|
TWI Patreon: To steal a phrase, while this may not be the beginning of the end, it definitely feels like the end of the beginning. For all I talk smack on her ability to write action scenes, pirateaba is really loving excellent at writing denouement.
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 18:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 19:08 |
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:Yeah, that's one I was never clear on- was the intent to highlight that Erin was upset and not thinking clearly, or to point out strange alternate universe quirks? Because I cannot possibly think of a context in which "You're really hot, just like Nicholas Cage" works as a sentence. I thought it was meant to highlight that Erin was really having to reach for actors that she could compare Rain's appearance to.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2019 18:36
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:I thought it was meant to highlight that Erin was really having to reach for actors that she could compare Rain's appearance to. That's probably the most reasonable explanation, but I still prefer the concept of alternate-universe nicholas cage being stud-liest nicholas cage.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2019 00:43
|
|
|
nic cage is a stud in this universe. I've seen every single movie he's in and he spent like 20 years at least having a fuckin hot bod edit: also lol at the most recent ward chapter
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2019 01:30
|
|
|
I don't know how much of this is just me making up a more interesting explanation that what the author actually had in mind, but I read the "normalness" of the world in early Worm as one of those quasi-unreliable-narrator things. At the beginning of the story, we're presented with a world that strongly resembles our world plus people with super powers, and we're told that while they shook some things up at first, things got back to normal and are in some sort of equilibrium where the world will continue to continue to be our world plus super powers. The story then goes on to show that this really is not the case at all. Even setting aside the whole end-of-the-world plot, the Endbringers will inevitably destroy global society and it simply hasn't happened yet. Taylor doesn't really twig onto this because it's just part of her "normal", much like how people IRL will profess that they believe that climate change will have catastrophic impacts within their lifetime and then proceed to live their lives just hoping that it actually doesn't. The story then gives us an explanation for why the world has been temporarily stabler than it should have been: there's literally a secret conspiracy to preserve normalicy as long as possible, and they see their failure as inevitable. Basically this all ends up arguing that you can inject fantastic elements into the real world, do your best to justify having it continue to resemble the real world, but it's at best a temporarily resemblance and you can't actually have a stable equilibrium.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2019 03:19
|
|
|
WARD: HOLY gently caress that fake ending had me extremely loving mad and then it turns out that Vista took a page out of Foil's book with the fake death and I'm loving screaming thanks Wildbow
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2019 03:58
|
|
|
Yea I like worm because it was the first fiction I read that really made me reflect on "the impossibility of urban fantasy" as another goon put it upthread. There's the cliche comparison that gets dragged up in like 90% of superhero fiction that "if you throw darts at the human population and give the equivalent of nuclear bombs to the recipients... eventually things break down" is, while cliche, very true. Because if you really stop and think about it for more than like a second it's obvious that you can't just take our modern reality and introduce fantastical elements and expect nothing to be different. Like I don't know what it would actually look like if tomorrow we woke up and random people could shoot fire out of their eyes or whatever but I can tell it definitely wouldn't look "exactly the same but there are weirdos in spandex beating up muggers in alleyways".
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2019 04:36
|
|
|
If you're reading ward.... Scroll down.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2019 05:25
|
|
|
A big flaming stink posted:TWI Patreon: To steal a phrase, while this may not be the beginning of the end, it definitely feels like the end of the beginning. For all I talk smack on her ability to write action scenes, pirateaba is really loving excellent at writing denouement. This applies to the nonpatron update too. It's just a big wham right in the heart  Hope some funner times are ahead, like with Fierre or something.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2019 12:03
|
|
|
I think I'm just about finished with Worm and theres a lot of tangents that probably shouldn't be there. But I think it comes across as obvious that Wildbow is middle class, and believes in the system. That's why Worm is so focused on individuals. Another giant red flag is how he goes into Grue and Imp's broken home for a second. It's not very nuanced, stereotypical even. Maybe its just me talking but I remember when I went hungry way more often than I remembered my dad not being very warm.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2019 13:51
|
|
|
I just found The Wandering Inn. I started on the RoyalRoad version and when I switched computers I also switched to the wordpress version the version on RoyalRoad isn't just a straight copy of the wordpress version. So far I'm liking the wordpress version better because it does a better job of explaining things and setting the stage. Anyone know which version the author likes better or considers canonical?
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 03:14
|
|
|
Replied in the other thread, but I didn't realize the RR version was edited too. I'd recommend the original version since the author uses a few web-based gimmicks (very sparingly, don't worry) to be cute. Some are neat easter eggs and one gave me a bit of a fright (and no, it's not a jump scare).
