I think it'll take some more time till people in general had enough of the rehashes and they'll branch of from there.

Isn't it always the same when you start on a new fandom? Your first 10 or so stories aren't that different from the original material. I, personally, would be happy if there were more crossovers. (Still don't know what that Exalted thing is, nor do I care to find out.)

Edit: Aside from that Cenopath, despite its beginning, is pretty cool, especially now that things are getting heated up.

 

I like Cenotaph, but I think one of the main reasons is that it was the first Wormfic I read so the whole rehash with a twist thing was still new and shiny. That and I think the divergence was really interesting.

As to the whole obsession with Exalted crossovers, I think it was said earlier in the thread that it's a quick and easy way to turn Taylor OP. It's an interesting setting in and of itself and there are a couple examples where it's worked but overall it's just a quick and dirty way to get a versatile powerset.

@oakes: I think you've nailed the issue on its head in that the fandom is a bit too new still with regard to fanfic and it'll take some time to get more varied.

 

So, I ran through the list of easily accessible fanfics pretty quickly. Some peeves - I don't want to read about OCs. I don't care about some random guy getting powers in Texas, or anyone else who gets powers and is set in the Wormverse. It's hard to read such things without think "Self Insert".

Making Taylor's power OP, or giving her additional powers. Like in that redo fic where Taylor is reincarnated in in alternate word where stuff is mostly the same, except for random badly thought out capes with ridiculous powersets, bad characterizations, and pointless plots (a tale of transmigration is awful by the way). Remember, it's not the power, it's how you use it. Taylor is so awesome in canon because she thinks about how to use her power in clever ways, without being ridiculous about it (like she is in cenotaph)

But I guess we're still in the beginning of the fandom, where everyone is obsessed with overpowered protagonists, or character bashing (seriously, bashing on emma and friends is too easy, and boring). Adding 'twists' onto Taylor is almost always in her benefit. Giving her flight or superstrength isn't what I care about. The whole thing that makes Taylor intriguing is that her power is already OP, but in a super subtle way. She doesn't have the obvious ways to fly or regenerate or punch a train into dust. There are very few masterclass capes who can control stuff like she does (and I'm not talking about Scion arc shenanigans), and on the scale she can, and that list is pretty much just her and Nilbog. Just think that if she lived in Africa or something, how easy it would be for her to just control a swarm of killer bees, or locusts, or malaria infested mosquitos, and just eradicate a town. Or move to Australia, and force them to firebomb the whole place since they got some scary ass shit over there.

Also, what's up with all the crossovers? Someone mentioned that there's like 100 fics over at spacebattles, so I put on my bravepants and went over, and it's nearly all just meaningless drabble.

If you're writing a story, you don't have to do the same exact thing as Worm, just making a rehash with Taylor on the Wards early on, or just going Lung fight -> bakuda aftermath -> bankrobbery -> leviathan, with whatever little twists you think are clever. Just moving the order of events around really isn't interesting either. You also don't have to have he have the same exact relationships either. She doesn't have to be friends with the Undersiders (specifically tattletales) when the divergence point is in the first arc, and she doesn't need to be on good terms with the wards if you go the other route. Fuck, put her on Faultines crew after a failed recruitment attempt by the Undersiders for all I care, just do something interesting.

I think the reason why many of us were drawn to Worm on DLP was the fact that Taylor was essentially doing the whole dark-but-not-evil thing, showing that Villains can still do good things. It gives a story a built in conflict/resolution sequence, whereas just hero vs villain tends to drag on when everything is just butterflies, sunshine, and puppydog tales, with subtle twists that don't actually do anything and everything stays the same, except easier.

Yeah, I guess this was just a bit of a rant.

 

That is not 'way back in the day'. japanese-jew's Wit of the Raven was started in 2006, Taure's Lords of Magic was started in 2010.

For me, at least, way back in the day was around 2000, when Goblet of Fire came out. And guess what, there were a TON of the same exact stories for a long time (still are tbh), and there weren't any incredibly divergent stories for some period of time, I'm not sure what the first really different HP fanfic I read was, but just thinking about it for a minute or two, I thought of Amulet of Time, which at least was vastly different from the usual fics in 2002. And that said, Amulet of Time is shit.

BUT, even in 2000, fics had been written for at least 2 years. So, consider that people have been writing Worm fanfics for what, a year? If we're using Wit of the Raven, the earlier of the two fanfics you mentioned, as a marker, Worm fanfics are in the first year of eight needed to get to that point.

Yeah, yeah, I know that things don't correlate that cleanly, but really, there's no need to bitch and compare these early fics to the culmination of years of terrible fanfiction. I myself am still enjoying these early days, it is kind of nostalgic to me.

 

It seems kind of obvious, but has anyone tried to cross Worm with Marvel or DC?

 

There's been a couple, I think. Only one I can think of off the top of my head is Falling Iron. It's an Avengers MCU/Worm Cross with Tony landing on the beach in Brockton Bay after the Portal at the end of the Avengers collapses while he's at the even horizon. It's really short but it's readable.

 

Only on the second chapter, but Jesus. Why do people keep writing Tony Stark so badly?

Oh right, Spacebattles. Everything's probably going to be written badly.

 

Eh, you have plenty of decent to great authors over there. It's just that for every one you have 50000 syeds

 

I know Peptuck is pretty good. While he does have that weird Spacebattles fetish for extreme technical detail, he at least tempers it with good stories and characters. I can't say the same for any other Spacebattles authors I've encountered, but then again I haven't encountered that many.

 

In all fairness, looking for fics where Tony is done well is a rather uphill battle.

 

I posted A Different Kind of Justice back at the beginning of this thread. It hasn't been updated since I posted it and it's pretty short, but it's an interesting look at what a Worm/DC crossover could look like.

Short summary: The Endbringers end up getting transported into the DC universe, with Taylor following shortly after.

 

I think having the Endbringers taken out within a few paragraphs is a real waste, but besides that it's decent enough so far.

It'd be better if Taylor showed up first, then the Endbringers followed, I feel.

 

For a while, me and Roarian flirted with the idea of a fusion between the two universes.

It would open at Leviathan; Taylor walking through crowds alone, thinking about how the Undersiders forced her out.

And then, she'd walk past the Wards, and hear the start of an argument.

"There's no way Legend would beat Superman, I... I mean he's Superman!"

Taylor would muse about superheroes for a bit, and then Legend would float down and give his depressing speech.

At the end, he would smile.

"I know that I am not the best for uplifting speeches; I deal more in facts. However, there is someone here who is."

And down floats Superman.

 

Cue Taylor using her bugs to ingest microscopic pieces of Kryptonite and create a swarm of Superman-death

 

I would love to see the Endbringers invade the Marvel or DC universe. As long as it was written by somebody with the talent to make the battles interesting and with the balls to kill off heroes.

Also, the fact that Taylor immediately joins the Wards in most fics annoys me. I never cared about them the same way I did the Undersiders. Are there any fics where the Undersiders play an important role like they did in canon?

 

I want to see a story where Taylor's bug powers fuck with her mind, making her thought processes more bug-like. Total sociopath. Maybe she joins the 9.

 

That would be awesome. I would prefer if she could control all non human creatures. That would give a little more punch, especially if she was a part of the S9. We already know that her shard has that capability since its splinter could control birds.

 

I think it was already mentioned, but I would really like to read the story where Taylor kills Emma in a fit of rage and then has to cover it up and how would that influence her later cape life. Much more interesting then the whole ''bringing her to justice through legal means'' thing.


And yeah, still waiting for that HP crossover guys!

 

Crossing at which points of the potterverse timeline and the Worm plot?