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PetraCore
Jul 20, 2017

👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

Yeah, LL's shards budded into Colt. Technically all the cluster members have the same shards, but Colt's are specifically a bud off of their connection to LL. Part of why I didn't think clusters could bud is because they're already a p complex interaction of multiple shards, but, well. I guess by virtue of that things are only slightly more complicated metaphysically by adding Colt to the mix?

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PetraCore
Jul 20, 2017

👁️🔥👁️👁️👁️BE NOT👄AFRAID👁️👁️👁️🔥👁️

The Shortest Path posted:

March is as bullshit as she is because of Megan's power, which is to amplify other powers. With half of Megan's cluster dead (Goddess, Bill, the unknown 6th member) and the other two there helping her, it's pretty potent. It's why March was able to escalate so rapidly from her fairly low-level stuff before.
Honestly I'm assuming that part of the amplification is amplifying the range of March's thinker abilities. We've seen she could coordinate people well before but that was like, against mundane cops. And there's also the factor that thinker abilities don't always exactly do what they do on the surface - Taylor was initially considered a thinker bc of the feedback she got from her bugs, iirc, but the other factor of being able to multitask to an absurd degree to keep everything coordinated was actually a pretty significant part of her power. March's thinker power as 'enhanced timing' is a simplification. Part of what 'timing' seems to mean to March isn't just a sense of time, but a sense of coordination, scheduling, and clockwork teamwork. The sort of 'timing' an orchestra has to play all together, basically. When not enhanced, it's impressive but not broken. When it's enhanced, it starts to get on the level of 'things the Entities probably wouldn't have allowed normally'.

Which is to say, I agree Number Man's power isn't super well written on a theme, but March's poo poo seems more thematic and connected to me.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Btw Homer sounds cool and I wish he was still around. This guy with dreads and a golden baseball bat who is good at singing (post-triggering anyways) sounds like a cool dude.

The Shortest Path posted:

March is as bullshit as she is because of Megan's power, which is to amplify other powers. With half of Megan's cluster dead (Goddess, Bill, the unknown 6th member) and the other two there helping her, it's pretty potent. It's why March was able to escalate so rapidly from her fairly low-level stuff before.

Yeah I guess this makes sense, though it seems like it should still have plenty of major vulnerabilities. I guess if I think of it as "March can effectively play a 'chess game' provided she knows all the 'pieces' that will be involved" it kinda makes sense, though it seems like she'd still be vulnerable to people making plans outside of her field of awareness. Are we supposed to know why Thinkers were having so much trouble figuring out how to get ahead of her?

Wittgen
Oct 13, 2012

We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.
I started re-reading MoL, and a youth potion is mentioned in chapter 2 or 3. Whether it was planned out or he just picked up that thread later, it's kind of a neat thing to see. For feeling like a roguelike world, it's a pretty consistent setting.

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



Hi there. I'm Ice Phisherman and I write web serial CYOA hybrids. I write Blake Island School of Magic on this very forum, though I'm currently in the process of editing it and posting the work on my own website.

Here, have some artwork.





https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3835049&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

So Blake Island School of magic is based in the Shadowrun universe. If you're not familiar with it, smash together cyberpunk dystopia, fantasy and then have it focused primarily around disposable mercenaries that are mostly somewhere on the spectrum of psychopathy. It's a game where orks with pink mohawks shoot submachine guns from the back of a motorcycle at the cops. Or at least that's how the stories usually go.

I went a different direction. Instead of adult mercenaries, you get teenagers with some magic who are thrust into a world that is normally indifferent and hostile to them. They were chosen for their talent in order to help challenge and inspire the children of the corporate elite who are the majority of the island school's students. And the mix of rich and poor goes about as well as you would expect.

I talk intensely about topics that are relevant to the cyberpunk genre: Class, corruption, racism, politics, poverty, the rise of fascism and the slow decline of the neoliberal order as I enjoy writing about change despite it not being cannon. As I have a background in politics, I can actually talk about this stuff in a nuanced way but as a former professional writer, I also know how to keep those explanations from burdening the story while writing about interesting and likable characters.

