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Kyoujin posted:Seconding this one. My knowledge of Warcraft lore was playing WC2 as a kid and mashing past text in WoW years ago but was still able to follow along. The story does a great job of showing the MC adjusting to life as a giant spider person and (vague spoiler) dealing with how his changes save many lives but also bring calamity to others . Alright, I wasn't expecting this thread to convince me to try Warcraft fanfiction but I'll give it a shot.
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Apr 20, 2023 17:53
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By the time you're in this thread, you're open to things. 
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Apr 20, 2023 18:02
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Nettle Soup posted:It's been a while since I've checked this thread! What's worth reading at the moment? TWI will continue until pirateaba has a stroke or her fingers fall off due to writing the equivalent of a novel every week.
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Apr 20, 2023 18:02
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Pirateaba is taking breaks, and swears they're not all secretly writing additional novels.
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Apr 20, 2023 18:03
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Super Supportive is a lot of fun and I'm enjoying it already. Magical Girl Gunslinger I find very tiring, but I catch up on it now and again, not that the update pace is super quick. I'll give the others a look!
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Apr 20, 2023 19:06
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Great new Super Supportive. Really curious whether Alden is going to run into trouble during one of these runs. On one hand, it's extremely heavily implied he will, but on the other he doesn't really have the tools to handle such a situation. He might just have a close call at some point. It's also nice to find out (from the author's note before this chapter) that apparently they've been in the process of building up a backlog and plan on getting back to twice weekly updates. That's good to hear.
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Apr 20, 2023 21:35
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MGG did the whole "there's important information which I'm not going to tell you for your own good" thing which I usually find extremely tiresome, but then it got revealed before the first arc ended and the reason for initially keeping it secret wasn't awful.
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Apr 20, 2023 21:40
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Re: the latest super supportive, I think he will get in trouble in so far as he will not be able to evacuate everyone. It is true that he does not have the tools to proactively fight some "demon" that might pop up, but he does have the tools to run away and escape.
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Apr 20, 2023 21:46
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Nettle Soup posted:It's been a while since I've checked this thread! What's worth reading at the moment? Thx for the recommendation. This has a pretty cool setting and holy poo poo chapter 2. Not usually a fan of blue boxes but it's implemented pretty well in this one so far. Edit: Read the latest chapter of memories of local villainess and not at all surprised at the latest development. It honestly felt a bit contrived in previous chapter when she chose the worst words to use that led to the current misunderstanding. Kyoujin fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Apr 21, 2023 |
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Apr 20, 2023 23:49
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Plorkyeran posted:MGG did the whole "there's important information which I'm not going to tell you for your own good" thing which I usually find extremely tiresome, but then it got revealed before the first arc ended and the reason for initially keeping it secret wasn't awful. What is MGG?
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Apr 21, 2023 03:45
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LLSix posted:What is MGG? Magical Girl Gunslinger
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Apr 21, 2023 04:11
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Ok, this one is my guilty pleasure but since someone else breached the fanfic wall… Ghost in the City: Cyberpunk Gamer SI is…oh it is so dumb but I look forward to the updates. So, a girl wakes up in the body of Mokoto Kusanagi. Not the Mokoto from Ghost in the Shell, but a Mokoto of the same name who lives in the Night City of the Cyberpunk 2077 video game. She (and only she) has a gamer system that lets her level up like the game character. She runs around, flatlining gonks and having adventures with her chooms and occasionally running into people from the game/anime. It should be absolutely insufferable, but it’s the literary equivalent of a CW superhero show. Dumb fun popcorn poo poo. It’s competently written from a grammar standpoint, so miles above 90% of RR. Same vein but less cringe is Cyber Dreams - Juliet is a welder in a cyberpunk dystopia who gets a prototype AI accidentally installed and goes on the run from the Corp while the AI helps her become a badass merc. Lots of fun if a little too twee sometimes. Last one you shouldn’t sleep on is The Game at Carousel: A Horror Movie LitRPG - Cabin in the Woods meets The Most Dangerous Game meets Scream. It’s good.
