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LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

Nitrousoxide posted:

Re: Book 3 of A Practical Guide to Evil.

I rather liked the final confrontation with Akua in her lair, but I felt that the whole fey invasion was not especially interesting and it more or less served as a really extended speed bump on the way to Akua. I mean I get that Cat's power set and personality have been heavily impacted by her Duchess title since then, but I just frankly could never find the fey a very compelling or intriguing faction and antagonist in Vol 3.

I think this is all pretty fair.

Speaking of PracGuide, is it still stuck with that weird publisher?

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Affi
Dec 18, 2005

Break bread wit the enemy

X GON GIVE IT TO YA
I mean I guess there are literary constraints and rules that say that what Sleyca is doing with the ambling world building is wrong and he should follow the agreed upon rules for the best possible result.

But it's nice that people can do whatever they want with Web serials and still find a measure of success. And he did say from the very start that "Hey this is going to be a long and slow story" so I guess do whatever you want to.


The Thegund arc is like intensely good. And I like this slow pace less but I do still like it. I think he's going somewhere interesting with it.

I will never forgive him for not showing us Kibby more.

Patrick Spens
Jul 21, 2006

"Every quarterback says they've got guts, But how many have actually seen 'em?"
Pillbug
Hey, for reference, Sleyca's a woman.

Nick Buntline
Dec 20, 2007
Doesn't know the impossible.

One thing mentioned in Sleyca's comment which I found surprising is that there were apparently people who messaged her to say they were dropping the story during the intake sparring events because even that was too much combat for their tastes. Which is weird since that section seemed one step removed from your average sports story in terms of the actual amounts of "conflict" involved imo. I guess it shows there's a potential market for someone to do the same thing but just purely slice-of-life? So like, the spin-off story that's just Natalie's life as a cooking/romance manga protagonist.

...Yeah, I'd read it.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


My issue here is not that the story is slow, it's that there's nothing going on right now that makes me excited for the next chapter to drop. These are very distinct things. This Used To Be About Dungeons was largely a "slow" story, but I kept tuning back in because I wanted to know if Mizuki was ever going to get with Alfric or if Verity was going to be able to reconcile with her father. Super Supportive just doesn't have any of that suspense happening right now. It seems to be purely doing setup stuff at the moment, and it seems to treat setup as a time where everything must go okay for the protagonist so as to not interfere with the setup.

Affi
Dec 18, 2005

Break bread wit the enemy

X GON GIVE IT TO YA

Patrick Spens posted:

Hey, for reference, Sleyca's a woman.

I'm very bad at throwing around hims when I don't know a person's preference.

Nitrousoxide
May 30, 2011

do not buy a oneplus phone



In terms of things that are being setup in this arc for SupSup:

For the Royal Road crew:
The Chainer family's attempts at getting their claws into Alden
Stuart's (presumed) upcoming affixation and visit with Alden during his downtime afterward
The whole school arc
Alden's ticking time bomb of the end of his leave from summoning
The disappearance of Boe
Mother's push for Alden to become a knight at some point in the future.

For the Patreon Crew
The upcoming demon summoning that I'm SURE will go wrong and will just happen to take place when Alden is visiting there with his friends/roommates
Boe's big secret that Earth won't let him talk about and which Alden is trying to learn how to create contracts to let him talk about it
The confrontation with the Boaters



And probably other stuff that didn't immediately come to mind.

Horizon Burning
Oct 23, 2019
:discourse:

LLSix posted:

I think this is all pretty fair.

Speaking of PracGuide, is it still stuck with that weird publisher?

yeah and they've stopped releasing chapters lol

Bremen
Jul 20, 2006

Our God..... is an awesome God

Nitrousoxide posted:

In terms of things that are being setup in this arc for SupSup:

For the Royal Road crew:
The Chainer family's attempts at getting their claws into Alden
Stuart's (presumed) upcoming affixation and visit with Alden during his downtime afterward
The whole school arc
Alden's ticking time bomb of the end of his leave from summoning
The disappearance of Boe
Mother's push for Alden to become a knight at some point in the future.

