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Omi no Kami posted:Honestly, I don't even read most of the interludes anymore; I glance at them to see if it's from the perspective of someone I care about, but there are so many, and they break up the pacing so much that around book 2 I just stopped caring. The interludes in book 4 are probably the best part of it so far.
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Jun 27, 2018 01:33
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There was a moment in reading Ward 7.x where I went "oh no good things are happening please make the good things stop before everything goes horribly wrong", and then I knew that Wildbow had beaten me.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:14
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Ward interlude: gently caress.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:50
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Plorkyeran posted:There was a moment in reading Ward 7.x where I went "oh no good things are happening please make the good things stop before everything goes horribly wrong", and then I knew that Wildbow had beaten me.
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Jun 27, 2018 04:11
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So today we learn that Catherine does, in fact, pay her minions.
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Jun 27, 2018 06:23
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Ward 7.x Oh my holy gently caress! 
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Jun 27, 2018 16:29
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I uh... just caught up with Ward after a couple weeks not reading it. What the gently caress, Wildbow?
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Jun 27, 2018 17:37
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The Shortest Path posted:I uh... just caught up with Ward after a couple weeks not reading it. Well you see after the whole Rain thing and the part where the city is doomed and a lot of people dissapeared in portal terrorist attacks and then the Ashley flashback the main trend of the story had been way to positive and hopeful so we needed some terrible poo poo to bring the mood down again.
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Jun 27, 2018 18:05
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Tzarnal posted:Well you see after the whole Rain thing and the part where the city is doomed and a lot of people dissapeared in portal terrorist attacks and then the Ashley flashback the main trend of the story had been way to positive and hopeful so we needed some terrible poo poo to bring the mood down again. Uggghhhhh goddammit Wildbow. Like, the bit at the end of 7.10 was probably the most well written, uncomfortable horror setpiece I've ever read in my life and then the interlude following it up just kind of hosed me. The dude really knows how to break people. SerSpook posted:The interludes in book 4 are probably the best part of it so far. I'm most of the way through book 3 and I cannot imagine how it's possible to top some of the interludes I've already read, so this is pretty crazy. I'm excited. 
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Jun 27, 2018 21:31
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Plorkyeran posted:There was a moment in reading Ward 7.x where I went "oh no good things are happening please make the good things stop before everything goes horribly wrong", and then I knew that Wildbow had beaten me. I know, right? 
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Jun 28, 2018 01:01
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SerSpook posted:The interludes in book 4 are probably the best part of it so far. counterpoint: most (none? can't remember when bardchat happened) of them don't involve anaxares and the Glorious Republic Of Bellerophon
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Jun 28, 2018 01:05
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navyjack posted:Ward 7.x Oh my holy gently caress! In the words of Kenzie: Aughhh, I'm dying, I'm dead! You know what's simultaneously hosed up and also a great example of how good Wildbow is at fostering paranoia and uncertainty: For the first, maybe, quarter of the "home movies," I thought that Kenzie might have put together a fantasy story, that she could really be some kind of mastermind and constructed this whole backstory as a way to garner sympathy from her friends. After all, the previous chapter had JUST established that some of her recordings are fictional. I no longer think that but drat, Wildbow, you're good.
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Jun 28, 2018 05:22
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She can't even risk getting a hug because she's so goddamn afraid of losing another person she cares about! God dammit!
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Jun 28, 2018 05:27
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So, I’m caught up on all my current series. The ones in the top 10 of top webfiction that I haven’t read are Star Child, The Good Student, Superpowereds, How to Avoid Death, and The Zombie Knight. Any feedback on those?
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Jun 28, 2018 07:55
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Where're you getting your Top 10 from? Because those aren't in it (I know this because NAH is higher than Super Powereds and it's certainly not Top 10). I've never really heard good things about Star Child. Super Powereds struck me as a fairly generic 'college but with superpowers' sort of story. They've all got reviews on WFG if you want feedback. edit: You might like Inheritors. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Jun 28, 2018 |
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Jun 28, 2018 08:27
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Milky Moor posted:Where're you getting your Top 10 from? Because those aren't in it (I know this because NAH is higher than Super Powereds and it's certainly not Top 10). I did the one year filter on topwebfiction. Which one is yours cause so far these are all duds?
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Jun 28, 2018 08:36
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navyjack posted:I did the one year filter on topwebfiction. Which one is yours cause so far these are all duds? Oh, right. That'd do it. Not All Heroes. #34 by that metric.
