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Argue
Sep 29, 2005

I represent the Philippines
Once every three weeks. Pretty fortunate that you got started only now; this thing has been going on forever and three weeks is way too long between chapters for me.

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Jade Mage
Jan 4, 2013

This is Canada. It snows nine months of the year, and hails the other three.

Argue posted:

Once every three weeks. Pretty fortunate that you got started only now; this thing has been going on forever and three weeks is way too long between chapters for me.

Just feels kinda strange since it feels like it's drawing to a close, but the finale is the only thing it's missing.

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


I'm honestly glad that I didn't discover it until it was wrapping up; following 1 chapter/month for nine years would've been agonizing.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

For most web serials I will just let myself forget about them and read them in bulk every 2-3 months. The only exceptions to this are Ward (due to the entries being relatively frequent and long/substantial) and PracGuide (due to the entries being literally every couple days).

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



I've not read ward since it started.

How does it hold up in comparison to worm? Does Taylor actually show up?

21 Muns
Dec 10, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

tithin posted:

I've not read ward since it started.

How does it hold up in comparison to worm? Does Taylor actually show up?

Wildbow's gotten a lot more sophisticated as a writer since Worm regarding things like characterization, but Worm also seemed a lot more structurally sound on a large narrative scale. That's less of a problem now that the story's grown to the point that some of the deeper things going on are more obvious, but early on, the story would run into this problem where it was unpredictable, not because of intentional twists but because it was unclear which plot threads were supposed to be immediately important. By contrast, Worm's direction was always very clear - there were regular shocking swerves, of course, but those stood out as important all the more because you generally had a clear idea of exactly what Taylor wanted and what she was doing to get it. Early Worm was a lot better than early Ward at signposting where the story was going - if Worm were written like Ward, then instead of Endbringers getting mentioned as a concept in arc 3, and then it's 4-5 arcs later that one actually comes to Brockton Bay, all the characters would already know and discuss how bad it is that Leviathan is coming to Brockton Bay in arc 3, and then it'd still be 4-5 arcs later that anyone mentioned it again.

There was also this one really awful stretch of chapters relatively early on where the protagonist had essentially no opinions or commentary on anything going on; in retrospect, it was to make a point about how she was just going through the motions, but it should probably say something about how much people had lowered their expectations that people didn't generally catch onto this and just thought Wildbow was having a couple of bad weeks. If the way you write your protagonist checking out causes your readers to check out, then okay, that's immersive, I suppose, but it's probably not good writing.

As to your second question, why would you think she would? Do you remember how Worm ended?

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



21 Muns posted:

Wildbow's gotten a lot more sophisticated as a writer since Worm regarding things like characterization, but Worm also seemed a lot more structurally sound on a large narrative scale. That's less of a problem now that the story's grown to the point that some of the deeper things going on are more obvious, but early on, the story would run into this problem where it was unpredictable, not because of intentional twists but because it was unclear which plot threads were supposed to be immediately important. By contrast, Worm's direction was always very clear - there were regular shocking swerves, of course, but those stood out as important all the more because you generally had a clear idea of exactly what Taylor wanted and what she was doing to get it. Early Worm was a lot better than early Ward at signposting where the story was going - if Worm were written like Ward, then instead of Endbringers getting mentioned as a concept in arc 3, and then it's 4-5 arcs later that one actually comes to Brockton Bay, all the characters would already know and discuss how bad it is that Leviathan is coming to Brockton Bay in arc 3, and then it'd still be 4-5 arcs later that anyone mentioned it again.

There was also this one really awful stretch of chapters relatively early on where the protagonist had essentially no opinions or commentary on anything going on; in retrospect, it was to make a point about how she was just going through the motions, but it should probably say something about how much people had lowered their expectations that people didn't generally catch onto this and just thought Wildbow was having a couple of bad weeks. If the way you write your protagonist checking out causes your readers to check out, then okay, that's immersive, I suppose, but it's probably not good writing.

As to your second question, why would you think she would? Do you remember how Worm ended?

Yeah, I recall how Worm ended.

technically alive, in an alternate earth reconnecting with an alternate version of her mum.

