I'm pretty sure the Taylor as a likeable character has been done and dusted.

As for Panacea; any chance I had of liking her was ruined by that Mime fic.

 

Interesting to see how people feel about Taylor.

I love her both as an intriguing character and as a person. She has flaws, she does a lot of things that made me cringe, but generally was someone I enjoyed reading and rooting for. Despite some of her poor decisions, I never really felt like I disliked her for it. She went through several phases through the story, each with their own personal challenges for her. My favourite parts of her were pre-Leviathan - seeing her go from this bullied kid on the verge of suicide trying to desperately hang onto this dream of being a hero, while struggling with the fact she's just gained friends who cannot coexist with her dream. But it was equally interesting seeing her become someone who could walk into the PRT headquarters, let herself be arrested and calmly stare down and dictate terms of her surrender to Alexandria.

Amy was also interesting from a different point of view. She's certainly not likeable prior to her "fall". Every time you read about her, you just cringed as she made the worst possible decisions in every situation as a result of her self-hatred and weak emotional state. But I kind of like how she came out of it all. Some of my favorite snippets from Worm were just seeing her bits and pieces from the Birdcage, and seeing the person she becomes after.

That being said, reading how she's characterized in Amelia, Silencio, Walkabouts, etc is just killing everything interesting about her. I think the only fanfic I've seen who actually kept her interesting as a main character is that one shot LisaAmy fic (which barely counts).

Never really liked Victoria though. Violent, impulsive and simple-minded.

But yeah, I'm really, really surprised there was never a fic about Amelia Lavere. I'd have thought as a concept it'd have been done to death already. I guess people on SB are just too obsessed with allowing Taylor to trigger with yet another power?


Anyway, finally read Cloudy Path. As with Atonement, it wins out because its lengthy and so far has avoided going the route of Amelia/Silencio/etc. It remains original in story and divergence from the original. Main detraction is the writing style, which is ridiculously wordy. There's no need for us to consider every single possible plan that goes through Taylor's head in a battle. And I tend to zone out whenever we get walls of text dedicated to describe her TinkerTech. It actually made following the story hard, because I ended up skipping half of that.

Atonement has gone downhill in my opinion. I like the theme of atonement, this more positive way of dealing with opponents, where Madison essentially befriends them in the end. I like all the former villains who have turned heroes.

What I don't like is how conflict has disappeared from the story. Madison hasn't had to work for anything.They'll spend a chapter or two building up a potential conflict, a few paragraphs to resolve it, then the next 5 chapters will just be everyone happily hanging out and being friends.

Spoiler

Everything after the Birdcage arc just makes me feel more like I'm reading Amelia than the pretty interesting story it was before. Everything just feels cheap. I mean just look at how easily the Noelle thing was wrapped up. Or Shadow Stalker. Or the Birdcage arc itself. Or hell, how even Armsmaster has decided to support the reformed Bones(aw) (what a waste of potential. If you're going to reform an S-class threat, have Madison be confronted with friends of hers who actually experienced her horror and are on a mission to take her down).

Everything is just a piece of cake, and now Madison is operating on an global scale of conflict. She's not just taking on local gangs, but some pretty deep stuff. And yet her story seems to becoming less intense, more relaxed and easier.

Also tried Speak with the Dead which was recommended earlier on. Really love the concept. Last update was only a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully it doesn't get abandoned.

 

She never came off as intriguing to me. Maybe if she had put more effort into resisting her bullies she would have been, but as is she was just someone who came off as hating her life yet not willing to do what needed to be done to fix it. I don't much care for Shadow Stalker, but if there was one thing she hit the nail on the head about it was that Taylor was pathetic. After all, why should others fight for her if she's not willing to fight for herself? You'd just be wasting your time. That being said, the no witness thing for the locker was fucked up beyond belief. Her flaws started off pretty good, unfortunately she never really overcomes them. She just keeps running from them or developing all new ones to add to the pile. After awhile it just started to get really irritating to slog through.