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Jun 28, 2018 08:40
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navyjack posted:So, I’m caught up on all my current series. The ones in the top 10 of top webfiction that I haven’t read are Star Child, The Good Student, Superpowereds, How to Avoid Death, and The Zombie Knight. Any feedback on those? How to Avoid Death and Good Student are by the same author. They both have similar issues with women, although Death is much worse. Death is the usual 'sucked into a fantasy world' tripe without the redeeming characterization of, say, Wandering Inn. Instead it's a nerdy guy who hates the jocks and resents the girls who don't immediately fall in love with him, until he inevitably rescues one of them from rape and she sleeps with him out of gratitude. Lots of coercion and really uncomfortable stuff. Good Student is less overtly awful but there are undercurrents of similar issues between the main character and his love interest. Superpowereds is by the same author as "NPCs", a kindle unlimited series. From what I can tell he's into subverting tropes and such but doesn't seem to have a misogynist bent, at least not that I noticed. Velius fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Jun 28, 2018 |
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Jun 28, 2018 15:50
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On the subject of looking for stuff to pick up... I went back to take another look at Heretical Edge, which I'd tried before and passed on. In short: it never gets good. Now I'm sitting here looking at this, and I'll be frank: that is one intimidating website. Somebody wants to be the queen of terrible serial fiction and they are wanting it real drat hard. Also checked out Cradle, and... I do not regret spending money on it! High praise! Apart from Skysworn maybe, that was a nothing book. I also read a bunch of stuff off of TWF but it was so bad I can't even remember the titles. 
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Jun 28, 2018 17:29
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Autonomous Monster posted:On the subject of looking for stuff to pick up... I went back to take another look at Heretical Edge, which I'd tried before and passed on. In short: it never gets good. STRATEGY IN FIGHTS. edit: oh my god i went and checked out some of the chapters Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Jun 28, 2018 |
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Jun 28, 2018 17:50
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Hey! I'm always happy to see Cradle get some love, I introduced it to the other thread... sometime last year, I think? Right when Blackflame was coming out. I hadn't pushed it over here because it's not technically a web serial, but if anyone is interested in a western fantasy story that pays homage to Chinese fantasy web novels I highly recommend them. Will Wight is easily the strongest Amazon self published author I've read (I know that's a laughably low bar). I totally agree about Skysworn, easily the weak link. Ghostwater was a solid return to form I thought.
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Jun 28, 2018 18:05
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Milky Moor posted:STRATEGY IN FIGHTS. How bad is it?
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Jun 28, 2018 18:07
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Silynt posted:I totally agree about Skysworn, easily the weak link. Ghostwater was a solid return to form I thought. Ghostwater had me rolling my eyes a lot, just because of how transparently it was about not having anything interesting to do with Lindon at Gold and trying to get him to the next realm as quickly as possible. It had a lot of stuff happening, though, so I enjoyed it well enough. I guess I'd rank the books Soulsmith = Blackflame > Ghostwater > Unsouled > Skysworn?
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Jun 28, 2018 18:25
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Velius posted:How to Avoid Death and Good Student are by the same author. They both have similar issues with women, although Death is much worse. Death is the usual 'sucked into a fantasy world' tripe without the redeeming characterization of, say, Wandering Inn. Instead it's a nerdy guy who hates the jocks and resents the girls who don't immediately fall in love with him, until he inevitably rescues one of them from rape and she sleeps with him out of gratitude. Lots of coercion and really uncomfortable stuff. Good Student is less overtly awful but there are undercurrents of similar issues between the main character and his love interest. Yeah I started Death and got that creepy “rage that the Stacys won’t gently caress me” vibe. Good to know I won’t be missing anything.
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Jun 28, 2018 18:37
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Regarding Ward, my friend who read 7.x first was just like 'Oh, Kenzie, sweetie, no', but we both agreed that wasn't a spoiler because that applies to so many things in Kenzie's life, including her decision-making. Kenzie's my favorite Ward character.
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Jun 28, 2018 19:10
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Same, friend. That wonderful combination of "I want to give her a hug and make everything better" and "I want to run away screaming" is truly the recipe for a great character.
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Jun 28, 2018 19:14
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Autonomous Monster posted:Now I'm sitting here looking at this, and I'll be frank: that is one intimidating website. Somebody wants to be the queen of terrible serial fiction and they are wanting it real drat hard. Using a generic marketing site template for your web serial is an interesting choice. But not a good one.