PetraCore
Jul 20, 2017

👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

tithin posted:

Yeah, I recall how Worm ended.

technically alive, in an alternate earth reconnecting with an alternate version of her mum.
She dead

More seriously, no matter which interpretation you have of the deliberately ambiguous ending, I seem to recall Wildbow saying Taylor would not show up in Ward, at all, because her role as a person who can impact the story is done. Even if you think she lived, she did her job, hosed herself up majorly in the process, and now has to deal with trying to recover from that in a situation where she's cut off from all the power she had. Which... actually fits the themes of Ward pretty well, but I wouldn't want her to personally show up.

PetraCore fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Jan 2, 2019

jsoh
Mar 24, 2007

O Muhammad, I seek your intercession with my Lord for the return of my eyesight
taylor has been mentioned a handful of times but mostly nobody wants to talk about or think about the monster who mind jacked every cape in the multiverse

PetraCore
Jul 20, 2017

👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

violent sex idiot posted:

taylor has been mentioned a handful of times but mostly nobody wants to talk about or think about the monster who mind jacked every cape in the multiverse
Yeah I like that it's treated as a hugely traumatic violation by the narrative, regardless of the outcome. It also adds an extra layer of irony to the (actually pretty reasonable given the information publicly known) anti-parahuman rhetoric that parahumans 'failed to save the world' because the reality is that every single parahuman who was there at Gold Morning went through something hugely terrible in order to keep every Earth from being destroyed. And even for the people who were willing to put themselves on the frontline to fight Scion, there's a difference between that and getting body jacked, and getting body jacked is going to be traumatic.

Honestly I have to suspect part of why that sort of information wasn't made public after is because everyone who had been through it was way too loving upset from being bodyjacked to want to like... talk about it? Publicly, to strangers? Not to mention that it's not exactly reassuring to tell non-parahumans 'yeah, there was a parahuman that was able to mind control literally every parahuman in the multiverse, but it's okay she's gone now and it can't happen again'.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

One thing I think people frequently forget (assuming I'm remembering it mostly correctly) is that Taylor's mind-jacking was not actually the thing that allowed Scion to be defeated. Her efforts to control everyone and directly combat him failed, and the idea that ended up working was something that never truly required the mind-jacking in the first place (and IIRC it was executed at a point where Taylor had lost her control over a bunch of parahumans, and Taylor was just using the ones she still controlled to help contribute to the "imitate the partner Entity" plan?). Assuming I'm remembering things correctly, it's kind of a cool and thematically appropriate thing that Taylor's big personal sacrifice that involved deeply wronging thousands of people wasn't even truly necessary.

21 Muns
Dec 10, 2016

by FactsAreUseless

Ytlaya posted:

One thing I think people frequently forget (assuming I'm remembering it mostly correctly) is that Taylor's mind-jacking was not actually the thing that allowed Scion to be defeated. Her efforts to control everyone and directly combat him failed, and the idea that ended up working was something that never truly required the mind-jacking in the first place (and IIRC it was executed at a point where Taylor had lost her control over a bunch of parahumans, and Taylor was just using the ones she still controlled to help contribute to the "imitate the partner Entity" plan?). Assuming I'm remembering things correctly, it's kind of a cool and thematically appropriate thing that Taylor's big personal sacrifice that involved deeply wronging thousands of people wasn't even truly necessary.

It might have been necessary in the "it helped speed things up and time was critical" sense, but you're absolutely right that it wasn't clear-cut.

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


Ytlaya posted:

One thing I think people frequently forget (assuming I'm remembering it mostly correctly) is that Taylor's mind-jacking was not actually the thing that allowed Scion to be defeated. Her efforts to control everyone and directly combat him failed, and the idea that ended up working was something that never truly required the mind-jacking in the first place (and IIRC it was executed at a point where Taylor had lost her control over a bunch of parahumans, and Taylor was just using the ones she still controlled to help contribute to the "imitate the partner Entity" plan?). Assuming I'm remembering things correctly, it's kind of a cool and thematically appropriate thing that Taylor's big personal sacrifice that involved deeply wronging thousands of people wasn't even truly necessary.

Hmm yeah, I barely remember most of the finale, but if I'm remembering correctly she did dump most of the world's tinkers into one room and get them cooperating to make the space whale-destroying cannon she found in someone's skillset. While the majority of the big showdown felt like just an excuse to have a big, dumb fight while buying time for Lisa to solve the actual problem, I'm pretty sure nobody would've ever gotten an army of tinkers actively cooperating without high school politics and brain slavery.

