In my opinion, all Ack's stories have that same quality where, despite the veil of mild difficulty and struggle, they're still fix it fics where everyone who matters ultimately ends up happy. All his stories lack real depth.

 

He tried to write some stories that aren't fix fics, but massively overcorrected. I think he just doesn't know how to write conflict between characters without one of them being evil.

 

It doesn't help that the forums he posts them in are pretty allergic to constructive criticism.

 

I don't know good sir, I kind of like confused teenage Emily.

 

Maybe I was being overly gracious by using the word 'functional'. The dialogue on average is terrible, but at least it's legible English. Some lines were okay. That was about the point where I stopped reading. That line made me scratch my head (I honestly think Ack was trying to be comical there with that line).

What surprised me more was the almost-rape scene was sort of graphic for G-rated Spacebattles.

 

So Firebird just updated.
Hopefully we won't have to wait as much for the next chapter after this cliffhanger.

 

/r/WormFanfic's best of 2017 thingy is done.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WormFanfic/comments/5mdpxd/best_of_2016_results_thread/

I'd do a writeup of what I thought about the results (and the fics) but I read fuck all this year, and it's 3 am, and I have a flight tomorrow, sooo...

 

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/i-just-love-killin-worm-rick-and-morty-crossover.446513/

Worm Crossover were Taylor gets Kromopulus Michael stuck in her head

 

Not the best writing out there, but the author does say that this is the first piece they've written and put out to the public, so easily forgivable. The story is fun, and doesn't seem to (yet) have fallen into any of the traps that plague SB (although there is a locker scene, it doesn't last too long, either in text or in story).

The author went on a sort of hiatus through December, but otherwise the update rate seems pretty good. It's not daily, but it's still frequent enough you should remember the story.

I am concerned that the SB mods will jump in at some point, which would be a shame. As they seem to be semi-random in whether they ban or not, and why they do it, it's not likely to be too predictable. The build-up makes it obvious where the stories going before it gets explicit, however, so hopefully anyone who would report it would have stopped reading.

Light-hearted, and a pretty good find. Definitely worth giving a shot to.

 

This one has piqued my interest for a while.

Title: One Hell of an Afternoon
Author: lordmcdeath
Rating: M
Genre: Post-Golden Morning Worm/Young Justice
Status: In-Progress
Pairings: None
Summary: Taylor in Gotham City
Word Count: 24k
Link: spacebattles
After Golden Morning, Contessa basically dropped Taylor in Gotham City after shooting her, where she gets picked up by Two-Face.

The story has a slow update rate and it is still very much in its beginnings, which is why I am not putting it up for review as of yet. However, it shows great promise. It uses the first person POV rather well, switching characters surprisingly often (which might be a turn off for some people) but it does give each and every character a really distinct voice and I believe, from my limited experience with the DC universe, it has the gotham residents extremely well in character.

Taylor after Golden Morning is novel enough. I liked how she view the world and she has this sardonic wit to her here that I really appreciate. The narration in that sense is rather well done and I quite like where the story is going. Seeing that this is a Young Justice crossover, we are still very much at the beginning of the story but if the author is able to stick with it, I'm hopeful this will be one of the better Worm stories over all.

So far, you don't really need to know much about DC or Young Justice other than the general gist of Gotham and its villains. You should at least be somewhat aware of who people like Two-Face, the Penguin and the Joker are, for example but I don't think you need to be a DC loremaster. It helps that Taylor is learning about that world alongside the reader, seeing as she is ignorant to all there.

So yeah, having a lot of fun with that one. Chapters are rather short though and the updates sporadic but what is there is quality stuff.

4/5 for now

 

And this story is an almost rec from you at 4/5 Nemrut?

 

It's very short still and the updates are so few and far between that I honestly doubt it will be finished (hoping to be wrong on that one) and thus I don't think there is enough of it to put it up for review. And I don't think we have a quality worm fic thread, so, this was where I'd put it.

Or did you try it and thought it was bad and my rating was too high. Was that what you meant?

 

Not the latter at least. I just wouldn't put anything over a 3/5 in almost recommended.

 

It's pretty good, but the update rate is a shame - I liked it when they started, but the plot felt so slow that I just couldn't be bothered keeping track of it. Updates were short and infrequent, so I didn't really retain much of the story between updates, so I dropped it at about the time Taylor bought the t-shirt.

I'm pretty sure it's memorable enough now. I'm looking forward to the next few updates.

 

Are there any non-Taylor centric fanfics that aren't in the library, that DLP would recommend? I think I'm burned out on Altpower!Taylor or CrossoverPower!Taylor. Most of them feel formulaic and read like the author wanking a "What If" power testing scenario that they haven't properly thought out beyond fighting Lung and choosing which local team to join.