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 03:39
|
|
|
What web serials do you all read? For me it's Regularly: Practical Guide to Evil Mother of Learning The Wandering Inn Into the Mire Inheritors Irregularly: Not All Heroes The Daily Grind Worth the Candle The Iron Teeth Finished: Worm Twig Ra The Last Angel Void Domain Abandoned: The Gods are Bastards Ward Pact Unsong Vacant Throne
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 03:49
|
|
|
Into the Mire and Inheritors are my two main ones. ItM seems to not send me every email update, so, I tend to binge it every so often. Inheritors I read as it comes into my email inbox. I check out Touch and New Humans every so often, but their lack of a regular update schedule makes it difficult to remember them. There are some newer ones that I'm about to check out, like Pyrebound and ATL. Can't get into PracGuide, I follow Ward whenever the drama kicks up, and I'm going to give Worth the Candle a look on Omi No Kami's advice.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 03:54
|
|
|
Oh come on, where’s Everybody Loves Large Chests? Or any of the many misogynistic fics by Mooderino? Really that’s a pretty exhaustive list. I gave up on Heretical Edge after like 10 arcs. It’s got some good creepy stuff but just not that interesting overall. Gods are Bastards got waaaay too bogged down and I’m done with Wildbow. Really I think lots of people are, judging from how Practical Guide and Wandering Inn are doing in voting.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 04:01
|
|
|
What's Inheritors about?
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 04:27
|
|
Lone Goat posted:What's Inheritors about? It's a superhero serial that kicked off around the time Not All Heroes did. It's about a guy called Gabe, who is a clone of the world's most powerful superhero, trying to do what he can in a fairly grim world while figuring out who he is in regards to his genetic legacy and so on. It starts with him breaking up some people trafficking rings in Houston and grows outward from there. When it first launched, the initial twenty chapters or so were rough but Megajoule has since edited them up and the serial is much better for it. It suffers a bit early for not feeling like it has its own identity, but quickly finds its feet at the end of the first arc. It starts pretty grim and gritty but is generally an optimistic story.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 04:37
|
|
|
I'm looking forward to the Ward interlude where March travels to Earth Aleph and stabs Taylor in the head with her rapier. seriously lol at the recent chapter, March is offing major named characters left and right. At least Narwhal also noticed the "this person's powers are bullshit" aspect when she compared her with Jack Slash
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 05:33
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:I'm looking forward to the Ward interlude where March travels to Earth Aleph and stabs Taylor in the head with her rapier. Scroll down.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 05:38
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:I'm looking forward to the Ward interlude where March travels to Earth Aleph and stabs Taylor in the head with her rapier. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 05:44
|
|
|
Worth the Candle updated. Pretty sweet boss fight, and Bethel was great. Really hope Mary isn't dead.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 06:05
|
|
|
Cicero posted:Worth the Candle updated. She had princes invulnerability and immobility plate. So if she managed to use the plate to stop herself within 6 seconds then she’s fine. More worried about Pallida.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 06:23
|
|
|
Velius posted:Oh come on, where’s Everybody Loves Large Chests? Or any of the many misogynistic fics by Mooderino? i dont understand why morning wood poo poo has to have a somewhat entertaining story combined with incredibly bizarre and pointless fetish stuff. the main character isn't even capable of loving
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 06:29
|
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:and I'm going to give Worth the Candle a look on Omi No Kami's advice. I think WtC gets pretty self-indulgent in a few ways that might not appeal to you, primarily angst and "aha, look at how I subvert this trope". BTW, I'm really enjoying where Not All Heroes is at currently and where I think it might be going in this arc. One note, I'm not a fan of the expository/foreshadowing interludes, I'd rather skip them but I feel like I might miss critical information for understanding what's going on in the main story. I think you have to be extra careful with interludes because of the relative leanness of the rest of your story compared to other web serials that established them as a norm and how jarring that makes them in comparison. You probably have them planned out already, but I think it might be more interesting if they were used primarily to provide a different perspective on what's already happened (without having big implications going forwards) and supplemental information once we've already been shown that part of your world from the character's perspective (i.e. The Neo-American rundown at the end of Act 2). That way it's more optional. The side story/backstory ones are fine. Tom Clancy is Dead fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Apr 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 09:07
|
|
|
WtC is really weird in that it should be poo poo but it’s good.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 09:18
|
|
|
Affi posted:WtC is really weird in that it should be poo poo but it’s good. Yeah, like, it's weird. When I recommended it to Milkfred I think my exact words were something like "This has so many interesting ideas that I wish it didn't fumble the execution, but it kinda did". Like, it has just about everything I dislike in web serials: I'm not a litRPG guy so the mechanical game layer's kinda eh, the core concept of the story basically requires the world to revolve around the protagonist, and I think there's too much emphasis on the protagonist's pre-story life, plus there's tons of creepy sex poo poo. (Holy poo poo that bottle deer immaculate conception pregnancy timewarp arc went on for so long.) Yet, it's really fun. Like, even though I like it I can't say that it's approaching even something like pracguide/twig in terms of consistency, and it comes with a giant bag of disclaimers, I still have tons of fun reading it every update. One thing I actually find kind of interesting about WtC- (spoiler for very late plot point) I find it kind of odd how heavily the team focuses on narrative- if they were working in the dark it would be one thing, but not only did June tell his friends that back on earth he would explicitly punish parties for trying to get cute and metagame instead of engaging with the narrative, but the DM very explicitly jossed a lot of June and Mary's concerns in that regard. But they still end up doing an awful lot of "What would Joseph Campbell do," instead of going "What would make for the best story? If it's not suicidally dumb, that's probably the right idea."