I saw it more as her running away. Taylor said she wanted to be a hero, but what she really wanted was to not be Taylor. that's why she talked herself out of the Wards, if she joined she would have to unmask and be Taylor and she just KNEW that they wouldn't like her and it would be all teen drama. This shit is why you stand up to bullies, so they don't beat you down like this. Sophia would die laughing if she realized that for all Taylor saying she moved on from it that the bullying haunted her from school all the way past the end of the story. Tattletale was the best and worse thing to happen to her. On one hand she got a friend that had the skill to navigate the minefield that is her personality, on the other she also got TT's fucked up view of life. Tattletale was the devil on her shoulder the entire story, sadly nobody took up the angel, at least nobody that could have competed with TT anyway. Her alleged spying on the Undersiders was her lying to herself so she wouldn't have to feel guilty about being a villain.

Spoiler

and calmly nothing, she lost her shit when she thought Alexandria had killed her friends and then killed Alexandria. While this is understandable and partly Alexandria's fault for pushing too hard, it does ironically indirectly lead to Regents death in the Behemoth fight. Though, since might have happened anyway it's not really a point for or against anything. Also, Taylor likes to dump her emotions into her bugs, it was why Alexandria made the mistake of pushing her too far. Taylor was on the edge but Alex couldn't tell cause Taylor was pushing it onto her bugs.

Amy through the whole story was just one big ball of pity and irritation to me. When she came out of the Bird Cage I was happy she had found a way to stabilize herself but disappointed at where she ended up. In the end she wasn't anywhere near my favorite character so I didn't sweat too much on it. Other then to make the observation that she was an idiot, but the idiot ball was a popular game in Worm.

Ya, SB really can't do her character right all that often.

Spoiler

Considering you like Taylor I wouldn't hold the violent thing against GG. She may have gone a bit too far beating up gang bangers a few times, but she's never had insects chew out a mans genitals or eyes before, or suffocate somebody with them, or shoot a child cause they may at some point contribute to the fall of humanity, or commit terrorism and treason so ya...

Spoiler

The thing about GG is, as far as she's aware, there is nothing wrong with her family, apart from her dads depression, and that is not her fault. Some people just suck at picking up on things, hell I'm that way. She had the rotten luck of being born into a family that seems to think that broadcasting their problems via non-existent telepathy is a good way to sort out family problems. Thus, she doesn't even get a hint of it until TT decides to screw with Amy, who goes on to refuse to talk about it which makes GG feel like she's not wanted and so the distance grows, and it comes to head only AFTER she's been mind raped. I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't be happy with anybody that screwed with my head like that, let alone love them. In the end I just feel bad for Victoria, she ended up in a family that she really should have gotten away from. It's why I like stories about her breaking off on her own or becoming more self reliant.

It was decent up until she makes the decision to meet with TT. That whole thing to get her to join the Undersiders was a massive ass-pull. Her logic being something to the tune of OH NOES someone knows about me, and I can't go to Armsmaster and the PRT despite having a good rapport with them because then they'll find out all my tech was meant to be leathal and put on space ships!

To which I say: I highly doubt they are going to call you a monster for that since you actually worked to make scaled down non lethal variants and the original designs would be great for Endbringer fights. But no, she just HAD to join the Undersiders. Cause the Undersiders are cool supposedly, maybe, okay without Imp they're a little lame.

Ya, that story started neat and interesting and slowly went down hill from there. Kinda tragic really.

 

Well, if she resisted the bullies, she wouldn't be bullied would she? Bullied people are almost always in that situation because they don't have the emotional strength to fight it off.

I completely agree with you, but the difference is, for me all of her character was interesting BECAUSE of that. Sure, having a badass main character is fun, but I liked just how flawed Taylor was.

The way I see it, she really was about ready to give it all up and commit suicide. If she hadn't triggered, she would have. But then she triggered and suddenly this hope appeared. She could be a superhero, someone who stood at the peak of their society (in her view). Someone who would completely overtake her tormentors in social prestige, standing and worth. That's also why she never tried to attack them with her powers - she felt it'd be more rewarding becoming better than them, then just killing them. But yes, as you said, this wasn't necessarily due to some form of altruism of wanting to do good - this was about Taylor not being Taylor anymore.

This is what made all the interaction pre-Leviathan was so interesting. It was very well done, seeing her try to cling to this hope she had made for herself as a last attempt to find self-worth while she simultaneously got everything she ever wanted deep down - friendship and respect. This disconnect in her thought processes between seeing her enjoy her time with Brian and then simultaneously think "I'm going to betray them" with some forced conviction. And then only really being forced to confront it directly later on, and realizing that, as you said, she was just making excuses for herself.