For the Patreon Crew
The upcoming demon summoning that I'm SURE will go wrong and will just happen to take place when Alden is visiting there with his friends/roommates
Boe's big secret that Earth won't let him talk about and which Alden is trying to learn how to create contracts to let him talk about it
The confrontation with the Boaters



And probably other stuff that didn't immediately come to mind.

Yeah, I think it's less "nothing is going on in SupSup" and more "some people don't find all the stuff going on in SupSup to be exciting."

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

I also was generally not a fan of that big chunk of Prac Guide book 3, even though it did have a few extremely good small moments. It felt like a big genre shift just to set up some new abilities for Cat.

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

Horizon Burning posted:

yeah and they've stopped releasing chapters lol

Sad face but thanks.

Peachfart
Jan 21, 2017

Pirateaba had an 'interview' on YouTube, pretty good so far. My favorite line so far: 'Writer's block is a myth.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSZrvQ09AzU

nrook
Jun 25, 2009

Just let yourself become a worthless person!

Peachfart posted:

Pirateaba had an 'interview' on YouTube, pretty good so far. My favorite line so far: 'Writer's block is a myth.'

Stephen King said the same thing! Some writers just can write all day with no issues. Though I think very few can write quite as much as Pirateaba.

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



nrook posted:

Stephen King said the same thing! Some writers just can write all day with no issues. Though I think very few can write quite as much as Pirateaba.

For all of his many, many, many faults, failings and moral bankruptcy, L. Ron Hubbard could slam out lovely novels all drat day as well.

My personal best for word count was I think 16,000 words in a day and back when I was extremely active I could regularly do 10,000 in a day. And that was just typing. My old speech to text program could (potentially) double that, but my throat would be ragged for days afterwards and editing speech to text was an absolute pain in the rear end.

Hearing that Pirateaba's personal best was 35,000 is nuts. I've done sixteen hour writing marathons where I fully lose track of time and come out of it only because my body is screaming at me for attention. I think in that case I doubled over because I hadn't eaten or drunk anything in two days. That was me at my worst ADHD inattentive moments and thankfully I have meds now.

So from experience, even though I couldn't come close to someone like Pirateaba, the ability to put out content is a mix of skill, natural ability and obsession, emphasis on obsession.

shades of blue
Sep 27, 2012

Affi posted:

I'm very bad at throwing around hims when I don't know a person's preference.

you should get better about this

shades of blue
Sep 27, 2012

Peachfart posted:

There is nothing wrong with Super Supportive's current slow pace, but it was definitely weird for the story to change pace abruptly and stay with a new slower speed for a long period of time. Like if TWI became a fast paced story with power leveling in short chapters, you would understand if people complained, right?

its more than just this even. it comes across as very clumsy because you all of a sudden put this huge dampener on the pace of the story but at the same time you are very disconnected from the previous arc. its all very discontinuous because of a number of the narrative decisions that sleyca made.

Nitrousoxide posted:

In terms of things that are being setup in this arc for SupSup:

For the Royal Road crew:
The Chainer family's attempts at getting their claws into Alden
Stuart's (presumed) upcoming affixation and visit with Alden during his downtime afterward
The whole school arc
Alden's ticking time bomb of the end of his leave from summoning
The disappearance of Boe
Mother's push for Alden to become a knight at some point in the future.

For the Patreon Crew
The upcoming demon summoning that I'm SURE will go wrong and will just happen to take place when Alden is visiting there with his friends/roommates
Boe's big secret that Earth won't let him talk about and which Alden is trying to learn how to create contracts to let him talk about it
The confrontation with the Boaters



And probably other stuff that didn't immediately come to mind.

look at how little of this is connected the previous arc. i can understand sleyca's desire to not want to write trauma porn or anything - but events from thegund more or less not affecting alden does cause some dissonance in storytelling and this is multiplied by the fact that it is a web serial. the fact that there is much less of a connecting throughline between the events of the current arc and the events of the previous arc makes it so that the decline in tension is much more noticeable and jarring.

