Title: Going Native
Author: Dartz
Fandom: Worm
Genre: Action/Drama
Length: 86k words
Status: WiP/Possibly Abandoned
Link: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/worm-going-native.17415/
Summary: A twenty-something Irish engineer finds himself in a body of his teen Earth-Bet version with a knowledge of coming events and in a unique position to influence them but reluctant to change anything and risk a total annihilation of human race. Oh and he also got a pretty neat power after realizing just how screwed up he is.

First big plus for me is that we start in media res (so no brilliant babies practicing their chakra senses in their cradles ugh) with SI using his power to get a cheep thrill by tormenting one of the more disliked canon characters and erasing consequences of his actions just a few seconds latter. His power is being able to rewind time for 15 seconds at any moment with no limitation to a number of times he can do this. He basically can't be ambushed or embarrassed and can repeat a situation for any number of times until he gets a desirable outcome unless undesirable outcome is already unavoidable (kinda like Coil's power).

I already stated that SI is Irish and an engineer which is important because those things really shape his personality and worldview making him as a character feel much more authentic imo. He ended up in a body of his teenage Earth-bet self 3 days before Leviathan's attack on Dublin. and after that he and his not-family emigrated to Brockton Bay and by chance (or not) he ended up enrolling in Winslow some 6 months before canon events. He's bored by high school where he runs a cheating ring trying to play nice with every gang and clique and avoid making enemies.

At first he tried to avoid interaction with canon events and characters because he's aware of just how many small things had to come together in order for Taylor to defeat Scion and that any short term gains from him influencing events could have a catastrophic long term consequences. This in turn makes him pretty depressed because of everything that's happening around him, his powerlessness to change anything and the fact that he still managed to create a life worth protecting for himself there and Leviathan is coming to take that all away in less than a month which is the thing that eventually pushes him to start interfering with canon.

The story is still in a pretty early stage and hasn't been updated since January 2018, but the author is still active in couple of places, so I have hopes he'll get around and start writting again and 86k words is still a decently long read.

All in all, the best SI I ever ran into.

5/5

 

So I made it to almost the end of this before I dropped it and I’ll say... it’s average at best? To cut to the chase it’s a 3/5. It’s dragged up by a cool power and some interesting events. It’s dragged down by an irritating SI and poor moment to moment and overall story pacing.

It’s dreadfully slow for what it is - particularly considering the guy has a ‘do over’ power. It’s really introspective for a super hero setting and takes a long time to do anything particularly interesting. I must have been near 70k words before the first cape fight - and it’s not in service of a compelling characterisation.

Things are a bit janky from moment to moment and some of the character dialogue is stilted and events seem to be forced. The main character isn't particularly pleasant, and considering he’s a near thirty year old in a 16 year olds body there’s a bit too much focus on glory girls tits and unnecessary throw in lines about him whacking off.

So yeah. Over-all disappointing, having gone into this wanting to be impressed and hoping for a 5/5.

 

I managed to read three chapters. I was forcing myself after the first. It was just so boring. There was nothing to keep me interested, no hook. And SI fics are a huge guilty pleasure of mine. I found myself mildly disliking both the SI and the writing style.

The SI your standard SB/SV fare. An engineer, of fucking course. Half the users of those sites consider engineering the holy grail of professions. Boring, generic, fairly nerdy guy. Being Irish didn't give him any extra character - it just made him slightly annoying.

Super slow and introspective, like Blorcyn said.

You know when you see mold growing in the corner of a public restroom, and you glance at it, feeling vague disgust? That was my feelings when I was reading this fic. Take your most generic SB/SV Worm SI, and give it an even more boring spin.

I won't be rating this, since I'm not that into Worm, and the fic was clearly not for me, but it was mediocre at its best.