One of the themes about Worm was Taylor finding herself. And unlike in most fiction where this theme was explored, it wasn't necessarily a positive thing, as it seemed like the circumstances she was put under always had her finding herself becoming more and more ruthless.

I'm also not really someone who thinks that all of what Taylor did was justified either. From her point of view, in those specific situations, you can certainly understand her decisions. But she was also not really that mature, and didn't really understand the bigger picture impacts of what she was doing. As Tagg pretty much said, despite the fact she may have believed she was helping people, breaking down the law and order of society was not something that helped in the wider view of the country.

That being said, with all those flaws in her ideology, Taylor still got to this place that was pretty epic. You can say she was running away, and maybe she just had no worth for herself, but it was still epic seeing her stare down a host of huge players in the world, putting up this facade of a confident warlord.

The tragedy of Taylor's development is really wrapped up well in the line:

Spoiler

“Would you do it all over again? Knowing what you know now? Knowing that you end up here, at gunpoint?“ “I… know I’m supposed to say yes,” the words made their way past my lips. “But no. Some-somewhere along way, it became no.”

Spoiler

Sure, she lost her shit when she thought Alexandria killed her friends, but everything up until that point? Do you really think many other characters in Worm who weren't leaders like Kaiser, Jack Slash, Marquis and so on could turn themselves in, and stare down Tagg like she did? Sure, Alexandria was a bit different, but I don't think this was something Taylor from Chapter 1.1 could have done.

Regarding the comment on Victoria?

Sorry, violent isn't quite the right word by itself. Taylor was violent because her power limited her. She didn't really have an option to hold back, and she was constantly biting off more than she could chew. She became a monster, sure, but in each instance, there was usually a greater goal in mind with a reasonable moral justification. Victoria was just violent because she could be. She was arrogant too.

I'm sure that the reason I don't particularly like Victoria is because she didn't get an interesting POV chapter and every time you do see her, she tends to be acting pretty oblivious or bitchy. I suppose if we were exposed to her in different situations, she'd have been a lot more likeable, but even fandom doesn't do a good job of endearing her to me.

Are we talking about the same fic? In A Cloudy Path she never joins the Undersiders. In fact, Lisa hasn't even appeared for a long time.

I enjoyed that awkward relationship Taylor has with Lisa. Taylor feels really uncomfortable being friends with a villain and keeps trying to distance herself from Lisa, but nonetheless keeps finding herself saving Lisa and hanging out.

 

I would normally recommend a Cloudy Path. I really would. It doesn't descend into banality or stupidity. It manages to be pretty original. But every time Danny gets any screen time, I just want to tear my eyes out.

“Breakfast is on the table, kiddo.”
“Mornin' kiddo.”
“You look pale, kiddo,...”
“Thanks, kiddo. Feel better”
“You're looking better, kiddo.”
“Alright kiddo, talk to you in the morning.”

I think it gets better later on. I don't know if it's because Danny appears less often, or if some commenter pointed it out, but in the early parts Danny said "kiddo" every other line.

Also, I don't know the crossover element at all, and the latest interlude has dived headfirst into it. I think. I was really only skimming.

 

I would recommend A Cloudy Path... To people that enjoy stories in which nothing happens for hundreds of thousands of words at a time. I'd normally qualify that by saying nothing interesting happens... Except nothing uninteresting happens either. I honestly couldn't even tell you what happens in that story. I vaguely remember Taylor has a couple uninteresting fights with characters I can't place, then has some sort of conversations in which nothing gets said with characters that have no personalities and express emotion like sentient furniture.

 

In that case then I guess the difference between us is I don't care for that kind of character and you do, which is fine. Worm had a lot of interesting characters so I was able to finish it without raging or anything, though if it hadn't been free to read I wouldn't have gone past the first five chapters.

Oh, did she not end up with the Undersiders then? I'll have to go back and pick it back up. The way I thought it was going to go made me think the author was trying to rail road her into the Undersiders.