Megazver
Jan 13, 2006
Yes, that's how multi-volume book series tend to work - you actually wrap a lot of poo poo up at the end of one book.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
Also Alden is quite affected by his time on the moon. He is explicitly dealing with it by throwing himself into hero school.

shades of blue
Sep 27, 2012

Megazver posted:

Yes, that's how multi-volume book series tend to work - you actually wrap a lot of poo poo up at the end of one book.

this format does not work in the context of a web serial because there is no break between the first and second book. it is all one continuous work of fiction that you are intended to read continuously as it is released.

Wittgen posted:

Also Alden is quite affected by his time on the moon. He is explicitly dealing with it by throwing himself into hero school.

idk, to me he does not come across as being very significantly impacted.

Megazver
Jan 13, 2006

shades of blue posted:

this format does not work in the context of a web serial because there is no break between the first and second book. it is all one continuous work of fiction that you are intended to read continuously as it is released.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


My problem with that list of upcoming plot points isn't that the things that are being set up aren't providing enough of a narrative throughline between volumes, it's that it's almost all setup. Practically everything except the admissions exams has been setting up plot beats for the future, giving exposition on the setting, and establishing Alden's new baseline on Anesidora. None of these plot beats are "happening", we're just being told that they're going to happen eventually. There is no tension and there are no stakes.

I'm including the current main school arc in this now that the exams are done. Every bit of school-related stuff has just been moving towards being eventually able to tell the new school story. Nothing is a challenge to be overcome and there are no consequences for failure, so everything feels like setup. At this point, it's all really banal stuff like meeting classmates and picking classes. (Patreon school-life things) Even the big landmark events like the party were setup. What happened during the party that could have gone very wrong? What about it changed anything going forward? (The origami thing does not count because that could have happened literally anywhere at any time and so its relation to the party was entirely coincidental.)

I am also including in this (big Patreon spoiler) Boe's magical cat-based journey to and from the island. At no point during that did we have any real chance of things going south. Boe showed up and told Alden about his powers. He also revealed that he has secret System knowledge. At no point during that was there a risk of anything going wrong. Sure, Boe could have been discovered, but Alden had the suite entirely to himself, so Boe just had to stay there to stay hidden. Boe was scared of Alden's reaction when he found out about Boe's Sway-like powers, but Alden is a very kind and accepting person so there wasn't a risk of anything bad happening there either. The only thing that actually "happened" outside of Alden learning things is that they now have that heroism pact.

To be very clear, I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. We're in a part of the story that is focusing hard on slice-of-life things, and one of the hallmarks of slice-of-life stories is that major plot progression doesn't always need to be happening. Characters can just hang out with each other and talk, and people enjoy reading about that. What I am saying is that people who are feeling that the plot has ground to a near halt are absolutely correct. I'm no longer dropping everything and diving on every chapter as soon as I get the Patreon notification, and it's not because I'm no longer enjoying or invested in the story, but because I don't particularly care what happens next.

Enkor
Dec 17, 2005
That is not it at all.
I've been restless with this Supsup arc, but also it's explicitly supposed to be intensity level four. So, I guess this is what intensity level four is like.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
I guess I am not refreshing my browser on Sundays and Wednesdays with quite the intensity I was 20 chapters ago, but I am still pretty dang engrossed.

I am curious about what Sleyca is going to change on the RoyalRoad release. I kind of expect it to address the one thing this arc I thought was a genuine stumble. I can't imagine how they could adjust it, but it will be neat to see.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Nitrousoxide posted:

Re: Book 3 of A Practical Guide to Evil.

I rather liked the final confrontation with Akua in her lair, but I felt that the whole fey invasion was not especially interesting and it more or less served as a really extended speed bump on the way to Akua. I mean I get that Cat's power set and personality have been heavily impacted by her Duchess title since then, but I just frankly could never find the fey a very compelling or intriguing faction and antagonist in Vol 3.

I agree about the fey not being great antagonists (none of them - due to their very nature - really have any agency aside from the King/Queen and the Prince of Nightfall), though I still thought a lot of the battles against them were extremely cool.

I think the fey battles work, particularly in hindsight, as "the events that establish the reputation of The Woe." Where they defeat enemies that would normally be beyond the reach of most Named. It's also basically the first/main campaign that established Catherine's reputation to a huge number of people, and thus forms a big part of her personal myth.