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Jun 28, 2018 21:34
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The early chapters of Zombie Knight that I've tried weren't good. Try The Daily Grind: the handsomest boy in this thread posted:An IT guy accidentally figures out that a certain door in his office, when opened at 3:32AM, leads to a weird, seemingly endless office-dimension. The office snacks are edible, but their packaging, like all other text inside, reads like neural network gibberish. The cash inside the desks and jackets and so forth seems real enough, which promises to solve a lot of his problems, even if it's mostly in small denominations. And sometimes denominations that actual dollars don't exist in. So that's good. I also enjoyed the first two books of Iron Teeth. It's not the deepest, but it's entertaining if you like gobbos.
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Jun 28, 2018 22:17
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Megazver posted:The early chapters of Zombie Knight that I've tried weren't good.
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Jun 28, 2018 22:38
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It basically changes genre entirely.
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Jun 28, 2018 23:00
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sunken fleet posted:Yeah same, I read the first five or six chapters at some point and was not very impressed but for some reason that series is always in the top 10 on topwebfic - sometimes clawing up to number one - and sometimes I wonder if I'm just missing something. Does it pick up a lot later in the story? Or does it just have a fanbase that is particularly active when it comes to voting? I like it for the consistent and fleshed out worldbuilding, MC's steadily increasing powerlevel without outpacing true powerhouses or being narratively outrageous, and the MC's (and companion's) rather grounded personalities. That's how I see it now, but I don't remember what I thought of it when it started, so I can only guess that the first few chapters make a bad impression. Other people also criticized stiff prose, but I can't comment since I'm just so used to unnatural prose from reading translated asian webnovels that anything other than offensively bad doesn't even register for me. I'm not surprised it's ranked so high, there's a lot to like, especially with recent developments. My impression is it starts to develop an identity of its own around when the MC gets his own castle and leaves his home country, which is after volume 2.
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Jun 29, 2018 00:43
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PracGuide: So uhhh... I guess the Dead King truly stirs. I wonder how the Crusade will deal with the Dead King suddenly launching a massive assault? Yeah, Procer doesn't exactly leave the border undefended, but that's for typical attacks. And the Dead King does know how Evil can win... Absolutely nothing can go wrong with this alliance. Absolutely nothing.
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Jun 29, 2018 05:34
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One of Hierarch's visions was "the fields of a Hell tilled and strewn with villages", which makes me wonder if the Dead King didn't just move his kingdom wholesale to avoid Creation's bullshit.
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Jun 29, 2018 06:52
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Megazver posted:The early chapters of Zombie Knight that I've tried weren't good. DarciisFyer posted:I like it for the consistent and fleshed out worldbuilding, MC's steadily increasing powerlevel without outpacing true powerhouses or being narratively outrageous, and the MC's (and companion's) rather grounded personalities. That's how I see it now, but I don't remember what I thought of it when it started, so I can only guess that the first few chapters make a bad impression. Other people also criticized stiff prose, but I can't comment since I'm just so used to unnatural prose from reading translated asian webnovels that anything other than offensively bad doesn't even register for me. I’ll try those suggestions and come back to the Death Knight as I can, see if I can get into it.
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Jun 29, 2018 06:58
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mossyfisk posted:One of Hierarch's visions was "the fields of a Hell tilled and strewn with villages", which makes me wonder if the Dead King didn't just move his kingdom wholesale to avoid Creation's bullshit. I had assumed that was the remains of Empress Triumphant's armies from when she tried to invade hell, but I hadn't considered the Dead King angle.
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Jun 29, 2018 07:05
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Given the fact that the very air in the Dead King's kingdom is toxic, I presume he moved his living population to his subjugated hell in order for them to continue being his living population. He still needs some sort of way to replenish his more intelligent undead minions after all. I guess we are going to see some patented Foundling diplomacy the coming chapters (Note, Foundling diplomacy consists of threats, insults and the occasional murder). This will go absolutely fine with no unforeseen problems whatsoever. SITB fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Jun 29, 2018 |
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Jun 29, 2018 07:37
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Mother of Learning 86 is out.
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Jun 29, 2018 08:33
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I’m getting more and more sure that Cat is Triumphant (May she never come again) come again.
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Jun 29, 2018 08:36
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navyjack posted:I’m getting more and more sure that Cat is Triumphant (May she never come again) come again. I mean, when she was mentioned this chapter no one actually included the "may she never return" thing, maybe there is something going on with her.
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Jun 29, 2018 19:21
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The Daily grind is quite interesting, and since everyone else is special, they don't need to level particularly fast-
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Jun 29, 2018 21:37
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