So yeah, I dunno- I have no problem saying that she contributed a lot to the last push, but I could pretty easily be persuaded that there were multiple alternative avenues that didn't involve widespread brain slavery.

jsoh
Mar 24, 2007

O Muhammad, I seek your intercession with my Lord for the return of my eyesight
the tinker gun didnt do anything, the reason scion died was he was mercilessly bullied about his beloved counterpart dying because she was on the phone while driving, then foil shot him in the fuckin head with sting and he let it hit him

NinjaDebugger
Apr 22, 2008


violent sex idiot posted:

the tinker gun didnt do anything, the reason scion died was he was mercilessly bullied about his beloved counterpart dying because she was on the phone while driving, then foil shot him in the fuckin head with sting and he let it hit him

That was only steps 1 and 2. Foil's shot opened up the gateway through his fake body, the G-Driver shot through it was necessary to finish him.

edit: and lest you think that was not really necessary and any good cape could have done it, the G-Driver was an upgraded version of the F-Driver, which String Theory had originally made to -pull the moon out of orbit into the earth-. There are not a lot of things that operate on that scale, especially not with Eidolon gone.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Ytlaya posted:

One thing I think people frequently forget (assuming I'm remembering it mostly correctly) is that Taylor's mind-jacking was not actually the thing that allowed Scion to be defeated. Her efforts to control everyone and directly combat him failed, and the idea that ended up working was something that never truly required the mind-jacking in the first place (and IIRC it was executed at a point where Taylor had lost her control over a bunch of parahumans, and Taylor was just using the ones she still controlled to help contribute to the "imitate the partner Entity" plan?). Assuming I'm remembering things correctly, it's kind of a cool and thematically appropriate thing that Taylor's big personal sacrifice that involved deeply wronging thousands of people wasn't even truly necessary.

what in the

NinjaDebugger
Apr 22, 2008



It's both true and also kinda not true, in that while technically Khepri was not absolutely necessary for the final thing to happen (the G-Driver was being built beforehand, and anybody could have noticed and used Flechette to open the wound for it), the actual fight with Scion was mostly limited to the capes capable of keeping up with him or that people who could thought would be useful, and many of the capes that were necessary to the final "batter him with images of his dead partner" step 1 were not part of that group, including the especially critical one, the kid from the Travelers who got almost nothing but "Balance" mix, aka the poo poo that the entities were using to emulate humanity, and thus reminded him strongly of his dead partner.

Khepri was technically necessary to the ending in that without her, the necessary capes for enacting step 1 of the finale would 'never' have come together in the right place, at the right time.

('never' because, narrative requiring it means that it would have happened some other way, but that's not something they could know without having Deadpool handy.)

NecroMonster
Jan 4, 2009

psure taylor's actual big personal sacrifice was choosing to bully someone into suicide.

PetraCore
Jul 20, 2017

👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

Yeah, it's wrong to say what Taylor did wasn't necessary in the solution we saw presented, and there's no way of knowing if an alternate solution could have/would have gotten together in time, hypothetically. By saving time either way she undoubtedly saved lives.

But that's the thing I like, is that doing something for the greater good doesn't mean the individual harm of your actions go away. There's a real parallel there with Contessa and Cauldron, except Contessa had, like, over two decades longer to escalate. Taylor having good intentions and genuinely being vital to defeating Scion doesn't mean people aren't allowed to still be hurt, just like the fact that Cauldron's resources and information was vital to defeating Scion doesn't mean they didn't do horrific, monstrous things.

When your end goal is 'save every Earth in the multiverse from certain destruction' you can justify a lot to prevent that. But, well... the people involved are still people, and they still get hurt.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Omi no Kami posted:

Hmm yeah, I barely remember most of the finale, but if I'm remembering correctly she did dump most of the world's tinkers into one room and get them cooperating to make the space whale-destroying cannon she found in someone's skillset. While the majority of the big showdown felt like just an excuse to have a big, dumb fight while buying time for Lisa to solve the actual problem, I'm pretty sure nobody would've ever gotten an army of tinkers actively cooperating without high school politics and brain slavery.

So yeah, I dunno- I have no problem saying that she contributed a lot to the last push, but I could pretty easily be persuaded that there were multiple alternative avenues that didn't involve widespread brain slavery.

Yeah, but there's a difference between "what she did was an action that ended up leading to defeating Scion" and "her action was the only possible way to defeat Scion." The point, as you mention, is that the same plan could have conceivably been tried if someone had come up with it prior to her mind-jacking everyone. Like, if, at the planning stages before engaging Scion, someone had come up with that idea, defeating him without the mind-jacking could have been possible (and keep in mind that if it had happened at that point, they would have still had Eidolon and other powerful capes to help).

