What are you reading?

[Ebiris]

As I start to run low on Worm fics having started the same journey Drac's on a few months earlier, I go back to that nice old standby of Familiar of Zero.

Zero Summing is a neat little fic about Louise reverse summoning herself into Skyrim, though after eight chapters she manages to return to Tristain with all the lessons learned of being an Elder Scrolls protagonist. There is a timeskip but the first few chapters give enough for you to see how she could end up on the road to badassery, and the culture shock of her returning home and finding it's not as idealised as her memories is fun.

[Dracos]

Read a bunch today.  Didn't link (bad).  Some amusing (To Know All) or so-so (Firebird what the fuck is going on?).

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/nursing-a-grudge-worm-au.5092/page-37#post-4870165

Nursing a Grudge updated this month though, which was neat.

[thepanda]

What's that one about?

Also, Dreaming of Sunshine updated.

[Merc]

Nursing a Grudge derails from canon just past Leviathan, iirc.

Taylor ends up coming across Madison about to drown, trapped and alone. Saves her and gets her back to health, with Madison clinging onto Taylor. In the process, Taylor helps out at hospitals and becomes a rogue, selling bug extermination services to hospitals.

Interesting story, though glacial updates. Most of the chapters were written around June-July 2014, with three chapters since then in 2015 all months apart. It feels like the author had most of his focus handling Taylor/Madison interaction, but once Taylor started trying to be a rogue and having to handle fight scenes in the last few chapters, he lost steam/direction. Or might have just gotten RL'ed, dunno really.

Outside of what I said above for summary, the only major thing to happen was a fight with the Merchants and PRT debating whether to keep Skitter as a villain or reclassify her as a rogue.

[Dracos]

Pretty much.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10286919/1/Recoil  Recoil apparently has a new chapter.  Haven't read it yet.

*should go see if dreaming of sunshine topped the Performance standoff*

[thepanda]

Terrorism & Anarchy has updated.

And I will now have to read through this again for the third time because I really don't recall what's going on.

Edit: Link fixed.

[Anastasia]

Your link is completely messed up, Panda.

[Anastasia]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/

The Games We Play finished. There's a sequel in the works.

[spoiler]Glad it's over. The last bit dragged - too many interludes and a general slowdown (apparently due to some RL issues with the author's job) - but all in all it's a great story and one I enjoyed a lot.

I think I liked the bad guy more before the last interlude. There was something marvelous about his style, a situation where going into his motives hurt him.

[Anastasia]

Things I'm reading right now:

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/exploding-canon-worm-si.24125/ - Worm fic. An SI wakes up in Bakuda just after Lung's captured. Derails naturally happen - tinkering derails, that is. The fic's a lot of fun and avoids some of the normal SI pitfalls due to her power and need to tinker being strong.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/split-worm-fic.24539/ - Another Worm fic. Taylor can permanently gain a parahuman's powers with a touch. Oh, and she gets a perfect copy of the parahuman's memory and personality melded with her own. Obvious mental problems and struggling with it ensue. I actually don't follow this fic anymore, but it's well worth checking out.

[Merc]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/

The Games We Play finished. There's a sequel in the works.

[spoiler]Glad it's over. The last bit dragged - too many interludes and a general slowdown (apparently due to some RL issues with the author's job) - but all in all it's a great story and one I enjoyed a lot.

I think I liked the bad guy more before the last interlude. There was something marvelous about his style, a situation where going into his motives hurt him.

I stopped reading this around the time the plant came to sentience and was being called a daughter. Might give it a look again now that its complete, if I can find a good starting spot not too far back from that so I can recall all the OC names.

[Anastasia]

It's worth a shot. I think it's a great read until Jericho Falls drags on too far.

[Ebiris]

Aberration is a neat little Worm story about a d&d binder OC who winds up on Earth Bet and joins up with the Merchants. It kinda reminds me of Harry Potter and the Natural 20 a bit in how the OC parses the world through the lens of D&D rules and tropes, and it's actually pretty neat to see the Merchants do well for once. They're generally relegated to punching bags in fanfic for people to practice on before tackling the 'serious' gangs, but in canon they outlasted the ABB and the Empire.

Anyway there's not terribly much to it yet, but what there is is fun.

[Jason_Miao]

Dracos of Soulriders* updated.

Also, since everyone is posting Worm, here's a spamfic, Cape for Hire

*Disclaimer: Does not contain any actual Dracos.

[Dracos]

You can't be sure of that. :P

Among other things been reading https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander-thread-four.310497/ which has some really nice Uber/Taylor bits, as well as Taylor and her family.

[Dracos]

Read all of Amelia (http://archiveofourown.org/works/3998737/chapters/8979811) which is a finished and rather long work...and I don't know if I can say it's really all that good so much as long and finished.  A lot of character perspectives throughout telling the story.  Has Amelia/Taylor hookup that screws with precog and goes from Slaughterhouse nine until after scion focusing on 'what if parahumans genuinely worked together to power each other up'.  It's got a serious 'okay, 1+1=52' thing going on throughout for power levels of that, but at the same time powers up the endbringers as well and scion is as much of an unstoppable monster as he always is.  I really dislike the handling of lisa throughout (Basically everyone refers to her as a bitch.  EVERYONE), and it soured me a bit on the fic and seriously, everyone gets a second chance, but not Marquis.  Guy is in jail the entire time being proud of his daughter, the world conquering empiress, but when they actually get face to face talk, there's not the least reconcilation.  No second chances for guy who spent pretty much her whole life in jail.  Lots of other bad guys get second chances (or some brainwashing and then second chances), including bonesaw, coil, and that warlord that controls shadows and murders cities.  Dragon gets some truly bum rap in the late story and basically ends up fully irrelevant against Scion which seemed pretty lame.

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-cloudy-path-worm-supreme-commander-thread-four.310497/  read through all of this up to 18.1

Reference to some game series I've never played but  Taylor basically gets tinker nano-generation, combat thinker abilities, and some mental protection.  Becomes a hero (Aeon).  Not enough lisa either (No one likes tattletale :P) despite her being an early friend type.  Coil, in rareness, being the top tier villain shown so far.  I wonder if it'll end with taking on/out coil or keep going past that.  With the sole exception of treating Aeon as someone who needs to get killed, Coil has run basically a top notch show.  He has multiple thinkers captured without anyone being the wiser, two loyal teams and a few disloyal teams, full control of the PRT, and has abandoned part of the city to have one part be 'nice'.  Empire(almost) and ABB and Merchants are gone, so basically he has gotten to complete control of all major forces in the city that aren't New Wave or Aeon's group.  Lots of good Uber scenes in the aftermath of Leets death to Bakuda early on.

Forgot I already linked it.  Oh well :3  Now with deeper summary.