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Vateke posted:Personally, I wasn't talking about Worm. Worm mostly worked. Pact was the problem. Also, I don't really mean "happy" moments as much as "peaceful moments". Things don't need to be optimistic, you just need time to breath. On a basic level, you get tense while reading a story. You can't just keep up that intensity for 20 chapters. It's emotionally exhausting. You need a break where the threat relents a bit, and things are going better at least relatively speaking. Otherwise the emotional shocks start to dull. This was honestly my biggest problem with Pact, there was just no goddamned place to catch your breath, just nonstop problem upon catastrophic problem. 'Exhausting' describes it perfectly. I mean, I loved it, I really did, but it puts you through the wringer.
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May 17, 2017 19:12
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I recommend Worm and Twig to people but I don't recommend Pact. I should read it again at some point but even the thought of it makes me tired.
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May 17, 2017 20:24
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I read the first third of Pact (up until Blake dies I think Arc 7) in a single weekend. It was intense. I honestly never minded the intensity of Wildbow's writing but that's not the same as saying his plots wouldn't be better if he learned how to do better plot structure, pacing, etc. Twig is manifestly far better at this than either Worm or Pact and it's really shining through in the back half of the story, now. I read the newest Twig chapter and am basically super stoked for the grand finale.
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May 17, 2017 21:52
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blastron posted:Yeah, Ra is, though I wish it had ended very differently. I dislike the ending so much that I can now only recommend it begrudgingly, with a big "the ending is weird and I don't like it but the first 3/4s is good" disclaimer in front of it. Sometimes the hero dies in the end.
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May 17, 2017 22:27
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Vateke posted:Personally, I wasn't talking about Worm. Worm mostly worked. Pact was the problem. Also, I don't really mean "happy" moments as much as "peaceful moments". Things don't need to be optimistic, you just need time to breath. On a basic level, you get tense while reading a story. You can't just keep up that intensity for 20 chapters. It's emotionally exhausting. You need a break where the threat relents a bit, and things are going better at least relatively speaking. Otherwise the emotional shocks start to dull. Honestly, it was even a bit of a problem in Worm. The closest thing to a peaceful part post-Leviathan was the timeskip, and that was, well, a timeskip. Thinking on it, I think part of the issue with Worm was that its particular plot/character progression wasn't that well suited to a super-long serial format. A story where a character gradually becomes jaded and a bunch of bad things happen isn't inherently a problem, but it becomes a problem when it happens over the course of (the equivalent of) many books. It's like reading a novel series of ten 300+ page books that continue to get more and more depressing. Once there gets to be that much content, I think stories need to be structured different. I can't really think of many, if any, really positive/funny segments in Worm post-Leviathan (or at least post-Slaughterhouse 9). Taylor becomes a character who's really serious/dour and isn't very fun to read. Twig has been much better about this. Sy is a very entertaining and interesting character, and even though things are moving in a negative direction, there are still funny, happy parts (though I kinda have my doubts they'll continue once Jamie #2 almost certainly dies (he's not dead yet but I would bet a large sum of money he's not going to last).
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May 17, 2017 23:04
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NinjaDebugger posted:That's literally what happened, he was super badly traumatized and she just kinda made it happen. And then abandoned them all, because there are 0 characters with agency. There's Armsmaster, who remains Worm's best character. Pact is the worst offender in Wildbow's never-ending escalation style of writing but Worm suffers from it, too. Up until the end of the Leviathan fight, I think Worm was excellent. After that, it stumbles. I think WB's planning was far more cognizant for that part of the story and, after that, it became a bit more improvisational. Worm is not a grimdark story, either, no matter what Internet people who can't read subtext say. What it is, however, is an unrelenting treadmill of increasingly dangerous threats, like Dragonball Z. But, like it or not, WB seemed to hit exactly what people wanted and the escalation and 'no quiet chapters' probably help a web serial more than hurt it. Given that I'm starting one up in the near future, it'll be interesting to see because I want to avoid those pitfalls. TBQH, my personal criticism of WB's prose is just how threadbare a lot of it is and how little he describes things, from landscapes to people. A lot of his writing can feel perfunctory and there are several times where things can be maddeningly unclear.
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May 17, 2017 23:23
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Milky Moor posted:There's Armsmaster, who remains Worm's best character. Team Armsmaster - he's really the best  And yeah I agree it works very well for a web serial where you're trying to get people to tune in immediately for the next installment every week but that doesn't not make it an exhausting slog to read when taken as a whole. Which is probably why the big edit has been in the works since forever...
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May 18, 2017 05:28
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The most recent update to Practical Guide to Evil is really bad
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May 18, 2017 15:18
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That sucks. I prefer to binge it and haven't read anything since Book 3 started myself.
