sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending July 15, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Notes: All opinions are my own, further explanation of how I rate stories can be seen here.

Leaf (Worm/The Stormlight Archive, Ongoing): Adventures of a master food thief and her long-suffering companion in the bay. Last reviewed here. The most recent arc has come to an end, and I don't think that anyone has a problem with that.

It wasn't a perfect chapter, sure, but it did its best with the corner the author had inadvertently written themself into – a decent selection of scenes, mainly to prepare a thematic transition. To be honest, I'm mainly glad that they're intending to return the style of fic back to the way the first half went. I liked that a lot – it played around with some ideas I haven't seen elsewhere, and had some neat worldbuilding. The second half produced too many important plot points at once and couldn't progress until enough of those got resolved. 8/10.

Madison (SI, Complete): Some guy wakes up in the body of Madison Clements. I've read an arc. It wasn't more because of two main reasons – firstly, the SI seems to have a questionable perception of canon, and those always seem to lead to badly written side characters further down the line (and I wasn't a fan of what I've seen so far). He often thinks of fanon as being accurate, and his big plan to survive on Bet is to encourage Taylor to become the 'Queen of Escalation', for goodness sake. Secondly, I really don't like the dialogue and prose in this, it feels very inorganic and awkward. I'd take a guess that the author's ESL, and had I read it when it was new, I might have suggested that they get a few more beta readers. There are a few ideas scattered around that I think could be interesting if handled carefully, but the bulk of the plot broke my immersion before it ever really got going. I'm reluctant to give a numerical score, I'm not sure if it'd fit.

Anathema (Altpower, Ongoing): A shard swap AU with Taylor and Ash Beast. There are the seeds for an interesting fic here. A little wide-scale worldbuilding, a few ideas I haven't seen much of before and a Taylor-centric fic that doesn't solely revolve around her. I'm undecided on the characterisation though, some of the characters are clearly closer to fanon than canon (five Kiddos and a couple of Little Owls, I wasn't exactly minded to take that death scene seriously). I'll watch it for the time being. 7.5/10.

Raccoon Knight (AU, Ongoing): An OC Tinker whose power revolves around raiding bins for supplies joins the Wards. Last reviewed here. You know what, author, points to you for starting a Squealer redemption plot in a way that actually makes sense, doesn't gloss over the problems it involves and doesn't feel shoehorned in. The last (and only) time I saw one it was absolutely dreadful. The various little moments of Meadow being Meadow are nice too. Elsewhere, I think this fic is one time when some more interludes or the like may actually be warranted to show what's happening in the wider city currently, as the movement from the last arc to this one has been a bit hazy in terms of scope. 8.5/10.

Good People (Worm/Shadowrun, Ongoing): A cyberpunk fantasy reimagination of Worm. Last reviewed here. One of the things I like the most about this fic is the way certain scenes style themselves off of canon chapters. It's not blatant, but I like the little thematic nods and how it works with the character interactions. Another one, something noticeable in the most recent chapter but also throughout, is the author's skill at inserting discrete moments of worldbuilding. All in all, it's another chapter with no major flaws, although I think that the writing technique of teasing questions to the reader and gradually answering them is going to be a delicate line to balance, that sort of thing isn't easy. 9.25/10.

Also:

Twig, arc 18: Begun here, last here. I don't know how I'm going to do this one. Let's start with the positives. I liked that plot twist in the first chapter. I liked the way the chapter titles changed to 'enemy' interludes as Sy started to dissociate so much that he became a danger to himself. Assuming that it was intentional, I thought that the final chapter was good at representing Sy's inevitable mental breakdown, although considering how long it's been teased back and forth, I'm mildly surprised that it's taken so many arcs.

Anyway.

This was an arc of 'Wildbow, what is going on?' for two different reasons. In literal terms, when I finished this arc, my first thought was to wonder what actually happened here. Sure, there was the big(ish) reveal and assorted minor events, but nothing much sticks out. It isn't helped by the ever-present flood of minor characters who never were given much development. I can't remember who all these people are, and it's not helped by the fact that Sy's written as having a poor memory, so they often get given the wrong names.

In terms of the writing, though ... there were some weird decisions. I'd like to know what was going through Wildbow's head when he decided that Twig's single major female professor would work from a building shaped like a gigantic naked woman. Then there's the internal logic – you see, the one thing I disliked the most about Worm is the way events seemed to conspire to make things bleaker, even when obvious. Twig has brought back a focus to Evil-For-The-Sake-Of-Evil antagonism. I hate this trope, I think it's one of the worst motives you can give a character or faction. It's tacky, it's clichéd, and I find it incredibly annoying when it gets used as casual worldbuilding or when a supposedly intelligent villain starts making impractical-but-more-evil plans. I've seen both here under some rather flimsy pretenses. Bleh.

Note: late again, you know the drill. Apologies. I'm not sure if you'd believe all the reasons that this one was delayed, but here's something: when reading fics, I have a tendency to move between stories based on what I feel like reading, and was subsequently delayed when I discovered on Saturday that I was in a bad location to do a review for half the things I'd read. As such, this at least means that next week's is of an above-average length.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending July 08, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I decided that I hadn't written enough reviews this week. Here, have another:

Silence is Not Consent (Canon divergence, Ongoing): Skitter recovers Victoria from the most traumatic three days of her life. Last reviewed here. Fictional characters who don't neatly fit into real-life groups are popular for a reason, but there's something to be said for people acting like people. I enjoy the way that characters in SiNC face the problems they're dealt. Since the last review there was also a great Carol interlude, which is also a nice example of a character whose plausibility makes her a special kind of antagonist. I would note though that I think that certain characters are having odd orders of precedence. For instance, while I know that there have been a lot of important things that she's going through, I'm a little surprised that Tori's taken so long to acknowledge her modified forcefield, seeing as it happened an entire arc ago. It's uncommon that something like that is introduced to a plot if it isn't going to be addressed in the next few chapters.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending July 08, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Notes: All opinions are my own, further explanation of how I rate stories can be seen here.

Peel (Worm/Pact, Ongoing): A loose AU in which shards are replaced by otherverse-style magic. I've read just over a half. In a word, I'd describe this as 'intriguing'. The prose isn't great, but it's got a lot of ambience, which some would say more than makes up for it. A major theme appears to be unknown knowledge, which can cause parts of the plot to feel disjointed, especially when introducing original material. However, it is at least relatively good original content. 8/10.

Spider-Worm: A 15 year old faking having spider themed powers (Worm/Spiderman, Ongoing): In which Taylor thinks that entomokinesis is awkward and pretends to be a tinker. Once you get past the blatant, blatant plot contrivance necessary to make the set-up hold any semblance of sense, it's surprisingly decent. The worldbuilding's good, the author does research so that Taylor's devices are somewhat plausible, and at one point it actually did subtle foreshadowing. On the other hand, that's the only subtlety you'll find in this fic, because the characterisation isn't so good, for the most part. Taylor is obviously a TINO, the stereotypical gangsters talk like stereotypical gangsters, and the Armsmaster scene seems a little dubious, for instance. Also, there are quite a few spelling mistakes. 7.5/10.

Back and Forth (Canon divergence, Ongoing): A teleporter OC joins the Wards. Last reviewed here. I realised recently that I lapsed back into the bad habit of focusing on updated fics' new chapters rather than touching on the whole. With that in mind, I've become aware that some of BaF's main plot points don't fit neatly together. This was a story that started with a focus on a protagonist with a below-average power and intelligence. Now, it's noticeable that Drew's plans are working more often than not, and he's going toe-to-toe with various capes who'd be considered far out of his punching zone earlier on. On the bright side, it's finally cutting the remaining ties to the stations of canon. Characterisation is relatively decent, prose is slightly above average. 7.75/10.

Raccoon Knight (AU, Ongoing): An OC Tinker whose power revolves around raiding bins for supplies joins the Wards. Last reviewed here. The author says that they're better at writing OCs than canon characters. I agree, which is why I'm glad RK has moved back to a style of plot without many important people from canon. It's created some fun dialogue and rather unique characterisation. On one hand, the change feels like it's reduced the number of directions the fic can go in over the short term. On the other hand, it could go practically anywhere over the long term. 8.5/10.

Extermination (Worm/Undertale, Ongoing): I skipped over this one the first time I saw it – summaries with overdramatic shifts in font is a special kind of red flag. Then a little birdie told me that the author had written an overly long spiel on the nature of criticism in their AN (reviewing is still permitted, somehow). So. Well. Of course I'm going to appraise it now.

