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Congratulations on your victory, Cat. You just hosed the world, killed your father, and destroyed your nascent name in a single night
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Jul 27, 2021 09:24
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Nettle Soup posted:Going back a couple of pages, I feel like Vigor Mortis is about Vita slowly becoming a monster, and uh.. Lark? slowly becoming human and the contrast there. Something something desires something something you are not what you're born as you are what you want to be, all mixed with the edgyness of a 15yr old girl writing fanfic on the internet.
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Jul 27, 2021 10:56
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tithin posted:Congratulations on your victory, Cat. Turns out the best way to score victories against the bard is to just gently caress up harder than she ever thought someone would gently caress up.
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Jul 27, 2021 12:15
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tithin posted:Congratulations on your victory, Cat. Yeah, honestly that chapter sucked. Just loving bad in terms of enjoyment because following Cat has been watching a person going through a grinder in slow motion. Build build build for the next part to encounter the teeth in loving detail.
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Jul 27, 2021 12:18
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Brain Candy posted:Yeah, honestly that chapter sucked. Just loving bad in terms of enjoyment because following Cat has been watching a person going through a grinder in slow motion. Build build build for the next part to encounter the teeth in loving detail. I thought the chapter was great. Cat wins or gets bailed out all the time in the series so a pyrrhic victory where she gets screwed over is a nice change of pace. Setting up the Dead King to be a threat instead of a lame story is just icing on the cake.
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Jul 27, 2021 19:22
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Brain Candy posted:Yeah, honestly that chapter sucked. Just loving bad in terms of enjoyment because following Cat has been watching a person going through a grinder in slow motion. Build build build for the next part to encounter the teeth in loving detail. I liked it; it seems to be a logical conclusion of the way things have been headed. It managed to hit the sweet spot of "surprising me, but in a way that makes sense within the story." Things are pretty terrible for Catherine now, though. The two people closest to her are basically gone for good now (one dead and the relationship with Hakram is likely permanently ruined). I don't see anything causing problems with Masego/Indrani, but they're closer to each other than they are Catherine and would likely go their separate ways post-war. Hard to imagine an ending where Catherine is anything resembling happy now. edit: The one thing that bugs me a bit from a "lore" standpoint is that it seems to be implied that the Bard plays some fundamental role in the whole Good/Evil relationship, but we know there's a whole world beyond Calernia. I guess you could just conclude that Bard and all the stories she's involved with are limited to solely those within Calernia and that the rest of the world is effectively irrelevant to the characters in the story (though I'm not sure how something like the Choirs - which were fundamentally altered by Hierarch - factor into that). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Jul 27, 2021 |
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Jul 27, 2021 22:21
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Ytlaya posted:I liked it; it seems to be a logical conclusion of the way things have been headed. I hated it; it seem to be misery by forced idiot ball, with a bunch of decisions made by the person who did the Prince's Graveyard solely so the miserable outcome could happen. We had an entire thing with WinterCat about hard choices, and we have the entire Akua arc to show she's Nope, has to follow through on the something she knows is the Bard's plan because otherwise she won't get a Name. Okay, she doesn't have one going in the campaign and the Dead King slaughters Named left and right. Then we find out the Bard is a load bearing boss. This was one one of those cutscenes in an RPG where they make you walk into the middle of the room to so you can get swarmed.
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Jul 28, 2021 01:02
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Brain Candy posted:
Catherine's position (that is kind of dubious but it's easy to understand why she has it) is that if the Bard wants something, it's definitely bad and won't lead to a good outcome. So the very fact that Bard is trying to push her away from a particular Name, in Catherine's mind, means that she must achieve that Name. The only way for Catherine to get the Name, and thus thwart Bard, was to do all the things she did in this chapter (she probably could have avoided this if she had figured it out earlier - as she mentions, she hosed up by separating herself from any discussion with the various actors in Black's plan - but because she didn't this is the only option she had left by the time she was at court with everyone). I think Catherine's correct from the perspective of "a different and better world isn't possible if Bard wins," but it's also the case that "Bard losing could result in an even worse outcome" (and Catherine I guess considers that worth the risk). Also, she's always had pyrric victories against Bard. At the Graveyard she was up against Pilgrim, and Pilgrim is simply not an opponent on the same level as the Bard. A better comparison is the conflict at the Arsenal, where Catherine had a similar pyrric victory (or draw I guess, depending on how you look at it). It would have been strange for Catherine to flat-out win against Bard at this sort of game.