Affi posted:

I will never forgive him for not showing us Kibby more.

I don't think there's any way to have those things happen that would make any sense (or at least not be bad).

This is basically what I'm referring to when I talk about many/most web serials being "indulgent" and how I appreciate the few that don't do that. A more indulgent web serial would give more focus to fan-favorite characters like Kibby (even though it wouldn't make any sense narratively, because there's no plausible way to keep "interaction with Kibby" a frequent part of the story under current circumstances). Such an "indulgent" approach would also have Alden get more attention from people, including the Artonans, instead of staying fully undercover, even though it wouldn't make sense for Alden as a character to desire those things. Another poster mentioned Alden's trauma - that's the whole reason he doesn't want to do "high intensity" things! You can't have it both ways without becoming like "the worst parts of Worm" (where the protagonist is repeatedly forced into tense situations). The only real options are "force Alden into constant tense situations" and "have Alden uncharacteristically seek out tense situations." If Alden has agency (as he currently does), he's not going to choose to put himself into such a situation. I guess you could also force tense situations into Alden's current circumstances, like by making the Velras a bigger issue, but that would be contrived.

(all the stuff in spoiler tags is very vague and just in tags to be on the safe side)

PoorWeather
Nov 4, 2009

Don't worry, everybody has those days.

Ytlaya posted:

This is basically what I'm referring to when I talk about many/most web serials being "indulgent" and how I appreciate the few that don't do that. A more indulgent web serial would give more focus to fan-favorite characters like Kibby (even though it wouldn't make any sense narratively, because there's no plausible way to keep "interaction with Kibby" a frequent part of the story under current circumstances). Such an "indulgent" approach would also have Alden get more attention from people, including the Artonans, instead of staying fully undercover, even though it wouldn't make sense for Alden as a character to desire those things. Another poster mentioned Alden's trauma - that's the whole reason he doesn't want to do "high intensity" things! You can't have it both ways without becoming like "the worst parts of Worm" (where the protagonist is repeatedly forced into tense situations). The only real options are "force Alden into constant tense situations" and "have Alden uncharacteristically seek out tense situations." If Alden has agency (as he currently does), he's not going to choose to put himself into such a situation. I guess you could also force tense situations into Alden's current circumstances, like by making the Velras a bigger issue, but that would be contrived.

It's funny to read this, because I always think of 'indulgence' in webnovels as being completely different to your definition. Like, in a remotely normal book, you just couldn't do a 200k+ word sequence of a character slowly settling into a new place in life while working through past trauma. Even if we accept the framework of this effectively being a new 'book' where a sharp de-escalation is to be expected, narrative economy would mean this part of the story would need to be conveyed through implication or just explored briefly for a dozen chapters before a new inciting incident. Even if you ignore that it diverts from what the story has already established itself to be about, it's just too much time spent without a meaningful narrative arc.

Like, I think being able to have a fidelity to the pace of real life and go incredibly deep into the minutia of a character's feelings and relationships is one of the big advantages of the medium, and part of what I meant a few pages ago when I said that some indulgent works have been the ones which have impacted me the most. But it's definitely not what's regarded as conventionally good writing. I might have been going a little overboard when I was talking about Super Supportive's appeal being hypertuned for its audience, but sometimes doing the thing that panders to fans investment and expectations happens to line up with just following storytelling convention.

PoorWeather fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Oct 13, 2023

Nitrousoxide
May 30, 2011

do not buy a oneplus phone



Ytlaya posted:

Kinda curious how Nitrous will respond to an upcoming arc (that is probably the weakest IMO, though works well in hind-sight). I'm also a little surprised at not liking Book 3, since I thought the whole conflict with Akua was really good.

Not sure which arc this is referring to, but I've really enjoyed Book 4 so far. I'm about 2/3 of the way done. It's been Crusade -> Kingdom of the Dead -> Underdark/Dwarven Invasion (though I'm just at the start of this, where they are maneuvering between the dwarven vanguard and the main host) and they've all been great arcs. The latter two arcs have had a much smaller cast of characters to work with and aren't just like 20 chapters of endless battle so that's an improvement. And Malicia outplaying Cat in the Dead King's realm was fun and fits given her political and scheming focus. Even the Crusade worked well with the cast of heros providing a good counter to Callow's crew.