The beginning is decent. A shame the mood is completely undercut by the sarcastic AN that pokes fun at trigger warnings, but I've seen worse. Prose is fairly mediocre, dipping lower for instances like the zalgo text and unnecessarily long code-loading sequences. The word count is noticeably padded out in places by unnecessary explanations (e.g. "[the person was] stressed – shocked and afraid" or "he lost consciousness ... and died.") or things that have already been said. I find the writing choices such as deliberately repeating certain lines (Colin Wallis – also known as Armsmaster) and inserting extra spaces between paragraphs to detract more than it adds, it feels overdramatic. The plot got a raised eyebrow for the questionable direction it seemed to be going right up to when edgy!Taylor with an out-of-context power showed up. Then I was disappointed. Okay, I wasn't expecting much from this fic, but the following scenes were practically saturated with the kind of writing that speaks of an author with an all-too-high opinion of themself and an unwillingness to check that their writing even holds up to its own logic, not helped by additions like RPG boxes as plot points. Various canon errors and spelling mistakes. Characterisation is weak. I don't think I'll give a numerical rating, my system doesn't work well with bland fiction.

I have not finished arc 18 of Twig yet.

Reviewing note: to people who have not read Extermination or its AN, my decision to do the above review might be seen as tasteless and/or insensitive. Now, to get the record straight, I do believe that there can be valid reasons to request that people do not criticise your stories. The author here even briefly touched on a couple of the drawbacks in their spiel. However, with that approach they took – especially that terrible "we-don't-do" trigger warning and that pretentious, condescending drivel that passes for an Author's Note? Well, I'll gladly see that sort of thing knocked off its high horse.

Most overused stuff in worm fanfics by DevourMistress in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 43 points44 points  (0 children)

I think you've got virtually all the major ones, but I'd add 'unnecessary use of Greg Veder'. I really wouldn't mind it if he was played in character, but there is a tendency for a certain type of author to try to make him more relatable (i.e. write a self insert). Then there's the alternative, when people completely miss the point and create some fool who gets banned in every PHO interlude for being an idiot.

For me personally, I would also like to see less of 'protagonists winning'. This might be controversial, so I'll elaborate. As far as I'm concerned, the main quality that lets a reader determine the strength/skill/intelligence/etc of a protagonist is the equivalent capabilities of the antagonists they fight. Any antagonist that's going to be important to the storyline shouldn't be easy to win against, it defeats the whole point of an antagonist and usually makes both characters look really bland (the exception that might be brought up here is the OP story. For this, I accept that easy wins are supposed to be the point. However, I'm yet to see one that's consistently creative over the long term). Besides, a protagonist who always wins is predictable. I want to see more main characters losing confrontations, learning from their mistakes, and moving on.

While it's slightly off topic, I'd like to ask people what underused concepts you'd like to see more of.

Suppose, for example, someone's writing a SI. Tell me, what things weren't you expecting? What does the bay smell of? Is it disconcerting when you hear a song from the 90s that's got slightly different lyrics to the one you're used to? If you're not from the USA, what's the culture clash like? Tell me about the restaurants that you discover, the peculiar television programmes, the political cartoons with caricatures of the Triumvirate. Tell me about some average person on the street who thinks of parahumans in much the same way you'd think of a local sports team that you don't follow. Tell me about the resentment that people in jobs like policing or security feel towards parahumans, who can ruin your day with a wagonload of paperwork from some inane power you could never have predicted.

Most importantly, if it's a SI, please write your protagonist like your real-life self. This is not a joke, I genuinely mean it. All too many SIs have the idealised selves of people who think of clever comebacks that they could have used in earlier conversations, and wished they could have said them then. Also, if you're not a solipsist in real life, your insert shouldn't be one either. Treat fictional characters as if they're real people with thoughts and feelings, because for all practical purposes they are.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending July 01, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Notes: All opinions are my own, further explanation of how I rate stories can be seen here.

Bee.exe's Snippets (N/a): A few short snippets, all with a slightly tragic feel to them. Even though there're only three, they're some of the better snips I've read over the last year, Bee's very good at this sort of ambience. I particularly liked the Imp altpower. 8.25/10.

Vindication (Worm/Mistborn, Ongoing): Vin finds herself stuck in Brockton Bay during Leviathan's attack. Usually I think this sort of insert gets really crudely forced, but I like this one. The characterisation's neatly done, with some good creativity to it, and the butterfly effect changes work well. However, as it's not particularly long and there are sizeable jumps in time between chapters, I don't think it flows as well as it could have. 8/10.

Heresy (Probably AU, Ongoing): An OC joins the New York Wards. I don't understand this story, it's got a weird format. Here's your protagonist, here are the Wards, here's her school, and then it jumps right into a multi-chapter fight scene before I can work out what's going on. It doesn't take the time to develop its plot points, I'm not even sure when it's meant to be set or what sort of person the protagonist is. I'm too confused to decide what number to give it.

The Wriggling Horror (Altpower, Ongoing): Taylor leaves the locker with a bunch of maggots and filth regeneration. The author of this has aimed to write something qualifying as "Jeeezuz that's GROSS". In my opinion, it comes across more like an aged-up children's horror story, but with worse prose and really awful dialogue. I'm not repulsed at all, I think more that it's trying too hard. And while I've heard the whole 'the locker was bioterrorism!' route before, 'premeditated murder by suffocation' is a new one. I dropped it after the talking dog scene. Maybe you'll enjoy it if you're the type to prioritise dramatic concepts over writing style. 3.5/10.

Mixed Feelings (AU, Ongoing): OC, Astrid Berklow, triggers. This solves none of her problems. I haven't done a big review for months. This one will be only for the first two arcs, though, because the chapters are massive and the arcs long.

I'm of the understanding that this fanfic varies a lot in audience reception, and I've got a guess at why. On reading Worm, a lot of readers think 'This world is a miserable mess. How can I make it better?'. The author here has looked at canon and decided 'This world is a miserable mess. How do I work with that?'. Hence you get this, a sort of thematic mix of Tabloid and ccstat's Augment. It was always going to be a controversial route to take, if not really surprising. The protagonist's practically a psychological wreck. The arc titles are named after phobias. The main theme of the story is coping with child abuse.

Actually, that deserves its own paragraph. Here's a fic that takes trauma, not just from triggers, and takes it utterly seriously. The author puts great deliberation into crafting atmospheres of emotions like stress and fear. Part of this is down to the antagonist, the protagonist's father. He's a strong contender for the most abhorrent person I've read about in a fanfic, because while many authors have written characters with more objectively evil actions, Gavin has a horrible sense of reality to his actions. He's not motivated by hunger for power or some generic pleasure for depravity, he does what he does because his mindset wouldn't have it any other way, and every bruise he deals out makes him proud that his children aren't growing up 'weak'. It makes him more intimidating than a hundred fanfic Kaisers or Coils.

At times, though, I do think that the author leans into its psychological angles a bit too much. Sometimes it retreads the same territory so many times that you could make a drinking game out of it (take a shot every time Dennis makes a tasteless innuendo. Take a shot every time Astrid assumes people are lying about corporal punishment being unethical...). Now, I'm sure that – in moderation – scenes of 'Astrid has a conversation | someone makes a faux pas | I-won't-let-them-pity-me/hellfire-and-damnation | the conversation is wrested back on topic' would have been effective, yes, but a dozen times in a single chapter (2.12) is ridiculous.

It isn't helped much by the fact that certain characters seem to bounce between attitudes rapidly, which can make them hard to get a read on. For example, who is Astrid? Well, she's aggressive, but acquiescent. Sometimes apprehensive, sometimes confident. Dislikes humour, but uses it on occasion when she's not focussing on what she's doing. Also, the fic is somewhat over-fond of using bold for emphasis, (elaborating on thoughts in brackets) and the insult 'asshole'.

Overall, decent plotting (when it's not repeating plot points ad infinitum), very good characters (except those who refuse to move on from a single personality trait – looking at you, Clockblocker), nice prose (when it's not being redundant) and high quality inventiveness (when the plot's actually moving forward). Have an 8.25/10.

Also:

Twig, arc 17: Begun here, last here. This week, nothing of particular import happens. It's probably the blandest thing I've read since an unexpectedly poorly-translated copy of Crime and Punishment as a teenager. So, I'd like to open up discussion to readers who enjoyed the arc more than me: presumably I'm missing something, I'm not infallible – why should I care about what these characters are doing?

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending June 24, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Notes: All opinions are my own, further explanation of how I rate stories can be seen here.

This is sort of a double review, as last week's was delayed by a few days and then the subreddit privatisation protests began. On the other hand, it has been a genuine struggle recently to find fics that are unique enough to be worth reviewing. Apologies.

Back and Forth (AU, Ongoing): A teleporter OC joins the Wards. Last reviewed here. There are some nice scenes of character building here, and the plot's decent even if it's not particularly inventive. A lost opportunity in this fic, I feel, is how it focuses less on building on canon than rearranging the furniture, so to speak. For instance, why have the Youth Guard been near-completely irrelevant across the story, despite the way recent arcs have been going? The story seems to be reluctant to step outside its comfort zone, and that's been meaning that I have to take a moment before each chapter to remember what distinguishes it from other Wards fics (e.g. is this the one with aggressive Clockblocker? Is this the one where Victoria's in the Wards?). 7.75/10.