So the project was originally supposed to be maybe 20,000 words to get me back into writing because I was terribly sick at the time. It has since ballooned into something like 600,000 or 700,000 words. I haven't measured it in a few months. Anyway, it's enormous. I'm probably two days away from finishing my fifth book within the series and that doesn't include a small novelette. The main character rotates from book to book and there are three main characters. One of which is an urban huntress from an abandoned part of the Seattle metroplex, another is a fairly manipulative guy from a slum hive (he gets better) and the last is a young woman who lost basically everything when she gained her magic because that came with physically changing into a new race and things get bad in the wake of that change as her family is horrible.

What I think makes the story unique and interesting in a narrative sense beyond my personal style is that I prefer to treat life as worth something in a place where life is cheap, where feelings and motivations are important in a genre where those tend to be ignored and change is possible instead of like nihilism winning. It's a very different take on cyberpunk than what you'd be used to. Less about burning chrome and mirror shades. More about changing things and making a difference in believable ways.

In the mechanical sense, it's a CYOA written by a former professional author. I wasn't exactly swimming in money as a writer, but I did well enough to keep the lights on and the fridge full so I guess I can string words in a coherent and interesting manner. And since Shadowrun is a tabletop game, the characters have fully statted out character sheets and interact with other characters who often also have character sheets. The characters have strengths, weaknesses, flaws and I deal with what the dice say rather than author fiat when applicable skills come up. I write, the thread chooses the direction we go (and gives lovely feedback) and the dice tell me what actually happens. Success and failure are possible. So it's also a tabletop game hybrid as well, though you don't need to know the rules to participate. You get a sense of what everything is good at and bad at through the story. It's also interesting to see how priorities change from "I want to buy a better gun" to "spend experience points so our character can become educated". And so through choices by thread votes, we've actually avoided going for a straight power fantasy so far where the purpose of getting stronger is to get stronger, and instead the purpose of learning something is because it's useful and motivated by the character's interests and world view.

Also at times I've had the story I had in mind derailed by thread decisions. Instead of wrenching the story back, I roll with it. So the story does have a framework most of the time and I know where I'm going, but at times it gets improvisational.

Anyway, that's the web serial CYOA actual play tabletop hybrid that is five books long and 600,000 words plus strong. It's still going too. I'm not sure when I'll stop. If that interests you then please read my stuff and enjoy. Feedback and participation is always appreciated too if you want a say in the story.

Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Feb 23, 2019

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Ytlaya posted:

Yeah I guess this makes sense, though it seems like it should still have plenty of major vulnerabilities. I guess if I think of it as "March can effectively play a 'chess game' provided she knows all the 'pieces' that will be involved" it kinda makes sense, though it seems like she'd still be vulnerable to people making plans outside of her field of awareness. Are we supposed to know why Thinkers were having so much trouble figuring out how to get ahead of her?

Yeah I don't really get why she can adapt on the fly to all sorts of unknown variables, that seems pretty bullshit tbh.

I think the reason that Tinkers are having trouble with her is because her plan involves shard fuckery and something to do with whatever remnant of Scion or Fuckster the shards are returning to, and Tinkers have always been completely unable to work around entity bullshit.

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


Wittgen posted:

I started re-reading MoL, and a youth potion is mentioned in chapter 2 or 3. Whether it was planned out or he just picked up that thread later, it's kind of a neat thing to see. For feeling like a roguelike world, it's a pretty consistent setting.

My favorite foreshadowing by far is how subtly his mind magic pervades the early chapters. When you're reading for the first time it just makes him come off as a shy or antisocial jerkass, but on the second runthrough it's explicitly obvious that there are rules and mechanics behind his headaches and social anxiety.

shades of blue
Sep 27, 2012
I get headaches and social anxiety just fine without any mind magic, excuse you

It definitely makes sense in retrospect but I'd have to reread it to see if it makes sense as foreshadowing.

