Reviews FanFicRecs / Worm A Cloudy Path

Cloudy Prospects for Tinker Taylor

A common stance in Wormfic is that Taylor can breeze into Brockton Bay's underworld and cure all ills.

A Cloud Path is not that sort of story.

There's a thread running through the story is exploring how a rookie Taylor, without the right powerset (OP!Taylors) or connections to shelter her (being a "mole"), could easily end up dying horrifically—or worse. There's also a wonderful sense of vulnerability and danger in Taylor's circumstances. Especially since she's a Tinker, the sort of cape that every gang and corporation in the city would be looking to strong arm in service. She's a factor in a way a non-Tinker isn't, and comes to the attention of various factions far earlier than in canon because of the potential boon/threat she poses.

Another intriguing aspect to this fic is how it uses The Stations of the Canon with a deft hand. The typical beats of Worm AUs are here — bullying, Lung fight, meeting Lisa — but those beats play out in a radically different manner, with ripples naturally spreading from one event into the next, affecting it. Specifics here are difficult due to spoilers, but the end result is some satisfying divergence in character evolution for various folks, in ways that make sense logically in-story while using scaffolding of The Stations of the Canon to underline how and why minor changes gradually build to major ones.