Title: Outcry
Author: Zaru and LD1449
Rating: M
Genre: Action/Thriller/Horror
Status: WIP
Fandom: Worm/Dark Souls 2
Pairings: None
Summary: none
Link: Spacebattles, Sufficient Velocity. SV's copy has threadmarks for easier navigation.

Taylor is posessed by Nadalia and Raime, the Ash Bride and Ash Knight respectively, from Dark Souls 2 and as a consequence Winslow is burnt to the ground. The story develops along the lines of Taylor's contentious relationship with the PRT and with her own power. The PRT fears Taylor's power, but also desires to control it. Taylor has heroic tendencies and the PRT wants her to be a hero, so they have common ground, but the baggage of their mutual history with Sophia threatens to derail that cooperation with horrific consequences.

Manipulated by supervillains, superheroes, her friends, and her government, Taylor's feelings of loneliness and betrayal are fertile ground for Nadalia, the Ash Bride.

The plot is kicking along nicely. Events are diverging believably and seamlessly from canon. The characterisations are decent, although they are all noticeably a bit OOC. Where this story really shines is in its conflicts and fights. Taylor has a lot of personal conflicts with her friends, father, heroes, and the PRT. These are great. I can feel Taylor's distress coming off the page. The fights are similarly gripping - and there are a lot of fights. Big fights. The authors aren't afraid of killing people.

Now for the bad: The writing, plot, and world building start off extremely poorly. The writing improves in Arc 4 and by early on in Arc 5 it becomes much more enjoyable. There are still a few annoyances, such as "Tay" for Taylor's nick name and Aisha being an irredeemably terrible character to read.

I haven't played Dark Souls, but I did have to spend a lot of time on the wikis to sort of understand what's going on. I'm probably missing some aspects of the story by not having a good grounding in DS, but that isn't stopping me from relishing it.

Grumbling aside, this is a great read. I think you'll enjoy it too. 4/5.

 

Just started reading it, really interesting so far. I'm unfamiliar with the Dark Souls but the statues of Eden has really peaked my interest, i'll leave a rating when i'm done. But I like it so far.

 

Ok, this is probably one of the best recent worm fic's I've read.. and well to be fair there isn't that much competition. The writing is good, the plotting is at a snail's pace like some other fics. Her powers are interesting and the dialogue and character interaction is great. It was a bit mediocre at first with Taylor and Victoria not being particularly interesting or fun to read about, but this Legend segment has been a great read. I'm about a 2/5 of the way through and barring any drops in quality I'm giving it a 4.5/5.

EDIT: Ehhh, can't say i'm a big fan of the increased dark souls II elements so I'm probably gonna have to change to a 4/5. It grabbed my attention and then lost it like a lot of worm fics. I just didn't like how many dark souls elements were in it, maybe it'll be different for someone who follows dark souls more adventlr then i do.

 

Solid 4/5 from me.

Fight scenes are awesome, people's reactions to her powers are believable, character interactions are really nicely done (I feel I know a lot of the smaller ones better than I did in the original), and most of all I love the bullying fallout. Pretty sure it's my favorite one yet, especially

Spoiler

the handling of Emma, I've never seen her get psychiatric help or become truly remorseful before, and it was done quite nicely here. The scene with Taylor's soul fragment was kind of fucking heartbreaking though...

 

tl;dr, I really like the story. The relationships between the characters is great, the plot is in general pretty solid and the crossover is dealt with pretty well for the most part. A solid 4/5.

Personally, I've read the story twice so I do enjoy the story quite a bit. The first 3 arcs is probably my favorite start of all Worm stories with Taylor starting out with the wards and her general integration. I like how it is pretty clear she has some problems owing due to the bullying she was subjected to. I like that she was given what is clearly a pretty powerful power however she isn't going everywhere stomping everyone because of her mental issues which I find is something that Worm ff just doesn't address, or at least it doesn't address it often or in any way well enough, even if the concept of powers being developed by horrible situations would be a really clear lead into anybody having pretty serious issues mentally and a pretty obvious plot device. I really, really like how they are dealing with Emma and Sophia in this story.

The pacing is pretty good imo. It gets over the whole getting powers and then joining the PRT pretty quickly and gets to the real core of what I feel Worm ff should be about, characters intracting with each other, and not the whole getting powers and finding their faction like 90% of the community stays on. Yawn at every single story that still has Taylor dealing with her powers by the fifth chapter.

My main issue with the story however is how the Dark Souls elements are being dealt with right now. I feel like the story would just be a lot stronger if it just downplayed it a lot more than it is doing it right now, especially in the current arc. By no means is it completely story ruining but it is dragging the story down a bit. The whole Raime in her head and talking to Taylor and the same thing happening to Emma just feels very ehh. The story could do without that and just kept it at the powers part. Whatever, I can deal with it.

I also strongly disliked arc 4 and 5 where it is basically just interludes. In general, I feel like Worm ff needs to just stop with the interludes and just stop copying the way Worm was structured. This is ff and they have a freedom in writing that they just aren't using at all and it feels very wasted.

 

Yeeaaaah, I tried reading this, but gave up on Embers 2.1. I know nothing about Dark Souls first off, so Taylor’s power doesn’t excite me, but the writing is the real problem here. In general, it’s lacking. The dialogue is… not good. the characters are over the top, and I can’t suspend my disbelief at the events in the story.

Spoiler

No one dies in Taylor’s trigger event involving powerful fire? Convenient, but whatever. Going the Wards? Makes sense. Going on her first patrol and sent into a dangerous situation involving multiple enemy combatants with no lead up? Sorry, no. I can’t see the PRT doing that. If anything, Taylor would watch from a safe distance to see what fights are like up close before being thrown into the pool. She has no training and has never been a in real fight before. I just don’t buy it.

Honestly, I’m not sure if I liked anything. I read through an arc, so the fic’s not awful or anything, but I can't get past the writing.

2.5/5.

 

Spoiler

Taylor fully pays off her debt of zero friendly casualties in the initial trigger off with interest later

Okay, so the author writes really good action scenes; I'm glad I didn't drop it where you did because it gets a lot better. The Dark Souls crossover elements feel forced at best and could be eliminated without much issue. The story gets a bit anvilicious at times as well despite starting out trying to be even handed.

Pretty fun, not sure how I'd rate it yet

 

To preface, this story is maybe the third Worm fanfiction I've read, so some things that are probably cliches by now seem new to me. That said, here's my review.

The writing is informal, and grammatically slightly below average for fanfiction at the start, but it gets better further in the story. The characters don't really act like real people, instead they are idealized versions and make decisions based on what the author thinks is right. Dialogue wise, the authors also fall into what most inexperienced writers tend to do, with too much exposition and characters talking in speeches. There is no subtlety, the authors don't adhere to the mantra of "show, don't tell". Overall the writing is unimpressive, and if I rated the story based on technical skill it wouldn't be higher than a 3/5.

Despite all of that I enjoyed the story. The action is pretty good, and the interactions with the wards are fun. I didn't like the Dark Souls elements, and there were sometimes too many interludes, but the story was overrall fun to read and quite gripping. As I think the purpose of this forum is more towards reccomendation than technical reviews, I rated the story 4/5. If the standard of Worm fanfiction goes up, that rating will probably be unfairly high, but as it is now I think it's justifiable.

 

I almost dropped it there myself. As I said in the OP, the writing improves around Arcs 4 and 5.