I fully expected Akua to have wrangled an undead body to escape from Cat at some point in the Undead Kingdom's arc but I guess not. She's still glued to Cat.

Cordelia doesn't strike me as politically savvy as I would have expected from someone who rose to her position by her own grit to be. She keeps getting played and outmaneuvered.

7c Nickel
Apr 27, 2008

Tagichatn posted:

Yeah, I like the concept of a planet with a narrow habitable zone that you have to follow. It seems kinda familiar but I'm not sure from where.

Well there was a survival/pvp game a few years back with that concept + strandbeests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XNq6Ybpehg

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

PoorWeather posted:

It's funny to read this, because I always think of 'indulgence' in webnovels as being completely different to your definition. Like, in a remotely normal book, you just couldn't do a 200k+ word sequence of a character slowly settling into a new place in life while working through past trauma. Even if we accept the framework of this effectively being a new 'book' where a sharp de-escalation is to be expected, narrative economy would mean the story would mean this part of the story would need to be conveyed through implication or just explored briefly for a dozen chapters before a new inciting incident. Even if you ignore that it diverts from what the story has already established itself to be about, it's just too much time spent without a meaningful narrative arc.

Like, I think being able to have a fidelity to the pace of real life and go incredibly deep into the minutia of a character's feelings and relationships is one of the big advantages of the medium, and part of what I meant a few pages ago when I said that some indulgent works have been the ones which have impacted me the most. But it's definitely not what's regarded as conventionally good writing. I might have been going a little overboard when I was talking about Super Supportive's appeal being hypertuned for its audience, but sometimes doing the thing that panders to fans investment and expectations happens to line up with just following storytelling convention.

In the context of web serials specifically, when I talk about "indulgence" I'm basically just talking about a certain type of pandering (I guess that's basically what I mean, though I think "pandering" sounds a bit more negative than intended). Pandering obviously exists in all media, but "consumers" of web serials are seeking a specific sort of thing, so the form of the pandering can be different. Many of the later Super Supportive chapter have a number of comments where people want Alden's special abilities to be revealed, or for him to do something that amazes/impresses people (at least on Patreon, I haven't read the RR comments but I imagine they're similar). And this is a big component of "wish fulfillment" web serials (which I'd say describes the vast majority of web serials that involve superpowers, isekai stuff, etc). There's also a sense that things should always be escalating to something bigger. In SupSup's case, Alden's story has already intersected with some of the biggest players in the setting, and pulling back from that is dissatisfying to some readers (it's even come up in this thread - Alden's already been involved in major stuff, so it feels unsatisfying to some people for him to just be living relatively normally now). This also applies to stuff like social interactions/dialogue, where readers really like/desire certain types of interactions (even though those interactions might often be unnatural/unrealistic). The most obvious examples of this are related to romance (and this is another situation where SupSup preemptively denied something to the reader-base, with Alden being asexual and seemingly having no interest in romance either), but it also applies to things like "a character the audience hates being given his/her comeuppance." This is another desire that has been reflected a bunch in comments. During the chapter where (this is from a while back, but not sure if RR is there yet though) the teacher was rude to Alden, there were a ton of comments basically wanting the teacher to somehow suffer consequences, or at least be embarrassed/humiliated, for what he said (because he said mean things to a character the audience likes). The indulgent/pandering thing would be to give comeuppance to the characters the audience is mad at, regardless of whether it actually makes sense (or even whether they're correct to be mad at them).

Nitrousoxide posted:

Not sure which arc this is referring to, but I've really enjoyed Book 4 so far. I'm about 2/3 of the way done. It's been Crusade -> Kingdom of the Dead -> Underdark/Dwarven Invasion (though I'm just at the start of this, where they are maneuvering between the dwarven vanguard and the main host) and they've all been great arcs. The latter two arcs have had a much smaller cast of characters to work with and aren't just like 20 chapters of endless battle so that's an improvement. And Malicia outplaying Cat in the Dead King's realm was fun and fits given her political and scheming focus. Even the Crusade worked well with the cast of heros providing a good counter to Callow's crew.