Like a lot of Taylor's actions, they were "better than nothing" but probably not "the best (or even one of the best) options possible."

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


Ytlaya posted:

Yeah, but there's a difference between "what she did was an action that ended up leading to defeating Scion" and "her action was the only possible way to defeat Scion." The point, as you mention, is that the same plan could have conceivably been tried if someone had come up with it prior to her mind-jacking everyone. Like, if, at the planning stages before engaging Scion, someone had come up with that idea, defeating him without the mind-jacking could have been possible (and keep in mind that if it had happened at that point, they would have still had Eidolon and other powerful capes to help).

Like a lot of Taylor's actions, they were "better than nothing" but probably not "the best (or even one of the best) options possible."

Yeah, plus it's really hard to theorycraft the space whale stuff, partly because a lot of details on their function were never clear to me (or that interesting in the greater context of the story). Honestly, scion in general is a great illustration of why I think "A vs. B" theorycrafting isn't often a good use of time for Worm's setting; a lot of the really broken stuff like scion just comes off to me like the final encounter a dungeonmaster invents to not be defeatable by the party until they find and fulfill the exact story beat he's planned for them. (The extensive conversation we recently had about Jack and how he generally gets less interesting as you try to more definitively describe how his thing works is another decent example in my mind.)

Looking specifically at Scion, this may be more of a problem with the story's structure and how it was presented than an issue with the core concept, but a lot of the final ramp-up really fell flat to me; it felt like arc after arc of "Look at all the amazing and interesting ways people are trying to combine their powers to fight the macguffin, whoops that didn't work and now Wisconsin is gone," followed by "Oh hey, some poorly-adjusted juvenile delinquents used the power of high school to hurt an eons-old starfish alien's feelings enough that he kills himself". Like, it works, and it's not explicitly bad in the way that would make me regret getting invested in the story to begin with, but it just felt like a really strange note to end on.

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

Omi no Kami posted:

a lot of the really broken stuff like scion just comes off to me like the final encounter a dungeonmaster invents to not be defeatable by the party until they find and fulfill the exact story beat he's planned for them. (The extensive conversation we recently had about Jack and how he generally gets less interesting as you try to more definitively describe how his thing works is another decent example in my mind.)

I've read a transcript or two of games Wildbow has run. This is exactly how he DMs.

He is not a good DM.

sunken fleet
Apr 25, 2010

dreams of an unchanging future,
a today like yesterday,
a tomorrow like today.
Fallen Rib

Omi no Kami posted:

Looking specifically at Scion, this may be more of a problem with the story's structure and how it was presented than an issue with the core concept, but a lot of the final ramp-up really fell flat to me; it felt like arc after arc of "Look at all the amazing and interesting ways people are trying to combine their powers to fight the macguffin, whoops that didn't work and now Wisconsin is gone," followed by "Oh hey, some poorly-adjusted juvenile delinquents used the power of high school to hurt an eons-old starfish alien's feelings enough that he kills himself". Like, it works, and it's not explicitly bad in the way that would make me regret getting invested in the story to begin with, but it just felt like a really strange note to end on.
I think it's cool wildbow managed to tie things up in a way other than "...and then the heroes finally punched the bad guy, with a bigger and more heavy fist than ever before, and it hit him hard enough that he died." From the moment Scion was conceptually explained it became unrealistic for the good guys to somehow become strong enough to just physically overpower and kill him.

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


sunken fleet posted:

I think it's cool wildbow managed to tie things up in a way other than "...and then the heroes finally punched the bad guy, with a bigger and more heavy fist than ever before, and it hit him hard enough that he died." From the moment Scion was conceptually explained it became unrealistic for the good guys to somehow become strong enough to just physically overpower and kill him.

Yeah, I definitely can't say that the ending is bad; it was reasonably satisfying, tied up the story's biggest loose ends, was definitely more creative than "Then Taylor punched the alien," and for all that I'm complaining, it makes for a nice bookend: "Taylor's mom died texting while driving, then Taylor got bullied into becoming a supervillain, then an alien's wife died texting while driving and Taylor bullied it into killing itself."

