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Laken is at times either being an extremely generic isekai protagonist in a story that is vastly more interesting than him, or he is being led around by the nose by someone vastly more competent than he is. Those are his two modes and they both commit the cardinal sin of being boring as gently caress. At least Flos stops being the focus of chapters involving him after the first couple chunks of King chapters, and he is somewhat entertaining as a force of nature that exists in the background of much more interesting characters' stories. All of the Chandrar chapters after people start seriously fighting him are really good imo.
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Mar 12, 2021 02:43
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i think the great advantage of a TWI-sized cast is that somebody is always going to be doing dramatic and exciting things, while other parts of the cast are sitting around and relaxing. pirateaba can create whatever mood they want for the chapter just by choosing the right person to write about, so the overall flow of each volume doesn't have to come all from a single story.
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Mar 12, 2021 02:45
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Omi no Kami posted:Is it just me, or did the latest Thread of Destiny thing come out of nowhere? To be fair I've only been skimming it every few months, but I thought the dumbass fantasy barbarian poo poo was a weak diversion from the main plot, not the new main plot. Not at all? The Sky Tribes have been been a constant presence from the start and there was an entire PoV chapter about how some of the traditionalist chieftans are freaking out about one of their own marrying an ice witch and how they need to counter their growing power.
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Mar 12, 2021 03:11
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Laken and Flos both commit the cardinal sin of not tying well into the themes of the story being told. If I had to put the themes of TWI into neat little boxes, I'd say the the big themes of the work are Growth/Change/Self-Actualization, Family/Friendship, and Memory. Laken still doesn't fit into these themes at all- or at best as a exceptionally low-budget Erin-, but the recent Flos chapters have Flos acting as an antagonistic force that is causing the exploration of these themes in others, which makes the recent Chandrar chapters- notably the Jecaina and the Fehotep chapters- shine.
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Mar 12, 2021 03:56
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lol, pirateaba posted the editorial letter she got from the editor of 8.11E this is by far the nicest editorial notes i have ever read
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Mar 12, 2021 04:03
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7c Nickel posted:Not at all? The Sky Tribes have been been a constant presence from the start and there was an entire PoV chapter about how some of the traditionalist chieftans are freaking out about one of their own marrying an ice witch and how they need to counter their growing power. Yeah I like the current direction; it's preferable to a bunch more chapters of Ling Qi doing sect ranking battles and what have you.
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Mar 12, 2021 04:29
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A big flaming stink posted:lol, pirateaba posted the editorial letter she got from the editor of 8.11E Where? Oh it’s patreon nvm Anias fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Mar 12, 2021 |
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Mar 12, 2021 05:20
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No, it's been posted on Twitter: https://wanderinginn.com/editorial-letter/
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Mar 12, 2021 05:30
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Argue posted:No, it's been posted on Twitter: should note it contains spoilers for 8.11 E, for obvious reasons
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Mar 12, 2021 05:37
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A big flaming stink posted:lol, pirateaba posted the editorial letter she got from the editor of 8.11E Pirateaba is paying like 10 times the going rate and had a contest to have people edit their work so yeah, different than the normal writer - editor relationship.
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Mar 12, 2021 07:19
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Man, Only Villains Do That owns. I think almost every chapter so far (there's not many, sadly) has largely been an internal screaming panic attack while our protagonist violently flip flops between pretending to be a steeple fingered anime villain or a cool detached guy. Anyway it owns, read it.
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Mar 12, 2021 07:31
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take that, you wandering in
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Mar 12, 2021 07:32
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Peachfart posted:Pirateaba is paying like 10 times the going rate and had a contest to have people edit their work so yeah, different than the normal writer - editor relationship. Nah the contest is for a chapter in July
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Mar 12, 2021 09:27
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Stray Cat Strut is one I've been putting off for a while because while I liked Cinnamon Bun and Dead Tired, there's uh, only so much cuteness I can take. It's a nice change of pace , but, uh, extremely not my thing. Stray Cat Strut is not that and it owns also. And, furthermore, there's an except from a presidential speech that's clearly supposed to be Trump and while it's not a very good impression it did make me laugh.
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Mar 12, 2021 10:16
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A big flaming stink posted:lol, pirateaba posted the editorial letter she got from the editor of 8.11E Are professional editorial notes usually meaner / blunter than this? I've only ever edited or been edited by friends or family, and that's kind of the level of niceness that everyone's gone for in general.