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Jul 28, 2021 01:18
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There's a pattern of 3 with the bard and cat - what's the current tally, because it looks to me like Cats won 2 out of 3?
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Jul 28, 2021 01:32
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Ytlaya posted:Catherine's position (that is kind of dubious but it's easy to understand why she has it) is that if the Bard wants something, it's definitely bad and won't lead to a good outcome. So the very fact that Bard is trying to push her away from a particular Name, in Catherine's mind, means that she must achieve that Name. The only way for Catherine to get the Name, and thus thwart Bard, was to do all the things she did in this chapter (she probably could have avoided this if she had figured it out earlier - as she mentions, she hosed up by separating herself from any discussion with the various actors in Black's plan - but because she didn't this is the only option she had left by the time she was at court with everyone). What Story was she trying to ride to fight the Bard? It's her thing, it's the reason why she could get trapped in the Bard role, where was the thing she was offensively doing to fight her true enemy? Other than to have Masego pop out again, as lampshaded by the text? The plan being take feedback from your Name to avoid a trap by the Bard is an obviously poo poo plan. Cat should know it's dumb, it makes you predictable; Hakram literally used it to his advantage a few chapters ago. GraveyardCat would have brutalized IdiotCat here, let alone the Bard. e: more because I'm still mad Like her not realizing her Role included Named and nations, I guess she forgot what she's been doing for a few years. Or that she was connected to people sworn to Above who she's a Queen of, clearly that's because she's the Warden of Evil  Brain Candy fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Jul 28, 2021 |
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Jul 28, 2021 01:45
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I think Cat just never realized that the Accords devolving from a solely Name-focused equivalent of a strategic weapons treaty into more of a proto-UN treaty of vague cooperation meant more than letting Named rule countries and wield political power. It seems like a fairly in character thing to forget or not realize.
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Jul 28, 2021 06:13
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And on the subject of Data Dragon Danika, am I the only person getting a little whiplash when she heads off to do her training at Starcraft and apparently she's disabled and also literally everyone in the world has never seen anyone in a wheelchair before? I get what the story is trying to do but it just seems insanely heavy handed. I dunno. I noticed that it never said stuff like 'walked' or 'ran' before that, but I figured it was just the author's style. The writing is pretty dry when it wants to be. Also apparently the video game company is under Elon Musk's ancap spacelaw cuz the central conceit of the story is Google having a quantum computer in a satellite that constantly datamines you and yet every other trainee is like gross, it's wheelchair bitch, and somehow they aren't fired. maybe I'm missing something but it seems uh, strangely handled. Sorry for the big block of spoiler text. It's discussing chapter 58 in book two. I know it's an old story but IDK if anyone read it yet.
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Jul 28, 2021 14:17
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I liked the last TWI chapter, but something is bugging me: The bow Fetohep gives away is called "Heavens’ Arc" - isn't heaven supposed to be something new that Erin brought to the world? I did a quick search, and really only the Antinium talk about it (and Ryoka once with Teriarch). Even if it isn't, mention of anything divinity-related is supposed to be super taboo. Klbch almost killed Pawn for bringing up the afterlife/being a priest, and Erin gave herself away saying "Oh God" instead of "Dead Gods." Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it just seems really weird to have two non-Earth characters casually talking about it at this point.
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Jul 28, 2021 17:07
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Larry Parrish posted:And on the subject of Data Dragon Danika, am I the only person getting a little whiplash when she heads off to do her training at Starcraft and apparently she's disabled and also literally everyone in the world has never seen anyone in a wheelchair before? I get what the story is trying to do but it just seems insanely heavy handed. I dunno. I noticed that it never said stuff like 'walked' or 'ran' before that, but I figured it was just the author's style. The writing is pretty dry when it wants to be. Also apparently the video game company is under Elon Musk's ancap spacelaw cuz the central conceit of the story is Google having a quantum computer in a satellite that constantly datamines you and yet every other trainee is like gross, it's wheelchair bitch, and somehow they aren't fired. maybe I'm missing something but it seems uh, strangely handled. Hmm, I think they do hint at other disabled employees, with the bank of medibeds she uses for work while she's there, along with the boss. I suspect it's just something to do with how she expected to be treated when she met with Shinichi, and re-enforcing that through the text to show how cool he is? There's another one or two characters with a similar disability later.