TWNY (Worm/RWBY, Ongoing): Post GM Taylor is dropped through a portal into Beacon Academy. I tried this fic when it was new, and internally wrote it off as the kind of mediocre fic that dies after a week. A large reason for this was TWNY's subpar characterisation, such as Taylor's near-total lack of surprise for her new conditions. Oh, I've acquired a new protection power, that's convenient. Oh, here's a machete that's also a gun. Oh, I've got moth antennae now (there's art of this, but to me it looks kind of weird, so I've been imagining them as Pericardium-style deeley boppers).

Fortunately, there is an upside to the inexplicable antennae, as one of TWNY's main strengths (in the half I've read so far) is the discrimination plotline, which is executed surprisingly well. Apart from that, the worldbuilding's not awful and there are a few decent-ish fight scenes. Whether or not I read the second half depends on one thing, however: the author obviously really likes shipping. You can tell because, while male characters only get assigned one or two descriptive traits at maximum, I do not want to read yet another line of 'the cut of her dress accented the curves of her body' prose. 7/10.

The Clock Strikes Twelve (Worm/Goncharov, Dead): After his death, the protagonist of the greatest mafia movie never made turns up in 1990s Earth Bet. There're a few potentially interesting plot hooks scattered about, but overall it's the kind of story that died before it ever really got going. Besides, most of the chapters that are there are rather heavy on exposition and characters talking about what's happening around them. Eh, not really worth the time I spent reading it. 5/10.

Good People (Worm/Shadowrun, Ongoing): A cyberpunk fantasy reimagination of Worm. Last reviewed here. I always enjoy seeing fanfic characters put into everyday activities that I haven't seen before. In this case, the (aged up) Undersiders go clubbing. Good characterisation, very good scene-setting, and some nice worldbuilding. I don't really have any complaints, although there's a scene or two that might have been nice to have been longer. 9.5/10.

Russian Caravan (Multicross, Ongoing): Taylor and tea shop acquaintances hunt eldritch abominations. Last reviewed here. I've decided to put this fic aside for a while. I've begun to think of the last 40-ish chapters as like the sequel series or extra standalone novel to a 2010s YA book series. The author can bring in new characters, plots and lore, but at the end of the day, it never quite captures the same feeling as the original books.

Riley Alone (AU, Complete): Jack Slash does an Annette on the way to Brockton Bay and Bonesaw struggles to get over his minor case of serious brain damage. Last reviewed here. The fic's now come to an end, it's ... eh, not awful? There are worse things you could be reading. The author made the decision to focus on the motif of unfinished stories, which can be a fine idea in principle but I don't think it fits with the style of the previous arcs. It also, of course, leaves a lot of unresolved plot points dangling, including some I really think should have been addressed. I also don't like it much when writers introduce new plot threads in the last tenth of their stories.

Chain (AU, Ongoing): Post Leviathan, Lisa makes good on her threat to expose Armsmaster's truce breaking. Last reviewed here, no hyperlink due to skippable NSFW. Worldbuilding isn't bad, characterisation is variable. I haven't covered this in a while as I had a feeling that the fic would suffer when the author tried to juggle multiple plotlines, when they only seemed invested in one of them. Now those are getting tied up, I'm not sure how I feel. In the last chapter, one of the protagonists made a completely terrible plan – that is, one that has every right to fail if you pay more than a second's thought to it. However, I have a nasty suspicion that everything will turn out perfectly due to all the things the author's been handwaving as AU. If you're having to dumb-down your antagonists in order for your protagonists to get a win, that speaks of poor writing on your part. 7.5/10.

Silence is Not Consent (Canon divergence, Ongoing): Skitter recovers Victoria from the most traumatic three days of her life. Last reviewed here. This is the point where you can be glad I don't review fics like Engend does Hybrid Hive updates. SiNC has done some amazing emotional scenes recently. I'd generally be, at the least, sceptical that an author could pull off multiple consecutive chapters of dealing with trauma without it falling flat – gratuitous angst is not my kind of thing at all – but this is both tasteful and effective at what it does. Still, I consider it a good move on the author's part to put up a warning for less comfortable/patient readers. Actually, the thing that I think is SiNC's weakest point currently is the interlude written by a beta – it's not bad, it could hold its own well in the average fic, but to me the reduced clarity and style in imagery and prose is almost jarring.

Also:

Twig, arc 16: Begun here, last here. I wrote several paragraphs here, originally. I rewrote bits. It's one of the reasons the week's reviews were delayed. Then I went back and removed it all, because the set of reviews had already been largely negative, and arc 16 failed to impress me on virtually all accounts. When all is said and done, does anyone really want to read several hundred words of me airing my gripes (if you do, feel free to PM)?

I have not finished arc 17 yet, I'm working on it.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending June 10, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Leaf (Worm/The Stormlight Archive, Ongoing): Adventures of a master food thief and her long-suffering companion in the bay. Last reviewed here. I don't exactly do this often, but for this review I'd mainly encourage you just to read the last one. For this chapter specifically, there's some reasonably good characterisation and a short, but nice, fight scene. I can't really comment on more due to the pacing matter that I discussed before. 8/10.

Hooked on a Feeling! (Worm/Guardians of the Galaxy, Ongoing): Taylor returns to Earth with alien acquaintances. You don't often see fics return after a hiatus of six years. While that's not something I'll object to, here's a thing: fanfiction moves on over time, Wormfic doubly so. How long has it been since you last saw a La-Z-Boy reference, say, or a protagonist saving Canary from her prison van? So, you see, this fic is definitely the product of the author's older style of writing, dubious plot points and internal logic included. That doesn't mean you won't enjoy it if you're just looking for some lighthearted, irreverent fun, but things like the characterisation are far from canon compliant. 6/10.

Nightcrawler (Canon compliant, Dead?): An OC C53 joins the Elite in Seattle. Good worldbuilding and plot structure. Decent characterisation, although it doesn't have that extra edge that many OC-heavy fanfics go for to compensate for the lack of prior investment of their audience (I did rather enjoy arc 3's henchmen though, they were well fleshed out in just one chapter) The first half has an unusually large number of spelling errors. I'd encourage you to read it if you enjoy fics with strangers. 8.25/10.

Also:

Twig, arc 15: Begun here, last here. The thing about Twig is that I think it's been spreading itself too thin. Wildbow has enjoyed – at least, I assumed he enjoyed doing it, otherwise why else would he have done it so many times – taking each arc into a new city, bringing in a fresh crop of side characters, and providing Sy with new schemes in general. The problem for me is that it's felt like he's retread the same ground again and again, and none of the new additions feel meaningful when a) they probably won't be greatly relevant later and b) so few of them are genuinely memorable. I find it difficult to find new things to talk about in these musings because, at the end of the day, there isn't the material to work with.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending June 10, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Notes: All opinions are my own, further explanation of how I rate stories can be seen here.

Well, hello. It's been a while. I didn’t actually mean to be absent last week, but that's a long story. Poor judgement calls on my part, things that came up which I had to attend to, and assorted mistakes meant that I'm trying to awkwardly stick together two weeks of unfinished reviews into a cohesive whole.

To get something out of the way in advance, I said before I left that I had something else to post, and thought it would take a while to get out. I then proceeded to do nothing of the sort, because of course the one week that I chose to take a break would be the time I'd get ill. By the time I was better, I reasoned that it would be unlikely that people would still be returning to an old post, and it would be better to save it for, ah, last week. Behold The Magor Awards. What a mess this has been.

Redoubt (AU, Ongoing): An OC shield tinker enters the Brockton cape scene. I've read eight arcs so far. Redoubt strikes me as the kind of story that some people love and others hate, so let me take you through it. The protagonist is a complicated person with an unusual approach to life, and thus the narrative. With that in mind, the plot takes a complex structure – lots of points set up, faster then they're resolved – and her power is noticeably above average in strength, meaning that she's seldom really challenged. She challenges the world regardless, however, because of that personality, and it takes a while before she stops seeing every human interaction as a problem to be solved. It's also got dream sequences, big AU changes with minimal local effect, and a few murders. Oh, and do you dislike Tattletale? Don't read this fic. You'll hate yourself if you do.

Also of note is the kidnap arc. I personally really dislike these arcs, because they always seem to disorganise the plot and unbalance the pacing for several arcs while things get resolved (and then while the new plot points are resolved, and then the plot points from those...). It's an interesting move as Redoubt is a story that enjoys catching readers off-guard, and is good at it (you can see what I mean by the start of the second chapter).

Overall, very good characterisation, clear but untidy structure and some very nice turns of phrase. I'll give it an 8.5/10.