I fully expected Akua to have wrangled an undead body to escape from Cat at some point in the Undead Kingdom's arc but I guess not. She's still glued to Cat.

Cordelia doesn't strike me as politically savvy as I would have expected from someone who rose to her position by her own grit to be. She keeps getting played and outmaneuvered.


I actually consider the Kingdom of the Dead + Underdark parts to be my personal low point of the saga, though I'm not sure how common that opinion is. I still liked them a lot (though this applies to pretty much everything since it's my #1 web serial), but they just felt the least impactful for me in hindsight. The Kingdom of the Dead part in particular felt a little weird and is maybe the only part of the entire saga that seems like it could have been omitted entirely (it's very possible I'm wrong about this and forgetting something, but I feel like the story could have just directly gone to the Underdark without losing much).

Infinity Gaia
Feb 27, 2011

a storm is coming...

That one roomba litrpg story seems like it's going to KU soon. I rather enjoyed the first volume even if it can be a bit repetitive, so I'd recommend it to anyone that wants a fairly light comedic story to read. Provided you get around to it in the next two weeks or so, anyways. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/60292/all-the-dust-that-falls-a-roomba-isekai-adventure

Also this taught me the one kind of Royal Road ad that works on me: Ads that tell me a work is soon going to be sent to the KU dimension. I've ended up reading through most of some pretty mediocre cultivating tree serial just because soon I wouldn't be able to anymore.

shades of blue
Sep 27, 2012

Ytlaya posted:


This is basically what I'm referring to when I talk about many/most web serials being "indulgent" and how I appreciate the few that don't do that. A more indulgent web serial would give more focus to fan-favorite characters like Kibby (even though it wouldn't make any sense narratively, because there's no plausible way to keep "interaction with Kibby" a frequent part of the story under current circumstances). Such an "indulgent" approach would also have Alden get more attention from people, including the Artonans, instead of staying fully undercover, even though it wouldn't make sense for Alden as a character to desire those things. Another poster mentioned Alden's trauma - that's the whole reason he doesn't want to do "high intensity" things! You can't have it both ways without becoming like "the worst parts of Worm" (where the protagonist is repeatedly forced into tense situations). The only real options are "force Alden into constant tense situations" and "have Alden uncharacteristically seek out tense situations." If Alden has agency (as he currently does), he's not going to choose to put himself into such a situation. I guess you could also force tense situations into Alden's current circumstances, like by making the Velras a bigger issue, but that would be contrived.

(all the stuff in spoiler tags is very vague and just in tags to be on the safe side)

Ytlaya posted:

In the context of web serials specifically, when I talk about "indulgence" I'm basically just talking about a certain type of pandering (I guess that's basically what I mean, though I think "pandering" sounds a bit more negative than intended). Pandering obviously exists in all media, but "consumers" of web serials are seeking a specific sort of thing, so the form of the pandering can be different. Many of the later Super Supportive chapter have a number of comments where people want Alden's special abilities to be revealed, or for him to do something that amazes/impresses people (at least on Patreon, I haven't read the RR comments but I imagine they're similar). And this is a big component of "wish fulfillment" web serials (which I'd say describes the vast majority of web serials that involve superpowers, isekai stuff, etc). There's also a sense that things should always be escalating to something bigger. In SupSup's case, Alden's story has already intersected with some of the biggest players in the setting, and pulling back from that is dissatisfying to some readers (it's even come up in this thread - Alden's already been involved in major stuff, so it feels unsatisfying to some people for him to just be living relatively normally now). This also applies to stuff like social interactions/dialogue, where readers really like/desire certain types of interactions (even though those interactions might often be unnatural/unrealistic). The most obvious examples of this are related to romance (and this is another situation where SupSup preemptively denied something to the reader-base, with Alden being asexual and seemingly having no interest in romance either), but it also applies to things like "a character the audience hates being given his/her comeuppance." This is another desire that has been reflected a bunch in comments. During the chapter where (this is from a while back, but not sure if RR is there yet though) the teacher was rude to Alden, there were a ton of comments basically wanting the teacher to somehow suffer consequences, or at least be embarrassed/humiliated, for what he said (because he said mean things to a character the audience likes). The indulgent/pandering thing would be to give comeuppance to the characters the audience is mad at, regardless of whether it actually makes sense (or even whether they're correct to be mad at them).

out of curiosity do u think that the wandering inn is an indulgent story or no?

