If you removed everything related to talking about how awesome Taylor's power was from HoH you'd be left with one or two pretty good chapters. As it is, it's a stretch to even call it a story at all.

 

The problem is that SB, and SV, and QQ are so in love with Taylor and her protagonist centered morality that even when they try to go off the tracks they end up railroading the story. Take A Cloudy Path for example. Taylor triggers as a Tinker for the tech in a game called Supreme Commander. Now all the tech, at least as far as I got before I was bored and disinterested enough to drop it, that she made was miniaturized versions of the kind of stuff that goes on space ships and the like.

She triggers in the locker, of course, and gets in a fight with Lung, of course, but she is then saved by Armsmaster, instead of the Undersiders, who leaves her with a very good impression of the PRT and the Wards.

So later, when she's deciding to either join the Wards or meet Tattletale, who she has never met and creepily knows way too much about her and the fight with Lung, she chooses to meet TT. Why? Because despite Army making a great impression, she just can't stand the thought of them knowing that she can make space ship grade weapons and shields, and even miniaturize them to a degree. No, she absolutely HAD to meet this random stranger who knows way too much about her. She had no choice!

That was about when I called bullshit. The stories I drift closer to are Heathers fic, as well as anything by Earthscorpion. He may be a dick, but Es knows what he''s doing when he writes, and me and him seem to have the same opinion about governments and the so called cops and robbers game of Worm.

So, A Survivor is Born, Synesthesia, anything written by Earthscorpion, Go Gently, and a few others are what I read.

That and a whole lot of one shots that held a lot of promise, but never went anywhere.

 

I want to see a good fic where Taylor joins the Wards/PRT, damn it! Both groups in Brockton Bay have such an interesting cast, yet every time a fic gets around to her being recruited, it's "Nuuu, muh bullies."

 

To be fair, if you keep anything even vaguely like canon, there's no way to work a Taylor-in-the-Wards story that doesn't end in either suicide, homicide, or both without making some pretty big changes to Taylor as a character.

You can definitely do it, but most people aren't willing to put the effort in to make the required changes to get it to work.

 

I know right? The Undersiders, apart from Aisha, are so boring. But Agayek has a point, Sophia is the pink elephant in the room, and because WoG was nothing more then a vague "Sophia wouldn't have been kicked out of the Wards if Taylor had joined," we have no idea what's up with that.

The problem with Worm, apart from Taylor's teenagerness and protagonist centered morality, is the government's hilarious incompetence. the moment I saw how ineffective they were I was calling bullshit. I suspect that was why Wildbow made Contessa, so he could always have an explanation.

 

I disliked the bullying plotline, it was strange how incompetent the school was, and I Didn't find it believable, but I think I might need to live in rougher areas. There was one tic where the principal was monolouging about how by having SS in Winslow, it helped keep the gangs partially out of the school. He was talking about kids killing each other in classrooms before agreeing to house SS. I think that's the only time I've heard a good explanation. Most of it was the flanderization of the administration.

Most annoying part was Mr.Gladly seriously, what kind of teacher cares that much about popularity with a bunch of teenagers. He frankly was not a believable character.

 

This is true. However, I was just reading Manager, a story in which Taylor immediately removes Sophia from the equation, but still doesn't want to join the Wards because "NUUU, MUH BULLIES."

I get that in canon Taylor wasn't quite hero minded enough to work through her differences with Armsmaster, let alone Sophia later on down the road. But for all these stories that eliminate Sophia from the picture, it'd be nice for a few of them to explore the good bits of the Wards that are left over.

 

Oh yeah, for sure. I'm right there with you. It's really unfortunate that barely anyone does anything with the Wards, and I'd really like to see Skitter legitimately be a hero from the getgo.

It just takes a lot more work to do that, which is why I think most fanfic authors don't.

 

Are you sure you're not confusing canon with fanon here? Because we only found out about Shadow Stalker's civilian identity after Leviathan hit, which is about the point where Winslow stopped being mentioned at all. We never had an interlude from a schoolteacher's perspective either so I don't know where you're getting this info from.

You went to a decent school and it shows. After a few years in a bad school most teachers either fall into apathy or move on to somewhere else. My impression of Mr Gladly is that he was on the path towards apathy; he cared about his students and wanted the best for them, but was beginning to feel powerless in the face of problems like Taylor's bullying and the gang presence in the school.

 

I meant to right fic instead of tic... fucking small ass buttons

Edit: Anyway thanks for your response on Mr.Gladly, you definitley showed ne a different perspective, I've never considered before.

 

I had an idea for a Wards!Taylor that ended up with her and Amy joining the Slaughterhouse 9, because that's pretty much what I think would happen if she did join the Wards. She'd snap, murder Sophia and then head off to go make the rest of the world pay.