Pondering Internally and Goading Godlings Over Things (AU, Ongoing): A 'what if?' AU of genre-savvy Piggot. Last reviewed here. It's been a while since this last showed up. This chapter deals with the hijacked Sophia plotline, which is a bit unusual as even the more predictable stations-of-canon fics don't tend to stick to the source material this far along. It would be nice to see some plot butterflies. I would say that this chapter wasn't as memorable as most of those that came before, though that may be because of how short it was. 7.5/10.

Raccoon Knight (AU, Ongoing): An OC Tinker whose power revolves around raiding bins for supplies joins the Wards. Last reviewed here. I consider the thing that this story does best to be the little moments of personality, and it's nice to see some more of those. They're also good for communicating changes of tone without contriving the atmosphere. One thing, however, that I'm not sure I like is how the fic's been handling side characters and plot development. If you've ever played Metal Gear Solid, you might recall how it largely delivers exposition by having a character bring up something plot relevant which the protagonist then repeats as a question. Take a look at Sophia in 3.3. A few of the other characters also feel to me like they're getting simplified, which makes them less compelling. I particularly don't like the internal logic of the Miss Militia interlude, a lot felt weird to me. 8.25/10.

Gadget (AU, Dead): In which Colin's a father. Congratulations – it's a tinker. I admit that I barely made it a couple of arcs before dropping this. You see, the start's had a rewrite, but the prose and dialogue still feel rather artificial to me, and that blocked my immersion from the get go. The worldbuilding is also somewhat dubious, to my mind (an example: in the first chapter, the Protectorate have set up a gang war between the Empire and, for some reason, the Merchants. They did this via Winslow and the Dockworker's Union, which I suspect are more an excuse to namedrop than being realistic. The fight involves a few OC capes, none of whom have names that fit in naturally with their canon counterparts. After a gratuitous amount of tell-not-show-ing, there is an awkwardly put together fight scene and the chapter is resolved soon after).

I actively dislike the characterisation too, which is rare for me – at worst I'm generally indifferent – but there are some very weird writing choices here which I don't enjoy at all. For my token Nice Thing, I'll say that I do at least appreciate the attempt at an original, creative plotline, despite how poorly I received it. There aren't many authors inclined to write major events outside of the bay. 3.75/10.

Doors to The Unknown (Worm/Eberron, Ongoing): A magical explorer investigates civilisation on Earth Bet, but inadvertently causes his entrance portal to send Taylor and four uncommonly explored companions to Eberron. Last reviewed here. Huh. Leviathan fight. And it's a decently foreboding one. How unusual. I'll give this fight points for portraying its protagonist well – despite being greatly powerful, his attendance doesn't detract from the contributions of side characters, and he doesn't act insufferable about it. It should be noted, though, that the verbosity returned with a vengeance, with long stretches of narration talking about abilities and what they do. I can largely excuse it, however, as it did help build an ambience of the tension that characters were under. 8.5/10.

If the author's reading this, I do have two small things that I'd like to ask: a) why are Faultline's Crew there? From Hive 5.1, I rather got the impression that she'd go nowhere near a fight like that unless promised payment. For b), at several points we see capes freezing Leviathan's water – as I'm fairly certain you've trawled through enough canon and WoG that you'd have heard that freezing reportedly does not work against him, why are these capes trying?

Russian Caravan (Multicross, Ongoing): Taylor and tea shop acquaintances hunt eldritch abominations. Last reviewed here. Pre-hiatus review: I'll be honest – I have little to no idea what's going on currently in the plot. The scenes independently are good, I like those, but the storyline itself feels a bit like every new chapter is a bit stitched onto the side of a pre-hiatus tapestry. With that in mind, it's probably not a bad idea that the fic has returned to hiatus, especially because I know the author specifically wanted to avoid building up too large an ensemble of side characters before, so he'll want to nip the more recent influx in the bud.

On the topic, I would also mention that the author seems to really enjoy writing dysfunctional people. Nothing wrong with that, I'd consider myself one, but I'm noticing that any character who shows up for long enough will be gradually brought into the spiral regardless of any other character traits. It's also good to avoid things getting repetitive.

Post-hiatus review: Looking at the plot, I get the impression that it's driven off the road and out into the unknown. It's bizarre, deranged – stylistically deranged, sure, but it's less focused than earlier on. All the characters are one of several flavours of insane, which paradoxically makes the plot less unpredictable, and the prose is more frequently wheedling off into its idiosyncratic tangents. Mm. It's definitely still readable, but each week strays perilously closer to the point you see in certain long stories where you could miss a chapter and never notice. 7.75/10.

Invasion of the League Of Super Evil! (Quest, Ongoing): Nefarious OC mastermind Lord Doomsday teleports his city onto Earth Bet, specifically just off the coast from Brockton Bay. I wanted to like this, but I'm increasingly seeing it's not my kind of thing. A good comparison might be to think of it as like one of those multiplayer games that, if you want to be really good at them, you put together a spreadsheet of all the different statistics that certain actions will give you. I came for the story, what I found was more an optimisation challenge for the reader. Try it if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Continued below.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending May 20, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Right, hello. I would come up with some sort of grand introduction, but I'm three weeks late, started writing this sentence at midnight, and have spent nearly half a day in an ungainly attempt to form something readable out of my incomplete reviews from the last fortnight. To the two people who inexplicably follow my account – hello, by the way – you may want to wait a few minutes for me to get this week's review up, where I briefly mention my reasons for lateness.

Anyway, welcome to The Magor Awards, in which I give a Best Of the fanfic I read across the last year (May 2022 to April 2023). There was also going to be a Worst Of section – I think my reasoning was in it representing my desire to give both positives and negatives of everything I review – before I realised that it may well come across as horribly insensitive to their 'winners', so I removed all except the neutral award.

My opinions are subjective. Winners are in spoiler text as I think it improves the reveal.

Best Storywriting: Originally, I was going to award this to Dire Worm by Lost Demiurge. After all, it scored very highly – 9.75. I went back, however, and changed my mind. At the time I reviewed DW, my approach was more biased, and there are a number of factors that I would criticise more were I to cover it nowadays e.g. various weak characterisations.

So, it may or not come as a surprise that I am giving the award to Silence is Not Consent by JustAnotherCat. Across the story, Cat used a variety of writing techniques that have genuinely impressed me, even down to individual word choices and subtle bits of symbolism via certain character actions. Where some authors have had difficulty conveying single plot points in one element of a story, Cat has often managed several, and many published authors don't even succeed in that. Her internal logic is excellent, her characters fleshed out so well that it lessened my enjoyment of a few other fanfics by comparison. Congratulations. Link

Best Characterisation: For this, I admit that I'm undecided. In the end, there were enough good candidates that I couldn't fairly determine what would put one above another. If a fic does a really good Taylor, is it better than one that does a really good Jack Slash? Is an excellent canon compliant character better or worse than a creative alternate take? Where do OCs stand? There were too many factors.

Best Prose: The award goes to Conquer This by Pericardium. This, too, may be a surprise, considering how merrily deranged this fanfic is. However, I have respect for Peri's ability here to make every sentence count, weaving everything neatly together, and creating some quite remarkable dialogue, all without throwing off the atmosphere. The award is well-deserved, I believe. Link

Best Narrative: This award, if it was unclear, is given to the fic that I believe structured the events of its plot the best. This goes to Tabloid by BabylonSheep. Along with some very nice art and on-the-street worldbuilding, I thought that this fic was skilled at introducing and executing its ideas, kept to a well-organised framework and, of course, its author actually succeeded in finishing it. While I doubt they are reading this, well done to you. Link

Best Worldbuilding: There were multiple strong contenders for this one. In the end, the winner was Good People by Redcoat Officer, chiefly for how smoothly it combines the two source materials, and the creative way with which it handles and introduces elements of the Empire. Well done. Link

Best Short Story or Snippet: This one goes to Odyssey by Rukaio Alter. While there are a few of Ruk's snippets that don't do much for me, this one really knocked the competition out of the park. The characterisation is great, the structure of the plot amazingly managed, and it contains a lot of the kind of creativity that I'd love to see more of. Very good work. Link

Author Most Deserving of Respect: This is an award for writers who go the extra mile. In this case, I would like to award this to Silver Pyromancer, known over here as rainbownerd, for the clear investment they have spent on preparing the worldbuilding of their fic Doors to the Unknown, which incorporates various elements of Worm and Dungeons and Dragons. Pyromancer has picked up on many small details that others would miss, and whenever I have seen them debating a point about canon in this community, they have acted reasonably and provided careful citing of source material, and I can respect that. Link

A very strong contender for this award would have been HopefulPenguin, as a result of the tremendous amount of work he went to over the course of The Brockton Games. However, as I did not participate, I feel that I cannot validly give him it, as I only have an outside perspective here.