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Apr 21, 2023 05:21
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If you're going to read fanfic, you should probably read https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/53616/shadowrun-blake-island-school-of-magic. It's by a goon and has amazing characterization. The portion on RR is just part of the thread from SA, so there's more after you reach the end. *** Super Supportive. I woke up in the middle of the night with this fully blown realization. I think Joe is a wizard specializing in summoning. The school test was to make a summoning supportive device. That device is intended to be used in later lessons which pretty much clinches he'll be teaching summoning. Plus he can teleport Alden around without having full system support, but can't do most other things usually done by the system, like provide foundation points, etc. This next bit is more of a stretch, but not much of one. I think Joe further specializes in summoning demons. Why else would his lab be in a demon zone? If that's true, I wonder if Artonans classify humans as demons? Humans are people from another dimension with enormous magical power that are summoned and bound to serve. That's... a pretty classical definition of a demon right? Joe even thinks they'll eventually be an existential threat. That kind of recontextualizes all the bits about Artonans being friendly with at least a few demons; and also the bits about them fighting demons too. LLSix fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Apr 21, 2023 |
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Apr 21, 2023 14:35
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That is a fantastic insight. I have been wondering about the Artoan definition of demon, but hadn't put together that humans probably qualify as demons as well. I was more coming at it from the way Gorgon is called a demon. Gorgon is an alien bodhisattva, so demons must be people. At least, some demons must be people.
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Apr 21, 2023 15:49
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LLSix posted:
When is humans being from another dimension mentioned? Aren't they just aliens to them (like any of the other alien races that have shown up)? And given the fact that Earth has contractually had to handle killing some demons, that doesn't seem like a very plausible twist. It seems far more likely that whatever demons are is tied with whatever is going on with the "chaos" stuff. Also, (in reply to Wittgen's post) IIRC Gorgon is only called a demon by a bunch of humans because he looks like the human understanding of a demon.
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Apr 21, 2023 22:53
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Ytlaya posted:When is humans being from another dimension mentioned? Aren't they just aliens to them (like any of the other alien races that have shown up)? And given the fact that Earth has contractually had to handle killing some demons, that doesn't seem like a very plausible twist. It seems far more likely that whatever demons are is tied with whatever is going on with the "chaos" stuff. If I remember right, Artonans claim to be from a different universe than humans.
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Apr 22, 2023 04:24
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I guess if we're the fanfiction thread now I should say that I've been enjoying An Undertow of Sand, which is (drumroll) a Percy Jackson/Lovecraft crossover. Strongly character driven- there's a very great focus on flashbacks and introspection and just generally trying to pick apart who these people are and what made them that way. The "oops, all anagnorisis" method of storytelling. The flipside of that, though, is there is exposition, so very much exposition, far too much of one character explaining a thing (my favourite scenes end up being the Percy/Artemis ones, because neither of them really have much they need to exposit to the other, so they can be messy emotional screaming matches instead). I consider it a mark of the fic's overall quality that I still find it so compelling despite my general distaste for exposition. There is a core theme of child abuse (emotional, primarily), though this is less something the author is bringing to it and more that the basic premise of Percy Jackson is kind of hosed. Other than that, I don't think there's much I've picked up recently that's worth mentioning, besides The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere (sci-fi bronze age wizard murder mystery, I rec'd here it not too long ago), and Nowhere Stars (sad magical girl fights concept monsters). Both of these are also stories where we spend a lot of time inside a character's head so, yeah, I have a type. Magical Girl Gunslinger veers between really good and mind-obliteratingly dull blue box garbage with zero middle ground. Bioshifter is... fine, I guess. It's the poor man's Katalepsis and I stopped reading Katalepsis a while ago, so that's already not great, but it's also just... not compelling me. With either side of the real/fantasy split? I don't know why. I spend more time thinking about why I don't like Bioshifter than I do thinking about Bioshifter. Ida's cool, I love an evil little gremlin woman. SS+ Rank Villainess is fun but also rote as all hell, and the author really needs to stop trying to write beyond their skill.