I look at them and read the first few chapters, but in most instances come away with the impression they'll likely be abandoned due to the author's loss of interest or inspiration, instead of being finished.

As a side note, it's very depressing to look at Worm fanfic lists and see how many of them end up dead or abandoned. I found the reddit list while looking for recs and less than 20% of the 200+ fics are completed, and many of them are quite short. I guess it's the same for every fandom and I shouldn't complain because I'm reading this stuff for free, but it's always disappointing to watch a followed fic die a slow death. Or to start a fic knowing that there's an 80% and more that there will be no proper resolution.

 

So I figured I should bump this thread a bit since I've been reading a lot of worm lately.

First is this one

It's called I Just Love Killin. Basic premise is that Rick & Morty exist in the same universe as worm but on seperate worlds as far as I can tell. Taylor while triggering gets the consciousness of Krombopulous Michael, an intergalactic assassin, stuck in her head. Its a good read and I recommend.

This one is called Burglary It features a Taylor with a variation on Circus's power. There are only two rather short chapters so far but it looks interesting.

This is Ready Player One which as far as I can tell is the best Worm/The Gamer fic. It starts pretty slow and picks up quickly and it has almost 100k words. So its probably one of the biggest Worm fics on SB. Definetly worth a look.

The Nightmare Queen is a Worm/Rise of The Guardians cross. Features Taylor as the Boogeyman. She's a rather extreme vigilante. It is rather good and could be classed as horror it had some rather spine chilling moments imo.

This one is called Making Waves and is very AUish and features a Hero!Taylor. Her dad got into a car accident or something and end up disfiguring Taylor in some way and her parents got divorced. Her powers actually don't come from a trigger which is fairly intresting.

This one is really really good. Basically Taylor is a Silver Queen from MtG and is sent to the Birdcage. She frequently butts heads with people more powerful than she is and comes out on top. It is really good.

Thats all for now but I will update as I read more.

 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11410345/1/Provocation

Eidolon-centric, in which, amongst other things, he calls Taylor for her hypocrisy.




@Orm Embar

You've been dead for quite some time, but have been writing anything lately?

 

Thanks for the rec, I finished it and I liked it. I should probably do a quick review roundup of the fics I've finished recently.





Provocation: (COMPLETE) Enjoyed it. Worm has so many good side characters that aren't Taylor, and they're good because they all have their own backstories and motivations. Eidolon is one of those you rarely see, and most people aren't sympathetic to him as a character as he's seen through Taylor's PoV. Same for a lot of characters that aren't fan favorites. The character analysis was well done. The thought processes fell in line with what I understood of Eidolon. If he's not a likeable character, he's at least sympathetic, and his struggle with his powers felt real and human. If I had to nitpick, it would be that some of the italics in the dialogue was unnecessary, and that if the author wanted to stress certain words, it would be better to use italics as infrequently as possible. Overall, good analysis, and well written. Good prose to dialogue ratio. It's canon compliant, so there's not much room to expand on the story, so it stands up well as a one-shot.




Keeper: (ABANDONED) OC centric, Trump power, Brockton Bay setting. The characterization was well handled. Clair, initially assumed to be an OC, but then turning out to have a story of her own. Shadow Stalker's backstory, which I didn't think was canon, was slowly revealed and it fit with this AU version of her character. Liz felt human, troubled and idealistic, but still a teenage girl struggling with how best to do good and be a hero. The writing got across her mental state and thought processes quite well, and in some parts, the writing really shone.

Keeper was much better than the average Wormfic. As a character, Liz felt human and nuanced, and she was likeable. The plot stuttered by the end, which I took to be more due to its abandonment rather than bad plotting. I'd to see more, but I probably won't. However, I did like what I did read. This was an OC story decently done, but it will never be one of the best due to its lack of closure.

3.75/5 -> 4/5. The full review is in the thread.




Loaf: (COMPLETE) Contessa centric, post-GM, crack. The premise is Contessa wanting to connect with her past to bake a bread without using her powers, and something happening just as she is about to finish. The characterization started out mostly on-point, with some artistic license expansion on Sleeper's power, which WB won't tell anyone, but I thought this was a good and fitting take on it. The crack comes from the situational comedy, contrived situations that happen at the wrong time and wrong place just to keep Contessa from completing her goals without relying on PtV.

The Cauldron cast and Irregulars show up, also well in-character, reacting to the strange events. DLP doesn't usually go for crack, and I don't either, but I liked the expansion on the post-GM world, and the non-Taylor protagonist. Also the bread. I am a big fan of bread. The prose was proficient, a few mistakes and extraneous apostrophes, but nothing major. Some humorous moments, but the crack mostly came from the characters' reaction to crazy situations thrown in by the author rather than jokes and wordplay. The plot started out interesting, meandered around the last 1/3, but finished on a mostly happy note. But it's finished.