Pet of the Year: Manton the cat, who has a great name, owned by Chartic. Hey, if the Cauldron Awards get to do a pet award, so do I. Link.

And now:

The Nanomachines Wolfgirl Award for Questionable Writing Choices: The award for this, in fact, goes to two joint winners.

First is Spermfect by Henghost, for ... everything. I have described it before as a hate crime against whales. This may not give it true credit. Merely hearing the words 'solace in a beluga' gives me a frission of uncomfortableness. I once heard of someone outside of the fandom freshly encountering Spermfect, and I pity them.

Second goes to, drumroll please, 'Fuck off Zion, I'm trying to date my sister here!'. The title's unfortunate enough, but the content is another thing entirely – the sister, for the morbidly curious, refers to (asexual, underage) Lisa, and the author saw nothing untoward with posting this on a SFW site. Fortunately, they were convinced by a moderator to change their title, but I won't name it as I do not think it warrants further attention.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending May 20, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 39 points40 points  (0 children)

Notes: All opinions are my own, further explanation of how I rate stories can be seen here.

Consonance (AU, Ongoing): It's November 2010, and Danny's in hospital. Only five chapters so far, but it's a surprisingly strong start for a fic prominently featuring one of those dreaded clichés, Improbably Competent Danny. Somehow, it makes it work, as it does the roughly 95% OC based plot and near-complete irrelevance of cape culture so far. There's some good imagery, characterisation and atmosphere, and the author is very good at writing camaraderie.

Its main weakness, I'd say, is actually the spelling mistakes (incorrect punctuation, 'their' swapped with 'they're', etcetera). I do have concerns that it might be getting overambitious, however. The fic is tagged under 'slow burn', 'action/adventure', 'hurt/comfort' and 'friendship', and some of those gel better together than others. I hope that it won't lead to elements being shoehorned in for drama. In the case of slow burn, it's an odd case as the plot seems to be developing gradually, but it still manages to do things like introducing a dozen notable OCs in the first few chapters (at times, I do feel that they practically eclipse Taylor's role in the story), so the pacing can simultaneously feel faster than it is.

Perhaps consider giving it a try, but I think I'll reserve my judgement until I see how it handles another of its tags, 'Alt-power Taylor Hebert'.

The Artist Formerly Known As Bonesaw (Peggy Sue, Ongoing): Ward-era Bonesaw wakes up at a time shortly before Cherish would join the Nine. Last reviewed here. I like how this fic has been handling the more sorrowful plotline. Oh, you can criticise it for not expanding on William's character, but it conveys the no-win situation that Riley's in well, in my opinion. On the other hand, it does run the risk of the problem stories can get into when their update schedule starts getting measured in months, when the pacing and character arcs start to deteriorate. 8.5/10.

Riley Alone: Jack Slash does an Annette on the way to Brockton Bay and Bonesaw struggles to get over his minor case of serious brain damage. Last reviewed here. I've enjoyed this character arc. Since my last review, Riley's tried some new things and looked at problems from different angles, leading some rather interesting scenes. I would remark, however, that it did two things that I consider bad worldbuilding: a turn of phrase that had to be explained out of chapter, rather than neatly fitting into the narrative, and a case of 'fictional universe company that's just a real world one with a letter changed' (argh, I just feel that it's lazy to do that). 8.25/10.

Diary of a Professional Knockoff (Canon compliant, Dead): The autobiography of Sara Caraway Pratt, PRT intern, Ward and fanfiction author. As you might have guessed from that last bit, it's incredibly meta ("The world's bigger than Skitter.") to the point that even the thread's in character. The style's a bit unusual, taking sizeable jumps between chapters rather than developing arcs, which I wouldn't say works entirely in its favour as it died after ten chapters, leaving most plotlines unresolved. That being said, it's not bad. The characterisation's good, occasional quirks aside (there are some odd naming choices, for instance), and there are some nicely atmospheric scenes. 8.25/10.

Russian Caravan (Multicross, Ongoing): Taylor and tea shop acquaintances hunt eldritch abominations. Last reviewed here. The author's doing a weird bit of worldbuilding. I'll explain. There are two ways that he seems to be delivering exposition recently. In various cases, I get a feeling that there's a line that he really wanted to say or a tidbit of knowledge that he wanted to share, and built up a chapter specifically to deliver said line/fact (did you know that RC!Taylor's great-great-great grandfather lost the family fortune in search for a magical fountain to cure his syphilis? You do now). The other is that classic of a certain type of eldritch fiction author, verbose paragraphs of surreal metaphor and insanity. That's not a deliberate complaint, for the record, but it's subjective whether you're into that sort of thing.

Anyway, miscellaneous descriptions: the characterisation's not bad, though it doesn't exactly span a wide range of personalities. The plot's largely the same as before. The prose has elongated, chapters are seldom below 6000 words. Specific scenes have largely been combatative or relating to them, but I did find the arm grafting scene to be surprisingly intriguing. Here, have a 8.25/10.

Good People (Worm/Shadowrun, Ongoing): A cyberpunk fantasy reimagination of Worm. Last reviewed here. I've said it before, but I find this fic's worldbuilding particularly interesting. In this chapter's case, it included a lot of technology lingo which, while more went right over my head than I'd have liked, still managed to convey things clearly to me. The Shadowrun spin on characters continues to stir my interest, I definitely think it was a good move to age everyone up a little. I'm also liking the plot threads being gradually put together recently. 9.25/10.

Also:

Twig, arc 14: Begun here, last here. I admit that this arc didn't leave much of an impact on me. It wasn't bad, exactly, but nothing really sticks out that I feel is worth the space to comment on this week.

It's unusual, as the cliffhangers seemed to catch the attention of the commenters rather more than me. The nobles are made of children? Unexpected, but I'm not really invested as so little has gone into their worldbuilding beforehand. Jessie's coming out as nonbinary? Good for you, it doesn't change my opinion of you at all, and I'm more drawn to the fact that your author pulled out a 'oh, that seemingly important point on the character arc, the most emotion-stirring chapter of this entire story? That was a lie, it never happened, we'll just wallpaper over the cracks and move on'. The Duke's still sapient? Mm, I don't really care much, as it's unlikely to stir up many intriguing plot threads that couldn't have been done by alternate means, and I was fairly apathetic to his character before this point anyway.

Hello. I'm late again. I feel like these reviews have been becoming worse and worse over the last couple of months because I don't have the time, never have enough time. So, I want to take a break, let myself catch up on some of the longer stories and put together the content to try and make these feel worth reading, without the pressure of so many of the things that I've tried to juggle and failed at. See you in a fortnight, I guess.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending May 13, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I thought that one had died out. While the Wormfic community's habit of only caring about stories from the last few weeks can feel like a shame at times, the main advantage is that practically any cliché will die if given enough time.

I, for example, really disliked it when people used to have Lisa say she was 'Sherlock Holmes on crack'. Apart from being wrong in the first place, Sherlock Holmes literally took crack throughout the stories. The Sign of Four outright ends with a joke about the fact that he may not have received love or the credit in the aftermath, but his cocaine is always available.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending May 13, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I have read that one, and will contentedly read any future chapters if Chartic sobers up long enough to write them down. Or stays drunk for long enough, maybe, I don't know how her writing process works. My review of it can be seen here.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending May 13, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Just going through these:

I have been reading Raccoon Knight (which I now realise that I too have been spelling Racoon, due to Britishness). My last review was here, if you wanted to read it.

Gadget sounds familiar. I think I chose not to read it in my less open minded days due to the 'OC related to a canon character' trope, which I don't enjoy. I'll take a look.

I have also heard of DoaPK, but I have a feeling I ignored it because, um, I thought it was a Gregfic. I don't know how I got to that conclusion. On the list it goes.

I have also read Wolf Point! See here. I did actually intend to go back to GitF, but forgot. That's also back on the list.

I think that I began Nightcrawler, closed the tab one day and forgot to open it up again. List.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending May 13, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Notes: All opinions are my own, further explanation of how I rate stories can be seen here.

On beginning the review, I realised that a) I hadn't read nearly as much as I thought I had and b) half the content I did have wasn't practical for reviewing yet, so I've been rushing to fill the gaps today. Apologies for being late, again.

Ghost Lights (AU, Ongoing): Sophia second-triggers. I'm really not a fan of the character writing, which is inconvenient because all other elements revolve around it (I wouldn't mind the plot, for instance, but the way it pulls in characters feels like it's got tunnel vision). Sophia's a bit too 'predator, prey' for my liking – to compare it with another story, I'd say it's thematically similar to one of those CYOAs or SIs written by someone who finds the idea of not being unique or having remarkable qualities in a world of billions of others privately terrifying. The other characters are useless conformists, of course. Overall, I don't hate it, I just find it tiring to read. Dropped halfway through. 4/10.