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Jul 28, 2021 17:46
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Narmi posted:I liked the last TWI chapter, but something is bugging me: "Heavens'", not "Heaven's". ie: it's the sky
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Jul 28, 2021 18:59
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Brain Candy posted:
Catherine went into Ater with no clue what Bard's plan would be. You can't trick Bard in the same way you can other Named - it's basically impossible to out-story her. Bard's plan essentially had multiple ways to defeat Catherine. Catherine wasn't wrong that focusing on the various political factions would weaken her growing Name. It's just that Bard's plan accounted for the possibility of her not falling for that angle and laid a trap for her there. The only thing Bard did not account for was Amadeus's actions (as Bard mentioned, him not being Named ended up with him being a blind spot). I also don't even think you *can* "ride a story" to beat the Bard. Sure it's part of Cat's thing, but Bard is unquestionably better at it than her, what with the whole "entity who has been doing this for millenia and has actual powers that let her view all the stories" thing (this is probably part of why Bard specifically tried to steer her into this kind of role - Catherine could never beat her at her own specialty, and it avoided Catherine taking a more threatening role). I also don't even know if the Bard is susceptible to that kind of thing, what with "literally 'owning' all the stories in some weird sense to the extent that she can choose to destroy them." If Cat actually pulled a Graveyard on Bard I think the people complaining about her always magically winning with story powers would have a point.
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Jul 29, 2021 09:23
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Ytlaya posted:Catherine went into Ater with no clue what Bard's plan would be. You can't trick Bard in the same way you can other Named - it's basically impossible to out-story her. Bard's plan essentially had multiple ways to defeat Catherine. Catherine wasn't wrong that focusing on the various political factions would weaken her growing Name. It's just that Bard's plan accounted for the possibility of her not falling for that angle and laid a trap for her there. The only thing Bard did not account for was Amadeus's actions (as Bard mentioned, him not being Named ended up with him being a blind spot). which might be the key point - you can't ride a story to beat her, but she just unshackled both Cat and The Dead King from their respective stories. Both went from, for the most part in the eyes of the bard, known quantities bound by statute to follow certain patterns of behaviour, to free agents with the power from their respective name, and no over arching story. I will say I find the conclusion of that chapter unsatisfying in retrospect purely because it seems extremely rushed
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Jul 29, 2021 09:54
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PGtE I am very skeptical about this direction because ”stories are real” has been a core part of the setting since day one, and one of Catherine’s biggest strengths has been Namelore. We’ll see where this winds up going, I guess.
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Jul 29, 2021 20:44
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Argue posted:"Heavens'", not "Heaven's". ie: it's the sky
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Jul 29, 2021 20:49
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blastron posted:PGtE I am very skeptical about this direction because ”stories are real” has been a core part of the setting since day one, and one of Catherine’s biggest strengths has been Namelore. We’ll see where this winds up going, I guess. This is the only part of what happened that was positive. Yes the rules for villains are out of the window. But also the rules for villains are out of the window. What happens now, what choices people make, what new stories get set down in this conflict will be the new base for villains to operate under. To be very cheesy, Cat, The Woe and her villains under the truce and terms are now writing The Practical Guide To Villainy.
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Jul 30, 2021 07:30
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Tzarnal posted:This is the only part of what happened that was positive. Yes the rules for villains are out of the window. But also the rules for villains are out of the window. What happens now, what choices people make, what new stories get set down in this conflict will be the new base for villains to operate under. The First Prince will be overjoyed to hear this.