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May 18, 2017 16:19
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The writing feels like Errata did no editing on the chapter and it makes it read really poorly. Hopefully this drop in quality doesn't continue.
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May 18, 2017 17:17
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Milky Moor posted:TBQH, my personal criticism of WB's prose is just how threadbare a lot of it is and how little he describes things, from landscapes to people. A lot of his writing can feel perfunctory and there are several times where things can be maddeningly unclear. That's actually something I like it lets me build my own image of the characters, and landscape based off the dialog and atmosphere being presented. While I have a few complaints about his characters, the landscapes and backgrounds of where each event took place was always very clear in my head even though he didn't sit there and tell me about the architecture or layout. I got a clear image of what each place felt like, and fairly vivid detail in my head which is what matters.
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May 18, 2017 17:57
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For some reason when I marathon a bunch of Wildbow chapters I start to involuntarily mentally narrate everything in his style of prose. It's sort of like when you play too much Tetris and start to imagine blocks falling constantly. One thing that sort of stands out is this thing he does where italicized thoughts of the narrator will appear between paragraphs or lines of dialogue. edit: As a Twig update, I'm not sure if this is intended, but it seems like Syvester's skills are changing now that he's away from the lambs and using this inferior Wyvern formula. He seems slightly worse are manipulation (I don't think he would have made so many mistakes during his attempt to recruit these Mice in the past) and somewhat better at physical things, like doing impromptu surgery on Jamie or stitching himself up. And his memory is obviously getting much worse, which is clearly intended. I find it funny how Sy keeps referring to drug/substance abuse like he isn't totally a user himself. There seems to be no practical difference between his use of Wyvern and anyone else's use of a recreational drug. If anything, it's a little worse, since Wyvern doesn't seem to cause withdrawal and he's using it solely because he likes its effects. Not that I think he's wrong to be using Wyvern, but it just comes off as a little hypocritical when he speaks of others' drug use. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 01:40 on May 19, 2017 |
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May 19, 2017 00:34
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Ytlaya posted:Hey, at least "woman taking advantage of a man's emotional trauma in the interests of romance" is an interesting inversion of the more common situation with genders reversed! the problem i had was that there was insufficient recognition of what a sack of poo poo taylor could be if she thought her cause was good. it's THERE if you look hard enough, but i can remember all of two people - cockblocker and miss militia - who ever have sufficient perspective that a reader might be forced to pause when they call her on it. too much deck-stacking in her favour, not just plot-wise but also morally. also i thought brian and taylor got together pre-massive trauma... i'm pretty sure that was the case. i could be wrong.
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May 19, 2017 14:56
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Neurosis posted:the problem i had was that there was insufficient recognition of what a sack of poo poo taylor could be if she thought her cause was good. it's THERE if you look hard enough, but i can remember all of two people - cockblocker and miss militia - who ever have sufficient perspective that a reader might be forced to pause when they call her on it. too much deck-stacking in her favour, not just plot-wise but also morally. Yeah, I agree that the story conveniently has most, if not all, of her actions work out in the end. Even though Taylor says that she has regrets, the narrative makes it seems like if she had acted differently she would have ultimately failed much earlier. I can't remember when Brian/Taylor got together. I tried googling it but it's not specified on the Wiki and it would be a big pain in the rear end to search through the story itself. I feel like Brian was already emotionally compromised by that point, but I could be wrong. edit: I always felt like Taylor and Clockblocker should have gotten together. I feel like she could have really used someone with a sense of humor and little attachment to her past experiences/trauma in her life. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:00 on May 19, 2017 |
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May 19, 2017 16:40
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Maybe what the Mass Worm Edit should do is break up the Constant Escalation Of Threat Level with some more fun battles where the characters we're rooting for massively outmatch their opponents instead of the other way around? You know, like the equivalent of that scene in the new Guardians Of The Galaxy where Yondu tears apart the entire rebel crew to take his ship back. Maybe cut the Merchants massacre by the S9 and replace it with sometime after the S9 arcs where the Undersiders easily run the Merchants out of town. Maybe have Oni Lee critically gently caress up and lose a fight with Skitter, hard, before Jack gets to him - it'd reinforce what Jack says about Oni Lee's power gradually making him dumber over time, and it'd give Skitter and the audience a boost to her confidence levels. I saw a suggestion recently that the Parasite arc could be adjusted so that the Undersiders' plan to steal the data from the Protectorate goes more smoothly, and I think it could work. Also, obviously, make the timeskip less of a timeskip, but I think everyone already knows that that needs to be done. I personally think that the S9000 arc should be two arcs instead - both to fit in more time to breathe in the midst of that chaos and to more credibly establish the S9000 as a real serious problem instead of just an excuse to get to what Jack ultimately does.