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 10:04
|
|
|
There's definitely some weird (and hosed up) sex poo poo, but for the most part it's not, like, lurid. To me it feels like just an outgrowth of the story's general style of being bizarre and moderately horror-y. It doesn't pull punches. There are weirdass alien races, so naturally there's some sex stuff there that's really weird and messed up.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 10:18
|
|
|
Yeah, and the alien races weird sex stuff is actually fun- I could read about cloaca dwarves and self-replicating twins all day. Even with the stuff I dislike there's definitely room to argue for its inclusion, since it's mainly there because Juniper is kind of a weirdo, but I dunno- it feels like they could strip out almost all the male gaze/nudity/fanservice stuff and lose practically nothing. I'm still a little disappointed that there wasn't something dire and alien about elf naughty bits, though- Fenn made such a big deal of that that I was almost hoping after they started dating, Juniper would just casually go "...so why didn't you tell me about the teeth and the mucus?" or something. It wouldn't have really helped the story, but it would've been super-funny.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 10:37
|
|
Tom Clancy is Dead posted:I think WtC gets pretty self-indulgent in a few ways that might not appeal to you, primarily angst and "aha, look at how I subvert this trope". I agree. Which ones would you say fall into that expository/foreshadowing category? I like hearing the stuff people find they don't enjoy as much. I'm not a big fan of Act 1's structure with the interludes, and it was more a consequence of finding my feet. It's partially why I dropped them in Act 2 where there'll be like 3-4 in total and following a strict theme. The idea that you mention about them providing a different perspective on events that've already passed is interesting because that was something I thought about doing initially, then didn't for whatever reason. As they stand in Act 1, they're a bit of a mix of ideas I had that couldn't work into the main story, a consequence of the strict three-viewpoint nature, some experiments with worldbuilding and such, 'Wouldn't it be cool if?', a desire to avoid expositional conversations etc. but a few -- like the Ironforge chapters -- were very intentional with their placement in the text. It'll be a nuisance come editing time.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 11:31
|
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:I agree. Which ones would you say fall into that expository/foreshadowing category? I like hearing the stuff people find they don't enjoy as much. This is a bit of a random idea that probably isn't helpful, but I know one of the big complaints I had in Act 1 was that Leopard's POV chapters didn't feel relevant, since his role in the story and the narrative beats that established a need for us to know about him weren't established until we'd already had to read through a lot of his stuff. Maybe if you're ever in a mood to tinker with the early presentation, it would be useful to present the necessary parts of his character building as interludes? So we'd get a few iterations of "Big chunk of heroes, small villain interlude," which set us up to be surprised by later developments.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 11:37
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:This is a bit of a random idea that probably isn't helpful, but I know one of the big complaints I had in Act 1 was that Leopard's POV chapters didn't feel relevant, since his role in the story and the narrative beats that established a need for us to know about him weren't established until we'd already had to read through a lot of his stuff. I think you're right, really, and when I get around to editing Act 1, I'll probably see about cutting Leopard down to, like, a side story (sort of like how Act 2's interludes are all about, minor spoiler, Crusader and the Empire.) Chapter 1 becomes the prologue, then we maybe return to him a few times, before bringing him in as a viewpoint. It's interesting because when I voiced this to a few other serial writers, they thought this was a bad idea because they consider Leopard the best one to enter the world with as he positions himself as such an outsider to it.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 12:17
|
|
|
Tom Clancy is Dead posted:What web serials do you all read? For me it's Regularly: Mother of Learning The Wandering Inn Vacant Throne Ascendance of a Bookworm Irregularly: Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (FIGHT ME) The Last Science Finished: Worm Unsong Abandoned: Pact The Daily Grind Worth the Candle The Iron Teeth Read a few chapters but not yet enough to give the series a fair shake: Practical Guide to Evil The Gods are Bastards Into the Mire
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 14:02
|