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Jul 30, 2021 07:34
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PracGuide: Based off of the new chapter, I get the impression that Good-aligned doomsday devices can now also be used without recourse (though this isn't exactly much help, since Dead King has way bigger guns as far as that's concerned). I'm very curious how this situation will be resolved. I think it's very likely the dwarves get involved due to the sudden dramatic increase in stakes (they don't want all life wiped out on the surface), but I'm sure Dead King also knows that so they probably aren't a serious threat to him. The one element of this that kind of bugs/confuses me is that I don't get how Above and Below stories can be considered separate things. A Hero's story is also a Villain's story; they're two parts of the same whole. I think EE tried to partially answer this with Hanno and Antigone talking about how they still experience the luck of providence (just without the accompanying bad luck on Dead King's side), but it's still kind of unclear. Tzarnal posted:This is the only part of what happened that was positive. Yes the rules for villains are out of the window. But also the rules for villains are out of the window. What happens now, what choices people make, what new stories get set down in this conflict will be the new base for villains to operate under. Not even sure if the Woe even still exists in any meaningful capacity. Both Hakram and Vivienne have their own separate responsibilities (and there's a good chance that the relationship with Hakram is just completely hosed after recent events). And I get the impression that Archer and Masego also have their own things going on (though they'll still be working with Cat). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Jul 30, 2021 |
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Jul 30, 2021 09:59
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Ytlaya posted:PracGuide: Based off of the new chapter, I get the impression that Good-aligned doomsday devices can now also be used without recourse (though this isn't exactly much help, since Dead King has way bigger guns as far as that's concerned).
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Jul 30, 2021 11:09
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Xemloth posted:Or it'll turn out the gnomes will go after the dead king The gnomes were a plot device to explain why technology had stagnated at that particular level. They haven't been mentioned since if I remember correctly.
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Jul 30, 2021 18:14
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PGtE Wasn't there an entire section about how the Dead King doesn't learn and is stuck? If I'm remembering that correctly, it seems like that will be his downfall as the rules of the game just drastically changed.
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Jul 30, 2021 19:55
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Xemloth posted:Or it'll turn out the gnomes will go after the dead king I really doubt this. As another poster mentioned they were likely just a plot device to explain the lack of higher technology, and the Gnomes also don't seem to give a poo poo what happens as long as people aren't developing the sort of tech that can threaten them (which the Dead King isn't doing).
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Jul 30, 2021 21:16
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Is something up with Realmshaker? I know the author said something about switching to shorter chapters, but they've put out something like 30 in the last couple of days. Did someone change the Royal Road algorithm to go for release rate over anything else?
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Jul 31, 2021 01:24
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Is something up with Realmshaker? I know the author said something about switching to shorter chapters, but they've put out something like 30 in the last couple of days. Did someone change the Royal Road algorithm to go for release rate over anything else? Royal Road metrics are heavily benefited by shorter chapters, for several reasons. 1. Your total amount of hits for a story is based off of amount of chapters clicked on. If a story with three 2000 word chapters gets read, and a story with one 6000 word chapter gets read, the first story gets 3 hits while the second gets 1. This means that series with numerous short chapters are pushed up the algorithm and more likely to appear on Popular This Week. 2. Updating a story puts you at the top of Recently Updated, which is another solid metrics boost. The tradeoff is that people generally get slightly more invested in longer chapters. I don't think it's a tradeoff that's worth it for most people. Before you can get people invested, they have to notice you exist. I've actually spoken to another author who said their story was successful primarily because they updated consistently. When I was putting Outcast on Royal Road, I shamelessly split up chapters into multiple parts and uploaded them several times a day. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't have had as much success as I did. I've long since switched to full-length 5k word chapters as that's what I prefer, but honestly, I probably would have more Followers than I do now if I kept splitting them into parts.
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Jul 31, 2021 03:51
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I really like wandering inn. But I just have to complain again over the insane amount of extras. I get it. Slice of life. It's her thing. But do we really need to follow Merishs entire loving familytree? Couldn't he have been put in an already existing tribe with characters that already exist? I'm very good at remembering characters and I've started needing the wiki just to keep things fresh.
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Jul 31, 2021 11:56
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asur posted:PGtE Wasn't there an entire section about how the Dead King doesn't learn and is stuck? If I'm remembering that correctly, it seems like that will be his downfall as the rules of the game just drastically changed. I've always taken "the Dead King doesn't learn" to mean that he can't evolve as a person. His goals, his character, his beliefs, his personality, they're all stuck like they were the moment he died. But he is capable of taking in new information and forming plans based on that, and he was shown creating new spells for when something new happens, like when he was with Masego. Or when he mentioned to the Bard that he gave up on plagues at some point because they work.