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Mar 12, 2021 10:19
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A big flaming stink posted:lol, pirateaba posted the editorial letter she got from the editor of 8.11E I bet that's the kind of notes, like, Rowling and King get. Rob Filter posted:Are professional editorial notes usually meaner / blunter than this? I've only ever edited or been edited by friends or family, and that's kind of the level of niceness that everyone's gone for in general. Actual friends and family is where you get, like, a paragraph crossed out and "write not poo poo" as the note. Megazver fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Mar 12, 2021 |
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Mar 12, 2021 13:56
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Rob Filter posted:Are professional editorial notes usually meaner / blunter than this? I've only ever edited or been edited by friends or family, and that's kind of the level of niceness that everyone's gone for in general. absolutely. those are the notes of an editor who senses an easy payday for handing out sophomoric advice like describe emotions, use dialogue tags, and establishing location. easiest five grand that editor ever made.
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Mar 12, 2021 14:15
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Larry Parrish posted:Man, Only Villains Do That owns. I think almost every chapter so far (there's not many, sadly) has largely been an internal screaming panic attack while our protagonist violently flip flops between pretending to be a steeple fingered anime villain or a cool detached guy. Anyway it owns, read it. The first few chapters he's too much of an insufferable poo poo but now that he's shown a little rear end Seiji is much more captivating as a character.
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Mar 12, 2021 18:26
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Larry Parrish posted:Man, Only Villains Do That owns. I think almost every chapter so far (there's not many, sadly) has largely been an internal screaming panic attack while our protagonist violently flip flops between pretending to be a steeple fingered anime villain or a cool detached guy. Anyway it owns, read it. The cliffhanger on the current chapter can suck my balls. But yes, it is good and fun.
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Mar 12, 2021 20:28
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I started Only Villains Do That, a few chapters in. Seiji is such an insufferable know-it-all snarky rear end in a top hat, which I guess is the point but I've seen this exact kind of MC in too many stories. Does he get any better about that?
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Mar 12, 2021 22:42
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Sailor Dave posted:I started Only Villains Do That, a few chapters in. Seiji is such an insufferable know-it-all snarky rear end in a top hat, which I guess is the point but I've seen this exact kind of MC in too many stories. Does he get any better about that? I thought the "prologue", first couple chapters, was the absolute worst kind of reach-around fart-sniffing, only a half-step above poo poo like Metaworld Chronicles, but it gets dramatically better when Seiji gets humanized a bit more. If it weren't for the trust I have in the author to write sensible, kind, thoughtful and human stories, I would have given up on it early. No clue why the early chapters are like that. It might still be possible that lingering memories about TGAB are informing my outlook, though. As it is, I'm eager to see where it goes. It's nice to see the author having fun with writing again, if nothing else. Ramie fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Mar 12, 2021 |
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Mar 12, 2021 23:29
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How close does Cat from PGtE hew to Taylor from Worm? I've read up to just after the first legion trainee battle and while I will say its well written and pretty engaging, I'm just pretty sick of reading awful people doing awful things for awful reasons.
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Mar 12, 2021 23:31
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Sailor Dave posted:I started Only Villains Do That, a few chapters in. Seiji is such an insufferable know-it-all snarky rear end in a top hat, which I guess is the point but I've seen this exact kind of MC in too many stories. Does he get any better about that? He's exactly what the goddess accused him of.
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Mar 12, 2021 23:39
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OscarDiggs posted:How close does Cat from PGtE hew to Taylor from Worm? She is a much better person than Taylor, although it's still ultimately military fantasy and so she does spend a lot of time killing people.
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Mar 12, 2021 23:59
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GreyjoyBastard posted:She is a much better person than Taylor, although it's still ultimately military fantasy and so she does spend a lot of time killing people. Ehhhh I dunno about the first part. Cat has lowercase g good goals ultimately, but she very willingly does lots of capital E evil poo poo to get there including starting a war that she knows will result in the butchery of thousands of innocents. Taylor does some bad poo poo that she justifies to herself but the worst extent of that is some terrorism and torture of a handful of people. Which is pretty awful, but nowhere near on the same scale. Cat is a way better and more fun character to be inside the head of though imo.
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Mar 13, 2021 02:32
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The Shortest Path posted:Cat is a way better and more fun character to be inside the head of though imo. This really. Taylor was constantly rationalizing the evil poo poo she did. Cat is more like 'undead farm animals, explosives, gently caress yes'
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Mar 13, 2021 03:15
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I feel like Cat and Taylor are about as different as you can be while still loosely fitting into the mold of doing bad things with good intentions.