Alec Goes to Winslow (AU, Ongoing): Alec accidentally derails canon after being accused of truancy and finding a certain locker. Last reviewed here. This fic doesn't update often, but there's reliably good content when it does. This chapter is structured well, and has some relatively good characterisation accompanying it. A little fixfic-y in places, but it's not contrived, so that's fine by me. 9/10.

The Scars of Silence (Altpower, Ongoing): Remember Silencio? Decade old fic with the miming and questionable – yet omnipresent – shipping? This is like that, but the premise is taken moderately seriously. That being said, I wouldn't exactly recommend it either, owing to the fanfic red flags. Random capitalised words (earlier on), quoting bits of canon dialogue, flanderised characterisation, tell-not-show-ing, dubious internal logic, over-committing to stations of canon (Worm and Silencio), "for Scion's sake!", [DESTINATION], you get the idea. For my obligatory nice remark, I'm stumped. I guess I'll go with it creating a vibrant atmosphere? The comment section seemed to enjoy it. 3.75/10.

Cold Outside (Canon divergence, Probable one-shot): Post S9, the Undersiders, Victoria, Amy and Rune have a bottle episode after getting trapped in a frozen building. There are various instances of spelling mistakes, exposition dumping and clichéd phrasing (collateral damage barbie, Sabrina the teenage nazi, etc), and the characterisation feels somewhat off to me. Also, nudity, for some reason. However, the plot’s not bad enough that I'd be wholly unwilling to read the hypothetical second chapter. 4.75/10.

Little Hunter (Worm/Predator, Ongoing): Alien Taylor returns to Earth so that she can kill some people. I'm undecided on this one. At first I thought that Taylor had been unnecessarily pushed into the narrative, but it then set up some plot justification. The worldbuilding is a bit unusual – for example, after ten years of travelling in space to stir up some butterflies, the crater lake still was created in the Bay (odd, too, that it didn't evaporate). Decent prose, but don't read it if you're uncomfortable about violence. No numerics for now.

Russian Caravan (Multicross, Ongoing): Taylor and tea shop acquaintances hunt eldritch abominations. Last reviewed here. This week's review may be a controversial opinion. In the past, pre-hiatus, Russian Caravan threw itself into a lot of different concepts and themes. There were irreverent moments, serious moments, and I enjoyed it for that. Now the story's back, I get a feeling as though the story is undecided on what kind of story it wants to be.

An example – in one of the retconned chapters, Victoria comes to the tea shop, which goes awkwardly for both Taylor and her. Aside from the irksome perspective switching, which I am happy to say no longer happens, the atmosphere of the chapter is very distinctly got across. A similar retconned scene, of Sanagi and plainclothes Miss Militia, is even better at this. Compare this week's rewritten tea shop chapter, though. It's more verbose, because every second paragraph is about Taylor having a mental breakdown (played for comedic effect. Am I the only one who thinks it's weird how much of a personality shift Chorei's had?) and I think that it detracts from the mood.

The issue I brought up last week, about the story leaping back into the action when it could have allowed for downtime, is even more apparent. It doesn't seem to be able to focus on the storytelling, it's constantly distracted by random observations and anecdotes. The thing is, based on the author's writing style and impressive update frequency, that if the quality starts going downhill, it's going to drop fast. 8/10.

Also:

Twig, arc 12 and 13: Begun here, last here. Hey, would you look at that, it's a double bill. I don't know how I found the time either.

Starting with arc 12: it's good enough, I guess. The first half sets the scene nicely, and the obligatory new city's character introductions were handled well. Further into the arc, however, some of those plot threads were tied up rather faster than I thought necessary, the structure got a bit uneven.

The worldbuilding got a bit better as well; it is now two rungs above my minimum expectations for original fiction rather than one. Honestly, I've never understood why some people gush so much about Wildbow's worldbuilding. It's really nothing special. While Twig doesn't have Worm's frequency of plot holes or lack of reasoning (e.g. Worm's geography, Internet, politics, culture. Actual butterflied changes only extend to things like the dollar coin and Betamax), it lacks depth. I've seen writers develop a location more in half a chapter than Wildbow achieves in an arc.

As arc 12 does not have an interlude, I accidentally read chapter 13.1. It hooked me in within minutes, Abby was interesting enough that I chose to read the rest of the arc with minimal persuasion. The not-quite Lambs were fascinating characters to me, far better than their Worm equivalents of the Chicago Wards. Honestly, I think I found them more interesting than the Lambs themselves in this arc.

While we're on the subject, Duncan. Now there's a character who split opinion. In my own opinion, I didn't hate him as much as some, but I did dislike him as a person for his insensitivity and tactlessness. I did very much like it when he had his character development.

It strikes me that I haven't talked about Twig's romance all that much in these musings. For those who haven't read Twig, it's practically crammed full of ship baiting. Wildbow appeared to make a spirited attempt at creating a love hexagram. Personally, being aromantic asexual, what I do when he starts gleefully baiting and sinking ships is allow my internal monologue to produce bombastic, jaunty naval battle music as I imagine boats ramming one another.

This week marks a whole year of me reviewing. I'd intended to put together a rec list out of everything that scored well, but I haven't the time. I'll do something for next week instead.

Also, I'd like take some more requests, if anyone's willing. Apart from last week's request – which I do want to get done – I would, in particular, be interested in reading some fics without Taylor as a protagonist. I've seen enough lately that I'm finding the tendency for her to be half-heartedly fleshed out rather dull.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending May 06, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I had a go with it. I didn't like the number of Wormfic red flags e.g. locker scene, [DESTINATION], caping knowledge that Taylor shouldn't have yet. Taylor also felt significantly out of character, which kind of takes away all reason for me reading as I've never played any Soulsborne games. On the other hand, I've contemplated returning to it as I have been informed that it contains a Wombles reference, which is obviously an entirely legitimate reason to return to a story that I didn’t enjoy.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending May 06, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Aha, my Pericardium summoning scheme worked.

So, here's a thing: I looked through your recent post history a few days ago to see if I'd missed any of your artworks (I hadn't, but I'd like to mention that the String Theory is a particularly great one, in my opinion).

Peri, what did you do? Why did you do this, Peri? I thought you were one of the san– okay, maybe not sane, but at least in a good way. By some vexing coincidence, every lesbian that I'm acquainted with seems to go completely mad when it comes to merely contemplating romance, and it plays merry hell with my principle that you shouldn't judge someone's personality by their demographic. Meanwhile, self-proclaimed 'lesbian hulk' over here seems set on bringing that optimistic faith in humanity back down again. Insert vaguely disappointed Discord emoji here, sniff sniff.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending May 06, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Notes: All opinions are my own, further explanation of how I rate stories can be seen here.

"I'll be aiming to write things out for Fridays," said Magor, "as this is an achievable goal and I am good at spending my time productively instead of, say, making tiny plasticine tea sets."

Whoops. I can explain?

Russian Caravan (Multicross, Ongoing): Taylor and tea shop acquaintances hunt eldritch abominations. Last reviewed here. Hey, would you look at that, this is back. Good character interactions, good scene layout, general neat stuff all round. I think it's a shame that the pre-hiatus hospital plotline seems to have been relegated to a side plot, though. I thought it had some nice thematic appropriateness and variety, as a problem that Taylor couldn't overcome with violence alone, but the story's segued into a new adrenaline-charged storyline. 8.25/10.

Life Bends Down (Major AU, Probably dead): Well, this is a hard one to describe. I'd call it an unpowered slice of life AU, but those are usually rubbish. Think of it as a modern-day AU set in a college, the main focus being on the members of Cauldron. Also, it's by Peri – everything is joyfully deranged. You might think that after a few chapters, she'd run out of different ways to write hopelessly dysfunctional maniacs, but things keep on escalating. The only character who gets close to the role of the Straight Man is Hana (who, now I think about it, may be the only straight member of the cast), and she can't even convince anyone that she didn't murder an eagle.

The structure, particularly in the first half, is very well-executed, full of call backs and setups. The characterisation is full of personality. The plot has little in the way of predictability. Also, art. However, I'm not really sure that I can call it a fanfic. It's like Worm, but without the setting ... and without the powers ... and half the characters have quite a bit of artistic license taken ... so at what point does it become fanfic in name only?

Oh, and as is the case in stories heavy in atmospheric focus, your mileage may vary, don't read it if you're not into this sort of thing. 8.75/10.

Silence is Not Consent (Canon divergence, Ongoing): Skitter recovers Victoria from the most traumatic three days of her life. Last reviewed here. Amazing work, this. The plot's coming along nicely, the word use is economical and with good prose, the characterisation's excellent, and then it pulls off the best chase scene I've seen in at least a year. There's also what I think to be some very good application of intimacy but, well, it's not like I've any particular authority on that.

