worm in the first place. 2/5

I think Intrepid is going to be a pretty good story, will have to wait till it's fleshed out a bit more but of the newest three that I'm actively keeping an eye on its definitely the one I'm most interested in.

The other two are Apex and Through the Rabbit Hole respectively. They both have the same problem for me that I'm not quite sure what I think about it.

Realistically though, none of them are outstanding, and I hate the gratuitous reassurance that is just so prolific on spacebattles produced stories.

 

Cloudy Path billed itself as a Supreme Commander cross iirc.

Promised robots, nanoforges, the world...

And never delivered on that.

After Leviathan I stopped reading since it seemed to become

Chapter starts
Taylor mopes around some more.

Something happens.

Taylor mopes around some more.

 

I liked Cloudy Path, and liked it even more when SB introduced the author alerts, which let me skip all the... lovely discussion... that goes on between updates.

But the author made it clear that there were not going to be any nanoforges soon. They actually did the maths somewhere, based on the output of Taylor's little machines, and worked out that the soonest she could have one made (but not the power to run one) would be six months. And I'm pretty sure their explanation had graphs, so you know it has to be true!

I'm also completely unfamiliar with SupCom, so haven't the foggiest what most of the references and the like were on about.

But as a story about Taylor dealing with the issues that should plague tinkers - restrictions on resources; the long build up to having useful things, as opposed to always having powers; and the escalation of powers, it was good. I enjoyed it.

And somewhere along the line I just dropped it.

I don't want a story about Taylor slowly building the infrastructure she needs to start eventually building things properly, especially in a web serial. I wouldn't mind quite so much in a finalised story.

It was slow paced, but I think we can be reasonably sure it'll actually end, and on a real end.

 

That's a shame, because I think A Cloudy Path avoids damn-near every problematic cliche the fandom has created and is one of the best out there.

In fact, it's avoiding cliches that probably gives us this transitional period. If the writer had copped out and just wtfpwned Coil with some contrived situation all the build-up since the Butcher's death could probably be skipped.

Maybe it's because I have no idea what SupCom or nanoforges are, but I could care less about power creep. Taylor is powerful enough to deal with the threats in BB on a more or less even field and the story isn't jizzing itself like so many others and trying to go beyond the city or speed up her production.

 

Yeah, I don't give a shit about nanoforges either. She should do more tinkering in general, but I like the author's writing a drawn-out story. I'm not disappointed at all with it.

The story's a tad slow right now, but I think it will pick up again. It's well written with good conflict and Taylor's still likable and understandable.

Maybe not the best thing ever, but it works well. I especially like she's assembling a unique team -- SLOWLY, too.

 

I think the problem I had with it was the update rate massively slowed down, which meant that the chapters, which deal with a lot of chit-chat and fluff, become even more spread out, and the real life pace went from slowish to snail's pace (the internet has ruined my patience levels).

I mean, chapter 12 took three weeks. Chapter 13 took just over a month (including Christmas and New Year). Chapter 14 took again, just over a month and chapter 15 took just under two months.

The updates are pretty damn big, and come pretty quickly for the size they are. But the plot is much slower than a lot of the stuff posted on SB.

I will be picking it back up. But once it's done, and I can go from start to end without waitLS

 

I picked up Cloudy Path maybe a month ago. I agree it was great to read all that in one go. But that's the deal with most fanfiction. Hell, 98% of the time they don't finish, so you've gotta enjoy what you can get.

 

How I Learned to Stop Hating and Love the Bomb That is Nero (Worm, AU, Historical Insert)

https://forums.spacebattles.com/thr...hat-is-nero-worm-au-historical-insert.342737/

So... this is a fic from the POV of Emma's older sister.... where she's the reincarnation of Nero. Yes, THAT Nero...

No, does not appear to be Fate/Extra Nero... just Nero. :3

Very hilarious.

 

I also rec this one. The sheer arrogance of Nero is as astounding as it is hysterical.

But then again, it's a Roman Emperor.

It's unfortunately very short.

That said I can't see this going on for more than a few chapters before this type of humor starts to become... stale.

 

I've come to the conclusion that "kiddo" is the worm equivalent of "pup" or "cub", and that it's annoying as fuck.

 

Isn't it canon?