That having been said, I just wish that the plan felt more believable; so many of the core moving parts clicked into place in the last few arcs, when everything was going wrong and we (or at least I) were already struggling to parse that super-abstract writing style WB adopts when Taylor/Sy go crazy that it felt like there wasn't enough time to grasp and get comfortable with the big plan before they enacted it. When you add the fact that emotionally abusing a weird eldritch being just doesn't make much sense to me, it just feels like there are too many weird beats in that rush to cross the finish line.

I think it's just one of those bumpy plot beats, like Cauldron's master plan, where the concept is solid and interesting (alien's unbeatable, let's find a non-punchy resolution), but the actual plan and the way they go about it feels kinda contrived.

NinjaDebugger
Apr 22, 2008


Omi no Kami posted:

When you add the fact that emotionally abusing a weird eldritch being just doesn't make much sense to me, it just feels like there are too many weird beats in that rush to cross the finish line.

I think it's just one of those bumpy plot beats, like Cauldron's master plan, where the concept is solid and interesting (alien's unbeatable, let's find a non-punchy resolution), but the actual plan and the way they go about it feels kinda contrived.

When it comes down to it they didn't even emotionally abuse it. They exploited a flaw in its emulation of humanity, in that it was capable of being depressed at all, and the effects of that emulation made it unable/unwilling to just turn the emulation off.

Depression sucks.

PetraCore
Jul 20, 2017

👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

If you think about it, the real moral of Worm is don't text and drive.

Ghetto Prince
Sep 11, 2010

got to be mellow, y'all
Worth the Candle is back with a novella sized update.

Tom Clancy is Dead
Jul 13, 2011

new MoL

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


MoL: Oh snap! This is the minorest of minor concerns in the grand scheme of things, but I don't think lying to Taiven was a good idea. It was my impression from his antics later in the loop that Zorian was intent on repairing their friendship and/or trying to turn it into a romantic thing after the loop finished, and if he ever intends on reading her into the loop she's just about the worst possible person to deceive before coming clean.

Also, I'm somewhat interested to see if he'll ever have to tell a non-Zach friend how his exit from the loop went down: he very explicitly murdered the guy that most of his friends and relatives knew and (sort of) liked, and I can't see that going down particularly well, even if the upgraded model is a major improvement in most respects.


Edit to think: Also, this story is making me feel like I'm crazy- structurally, everything screams that one of the Zs is RR, probably Zach. But that makes zero sense given everything we know, and I'm reasonably sure the author is better than using a random asspull to justify an otherwise-unpredictable face-heel turn at the last minute. The only thing I could maybe see is some kind of geas (since they were mentioned specifically early on, then never came up again), but Zorian is such a paranoid jerk that I'm pretty sure he would've spotted that years ago.

Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jan 7, 2019

Affi
Dec 18, 2005

Break bread wit the enemy

X GON GIVE IT TO YA
MoL is such a treat to read.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Affi posted:

MoL is such a treat to read.

The genuinely competent web serials are so rare that they really stand out when they exist.

I remember being extremely disappointed when I discovered that other "quests" aren't nearly as good as Forge of Destiny. Like, I read FoD and thought "hey, this dice thing and CYOA aspect are pretty cool" and tried to read a bunch of other quests on the same website, but it turns out that the author has to be really good to make the CYOA/dice stuff work without giving a distinct "making poo poo up as they go along*" feeling. One of the FoD guy's biggest talents is that he obviously has an extremely clear concept of the characters and setting, such that different paths can still end up feeling natural and like they were meant to occur all along.

* This is also a huge issue with the vast majority of JP web novels I've tried to read. It is just extremely obvious that the author is just writing whatever random poo poo comes to mind, and any plot arcs that occur are completely uninspired. There are some exceptions, but this is true of the vast majority of isekai stories.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jan 7, 2019

ShinsoBEAM!
Nov 6, 2008

"Even if this body of mine is turned to dust, I will defend my country."

Ytlaya posted:

*This is also a huge issue with the vast majority of JP web novels I've tried to read. It is just extremely obvious that the author is just writing whatever random poo poo comes to mind, and any plot arcs that occur are completely uninspired. There are some exceptions, but this is true of the vast majority of isekai stories.

Here's a zany concept woahoah.

proceeds to write the most basic and generic story imaginable

That being said that's exactly how Virlyce claims to write things and I have grown to love their stuff.

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011
Websites like spacebattles that some web serials end up on have actually gotten me to start reading some fanfiction, even, since the best of the best long running fan fiction can sometimes be as good as a serial, but actually finding ones worth reading is even harder than any other genre, because there's so much bad fanfiction and it's even less coherently organized than normal fiction or even web serials.