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Apr 22, 2023 13:46
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:I guess if we're the fanfiction thread now I should say that I've been enjoying An Undertow of Sand, which is (drumroll) a Percy Jackson/Lovecraft crossover. Strongly character driven- there's a very great focus on flashbacks and introspection and just generally trying to pick apart who these people are and what made them that way. The "oops, all anagnorisis" method of storytelling. The flipside of that, though, is there is exposition, so very much exposition, far too much of one character explaining a thing (my favourite scenes end up being the Percy/Artemis ones, because neither of them really have much they need to exposit to the other, so they can be messy emotional screaming matches instead). I consider it a mark of the fic's overall quality that I still find it so compelling despite my general distaste for exposition. There is a core theme of child abuse (emotional, primarily), though this is less something the author is bringing to it and more that the basic premise of Percy Jackson is kind of hosed. It is also pretty much just straight Mythos universe with PJO characters with all campers except for Percy being totally ignorant of how things "actually" work. With Percy being one of the most knowledgeable beings ever.
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Apr 22, 2023 17:17
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Honorraes new fic dropped. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/67496/totem
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Apr 22, 2023 22:35
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Being about 7-8% done with Forge of Destiny I'm enjoying it so far. It got a lot better after the first dozen chapters where it really dry explanations of the magic system. Now that I've got a cast of characters and its nearing the end of the enforced nonaggression preiod things are getting more spicy. I do hope this isn't just a magic school series though because I've had enough of that for a lifetime. That said, the lack of isekai or lit-rpg elements is unbelievably refreshing.
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Apr 23, 2023 01:01
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Nettle Soup posted:It's been a while since I've checked this thread! What's worth reading at the moment? this is really good btw i kind of lowkey love that Box is a satire of a stereotypical litRPG fan, also the fact that sky's culture is insanely steeped in dialectic behavioral therapy norms rules
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Apr 23, 2023 01:17
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Nitrousoxide posted:Being about 7-8% done with Forge of Destiny I'm enjoying it so far. It got a lot better after the first dozen chapters where it really dry explanations of the magic system. Now that I've got a cast of characters and its nearing the end of the enforced nonaggression preiod things are getting more spicy. I do hope this isn't just a magic school series though because I've had enough of that for a lifetime. it is not a magic school series. the story spends a xianxia-typical amount of time on being a student and then moves on.
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Apr 23, 2023 01:22
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A big flaming stink posted:this is really good btw I'm glad people are picking it up! It was on actually zero followers when I read it and had been rating-bombed with at least one .5. Things I'm liking right now, mostly in the order that they last updated, excluding the popular stuff: Darkhelm is cool, it's a Writathon effort, obstensibly a system/fantasy story, but there's no blue boxes so far. It's worth a look! The litrpg aspect is fairly mild and it feels more like a traditional fantasy/political novel. All the Skills is trash but for some reason I keep reading it. Deckbuilding with added boxes and dragons. Edge Cases feels like it's coming to an end, and for something that started out silly, it's got quite a melencholy atmosphere going.  Millisecond: Superspeed is a Curse, I don't know how I found this, if it was on Rising Stars or if it was a weird reccomendation, but it's an interesting take on superpowers, "what if superspeed but you can never turn it off" The Last Orellen just updated for the first time in a month, so that's cool. I'm also writing for Writathon again. I put Crests aside for now (although I did put the first volume up on Amazon a while back!) and am writing something a little more coherent this time: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/67000/another-kind-of-forest Nettle Soup fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Apr 23, 2023 |
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Apr 23, 2023 02:38
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Jazerus posted:it is not a magic school series. the story spends a xianxia-typical amount of time on being a student and then moves on. I'm pretty sure Forge is all school, then the sequel Threads has more different stuff.