3/5.




Just the Two of Us: (COMPLETE) Taylor centric, sort of Alt!Power — split personality with amnesia. The character cast rang true with their canon personalities. It was good to see authority figure characters regularly bashed by fanon to be competent professionals in fan fic, as that's what they are in Worm. No mustache twirling Protectorate or PRT employees in this story. The prose is mostly technically proficient, nothing perfect, but nothing jarring. A few missing words, a few extraneous apostrophe's (lol) but it wasn't enough to kick me out of the story.

The premise of the first few chapters was built around a mystery, and the reveal fell flat when it turned out the split personality was a complete, unsympathetic asshole that felt like a post-timeskip "I need to be in control" Weaver mixed with "I gotta be strong" Shadow Stalker. I disliked both personalities, as the other one was the weak and passive "I wish I had friends" Taylor from Arc 1 of Worm. The ending was mediocre, as the resolution didn't have enough build up to have a meaningful impact. It ended on a hopeful note, but nonetheless felt rushed and unsatisfying.

2.5/5.




Tabloid: (COMPLETE) OC centric, Stranger power, Brockton Bay setting, pre-canon. The OC protagonist is a PRT employee for the PR department, and is also a parahuman rogue. His personality reads as genuine, and his internal voice and characterization I thought was engaging. At first he seems like the only sane man in the crazy world of Worm, a passive observer voice, but the story unfolds and you begin to find out more of him, and slowly you realize that he's got depths of his own, and he's just as flawed as the rest of the character cast he interacts with. The character cast is the established Brockton Bay Protectorate heroes. I felt like they stayed in line with their canon personalities, and the character interactions seemed genuine, realistic enough without coming across as contrived. I also didn't notice any egregious errors or fanon characterization, especially in the scenes with Armsmaster and Shadow Stalker, the two capes a lot of fandom writers like taking a dump on.

In terms of criticism, some of the narrator exposition moments rambled, and could be cut down or paraphrased without losing anything in the story. The pacing at the beginning of the story starts out slow, the first arc at least, which felt like a prologue. But the story picks up by the second and gets better from there. It never really escalates, and keeps to the street level the whole time. Since it is described by the author as a "slice of life" story, I didn't expect it to. I never found it to be a slog at any point, but it might be for anyone who dislikes OC protagonists.

It didn't read like Worm, and didn't try to. It did its own thing, and did it well. I found that I really enjoyed this fic. I liked the slowly building exploration of the setting I know and love from reading Worm. As a character focused story, it's solid. The story does what it sets out to do. The unfolding of the plot read like the author knew what they were doing and where they were going from the beginning, a rarity in the sea of painfully average fanfiction. The writing is very good, not just technical proficiency, but there's a unique voice and style that fleshes out the character of the protagonist. The uniqueness was the main selling point to me.

4.5/5 -> 5/5. Full review is in the thread.
Based on the reviews and ratings so far, I fully expect to see this in the DLP library any day. I think the requirement is 3 written reviews and 5 star ratings (AFAIK?), which it already has.




Gadget: (WIP?) The SpaceBattles version has more content, and it was updated this year, so I'm assuming it's still in progress. OC centric, Tinker power, other setting that eventually switches to Brockton Bay, pre-canon. The OC protagonist is Armsmaster's neglected 14 year old daughter who moves to her dad's place and then the adventures start happening. The OC acts in a realistic way for a teenage girl with the kind of issues that end up giving people trigger events, and her thought processes show that. She's a kid who acts like a kid. Doesn't mean it's not frustrating to read about, and that ended making this story less enjoyable for me. I mean, I'm here on DLP because I wanted to read competent!Harry fanfic recs.

But the prose... My God, the prose. Armsmaster, known as Colin in his civilian identity, has his name misspelled as "Collin" in the first word of the first chapter (on Ao3. Looks like SB has a different, edited version). Not re-assuring at all when the author is misspelling character names that can be easily checked with a quick peek at the wiki. Even the so-called "re-written" version of the story is terrible. These are all (sic), straight copy-pasta.

Dialogue is bad and doesn't flow or sound natural at all. The punctuation is placed where it's unnecessary and missing where it isn't. The characterization is distinctly off-canon, especially for characters like Shadow Stalker. The plot meandered and I generally got the impression that the author was inexperienced and was writing on the fly.

2/5. Full review is in the thread.
I have no idea how this is in the DLP library. I expect a DLP library fic to be decently polished, in terms of plot, characterization, and prose. Normally I give a fair go to all stories I start, and read them with an open mind, but I struggled to get to the end in this fic. Just checked the ratings, and this fic has a 3.20 star rating in the library...