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Mar 13, 2021 03:54
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Infinity Gaia posted:I feel like TWI proves that people don't mind a slow paced plot, and that it has several advantages over a fast paced one. I find that I care about nearly every TWI character to some extent, whereas it's hard to care about most people in BDM. Not saying that every web novel needs to have the ultra glacial pace of TWI, just that it has its advantages. I also agree with the posters above that BDM has felt kinda rushed lately, hopefully it improves in this new arc. I'd say most web serials and even a lot of the comparable stuff that get's published (Gamelit and similar) are all glacially paced compared to most non-that novels (I wanted to say traditional but that's not really the right word). Sure TWI may be an extreme example of it but just look at Dragoneye Moon, it's currently the length of somewhere between four to seven average fantasy novels. It may look fast paced compared to TWI but it's slow as hell compared to the average published novel. You could easily make the case that web serials (and I'd say fan fiction at large), as a whole, are basically a niche built around slow pacing relative to published books.
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Mar 13, 2021 04:22
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BtDM hasn't made it up to the length of The Way of Kings (which is the shortest one in the series) even without excluding litrpg stuff like Elaine's stats at the end of each chapter from the word count. Doorstop fantasy is a pretty well established genre that predates web serials by a few decades. Length and pacing also aren't at all the same thing.
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Mar 13, 2021 05:08
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Plorkyeran posted:BtDM hasn't made it up to the length of The Way of Kings (which is the shortest one in the series) even without excluding litrpg stuff like Elaine's stats at the end of each chapter from the word count. Doorstop fantasy is a pretty well established genre that predates web serials by a few decades. Length and pacing also aren't at all the same thing. The Way of Kings isn't the average. Doorstopper fantasy isn't even so large in the Fantasy genre to drive up the average up very much. And when you take four+ books in a gamelit story to detail the growth of a single character from nothing to the power level of the party said character joined late in the first "book", length and pacing are correlated. I don't mind slow pacing so that isn't a criticism of the story, just using it as an example. nessin fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Mar 13, 2021 |
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Mar 13, 2021 05:58
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Plorkyeran posted:I feel like Cat and Taylor are about as different as you can be while still loosely fitting into the mold of doing bad things with good intentions. Yeah, Cat knows she’s “damned” for what she does and is willing to sacrifice herself and almost anyone else to accomplish her goals. She doesn’t gussie it up. And, frankly, she’s 4x smarter than Taylor and 1000% funnier.
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Mar 13, 2021 06:31
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I have only read two half-chapters of Worm, but I have read a lot of discussion about it. Would it be reasonable to say that Practical Guide to Evil does a better job with the supporting cast in addition to the protagonist? Anaxares is MVP, of course, but the Woe present a variety of viewpoints without ringing any of my creepy stereotype alarm bells. I wouldn't say that Archer, Hakram, Masego, or Vivienne are particularly complicated people, but I enjoy reading their distinct voices.
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Mar 13, 2021 16:45
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Yes.
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Mar 13, 2021 16:55
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Practical Guide to Evil is best overall web serial imo
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Mar 13, 2021 19:41
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I don't know if I would go with 'best' but it is certainly several tiers above anything Wildbow has written.
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Mar 13, 2021 20:12
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nessin posted:I'd say most web serials and even a lot of the comparable stuff that get's published (Gamelit and similar) are all glacially paced compared to most non-that novels (I wanted to say traditional but that's not really the right word). Sure TWI may be an extreme example of it but just look at Dragoneye Moon, it's currently the length of somewhere between four to seven average fantasy novels. It may look fast paced compared to TWI but it's slow as hell compared to the average published novel. You could easily make the case that web serials (and I'd say fan fiction at large), as a whole, are basically a niche built around slow pacing relative to published books. Even including stat sheets which pad my word count (not huge amounts, but it's there), I'm at "only" 450k words, which is 3-4 typical novels. Like, I split them into books, and I keep each book as a standard "large" book size. Also, while not everything I've written is published yet, I've written ~460k words, while The Way of Kings is 383k words. 372k words are currently published on RR, so yes, I'm technically shorter on RR, for like, another week. Selkie Myth fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Mar 13, 2021 |
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Mar 13, 2021 20:58
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Im not argueing about quality. I've only read a few chapters and PGtE is leagues better then Worm by any metric. And it's not a matter of how fun and interesting the characters are (which many appear to be). I'm just, sick of the whole bad people doing bad things, thing. And if it's gonna be more then that then I doubt I'm gonna stick around for much longer.
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Mar 13, 2021 21:13
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OscarDiggs posted:Im not argueing about quality. I've only read a few chapters and PGtE is leagues better then Worm by any metric. Read TWI(warning, literally millions of words ahead) or Vainquier the Dragon.
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Mar 13, 2021 22:12
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Peachfart posted:Read TWI(warning, literally millions of words ahead) or Vainquier the Dragon. Vainquier does sound interesting by the description
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Mar 13, 2021 22:39
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This reminds me: The Vainquier dude has a new story out: "Kairos: A Greek Myth LitRPG" The title completely describes the gimmick. Writing is above average for a webnovel.
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Mar 13, 2021 22:56
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