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:I think you're right, really, and when I get around to editing Act 1, I'll probably see about cutting Leopard down to, like, a side story (sort of like how Act 2's interludes are all about, minor spoiler, Crusader and the Empire.) Chapter 1 becomes the prologue, then we maybe return to him a few times, before bringing him in as a viewpoint. It's interesting because when I voiced this to a few other serial writers, they thought this was a bad idea because they consider Leopard the best one to enter the world with as he positions himself as such an outsider to it. Hmm yeah, that's a really interesting point about the outsider angle that I hadn't considered. I think one of the big challenges for Act 1 is rooted in structure more than content- everyone's stuff is interesting, I never found myself saying "I don't want to read this"... but I did find myself saying "I don't want to read this right now," because in many cases it wasn't obvious how each section connected, and leopard's stuff had the tendency to pop up right in the middle of something neat happening somewhere else. But yeah- like, when I started NAH I didn't know there were three characters, his first chapter prepared me for an entire serial of "dirtbag mercenary does human crime in super world," and I was down for that story. if you presented all of his stuff in a single work it'd do just fine, the challenge is that it appeared alongside two stories that were much more obviously interlinked, and as a first-time reader I had trouble figuring out why we were spending so much time with him until we got towards the end of act 1.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 15:55
|
|
|
Tom Clancy is Dead posted:What web serials do you all read? For me it's I only read Ward and Practical Guide, myself. For finished ones, Worm and Earthcast. Speaking of, I'd recommend Earthcast to anyone interested in slavic/semitic folklore. It doesn't exactly seem well-known basically anywhere I've been, but I enjoyed it. It's been a couple years but I remember the setting, cast and plot were quite refreshing. Tried and dropped quite a few. Enjoyed Void Domain for a while but got kinda bored with it like 3/4ths through, also the demons creeping on the main characters was off-putting to me, especially the demon king dude and MC's friend. Tried Heretical Edge too but it kept feeling a bit juvenile both in plot and characters for me. I guess I don't actually enjoy reading about teens actually acting like teens! Probably tried/dropped a bunch of poo poo 3+ years ago I've completely forgotten about too.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 16:11
|
|
|
Argue posted:Regularly: Why’d you abandon iron teeth and daily grind do you don’t mind me asking.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 16:44
|
|
|
Regular Ward Mother of Learning The Gods are Bastards Temporarily stopped to binge again later The Wandering Inn Practical Guide to Evil Finished Worm Unsong Dropped Ra a bunch of things that I read like two chapters of before they hard pivoted into creepy sex poo poo I feel like there are more that I'm forgetting about but I can't come up with anything. Argue posted:Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (FIGHT ME)  I feel like there should be a non-poo poo fanfiction thread, but it would be practically guaranteed to devolve into a shitshow.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 16:52
|
|
|
Affi posted:Why’d you abandon iron teeth and daily grind do you don’t mind me asking. Daily Grind because it got as tiring as actually grinding in an RPG; I was hoping for a lot more experimenting and finding ways to abuse the extremely niche skills they were earning to do something cool in the real world, but I guess it wasn't that kind of serial. With Iron Teeth clearly other people have a higher tolerance for this (based on the author's Patreon) but I was kind of put off by his very slave way of thinking when he was still a goblin; I pitied him but it was in a way that was really not pleasant or fun for me to read. When he evolved and started getting violent urges I was put off in a totally different way. Both made me uneasy and I realize the character arc is probably about Blacknail becoming something better than either of those but I also realized I was spending more time being uncomfortable than I was willing to spend waiting for the catharsis of him changing. Argue fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Apr 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 17:27
|
|
|
I'm glad I wasn't the only one that dropped Ra, since so many people were raving about it and I bounced right off of it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 17:28
|
|
|
Lone Goat posted:I'm glad I wasn't the only one that dropped Ra, since so many people were raving about it and I bounced right off of it. I really liked the premise and the first few chapters but it turned really dumb really fast and I just could not bring myself to give a gently caress about the grand magic conspiracy bullshit, tbh.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 17:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 19:08 |
|
|
Dikkfor posted:Scroll down. This just raises more questions. Is Vista alive then? And how would March have not noticed?
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2019 20:37
|
|