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May 19, 2017 23:57
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I didn't read Worm until after it was complete - why do so many people seem to have an issue with the time skip? It could have definitely been handled better but I think a timeskip is way better than another half dozen arcs of endbringer fights - if that would even be enough. I guess it was kind of a missed opportunity to give some of those characters introduced near the end more backstory/screen-time but the cast is pretty loving huge as it is. Plus the whole hero/villain divide sort of disappears towards the end which sort of renders a lot of the drama immediately pretimeskip moot.
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May 20, 2017 07:18
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I was getting tired of Worm's escalation when the author shat out some new endbringers and dropped it entirely during S9000.
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May 20, 2017 08:28
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I'm not even sure how S9000 works with the whole thing of shards picking individual hosts through time and space.
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May 20, 2017 08:31
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Milky Moor posted:I'm not even sure how S9000 works with the whole thing of shards picking individual hosts through time and space. By replaying the memories through similar physiology, artificial (weaker, altered) triggers were simulated. Just like how Noelle's clones had the same physiology and twisted mentalities, and consequently warped connections to the shards. Presumably whatever heuristic the shard used to form the connections to the individual hosts responded to this, though imperfectly.
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May 20, 2017 08:57
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sunken fleet posted:I didn't read Worm until after it was complete - why do so many people seem to have an issue with the time skip? It could have definitely been handled better but I think a timeskip is way better than another half dozen arcs of endbringer fights - if that would even be enough. I guess it was kind of a missed opportunity to give some of those characters introduced near the end more backstory/screen-time but the cast is pretty loving huge as it is. Plus the whole hero/villain divide sort of disappears towards the end which sort of renders a lot of the drama immediately pretimeskip moot. The problem is that Taylor spends like 3 or 4 times as long being a hero during the time skip than she did as an Undersider and literally nothing happens. Taylor doesn't change in literally any way, nobody starts doing anything different, nobody dies or is affected. It's pointless.
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May 20, 2017 10:44
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The other problem is that it transparently reads at WB realising that the epic showdown is two years away and needing to get to it. Two years away in a novel that'd been day-by-day, hour-by-hour is a big issue.
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May 20, 2017 11:06
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[Enemy III: Arc 18] Twig is getting kinda heartbreaking. I wonder if the lambs will make it back. And how many of the people around him are still real. The comments suspect that Shirley and Pierre have been gone for a while. 
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May 21, 2017 00:23
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Piell posted:The problem is that Taylor spends like 3 or 4 times as long being a hero during the time skip than she did as an Undersider and literally nothing happens. Taylor doesn't change in literally any way, nobody starts doing anything different, nobody dies or is affected. It's pointless. Worm can get really dense at times.
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May 21, 2017 00:44
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Piell posted:The problem is that Taylor spends like 3 or 4 times as long being a hero during the time skip than she did as an Undersider and literally nothing happens. Taylor doesn't change in literally any way, nobody starts doing anything different, nobody dies or is affected. It's pointless. I mean I agree I guess. I don't really see how it could have been written better though. No one wants to read 2 years of losing battles and training right? Maybe Wildbow shouldn't have given such a big window between the start of the story and the poo poo Getting Real but I think it was supposed to be like - thematic? Taylor turns 18 right after the timeskip doesn't she? Which has some sort of literary meaning ...probably.
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May 21, 2017 06:25
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Yadda yadda turning 18 yadda yadda becoming an adult yadda yadda shoots Aster in the head yadda yadda I would say that Taylor's character is boiled down over the time skip. She loses extraneous details and gradually becomes her passenger. Even before she becomes Khepri, she's become a walking utility machine whereas before the S9000 and the time skip, she's has a much more human nature. Taylor's loss of innocence is a gradual process and it's the murder of Aster, not Coil, that is where she really loses it. I think the biggest flaw with Worm is that Wildbow decided to have the Apocalypse be two years out when the serial had been operating on a much shorter time table before that. If you better space out the earlier arcs, you can have actual arcs in Boston and not have the two year blank space that we end up with. Maybe that's why the edit is taking so long? He might be trying to stretch out the Undersider arcs to be more reasonable and then add some extra time with the Boston wards. shades of blue fucked around with this message at 08:24 on May 21, 2017 |
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May 21, 2017 08:20
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Sampatrick posted:He might be trying to stretch out the Undersider arcs to be more reasonable and then add some extra time with the Boston wards.
