What are you reading?

[Anastasia]

Yes, still reading too much worm.

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/el-ahrairah-worm.372987/ - Taylor gets to be wordsmith of shards...and tries to save the world.  One of the better Cauldron fics I've looked at where they are genuinely willing to accept help to save the world.

That one's pretty good. It has a few problems, but the author's good at working things out and presenting characters are more than cutouts. 9/10, do want to read more.

[Rukatin]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/land-of-the-dead-highschool-of-the-dead-si.342652/ This has been updating a lot recently. It's about an SI who prepares for the upcoming Zompocalypse, and somehow turns geeks and delinquents into pseudo-vikings.

[Dracos]

Mmm, no less ridiculous then Highschool of the dead by default then :)

[Anastasia]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-girl-of-tomorrow-rewrite-of-the-last-daughter.381794/

The Last Daughter's getting a rewrite. Looks better so far, time will tell if it fixes the issues the previous incarnation had.

[Rukatin]

Mmm, no less ridiculous then Highschool of the dead by default then :)

There's less boobs, more action

[Jason_Miao]

That one's pretty good. It has a few problems, but the author's good at working things out and presenting characters are more than cutouts. 9/10, do want to read more.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Read it, and wondered "Taylor takes out Coil offscreen.  So, what happened to Noelle?"

[Anastasia]

That one's pretty good. It has a few problems, but the author's good at working things out and presenting characters are more than cutouts. 9/10, do want to read more.

Spoiler: ShowHide

Read it, and wondered "Taylor takes out Coil offscreen.  So, what happened to Noelle?"

[spoiler]Good point, that didn't even cross my mind. Noelle is either not there yet or PtV. Take your pick. I'd guess the latter since Contessa's that broken.

[Dracos]

I've been reading that, and while I like parts of it (and don't recall the first writing):

1) Taylor is silly obsessed with not only krypton stuff, but sharing krypton stuff.  It's taking from the movie-verse there I guess, but it just over the fic so far feels like "Let me wave a flag that I am super-woman".
2) It seems odd that Dragon can go to aliens as a possible source, but Cauldron (which knows rather then guesses that alien influence is around) doesn't.

When was coil mentioned?  *started drifting back through but isn't finding his name*  I didn't think she even knew he existed yet.  She did random mooks, a couple E88 capes, the ABB, a few more E88 capes.

It generally feels a bit mary-sueish.  In part because we're almost always seeing taylor's perspective or people 'wowing' about it, but mostly because the PRT has been very passive, almost non-entityish about almost the entire city's supervillain/criminal empire set being upended.  Cauldron has too, since in part I understand they rely on villains being out to fight endbringers.  Actually glancing back, it was pretty weird that basically most of Piggot's appearence so far has been yelling at Weld about potentially walking into gunfire.  ...What's gunfire going to do to the guy that absorbs metal on contact?

Basically, for all that an obviously enormously powerful cape shows up and is upending things, there seems to be weeks of not 'hey we need to connect'.  Beyond power, she's basically a vigilante who (in typical superman fashion, but not typical worm fashion) has no obstacle past beating bad guys up.

[Anastasia]

It is Mary Sue bait. Okay, now granted a higher end interpretation Superman or Superwoman is going to wreck most anything. I'll concede that point right there and come back to it later.

1. It's very much a story about Superwoman first and foremost, with the rest of the world only service to revolve around her. Taylor's the star of the show and it shows, there's not a lot of depth to anything except for how it matters to her.

2. Cauldron had issues in the last version of this story and I felt it was one of the weakest parts of the story. In my opinion, Cauldron's role in the previous story could be distilled down to the following: Hard men making hard choices, until an outside context problem comes along and mocks them for making those choices before she solves everything. It's the worst sort of Superman story, using his power without the appropriate gravitas and writing to make the moral contrast work. So I'm not expecting much out of Cauldron here. Also bear in mind point 1, so Cauldron only matters in regards to Taylor.

3. When you take all of that in context, it comes down to this: All of Worm's problems and issues are just a platform for Superwoman to do things. It's really not a Worm story in the most basic sense, but a Superwoman story that's using Worm as a punching bag. I don't feel there's any real dramatic tension nor will there be. All the key parts of Worm are suborned to Superwoman rather than it being a true crossover.