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Apr 23, 2023 02:59
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Mr. Prokosch posted:I'm pretty sure Forge is all school, then the sequel Threads has more different stuff. This is true, but both are published on RR under the same title.
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Apr 23, 2023 04:10
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Nitrousoxide posted:That said, the lack of isekai or lit-rpg elements is unbelievably refreshing. It actually has litrpg stuff going on in the background (that was fortunately excluded from the Royal Road release and was basically always optional to pay attention to). It was originally posted in a thread with dice rolls deciding the results of various events, etc (I believe this is actually still the case, though the system used has changed). Fortunately the author is good enough that he makes stuff feel relatively natural despite this. The only area where the user choice elements to the story can occasionally feel a little strange is the protagonist's social choices.
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Apr 23, 2023 05:59
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Gladi posted:It is also pretty much just straight Mythos universe with PJO characters with all campers except for Percy being totally ignorant of how things "actually" work. With Percy being one of the most knowledgeable beings ever. I've given it a look based on recommendations in this thread. Initially, the main character is pretty obnoxious. Very smug, very quippy, intense coddled one-percenter vibes. I was rolling my eyes pretty hard at the pop culture reference padding in the first chapter. Riordan's writing does a much better job of presenting likeable heroes/villains. There's also some reliance on people remembering some specific details from Lightning Thief, and an editor would probably want to clarify some of the prophecy stuff this fic glosses over. That said, this writer is starting with a fairly interesting premise. I am three chapters in, and willing to keep reading to see where they are going. Stories about how someone with access to loads of impossible/forbidden knowledge and the consequences of how they use/share it can be very fun... but there's a risk that this protagonist will just come off as a sneering Well Actually guy. I am eager to see how this turns out.
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Apr 23, 2023 21:56
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I don't usually double post unless I think I have something worth saying. So, I'm midway through the percy Jackson fanfic mentioned earlier. I received a piece of information that recontextualized my annoyance with the protagonist being smug, overly-judgy, needlessly hyperbolic, and just very punchable in general. I still would have preferred someone else as the narrator, but the sudden reveal of him being a child/pawn of Nyarlathotep adjusted my expectations. Still don't have a character I legit like and am rooting for yet, but if the story slows down and stops constantly introducing new characters, maybe that will change.
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Apr 23, 2023 23:53
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I really like how in Forge of Destiny that Ling Qi's (up to chapter 60) (mostly) guileless nature is bringing together a bunch of otherwise really jaded and suspicious people. Bai Meizhen would have otherwise not had a single friend in the entire sect. She may well have been deeply injured despite her abilities on the first day of the truce ending were it not for Ling Qi looking out for her. She was flabbergasted at Ling Qi's immediate willingness to forgo any thought of challenging her for the treasure of the snake cave. Even Cui and Heijin respect Ling Qi. I feel like it's really unusual for spirits tied to someone to be so open to another person. It goes without saying that Ling Qi has helped Li Suyin and Ling Qi immensly. I really doubt they would have made the cut post truce end were it not for her. Gu Xiulan...I feel like she does want to think of her like a sister or friend, but at least in her POVs she's still got that noble attitude of thinking of Ling Qi as an asset to be nurtured and developed rather than a person she can rely on as a friend.