Anias
Jun 3, 2010

It really is a lovely hat

Even less coherently organized than normal fiction or even: Web Serials

Plorkyeran
Mar 22, 2007

To Escape The Shackles Of The Old Forums, We Must Reject The Tribal Negativity He Endorsed

ShinsoBEAM! posted:

Here's a zany concept woahoah.

proceeds to write the most basic and generic story imaginable

That being said that's exactly how Virlyce claims to write things and I have grown to love their stuff.

90% of amateur internet fiction (be it fanfiction, original web series, or whatever) is an illustration of how a zany concept isn't actually a story. Authors expect that a story will naturally fall out of their interesting idea, and then when it doesn't either just give up or write a story that doesn't actually have much to do with their interesting idea.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Wolpertinger posted:

Websites like spacebattles that some web serials end up on have actually gotten me to start reading some fanfiction, even, since the best of the best long running fan fiction can sometimes be as good as a serial, but actually finding ones worth reading is even harder than any other genre, because there's so much bad fanfiction and it's even less coherently organized than normal fiction or even web serials.

Yeah; the frustrating thing is that good stuff exists, but not only is it really rare, but you usually can't rely on the community to identify it (because they largely love the terrible poo poo). Looking at top ranked titles for Asian WNs on NovelUpdates is a perfect example of this. Sometimes I feel like the decent ones just slip through the cracks by sheer coincidence (and even the "good" ones are more just "enjoyable/fun reading" than anything I'd heap serious praise on). The annoying thing about isekai WNs in particular is that they often do this bait and switch thing where they'll be interesting at the very beginning and spend a few chapters with the protagonist facing legitimate challenges, but then they almost invariably escalate into becoming overpowered. At least I've finally reached the point where I can tell what a series is like from other peoples' reviews (I mostly try to avoid series that have positive reviews along the lines of "I like that the protagonist isn't a pushover," because that usually implies that it devolves into a power fantasy).

I feel like many of these stories, particularly the isekai stuff, rely on "slice of life" as an excuse for not having an actual plot. But that sort of thing requires that you be really good at something else, whether that's comedy, compelling characterization, etc. I would say that the biggest commonality among the titles I dislike is a general sense of there being "no point." When other people praise this stuff, it's usually stuff like "oh, it's fun/light-hearted," but that feels like the "nice guy" of writing compliments. If something doesn't actually have good humor or an interesting plot and characters...seriously, what's the point? What's compelling people to keep reading?

Anyways, that's a couple paragraphs of me casting shade on other peoples' tastes.

ShinsoBEAM!
Nov 6, 2008

"Even if this body of mine is turned to dust, I will defend my country."

Ytlaya posted:

I feel like many of these stories, particularly the isekai stuff, rely on "slice of life" as an excuse for not having an actual plot. But that sort of thing requires that you be really good at something else, whether that's comedy, compelling characterization, etc. I would say that the biggest commonality among the titles I dislike is a general sense of there being "no point." When other people praise this stuff, it's usually stuff like "oh, it's fun/light-hearted," but that feels like the "nice guy" of writing compliments. If something doesn't actually have good humor or an interesting plot and characters...seriously, what's the point? What's compelling people to keep reading?

Anyways, that's a couple paragraphs of me casting shade on other peoples' tastes.

Yeah there is this weird thing where the protagonists get overpowered but, there is no major threat, no imminent goal so it's dork around in fantasy world. So then your expecting quality drama or comedy, nahh and it's not even that it's of low quality it just basically doesn't exist and instead just meanders and repeats the same old beats.

Megazver
Jan 13, 2006

ShinsoBEAM! posted:

Yeah there is this weird thing where the protagonists get overpowered but, there is no major threat, no imminent goal so it's dork around in fantasy world. So then your expecting quality drama or comedy, nahh and it's not even that it's of low quality it just basically doesn't exist and instead just meanders and repeats the same old beats.

Well yeah, that's the point of those stories. In power fantasies, the dramatic question is not "will they succeed" but "how will they succeed". That's a feature not a bug, like a happy ending being guaranteed in romance stories is a feature. And like romance, you have to feel a psychological need to read something like that to appreciate it.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

edit: So I'm catching up with Ward, and it turns out that apparently Weld can't make himself magically be attracted to a squid girl. Which actually makes perfect sense and is just kinda a bad situation all around.