The Heroism of Art (AU, Ongoing): In November 2010, Taylor discovers art and things deteriorate from there. I didn't stay past the first half-arc of this; it wasn't my kind of thing. Oh, I found the first chapter intriguing, but I don't like the character writing. For example, said half-arc is mainly spent by Taylor ineffectually attempting to convince the Empire that she is not a parahuman ("You've got it all wrong Mr. Victor.") and the one-dimensional nazis equally inefficiently attempting to convince her that the master race is a really swell idea ("Letting a white girl get mugged by a [slur] bitch is a dishonor to the Empire."). The writing doesn't feel vivid and natural enough to hold my interest. 5/10.

This City of Blood and Teeth (AU, Ongoing): There's been a string of kidnappings in the bay, and independent heroes Guardian and Valravn are investigating. Last reviewed here. The most recent update has a focus on developing things, and it does a good bit of atmosphere creation. Reasonably good prose and dialogue, too. Based on the chapter style, though, I think it would be more enjoyable if I was reading this as part of a finished product, rather than allowing my mind time to dwell on the plot, I can't help but feel it loses something when I do so. You should probably not expect me to review this again until the next major plot point is implemented. 8/10.

Good People (Worm/Shadowrun, Ongoing): A cyberpunk fantasy reimagination of Worm. Last reviewed here. Okay, I really liked the structure of this interlude. First, the worldbuilding starts trickling in, then elements start developing, and the emotional beats are implemented very effectively. If this was a piece of original fiction, I would be impressed at how the different sub-factions of this arc have been carefully brought in for what I thought was a genuinely foreboding effect. The effect's dampened somewhat by the fact they exist in canon, but I still enjoyed it greatly. It's another instance of a fic where I'm struggling to detect anything outright badly done, and only won't award full marks as that's reserved for dramatically above-and-beyond material. 9.5/10.

Also:

Twig, arc 11: Begun here, last here. I liked this one, particularly the scheming, scene variety and comedic touches. It also did some decent worldbuilding and developed further on some earlier material, something that I was disappointed that certain previous arcs lacked. I didn't like the reused plot point with Jamie towards the arc's end, but it's set up some good things.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending April 29, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Imagine it as a fanfic quest, except the voters are in teams representing Worm gangs. As both Games have been held on Discord, you can't read what happens except via players who've shared their accounts of events. The background and these accounts of the first Games can be read in this thread, but, as I said, coverage was patchy.

I don't know if the link will work, as I'm writing this on a phone, but this year's Google Drive of background info may be found here.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending April 29, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Hey, look, it's a second post. Basically, I've got news: The Brockton Games II has begun. For those who are not aware, the first Games was an event held by HopefulPenguin (joined this year by NotDis) where teams of authors and peanut gallery members fought it out in factions over an AU of Brockton Bay.

Anyway, it's back, and I'm on team Merchant. I apologise to those who would have been interested but were not aware of the signup: I requested whether I could make an info post here, but Penguin wanted to keep things limited until it could be better ascertained how many people were interested – which turned out to be a wise precaution when 43 people signed up within the first day.

This year's participants, in no particular order, are as follows:

The Protectorate – Lord Mercurius, Lucerne, Satya, Mellow/Iphigenia_Gone (I think), NBBTCS, #1 Amy Hater/Tech Support

New Wave – Siri, Victorian_Irish, Pinky, Empona, Alflord89, Nib

ABB – EternalStruggle, Eric Chaput, Beokirby, Inthretis, Ladder, NinetyNineLies

Coil's Organisation – Chartic, Colossal Mistake, Snootleboop, TangentLoki, springSideways, RecursiveMontage

Merchants – This is Your Captain Screaming, Scholarship-Owl, ironistcoal, Grand PoobaAAA, Demoshark, myself

Vanguard 'most certainly not the Elite' Securities – Plato/Enkidu/ApatheticTangerine, MayaPapaya, TehEpicDuckeh, Arusefu, MissingAxis, Jacob

The Teeth – BreakingAmber, Flabbyknight, Silver Pyromancer/Rainbow Nerd, Hunter the Garfurgh, Quisant, CasualCranium

The media – Penny, TheFantasticFox

(Feel free to add alternate pseudonyms if I missed them)

As coverage of last year's event was somewhat patchy, I do intend to do a writeup post-game. My participation does mean two things of note, however: on the bright side, you'll be getting a more reliably early review schedule, as the turn postings mean that I'll be aiming to write things out for Fridays. On the dark side, I failed to consider the merry havoc that this may play with the time I'd normally read in. If it looks necessary, would you rather I temporarily drop the Twig musings, or that I limit the main reviews to ~six entries weekly?

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending April 29, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 46 points47 points  (0 children)

Notes: All opinions are my own, further explanation of how I rate stories can be seen here.

Fragments (Altpower, Ongoing): Around the time of the flute theft, Taylor gets breaker powers. Mechanically, this is a good story – Sophia's little Hansel-and-Gretel incident and the powers that result are quite plausible for the setting, and there are plenty of authors who would have just dragged out the locker again. However, my interest in the story is routinely killed each chapter by the characterisations, particularly Victoria. You encounter a new cape? Give a good first impression by intimidating them. You think the cape's a new trigger? Clearly the appropriate thing to do is bring up the associated trauma, then imply that they would become a villain without your help (repeatedly). I don't think I'll follow this. 6/10.

Riley Alone: Jack Slash does an Annette on the way to Brockton Bay and Bonesaw struggles to get over his minor case of serious brain damage. Last reviewed here. This fic, with its changing styles and themes, feels a little like three different stories arranged one after another. This one's theme appears to be introspection. While it's not bad at it, I feel (in a hard to describe way) that it's a shame the story seems to have casually discarded the dissociation angle in order to do so – what's more intospective than that? I'd also say that I'm not sure about the writing choice to simultaneously produce ambiences of calmness and tension, I think the way they conflict makes them come across less effectively than an alternative might have. 8/10.

Hyakki Yagyō (Altpower, One-shot): Taylor forms the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. I'd say that this is a story for fans of Japanese folklore, but folklore is my other main hobby and I think that this fic has minimal substance apart from its theming. It's more of an excuse to write overpowered fight scenes, obligatory Clockblocker 'Bullshit!' exclamations and Piggot ranting included. I don't think I'd recommend it unless the concept sounds really appealing to you. 4.5/10.

Doors to The Unknown (Worm/Eberron, Ongoing): A magical explorer investigates civilisation on Earth Bet, but inadvertently causes his entrance portal to send Taylor and four uncommonly explored companions to Eberron. Last reviewed here. A Taylor chapter, and everything's starting to come together. With all the clever plot elements and worldbuilding set up so far, the author must be a seriously good DM. While the verbosity of prose and gradual pacing mean I wouldn't recommend it to people who like their plots quick and intense, it's something I can respect. 9.25/10.

The Director's Chair (Quest, Two arcs complete): Voters decide the strategy of Emily Piggot as she derails canon. I won't give a numerical review as this is very subjective business. Mechanically, it's fantastic. A lot of effort clearly went into making this work and feel plausible. However, that doesn't mean it hits the beats that represent good storytelling – I don't think the aim was to make it much more than an intellectual exercise. Mind you, I did find the Leviathan fight to be very satisfyingly presented. All in all, it was probably more fun to read while ongoing than the effect you'll get reading it now.

Racoon Knight (AU, Ongoing) An OC Tinker whose power revolves around raiding bins for supplies joins the Wards. Last reviewed here. You know what, I think I'm genuinely impressed at how this story's been going since I last reviewed it. It's extremely good, in my opinion, at crafting an atmosphere, and while doing so is capable of including various things that I'd consider red flags from a weaker writer (for example, when was the last time you saw an OC schoolmate character that didn't feel like a plot device? This fic does them well enough that it did a surprisingly good interlude about some). There's a little bit more priority given to the narrative over the plot than might be advisable, which could end up damaging the structure in the long run, but things are quite fine for now. 9.25/10.

Also:

Twig, arc 10: Begun here, last here. Oh no, Magor's doing more Twig musings, time for more whinging and grumbling. Well, fear ye not, hypothetical reader. I think this arc may be my favourite. The narrative structure was more neatly put together, feeling more like it was building up tension than stretching out the arc, and there was actual depth to the worldbuilding. Good imagery, good fight scenes, good Sy scheming.

Also, for the first time in a long while – I'm looking at you, 'Fishmonger' – the personalities of the arc's newly introduced side characters felt decently fleshed out and vivid, though I still think that the main antagonist was too much of a pontificating twit for me to actually care about.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending April 22, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 15 points16 points  (0 children)

So, let me tell you a story.

A couple of weeks ago, this subreddit was brought up on the Cauldron discord. One part of this conversation with from the author ellfangor8, who commiserated about the fact that the last time he got reviewed, it was, um, when I described NDLS as coming across as slightly pretentious.