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Apr 24, 2023 03:48
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avoraciopoctules posted:Still don't have a character I legit like and am rooting for yet, but if the story slows down and stops constantly introducing new characters, maybe that will change. The story slowed down. The prose is still rough, and it still suffers from being written more like a TV script than a novel. I do not recommend reading the author's posts in between the chapters. With those disclaimers, when Undertow of Sand gets to the point and we start having conversations during the big heroic quest, it delivers some fantastic scenes. The author's mythological deep dives don't generate characters as memorable as Riordan's but lots of them are quite interesting. Maybe 15ish chapters in now, and I can tentatively recommend. The point where I started thinking positively of Undertow was probably chapter 12, "Heart to Heart at the A&W"
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Apr 24, 2023 06:35
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Nitrousoxide posted:I really like how in Forge of Destiny that Ling Qi's (up to chapter 60) (mostly) guileless nature is bringing together a bunch of otherwise really jaded and suspicious people. Bai Meizhen would have otherwise not had a single friend in the entire sect. She may well have been deeply injured despite her abilities on the first day of the truce ending were it not for Ling Qi looking out for her. She was flabbergasted at Ling Qi's immediate willingness to forgo any thought of challenging her for the treasure of the snake cave. Even Cui and Heijin respect Ling Qi. I feel like it's really unusual for spirits tied to someone to be so open to another person. Please post your later reactions to stuff, curious to see what a new reader thinks.
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Apr 24, 2023 22:14
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Ytlaya posted:Please post your later reactions to stuff, curious to see what a new reader thinks. Meizhen making everything reeeeeealy awkward between her Ling Qi with that kiss and then the near refusal to speak to her afterward while pretending like nothing happened. This is very much not a sustainable state for their relationship. Gu Xiulan remains convinced that Ling Qi and Meizhen are a thing but Ling Qi at least doesn't seem to think of Meizhen the same way. Ling Qi is a real sweet girl though. She really went out of her way to give Meizhen a chance to relax with lake. She put a ton of effort into researching what she liked and dumped a boatload of her money on making it perfect. Gu Xiulan deserves some serious props for reigning in her hot headed nature despite her clan's affiliation to fire. I do worry that her flashes of jealousy over Ling Qi's good fortune and rocket like growth will grow too large for her to stamp down, and she'll ruin her friendship to her one day though. She clearly was nonplussed at being shown up by Ling Qi's spirit animal right as she was about to show her own off. I like this drama way more than the much drier cultivation stuff where we just repeat her going to the vent or meditating in her room for days ad nauseam. Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Apr 25, 2023 |
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Apr 25, 2023 01:04
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avoraciopoctules posted:The story slowed down. The prose is still rough, and it still suffers from being written more like a TV script than a novel. I do not recommend reading the author's posts in between the chapters. Now mostly finished. Undertow never outgrows the tedium of the story needing to continually brag about how amazing its OC is. The smarm levels are really dire, and it is never as clever as it wants you to think it is. There are some cool character moments and chunks of dialogue, but I'm not sure it is worth wading through all of the tepid pop culture references and incoherent banter padding it out. As I said before, a good editor would probably trim off a LOT of this story. There's good stuff in here, but my recommendation could not grow beyond tentative at this point. EDIT: Wanna say at least one nice thing. There are at least 5 side characters who I found quite likeable.
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Apr 25, 2023 01:22
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Nitrousoxide posted:I like this drama way more than the much drier cultivation stuff where we just repeat her going to the vent or meditating in her room for days ad nauseam. The story actually cuts down on that stuff later (though I'm not sure how much later). By Threads of Destiny it has more proper story arcs instead of following her training schedule on a weekly basis. One thing I think I mentioned before is that you should keep in mind that stuff like "who to hang out with" or "what skills to learn/focus on" were determined by reader decisions. But (not a spoiler for you) this doesn't mean they turn out how the readers expected, as in the case with Meizhen (where I know a number of people were outright shipping the two of them, but unfortunately for Meizhen Ling Qi is far more into swole guys like the one guy who did the physical cultivation class early on.