I'm probably a bit more forgiving of her bitch fu because my older sister was in her teens when I was in grade school and I had to learn to put up with it and not set her off, she grew out of it after she left for college and got her own space, which is what I think would probably have happened to Victoria. I can sympathize with the oblivious part though. It sucks that everybody around you is having drama and problems they somehow just expect you to know via...ways, and you don't react cause you're just not picking up on it. Then one day it explodes in a huge mess and you're left with a stupid look on your face wondering what the fuck happened.

 

To maybe get something going besides the continued circlejerk over whether Cloudy Path is worth reading for the umpteenth time, here's a list of Worm fics that I read. I'm sure some, if not all, have been brought up before, but I doubt they've been brought up in a while.

I make absolutely no promises as to the actual quality of these things. Many would probably fit very well in the Almost Rec'ed thread, but each are interesting in some way.

Exiled is a Mass Effect crossover where a post-series Shepard (I think) shows up in Brockton Bay. Obviously, he and Taylor meet, and they start doing cape shit together. It's gotten more entertaining over time - the current arc has Taylor pulling her best Aria impersonation, literally - so it's probably worth checking out if you're into crossovers and have some time to kill.

Journey of the Dragonfly is a time-travel fic that has the crew who go see Eden get shot back to when Brockton bay was ruled by Allfather and Marquis. It's something of a crossover as well - Mr. Incredible, Frozon, and Static Shock have made an appearance - so expect other cameos going forward. It's entertaining in a good way, for now.

Whatever Happened to the Queen of Brockton Bay is a D.C. comics/animated universe fusion. It's not that great, but I enjoyed the execution. Worth reading if you have nothing better in your life to do, like, I don't know, take a shit. Yeah. This is perfect bathroom reading for when want something else to think about besides your overly stretched sphincter.

Wildfire is one that I like a lot, and not just because it doesn't involve Taylor, Brockton Bay, or rehashing canon. It's a crossover (again) with Stephen King's Firestarter, and involve's Charlie getting sent into the Worm-verse. She ends up joining the Wards when Hero was alive and kicking. It's different from the usual fare, if only in characters and location, and there's some actual (wait for it) conflict at hand. It hasn't been updated in a while, but what exists is worth checking out.

Arana is a Bleach crossover written by Ryuugi. 'Nuff said.

Police Girl is a Hellsing crossover that has Taylor basically getting Seras' vampire powerset. Like Whatever Happened, it's toilet reading at best. The only draw, for me, is that I want more stories where Taylor's powers get her to start killing people for reasons (see Her Name is Death and Tranquil Abyss) and this scratches that itch.

Parental Guidance is a new fic that rose out of the schlock of the Worm Ideas thread on SB. It's still schlock, mind you, but at least the author has some interest in making it easier to find and read. Anyway, the gimmick here is that Annette lived and both her and Danny are Carman Sandiego-esque thieves. It's definitely a "comedy", and not an especially good one, but it is new and short, so it might be worth checking out for those who are chomping at the bits for something besides straight canon rehashes.

 

Found an interesting one-shot depicting Sleeper and what his power could be.

 

Something to do with sleeping, I reckon. He's a dream eater, like Hypno and Gengar.

 

Would definitely second this recc. A unique idea, good characterizations of everyone and is really well written. I'm just really not looking forward to seeing this tragedy unfold. =S

Very early in the plot (30k words), but if it maintains this standard, could be a fantastic story.

 

Upon My Back by PenchantPal

Very short, only two chapters so far and not updated for months, but those two chapters are definitely worth reading. Especially the conversation between Shadow Stalker and Assault. The idea here is really interesting and I would like to know how this goes on.

Looking Forwards by Olive343

Interesting introspective on Contessa and Alexandria and the ending paragraph especially was an interesting interpretation.

A Dragon in Winter by LavanyaSix

Short crossover, where Iroh from AtlA took over Lung's role and his conversation with Bakuda.


Edit: Third Memories of a Simurgh Victim - Diabolus ex Machina. That story is intense. While the Taylor chapters took a bit to really warm up to them, for Taylor to feel like Taylor, it progressed nicely, but oh my god, the Victoria chapters are so amazing and hard to read and it goes "oh shit" pretty often. Love it, hope it retains its quality, because if it does, this is going to be amazing. And with amazing I mean it's going to be horrible for everyone.