---------- Post automerged at 06:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:29 AM ----------

Heh. Fair enough, though if you're griping about canon it's kinda bad form to bring up fics as a reason for disliking some parts.

 

Yea you right. To be fair I never liked it to begin with. It just something that I felt would have made the SS situation a lot less one sided. Anyway that tic actually updated recently and I can definitley say there's a good chance it'll in a terrible direction. Not sure why but the canary scene kinds annoyed me.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/tranquil-abyss-worm-fate-hollow-ataraxia.306225/

 

I always liked Amy in canon and would have liked to have seen more of her. Are they any stories out there where she is the main character, a main character, or in any way plays a large role?

 

There that quest she had on spacebattle that got shut down for being a incest smutty fest I think, basically what vash writes, but worse.

Quantumwhales has a Victoria fic post scion where amy plays a big role, but I don't remember it being good, but I don't think it was awful. Its been a pretty long time since I've read it so I can't quite remember if it was ok or awful.

 

Heredity and Nursing a Grudge. I linked both a few posts back.

 

Part of what I liked about worm was Taylor's descent into villain-hood. She starts off with big dreams of being a hero but gradually drifts towards the undersiders as escapism she used the idea of "being under cover" as a way to justify it to herself until Armsmaster calls her on it.

I liked her line in the sand moment over Dinah. I thought that was kind of a defining moment for her character. I think she says something like "The fact your even willing to think about this is fucked up" and then walks out on the Undersiders.

I was kind of disappointed how it panned out after that. After the Leviathan fight it was kind of obvious she couldn't be a hero but it was a bit to convenient for her to slot back in with the undersiders like she did. That first arc up to the Leviathan fight was the part of worm I enjoyed reading the most. Though from Wildbow's comments most people tend to like the opening chapters the least.

I really haven't seen any fiction that explores Taylor's mindset from the start of Worm in a convincing way. Her home life is a mess and her power provides her with an escape I could see a group like the E88 or a smarter coil finding out she has powers and using that to manipulate her into being a villain, I think that could be an interesting angle to take a story.

One of the problems I think is most of the other villains in Brockton Bay seem to be pretty one dimensional for Taylor to work with E88 you need to stretch belief a little bit - Purity maybe like she does in Cenotaph.

Faultline's crew are really the only other gang that has any real depth to them. That could be an interesting approach having Faultline manipulate Taylor by making her feel wanted and a part of the 'family'. I would mind reading something like that.

 

I really don't remember anyone actually asking this on SB. They were more concerned with powers and hooking Sophia up with Taylor.

Eventually, Taylor will be tomb raiding (or something to that effect, seeing as there aren't very many ancient tombs in BB at the moment.) In fact, it's not that far off. Right now her skills and state of mind are geared toward Lara Croft's mindset after Yamatai, except not as "I want to go find and desecrate more stuff in ancient tombs!" as Lara is.

By the end of Chapter 2, I've shown that she wants to get on with her life, but is preparing if it all goes to shit again . She's in the process of clearing her plate so she can do just that.

 

I tend not to ask serious questions about future story content unless it's blindingly obvious, or I think I spot some kinda serious error that could pose a problem. Most times I just coast with whatevers being talked/argued about at the time.

 

I'm not sure that it's a matter of effort.

When people on SB want to put Taylor in the Wards they manage just fine (see:Heels over head), even if it means pushing Sophia to a "Simurgh Quarantine Zone" (a bit of fanon that needs to die, seriously, who thinks this would happen? The Wards aren't the military) and just imposing the decision on Taylor regardless of how she would feel(she was pissed when she discovered that the only reason the Arcadia principle helped her was because parahumans intervened)

It's just that they're just as (if not more) interested in shoehorning her into the Undersiders as they are into the Wards. So that's what happens.

 

Not at all sure why this doesn't come across as possible to you. I believe it's even been floated in IRC by Wildbow. It's the Protectorate version of "transferred to a radio tower in Alaska." And no, the Wards aren't the military but the PRT does own Shadow Stalker for manslaughter.

Transferring her to say, Madison, which we are shown twice in canon, where the PRT keeps a presence to prevent any parahuman escapees and would presumably thus have a parahuman presence to assist in their duties would make perfect sense if Piggot just wanted to get Shadow Stalker out of BB. In canon even Shadow Stalker's family doesn't want to deal with her and she's a nutbag to boot, so she goes to prison.

You'll also have to remind me where Taylor gets upset about Arcadia's principal. I'm remembering almost nothing but "too good to be true" vibes. Are you implying that it would make any sense at all that Taylor would have a say in Shadow Stalker's fate? Because no, no she wouldn't.