It makes sense, though; I've always felt like Sveta is only really having her sanity held in check by her relationship with Weld, and that she'd shatter so bad that it'd make post-Chris Kenzie look like nothing if she lost that relationship. It's also very believably sad/awkward to imagine Weld awkwardly trying to pretend that he's enjoying Sveta doing whatever weird poo poo she was trying to do to make him feel good.

The kind of depressing thing is that I'm pretty sure Amy could more or less fix Sveta's issue, or at least give her a body that is human-ish. Then again, maybe there's some reason she can't fix case 53s? Either way, there'd be a bunch of baggage making it hard, if not impossible.

Megazver posted:

Well yeah, that's the point of those stories. In power fantasies, the dramatic question is not "will they succeed" but "how will they succeed". That's a feature not a bug, like a happy ending being guaranteed in romance stories is a feature. And like romance, you have to feel a psychological need to read something like that to appreciate it.

I feel like, in either of these cases, there's still room for an enjoyable story if other things are good. Like, in a romance, even if you know the main characters will end up together, you can still give them interesting characterization, or the story can have good humor. But for many of these power fantasy WNs, there's no other compelling aspect. Like, I'm not a huge fan of the spider WN, but I was at least able to keep reading it because it had a plot other than just "spider keeps getting stronger." I actually find that I like the parts most people dislike - when it follows other characters - and dislike the parts where the spider is just leveling up and learning boring game skills. Shun in that series is actually interesting specifically because he's actually weak compared with the big players (which makes it strange that a lot of people seem to have the take-away of him being a "stereotypical isekai protagonist"; I'm pretty sure the people who say that have not actually read any other isekai stories!).

In the case of power fantasies specifically, the main issue with a lot of these WNs is that "how will they succeed" is usually not interesting at all (either because it's based around the protagonist being ludicrously overpowered, or because it involves some dumb game mechanics). The main cause of this seems to be that, in most of these stories, the protagonist receives some ability that other characters don't have, so any victories are usually just the natural result of them having the ability (or abilities). The goal isn't so much "winning" as it is "becoming stronger and making numbers go up."

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Jan 10, 2019

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A big flaming stink
Apr 26, 2010
the wandering inn had an update.

Good news, it's a good Rags update! Bad news, the good Rags updates are just "violence is inescapable" to a degree that even eclipses The Very Wise Frog:

"Tales of the Silver Prince posted:

“Prince Kassardis knew his three wives were cunning and vicious in equal measure, and the journey ahead would be hard and grueling. Therefore the very first thing he did was to seek out the Very Wise Frog, which lived on a nearby hill known as King’s Rock. The road to the Frog was well worn by pilgrims, so it was not a hard climb for Kassardis, who wore his fine leather boots, but it was steep.

“Very Wise Frog,” said Kassardis, when he reached the summit, “This brutal life is like a steel cage. My father’s kingdom is built on the stacked bodies of his officers. He sups on blood. His surviving wife picks his gray hairs and pushes toy soldiers around from her sedan.”

“Your father’s kingdom is very large,” said the Very Wise Frog.

“I will escape my own blood,” said the resolute Kassardis, “And flee to the land of Samura, where their cities are built on covenants of peace and no blood is shed unjustly. The journey is long and hard, so please give me some advice, as my family has treated you well.”

“Samura is a myth told to small children to comfort them,” said the Very Wise Frog, “Your wives are much faster than you and will catch up to you, then beat you savagely before returning to the time honored ritual of trying to murder each other.”

The Prince was aghast. “I refuse this life of violence!” he said.

“Violence is inescapable,” said the Very Wise Frog.

“Don’t gloat at me, frog!” said the Prince, “My trial is only just beginning. Surely you have some other advice for me?”

“No,” said the Very Wise Frog.

“Frog!” said Kassardis, growing panicked, “What do you mean by ‘violence is inescapable’?

“It is,” said the Frog.

“You’re a liar!” said Kassardis.

“No, I am not,” said the Frog, “Nor have I ever been. Violence is inescapable. Inseparable from life itself. Permanent. It is fixed in your cosmology. Forever. I could go on, but that’s besides the point.”

At this Kassardis was so enraged that he threw the Frog off the summit of the mountain. It bounced of a cliff and split like a wet melon, dying instantly, and posthumously proving its point to Kassardis.

Kassardis, for his part, wept.

A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jan 10, 2019

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