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Jul 31, 2021 17:55
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Affi posted:I really like wandering inn. But I just have to complain again over the insane amount of extras. Sometimes you just have to look at the insane cast of characters and grin toothily.
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Jul 31, 2021 18:34
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I subbed to Sarah Lin's patreon to read the Archcrafter chapters for Weirkey, and I'm immediately reminded that I have no idea what the purpose of Senka is in this story. She's basically Jar Jar Binks, a character that is maybe intended for comedy but is mostly just out of place and irritating. When Senka first popped up, I figured maybe a handful of chapters later there'd be some reveal of a dark or serious past, but so far, no, still just an annoying little goblin.
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Aug 1, 2021 01:37
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i found a fun new story that doesn't seem to be getting a lot of attention but it's pretty good, called Wizard Space Program it's about a wizard in a medieval fantasy world who decides he's going to establish wizard NASA after an unfortunate levitation accident takes him into the stratosphere. it's written by a physicist so there's a lot of attention to detail and imaginative stuff about using a well-defined magic system to substitute for technology Jazerus fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Aug 1, 2021 |
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Aug 1, 2021 01:46
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Jazerus posted:i found a fun new story that doesn't seem to be getting a lot of attention but it's pretty good, called Wizard Space Program Wizard Space Program posted:It was oddly fitting that the most transformative era for all of Ikyu started with a moment of spontaneous stupidity from one man living in the middle of nowhere. Go on.
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Aug 1, 2021 02:11
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Anias posted:Go on. They plan to go to the moon, while using geocentric astronomy. (in a magic on top of normal physics setting).
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Aug 1, 2021 06:54
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Jazerus posted:i found a fun new story that doesn't seem to be getting a lot of attention but it's pretty good, called Wizard Space Program  ????????
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Aug 1, 2021 22:58
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Jazerus posted:i found a fun new story that doesn't seem to be getting a lot of attention but it's pretty good, called Wizard Space Program
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Aug 2, 2021 02:01
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Jazerus posted:i found a fun new story that doesn't seem to be getting a lot of attention but it's pretty good, called Wizard Space Program This definitely feels written by a physicist, for better or worse. It feels weirdly technical even when it's describing fantasy crystal bullshit and the plot appears to have... Effectively no stakes? It's also paced very strangely. It's interesting, for sure, but I dunno if I'd say it makes for a good story.
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Aug 2, 2021 02:02
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Infinity Gaia posted:This definitely feels written by a physicist, for better or worse. It feels weirdly technical even when it's describing fantasy crystal bullshit and the plot appears to have... Effectively no stakes? It's also paced very strangely. It's interesting, for sure, but I dunno if I'd say it makes for a good story. i love TWI so take my opinion on pacing and stakes through that lens, but honestly i think that often a story starting slow and low-stakes, and staying that way for a long time, is really important for the health of the story as a whole if the author plans to expand the scope and up the stakes from an initially humble beginning. you care a lot more about some big event happening to characters you've read 50 chapters about than you do 1 or 2 chapters in. the very first sentence does say that this is the start of "the most transformative era for all of ikyu" so somehow i don't think our heroes are going to be hanging out in vaughan's house tinkering without any conflict (apart from loss of life and limb to magic science) forever. it's, what, 8 chapters so far?
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Aug 2, 2021 02:11
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Jazerus posted:i love TWI so take my opinion on pacing and stakes through that lens, but honestly i think that often a story starting slow and low-stakes, and staying that way for a long time, is really important for the health of the story as a whole if the author plans to expand the scope and up the stakes from an initially humble beginning. you care a lot more about some big event happening to characters you've read 50 chapters about than you do 1 or 2 chapters in. I find that I can't adequately explain my issues with it, it just felt kinda dry and boring. I dunno. I also feel like that first chapter felt bizarrely rushed, as if the author was impatient to get to the physics parts, and the first chapter of any web novel really needs to immediately draw attention. And for what it's worth I also love TWI, but even TWI understands you need a strong opening chapter, even if it kinda flounders a bit after it before finding its footing.
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Aug 2, 2021 02:20
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