EDIT: Just checked, and saw the rating was down to 2.43/5.
lol you guys





I get my recs from other people's reviews, so I might as well review some fics myself. I personally prefer to read complete works, good prose (I will read shit and abandoned plots if the writing style makes up for it), and stories that have something unique about them. AltPower!Taylor can be boring after a while.

 

I Love Killin' is awesome. The prose is good, the dialogue is good, and I'm excited for more. I hesitate to give it a full 5/5 because I'm feeling cunty. 4.75/5

 

I wrote up some reviews of two older stories I finished a while ago. I've seen these two stories on recommended lists in the past (even mentioned here, pages ago), or "top of the fandom" personal picks from various individuals, and because I thought they offered something different, a unique perspective instead of the same old stations of canon, I read them.

A rating from 4/5 would be a recommended fic, so these are just reviews and not Almost Recommendeds.





Monster: (WIP) Altpower!Taylor with Night's power, Breaker/Changer.
The plot follows the premise of Taylor's power turning her into a monster, and since she still wants to be a hero, she decides to kill the real monsters. The power has obvious mental effects and mixed with Taylor's stubbornness and rationalization, you get... Monster. The plot follows Taylor as she tries to balance a former human life with her inhuman, emotionless and violent monster side, and use her powers for "good", completely avoiding the stations of canon by hunting down kill order threats like Nilbog and Heartbreaker. She eventually teams up with Cherie Vasil, or Cherish, to form a dysfunctional but entertaining vigilante team. The characterization is good. Taylor is flawed, and while she's different from Worm!Taylor, she has some of the same recognizable tendencies and complicated parental relationship. Cherish is a sociopath messed up by her own family life, but she's the team heart, and injects her own brand of crazy fun. They feel and read like real, but broken, teenagers.

The prose is technically proficient, few spelling or grammar errors. The right imagery is used to explore slow, tense, and dramatic scenes, and the fight scenes have the feel and descriptive language of something chaotic and visceral. That's where the issue lies. I didn't like it. Monster is written in first person, present tense, and with a stream of consciousness narration that puts you exactly in the PoV character's head. It gets too introspective at times, and scenes drag on and on while the MC mentally comments on what she sees, and the pacing for certain scenes feels like it takes forever. The first fight scene takes up the first four chapters and halfway through, I'd gotten tired of it. I checked, and it's around 10k words of the same fight.


Example of what slows down pacing of fights scenes. Removing most of them would greatly improve pacing.

Cherish's PoV. Teenage girl characters read like teenage girls... Your mileage may vary.

It's a well-written story with few errors, with plenty of fight scenes and interesting character reactions. But 150k words in, and Taylor's issues don't feel like they're anywhere near being resolved, and I don't know where the story is going other than escalating the fight. Reading the story in stream of consciousness form was mentally exhausting for me. I could see their thought processes, read every single one of their thoughts, but it didn't make me feel sympathetic for their characters. More like the opposite.


3/5.





Burn Up: (COMPLETE) AltPower!Taylor with some sort of lava monster power, Brute/Mover.
The plot follows the premise of Taylor's power turning her into a monster, while mentally messing her up to the point where she becomes volatile and wants to fight people. Which is extremely destructive, so she has to hold herself back to avoid killing everything. The story first starts at Winslow and from there avoids repeating the stations of canon. This is a Taylor in Name Only story, where nothing about Taylor is recognizable from Worm!Taylor. This Taylor is an unreliable narrator taken to the extreme, where she is obviously insane or unhinged. A lot of the characterization for the other characters are off-model compared to Worm. Saintly, friendly and nice Tattletale comes first to mind, who adopts Taylor under her wing from Day One. Grue and Coil who leave the story with barely any explanation. Cardboard cut-out characters for Regent and Armsmaster. But to be fair, they were only minor characters in this story.

The redeeming feature of this fic, and the only reason why I bothered to read it, was for the prose. Creative, imaginative writing that in some parts is quirky, and other parts is wonderfully descriptive, conveying an idea or image in a clever phrase, where other writers would use paragraphs for the same effect.

There were very few grammar/punctuation mistakes as well, but I noticed several times where capitalization was inconsistent for words like "Wards" or "Trainyard". I liked that the author used description to demonstrate Taylor's power through how she used it, and how it affected her mind, without explicitly telling what it was, leaving it up to the readers to figure it out.

The fic also features the overused fanon habit of using an interlude chapter to show side character reactions to the MC's power level. Burn Up has Glory Girl and Shadow Stalker's OMGWHAT reactions. Well, at least it's not Clockblocker's "Bullshit!". The story is short, and a lot of stuff isn't explained, which can be handwaved away with a "Rule of Funny" or Unreliable Narrator. As a feel-good story that doesn't try do what Worm did, it's good. As a satisfying narrative... meh, not really.

My recommendation: Don't read it for that, just sit back and enjoy the prose.


3.5/5.