So yeah, a higher end Superman is going to beat down most anything due to his power level. That's one thing. The problem is that the author isn't using it as much except as a way to show how strong Taylor is. It's simply a well dressed up fix fic and wish fulfillment, the previous version of that story fell apart because of that.

Maybe I'm wrong and this version will overcome all of that. It's still early and its possible. If I'm completely honest with myself, I doubt it will. I think the author's shown his biases and mindset well enough that he won't. To be even more honest, there's nothing wrong with that. Writing a good Superman story when he stomps over everything is extremely difficult. The problem is that if you don't, you end up with a mediocre story at best. In this case, the Worm side really suffers for it, since it's ill-suited to support it.

[Jason_Miao]

Drac: Admin, not Supergirl.

Ko: I don't know what PtV is, but whatever it is, I'm guessing it must be that.  IIRC, Trickster et al. were around before Taylor came onto the superhero scene.

If anyone but me is still following it, Mother of Learning just posted what either looks to be the end of the second arc, or close to it: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/52/Mother-of-Learning.

[Anastasia]

Drac: Admin, not Supergirl.

Ko: I don't know what PtV is, but whatever it is, I'm guessing it must be that.  IIRC, Trickster et al. were around before Taylor came onto the superhero scene.

If anyone but me is still following it, Mother of Learning just posted what either looks to be the end of the second arc, or close to it: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/52/Mother-of-Learning.

Contessa's power.

I'm a little hazy on the timeline, they may not have been with Coil and in his bunker at that time is all. They were active before that.

[Dracos]

Even without contessa's power, with Admin for targeting and Doormaker, she could just dump everyone with powers in coil's base into an alternate dimension in a few moments, Noelle included.

I don't think noelle was there yet, but I also don't think it is that relevant.  With the power cauldron has at its finger tips, simply erasing coils organization is no big deal, outside of the missing person report for Thomas Calvert (and probably his men?).  They literally have multiple I-Win tier powers at their fingertips compared to normal organizations.

Even beyond that, Calvert I think owed Cauldron in canon?  So he could just be forced elsewhere.

[Empyrean]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/land-of-the-dead-highschool-of-the-dead-si.342652/ This has been updating a lot recently. It's about an SI who prepares for the upcoming Zompocalypse, and somehow turns geeks and delinquents into pseudo-vikings.

I read the whole thing at work last night. First couple of chapters aren't very promising since the grammar kinda sucks, but he gets a couple of betas before too long and it's a lot better on that front.

Also, there are ~20 chapters before Z-day hits. Not a spoiler; the guy knows it's coming and when. Just be ready for a year worth of preparation (gotta get that Viking warband somehow).

[Jason_Miao]

Xylix, the same writer of Seven Village Stomp (which started strong then was discontinued) and Haigeki (which started strong then turned into torture-porn) is now writing a FSN/Worm xover, currently two chapters long: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11820074/1/Thaumaturgic-Awakening

Haven't read it yet.  If I do, I'll leave a review.

[Anastasia]

Xylix, the same writer of Seven Village Stomp (which started strong then was discontinued) and Haigeki (which started strong then turned into torture-porn) is now writing a FSN/Worm xover, currently two chapters long: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11820074/1/Thaumaturgic-Awakening

Haven't read it yet.  If I do, I'll leave a review.

I have. I'll spoiler it since you haven't.

[spoiler]It's starting strong enough. Not great - I don't quite like how FSN is crossing over with Worm, and justifying how something like Zion would work in Fate terms gives me a headache. I mean, I can see how. Blah blah blah TYPE whatever, blah blah blah reality marbles blah blah blah Entities trying to reach the Root, you know? Throw enough Nasu-ese at anything and you can justify it. Anyway, fundamentally Fate is one of those things I don't like crossed over much, since I always get a headache about integrating Fate's magical and cosmological setup with anything different.

That all being said, it's okay enough so far. Fun and well written, though I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm incredibly wary after Haigeki, since he went in one direction then swerved things hardcore. I don't feel like I can trust the author not to take a sharp left into a totally different zone. We'll see how it goes.