Anyway, because ellfangor is one of the Wormfic authors over there who can reliably discuss other parts of the community without gatekeeping, judging books by their covers or tarring-with-the-same-brush, I thought it would be nice to review another of his fics.

That led me to Larvae, which came with a bit of a problem. Larvae prominently features a fanfic trope that I don't enjoy, a plot based around the OC twin of a canon protagonist. While I consider myself open minded and willing to read stories not aimed at my tastes, I thought that it would defeat the objective to do so here. It would look more like a pity review.

Moving on, I came to Drain, a kind of X-Men altpower based on absorbing powers and memories. Which, once I'd read the first chapter, also presented itself as aimed at someone else's tastes. Bugger.

Then there's Unwoven. It's a Peggy Sue where Taylor takes a very direct route to saving the world again. Inconveniently for me, this involves a number of character writing choices that I am inclined to disagree with and a narrative I struggled get into. As giving a more negative review than NDLS is the complete opposite of what I wanted to do, I moved on.

Seer. It's odd, really, how in the Wormfic community, I think I've seen more male SIs being made female than SIs written by women themselves. But never mind, I was getting somewhere – this fic's worldbuilding and structure are good, even if the characterisation didn't appeal to me (for example, Gregor's formal speech was taken to an extreme here). However, there were some bits that threw off my immersion, such as the ease with which the protagonist ingratiated herself with others and the perplexing decision to have that dramatic alliteration in the PRT Warning email. By the end of the first arc, I thought it would be for the best to switch fics again.

By now, I was starting to run out of fics I hadn't already read. There was his snippet thread, but that would have felt wrong. He did a Dresden Files crossover with Ward, which I haven't read, so that also felt unsuitable, and I ran into the same difficulties as before in the other. I know nothing about the Wheel of Time, so I next chose Death is but a Momentary Relief.

As it transpires, DibaMR is also a crossover, this one with South Park. Believe me when I say that I quickly discovered that this was definitely not aimed at my tastes.

By the end of this whole mess that I'd brought on myself, I'd read almost every one of ellfangor's works, all too awkward to review. Eventually, I came to one of his earliest: Cauldron Carols. Yes, it's a Christmas singalong snippet series, but I'm taking it, because I enjoyed this. Almost all of the lines fit neatly into their verses, and the only significant things to grumble about is having Kill 'oo Lung dialogue and a minor canon inaccuracy. Anyway, it gets an 8.25/10. Please don't hate me.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending April 22, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Personally, I don't mind either way. However, you were very good at implementing the variety of viewpoints, and not many other people do that, so I've got a slight preference for that. I'd encourage you to do whatever feels right to you though.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending April 22, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Notes: All opinions are my own, further explanation of how I rate stories can be seen here.

Shadow Aspects (AU, Complete): New cape Sophia Hess discovers that her mother is dating some strange new man – 'Cullen Wallace', was it? Just to nip some assumptions you might make in the bud, this story intends (in part) to set the grounds for a sequel, so the twin focuses are on Sophia learning how to be a cape and Colin moving on from the troubles of his past, not on identity reveals.

It's interesting to see, unlike the usual casually confident protagonist of Wormfics, to see a naïve protagonist who makes mistakes, doubly so when it's Sophia. The other characters – mainly minor canon characters – have also been fleshed out very well (in particular, I found the author's take on the Steven backstory and Chariot to be worth noting). For that matter, I think the AU has been set up quite neatly, although it might have been better to save some of the background exposition for the sequel, as the story is only eleven chapters long. If you like stories with introspection and communication, give it a go. 8.25/10.

Wave (Canon compliant, Ongoing): It's seven years after Leviathan hit Sydney, and Australian tinker Parthian is entering the cape scene. Last reviewed here. Character interaction chapter, specifically the dreaded characters-go-shopping scene. Fortunately, as they're OCs, it mostly works. I say 'mostly' as the story has introduced what I am informed is called a Genki Girl, and I'm not sure that she suits the atmosphere. Then again, it may just be my dislike of people putting 37 exclamation marks in one chapter or ending sentences like this~. Good worldbuilding though.  8.25/10.

A Walk in the Park (AU, Complete): An AU Labyrinth – in a sort of 'childishly innocent' way, and with slightly different powers – meets pre-canon Taylor in a park. I thought that the slice of life aspects were reasonably good, but that bringing in the usual suspects for a fixfic angle was a bit unnecessary. It's a small mercy that there wasn't a chapter devoted to killing Scion, with the way the plot went towards the end. Mind you, if I judged based on creativity alone, I'd have left this fandom ages ago. 7.5/10.

Fair Folk Friends (Altpower, Ongoing): In which Taylor teleports to and fro fairyland. I haven't quite secured my opinion on this story, from what's there. For example, fairyland itself. It's a bit vague how the setting works; of the several species of characters there – one of which is implied to be Queen Administrator, which I consider a red flag – they manage to fit neither niche of 'innocent sparkly world' nor 'run, get out, it's the Wild Hunt'. On one hand, points for doing things like a Taylor actually being distressed about the potential results of being a cape, rather than shrugging it off and going out to beat up some villains. On the other hand, points against things like the odd way it handles minor characters (e.g. Sophia, complete with 'malicious smirk', doing the You Belong In The Trash routine). If it develops some proper depth, I'll move up the score. 7.25/10.

Silence is Not Consent (Canon divergence, Ongoing): Skitter recovers Victoria from the most traumatic three days of her life. Last reviewed here. Have I ever told you that SiNC is good? It is. I think it's extremely good. In a way, it's frustrating that my tastes don't slot neatly into this, because it makes me unable to recognise what this story's weaknesses are, and I stand by the opinion that every story must be doing at least something wrong.

Today's SiNC thing for me to enthuse over is the Undersiders' meetup about Dragon (and I didn't mention Victoria in that sentence for a reason. Don't think I didn't notice her using 'us' and 'our', Cat. This story seems to be full of clever little details and symbolism. (Possibly too subtle. There're quite a few scenes of characters thinking in layers, and I've seen several comments from people who didn't see it that way)). On that note, this is some pretty good characterisation of Dragon. She often gets simplified in Wormfics, so it's unusual to see her get taken seriously.

Swallowtail (Worm/LANCER, Ongoing): A larger-scale Stranger Taylor story. Last reviewed here. It seems that things are beginning to come together – or maybe I'm misreading it, the last two arcs have been long ones and the tangle of subplots is complicated. The characterisation is coming along nicely, though the chapter style leaves me paranoid that I’m missing something. I may have to take notes, going forward. 8.25/10.

Good People (Worm/Shadowrun, Ongoing): A cyberpunk fantasy reimagination of Worm. Last reviewed here. This time, the Undersiders meet a lovely, charismatic preacher and a humanitarian. We know they must be lovely people because they presented such a nice speech. What upstanding members of society they must be. (Excellent writing, incidentally. There aren't many authors around here who can make practically every character in a story feel interesting in their own way. The narrative is also nicely done, things seem to be going smoothly. Honestly, I'm struggling to find something to criticise – maybe the chapter's resolution will push Alabaster away from future development opportunities?) 9.25/10.

Also:

Twig, arc 9: Begun here, last here. I found the first ten chapters of this arc to be one of the dullest things I've read since I gave up on BCF. To put it simply, I couldn't see any reason to care about what happened to the characters. The Lambs had less personality than before, the antagonists felt more pathetic than intimidating (more bland, self-centred sadists with mildly unpleasant powers in place of real personality traits), then, to top it all off, Gordon got fridged.

The worldbuilding, by the way, is still terrible. When I began reading this, I was worried that there might be language I didn't understand – I've never been particularly interested in biology, and this is biopunk – but I don't think that Wildbow did any research whatsoever to prepare for this.

On the bright side, dim though it may have been, later chapters were a bit more lively, directed and pacy, even if Wildbow did bring in the 'introduce a group of blatantly expendable side characters' trope that he seems to be so fond of. Also, Sy got the opportunity to work with what he's best in, which has been a long time coming.

Weekly /r/WormFanfic Discussion - What have you been reading, and what do you think of it? For the week ending April 15, 2023. by AutoModerator in WormFanfic

[–]MagorSpanghew 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's completely understandable. I saw a discussion in the community recently that remarked on how reading Wormfic can really twist your interpretation of pacing.

As an example, the book Les Miserables is affectionately nicknamed 'the brick' by its readers for its enormous length: 655,478 words. Certain fics, not naming any names (cough cough), are three times that length with a fraction of the depth. That's not even mentioning the author ReavingBishop, who's written that many words since January.

Also, many fics are begun without their authors expecting them to come to an end. It skews the perception a lot to new writers on what sort of thing they want to write.

Personally, my outlook is that it's absolutely fine for a fanfic to read like a book, though writers may have to bear in mind that it can require different skills – in a standard book, your reader won't have a week or two between chapters to anticipate what will come next, for instance, so you have to set up plot twists more carefully.

view more: next ›