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May 21, 2017 08:23
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:I think he's said that the timeskip was a mistake, but also that he'd add interludes of other people to tell the story of that time rather than extend Taylor's story. I think this is a dumb solution for a lot of reasons. For one, Worm is the story of Taylor. The Travellers interlude was already a little bit too much; more of those would be annoying. Secondly, it doesn't actually solve the problem of Taylor's characterization remaining mostly the same from the Undersiders to the Boston Wards. Thirdly, adding some downtime would help to build the relationships between Taylor and all the other characters; it would also help to build their relationships with each other. I really don't think a bunch of non-Taylor interludes are how you fix the time skip.
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May 21, 2017 08:29
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Sampatrick posted:The most recent update to Practical Guide to Evil is really bad Why? It seemed on par to me.
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May 22, 2017 01:43
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Sampatrick posted:I think this is a dumb solution for a lot of reasons. For one, Worm is the story of Taylor. The Travellers interlude was already a little bit too much; more of those would be annoying. Secondly, it doesn't actually solve the problem of Taylor's characterization remaining mostly the same from the Undersiders to the Boston Wards. Thirdly, adding some downtime would help to build the relationships between Taylor and all the other characters; it would also help to build their relationships with each other. I really don't think a bunch of non-Taylor interludes are how you fix the time skip. I thought she was with the Chicago wards. I enjoyed the interludes, even the large scale ones like The Travellers because they freed us from Taylor's viewpoint, we get to see the world not according to her, and we get a look at how people view Taylor. There is an interlude with Golem where we learn more about Taylor's outer personality in a single chapter then we do in the few previous arcs. Having Traveller style interludes with all of her Chicago teammates would be more effective if Wildbow wanted to work in some character changes over her time with the Wards.
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May 22, 2017 03:40
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Edit: misread, ignore.
rocode fucked around with this message at 04:19 on May 22, 2017 |
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May 22, 2017 04:14
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Sampatrick posted:I think this is a dumb solution for a lot of reasons. For one, Worm is the story of Taylor. The Travellers interlude was already a little bit too much; more of those would be annoying. Secondly, it doesn't actually solve the problem of Taylor's characterization remaining mostly the same from the Undersiders to the Boston Wards. Thirdly, adding some downtime would help to build the relationships between Taylor and all the other characters; it would also help to build their relationships with each other. I really don't think a bunch of non-Taylor interludes are how you fix the time skip. i honestly enjoyed reading other perspectives more than taylor's (maybe less so the travelers bit but the other interludes). taylor was so self-righteous she began to really wear on me, and the other perspectives tended to show you things happening in the wormverse that could never have come up in taylor's frame of reference.
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May 22, 2017 09:10
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Neurosis posted:i honestly enjoyed reading other perspectives more than taylor's (maybe less so the travelers bit but the other interludes). taylor was so self-righteous she began to really wear on me, and the other perspectives tended to show you things happening in the wormverse that could never have come up in taylor's frame of reference. There's so much stuff you could cover in the timeskip with clever interludes. Just do two years of interludes. Like, prior to the timeskip, someone argues that Dragon's suits are militarization of capes. Then two years later, she's got dozens of them and her private Dragon's Teeth army with those disintegration weapons and Armsmaster's target prediction software. I would've liked to some more detail on that. It'd help depict the world getting worse as opposed to a timeline of Endbringer fights.
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May 22, 2017 09:34
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I'm not sure if adding 2 years of interludes is really going to benefit something that's already 1.7 million words long.
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May 23, 2017 05:24
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LibrarianCroaker posted:I'm not sure if adding 2 years of interludes is really going to benefit something that's already 1.7 million words long. ssh ssh sssssssssssssshhhhhh
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May 23, 2017 05:33
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LibrarianCroaker posted:I'm not sure if adding 2 years of interludes is really going to benefit something that's already 1.7 million words long. There's a lot more fluff you could tear out or cut down. Like, say, the Traveler arc.
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May 23, 2017 05:45
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Milky Moor posted:There's a lot more fluff you could tear out or cut down. Get out
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May 23, 2017 06:19
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I liked the travellers  Trickster was one of my favorite characters before he got regulated to the sidelines forever, interesting power and an interesting character.
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May 23, 2017 08:03
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I liked the Travelers, but their side book dragged on way too long. The whole thing could have been condensed into a single chapter, we didn't need the full narration.
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May 23, 2017 14:00
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Wildbow's interludes are amazing when they're a single chapter in between arcs. When the interlude becomes an arc, it becomes boring as gently caress. Honestly the entire Echidna arc is kind of dumb but eh.
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May 23, 2017 20:12
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Has there been any confirmed speculation on that dude chillin in a porch that Khepri said wasn't worth the aggravation of gathering? I read the series last year and I have a lot of thoughts about it (mostly negative and relative to the structure of the narrative and the self righteousness of Taylor and her affirmation of said self righteousness in her ending...but I don't know that it's worth detailing and in finding some similar sentiments in this thread anyways)
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May 23, 2017 23:27
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