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Apr 25, 2023 17:45
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Ytlaya posted:The story actually cuts down on that stuff later (though I'm not sure how much later). By Threads of Destiny it has more proper story arcs instead of following her training schedule on a weekly basis. This would explain why it's really feeling pretty aimless so far. There's not really much an overarching plot here other than "cultivate and get stronger." There's a few minor plotlines that have gotten started so far: Meizen's and Ling Qi's relationship Ling Qi's new spirit beast The 1st year council politics The barbarian incursion near the mountain that Ling Qi has to keep quiet about Ling Qi's and her Mother's long distance letters. The Sun/Bai conflict But none of these really feel like overarching story plot lines, just incidental that sort of slow burn in the background and pop up whenever the author wants to advance them. I hope one of them turns into something at least. On another note, the Book 9 in The Wandering Inn is out now, and I enjoyed its start with the baseball game. The cave goblins even got to participate. It was a nice pallet cleanser from the much darker Book 8.
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Apr 25, 2023 20:56
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Nitrousoxide posted:But none of these really feel like overarching story plot lines, just incidental that sort of slow burn in the background and pop up whenever the author wants to advance them. I hope one of them turns into something at least. FoD never really has an "overarching plot" exactly, but it's literally the only web serial I've ever read that manages to pull off "just following a person's life in Fantasy Setting." IMO it succeeds at this largely because the author has a very clear understanding of all the characters and always makes them behave in consistent and believable ways (with the only possible exception of Ling Qi herself due to the reader decisions, though he still does an admirable job of developing her as a character despite this, and I think later changes to the system help with things). One other thing that also probably isn't clear from reading the Royal Road version - readers initially selected the archetype for the main character, and a number of side characters are actually based off of alternate archetypes that could have been chosen. Some examples are Han Jian (the High Noble archetype) and Ji Rong (the Prisoner archetype, and the only one with higher "base talent" than Ling Qi herself, who was the Street Rat). The beginning of the original thread (where each of the archetypes are detailed) - https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/forge-of-destiny-xianxia-quest.35583/
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Apr 26, 2023 08:39
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I stopped reading HWFWM somewhere around what I think is book 7 and I saw book 9 was recently released so I thought I would give it another go. What happened to this series lol. I guess it was never fantastic or anything but it seemed like now every chapter was a recap of events, not even a story any more. Also maybe it was because I only listened to one or two audiobooks before I transitioned to royal road when I originally caught up so I tried an audiobook again to see if it would catch my interest and that was a mistake. I have a high tolerance for reading our stats and if it gets too bad I can usually just skip forward a couple of times and the story usually highlights significant changes so it's fine but now? I try skipping forward and I get like 2 minutes of describing a battle and boom I get like 10 minutes reading our the description and options of the moves, then rinse and repeat for like the 8 other characters in this one fight. It got so bad that I just gave up. Dude must sell like hot cakes tho since not everyone gets same day audible releases but I just don't know how someone could enjoy listening to this.
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Apr 26, 2023 15:52
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There's not even any worth in reading it for a laugh at how bad it gets because it's so consistently awful that it's boring If you told me the first pass of every chapter is written on an AI trained on the past 600 chapters I would believe it. Some of those broody diatribes have got to be copy-pasted. How many times has Jason traumadumped to a stranger? It's so absurdly self-referential
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Apr 26, 2023 16:23
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HWFWM is currently the highest revenue web serial and I really don't get it.
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Apr 26, 2023 16:39
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Nitrousoxide posted:This would explain why it's really feeling pretty aimless so far. There's not really much an overarching plot here other than "cultivate and get stronger." Given her background, Ling Qi, starting out, is not the best at long-term plans, if only because she never really had the opportunity to do so beyond the original goal of "survive" while on the streets. Ling Qi wants to make it to Inner Sect because that's basically going to guarantee that she can live a comfortable life after she pays off her debt to the Sect via military service. Her initial build and her decisions are geared toward that goal of making it through the tournament at the end of the year and getting into the top 8 there. She hasn't (yet) thought of what she'd do after that, but there may be events during her time in Outer Sect that inspire her to think about life after Inner Sect (assuming she made it). Katreus fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Apr 26, 2023 |
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