 

Upon My Back was interesting. First characterization of Shadow Stalker I've really found interesting (with the potential to actually be somewhat likeable in the future) since Tyrant. Only two chapters in, but interested to see where it goes.

Looking Forwards was kind of cute I suppose, but nothing groundbreaking. I didn't like Contessa's characterization at the end at all.

A Dragon in Winter was a fun interaction between Bakuda and Iroh/Lung. But yeah, nothing really all that special by itself I think.

 

Bounced off of Worm the first three times someone recommended it online; by the fourth time it was no longer 'someone's rec' but rather 'that thing people keep recommending for no reason I can discern,' and that was enough to get me through the first few arcs out of curiousity. The first chapter of 'social suffering' + 'secretly special' is profoundly annoying.

That said, it's a reasonably faithful simulation of one of the standard failure modes of the teenage mind.

 

I know the bullying stuff is very important in building Taylor's character, but it makes the early part of Worm so frustrating and so damn uncomfortable to read that it took several recs on the internet for me to give it a real chance. The bullying here isn't like the comical abuse in Abusive Dursley fics, this shit is real. I'm sure most of us were like "Just fucking kill them and damn the consequences" through most of early Worm and it was so fucking frustrating that she had powers and still did nothing, rationalizing her inaction through flimsy excuses.

Of course, Taylor's incredible rationalizations and self-delusions became increasingly entertaining and at times, endearing as the story progressed. Everything from the time Taylor joining the Undersiders for real is incredible - the Leviathan, S9, Coil, Negotiation and Behemoth arcs being the best. I just wish I didn't have to pull half my hair out in frustration wondering "Why the fuck am I torturing myself reading this shit?" to get to those parts.

 

Which is precisely why Wildbow is in the process of heavy editing of the first few arcs. I imagine the base content will remain the same, but the execution should improve significantly.

 

Yeah, took me two goes to go into. Not all that interested in the superhero genre to start with, and the first few chapters gave me a completely different image of Worm than what I was expecting. Despite the superhero setting, it is very different from a superhero story in most of its themes and the way its plot progresses.

Emma, Madison and Sophia are certainly portrayed as utter evil in a very black/white way. Tie this in with the superhero genre, and I was really expecting Worm to be a typical black/white superhero story, with comic book villains cackling away and Taylor taking them down.

Worm proved to be the complete opposite, with so many shades of grey and moral dilemmas through the story. But this is certainly not the impression you get at the start.

Wildbow's writing style improved a lot as the story went along. I'm sure once he edits and rewrites sections, it'll iron out all the little issues with it. Hope he fills in those 2 years when Taylor joins the Wards. I reckon there was a lot of potential there for some interesting interactions and all that.

 

Do we have any idea when those edits might be completed? I never re-read Worm after it was completed even though I planned to - and I don't think I ever re-read it before it was complete either - so now I'm wondering if I might as well wait for the revised version.

 

If I understand things correctly, he said about a year ago that after Pact was finished, he was going to edit Worm, to make it publishable. Fix things here and there, add an arc for the time Weaver was with the Wards and split things in volumes, since one can't really publish Worm as one book. Ebook first, though, I think at least.

Pretty sure it's going to take a year or two to be done.

That said, my information is old, so, things might have changed.

 

I'm in two minds hearing that he is thinking of rewriting the early parts, maybe I'm in the minority but I liked the first half of worm more than the second. I read Worm last year basically all in one go over a few days. I didn't read it as he was publishing like I tried to do with Pact. So I didn't have the issue of "waiting for story to get good".

I felt worm peaked around the Travelers arc after that I kind of felt it went down hill. But by that point I'd invested so much into it that I kept reading, Wildbow kept introducing more and more new parahumans, which did help flesh out the world and give things more of a sense of scale but I didn't really care about those characters like I did when it was just Taylor, The Undersiders and Brockton Bay.

In short I preferred the 'Skitter' half of the story to the 'Weaver' half.

When people are complaining about early parts how far along do they consider the bad chapters to be? intro +, Lung fight (Chapter 1) Taylor Joining the Undersiders (Chapter 2) The bank (chapter 3)?, Bakuda (chapter 4)? Or further than that?