Lone Goat
Apr 16, 2003

When life gives you lemons, suplex those lemons.




Football Manager keeps making me laugh and cry, is that indulgent?

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

I think the first "book" of the roomba serial is the best part, and even that isn't much more than okay. On the upside, it is completely inoffensive.

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


Lone Goat posted:

Football Manager keeps making me laugh and cry, is that indulgent?

football manager is extremely indulgent but still very good

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

LLSix posted:

I think the first "book" of the roomba serial is the best part, and even that isn't much more than okay. On the upside, it is completely inoffensive.

Yeah, the first part is mostly just a pretty straight comedy/farce. After the first chunk though it starts really raising the stakes and plotting out a much bigger plot that also has a bunch of weirdly graphic violence and turning into a pretty standard isekai story.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
The latest public chapter of Calamitous Bob was very indulgent and fun. Bob 137 Showing the world she can singlehandedly convert their cities into the black magic irradiated Deadlands all for a bit of revenge against one traitor was probably not smart in reality but was definitely memorable and satisfying.

Nitrousoxide
May 30, 2011

do not buy a oneplus phone



Ytlaya posted:

I actually consider the Kingdom of the Dead + Underdark parts to be my personal low point of the saga, though I'm not sure how common that opinion is. I still liked them a lot (though this applies to pretty much everything since it's my #1 web serial), but they just felt the least impactful for me in hindsight. The Kingdom of the Dead part in particular felt a little weird and is maybe the only part of the entire saga that seems like it could have been omitted entirely (it's very possible I'm wrong about this and forgetting something, but I feel like the story could have just directly gone to the Underdark without losing much).

APGtE
I can sort of understand what you mean with the Underdark as the apotheosis talk is kind of an overused trope in web-novel power fantasies. And I was actually starting to get kind of bored with the prospect of Cat just building up her drow army to bust out onto the surface. But then she gets depowered and the climax of the book is more or less a vision trip with a goddess-in-the-making where Cat tries to convince her to tell the author of the story to gently caress off. Plus you get great individual scenes like:

quote:

“Then fear me, drow,” Akua Sahelian announced, “for I wield the power of friendship.”


Which had me literally cackling out loud.

Akua has been an absolute blast this book.

Haystack
Jan 23, 2005





If y'all could tag what your spoilers are about, that'd be great, thank you.

Myriad Truths
Oct 13, 2012
I'm not sure anyone here was still following it, but Pale has ended properly. I was in the middle of rereading/catching up so I need to get back to that. I liked it quite a bit so I hope it stuck the landing.

blastron
Dec 11, 2007

Don't doodle on it!


Back on the topic of indulgent stories, The Daily Grind is, perhaps, the most overly indulgent web serial I’m reading at the moment. Literally every time there is a moment of downtime, even if it’s just taking a second to breathe in the middle of an active crisis, the author immediately takes that as an opportunity to have incredibly intrusive vignettes where people we haven’t seen for dozens of chapters spontaneously show up to talk about their feelings or announce that they’re in a relationship. At the moment, the Order is working through the immediate aftermath of a major event that created a whole ton of problems that need to be addressed immediately, but while James needed to wait for some stuff to be organized, two different people who have nothing to do with the crisis just kinda wandered over and had two different conversations about their relationships.

Still a great story, but the author has no sense of restraint. The character moments are good, but they’d be way better if there weren’t corpses cooling a few feet away.

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Affi
Dec 18, 2005

Break bread wit the enemy

X GON GIVE IT TO YA
Need to reread the Daily Grind I think. I remember it being my very first webserial after I think Worm got me into the genre and it did some creepy things with office furniture.

It lost me at some point.

No I'm lying. My first Web serial was Soumi Warders on some battletech fansite. I still reread it occasionally and it kinda holds up.

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