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


Yeah, to be fair he probably has real anxiety too by that point, but his early behavior actually follows really strict rules (headaches and physical illness when in crowds, mild mirroring of strong emotions near him, symptoms get worse when the size/emotional volatility of the crowd increases), to the point that by the time his landlady is like "Dude, you have mind powers" it's actually amazing that he (and the reader) haven't noticed anything odd about it.

He also gets really bummed out and sad when he walks past a cat staring at the bike some little kid dropped in the river.

shades of blue
Sep 27, 2012
The crowd thing is a little weird, but the rest of that is just stuff that happens irl, no?

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


I could be reading too much into it, but given what a pervasive effect it has on his early behavior relative to later in the story I tend to assume it's mind magic-related. He's basically a complete introvert bordering on being a shut-in when the story starts, because of how uncomfortable being around people makes him- once he starts making friends with the brain spiders he's shown regularly going to social events, loud taverns, and other crowded and emotionally charged spaces without any problems, and real life introversion/anxiety doesn't just turn off like a light switch.

A big flaming stink
Apr 26, 2010
Dammit, pirateaba is actually taking time to edit what is likely the final chapter of this entire volume, which means I have to wait for 2 more days for #content :argh: :argh: :argh: :argh:

sunken fleet
Apr 25, 2010

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

Omi no Kami posted:

My favorite foreshadowing by far is how subtly his mind magic pervades the early chapters. When you're reading for the first time it just makes him come off as a shy or antisocial jerkass, but on the second runthrough it's explicitly obvious that there are rules and mechanics behind his headaches and social anxiety.

yeah it's pretty cool. Though honestly the first time I was reading through I was rolling my eyes so hard. I didn't realise (or imagine) that it was foreshadowing at all and thought the author was just setting up his totally cool and edgy Original Character Do Not Steal™ that was broody and antisocial but would soon grow to have power that plebs could only imagine. You know, the typical web novel self insert guy. I'm... glad the story didn't end up going in that direction.

Ice Phisherman posted:

Hi there. I'm Ice Phisherman and I write web serial CYOA hybrids.
Wow this is really cool. Thanks for posting, I would never have thought to peek into Games to find something like this. I'll definitely check it out when I get some free time.

Argue
Sep 29, 2005

I represent the Philippines

A big flaming stink posted:

Dammit, pirateaba is actually taking time to edit what is likely the final chapter of this entire volume, which means I have to wait for 2 more days for #content :argh: :argh: :argh: :argh:

Oh no! Will there be a nonpatreon update later?

Edit: There's an update; looks like nonpatrons are getting the (possibly) volume conclusion on Saturday.

Edit 2: my poor nails

Argue fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Feb 23, 2019

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


sunken fleet posted:

yeah it's pretty cool. Though honestly the first time I was reading through I was rolling my eyes so hard. I didn't realise (or imagine) that it was foreshadowing at all and thought the author was just setting up his totally cool and edgy Original Character Do Not Steal™ that was broody and antisocial but would soon grow to have power that plebs could only imagine. You know, the typical web novel self insert guy. I'm... glad the story didn't end up going in that direction.

Yeah, I'm glad the thread kept recommending MoL- it's prolly the most enjoyable web serial I've read (Twig was better-written and a close second, but I'm burned out on wildbow's style and all-pervading angst), but I came super-duper close to dropping it over the first few chapters. Zorian as dark-and-stormy-self-insert was a problem, as was the way he treated Taiven and... I forget her name, the class representative? I was concerned it was headed straight for anime-town and 90+ chapters of "Why won't these beautiful women stop bothering me so I can show the world what a manly wizard I am".

In retrospect the first... 5-10 chapters, maybe, could probably be edited and re-ordered to get to the point a bit faster without hitting as many cliche speedbumps, but the whole thing is a treat once you get past the initial hurdle.

Megazver
Jan 13, 2006

Ice Phisherman posted:

Hi there. I'm Ice Phisherman and I write web serial CYOA hybrids. I write Blake Island School of Magic on this very forum, though I'm currently in the process of editing it and posting the work on my own website.

...

Anyway, that's the web serial CYOA actual play tabletop hybrid that is five books long and 600,000 words plus strong. It's still going too. I'm not sure when I'll stop. If that interests you then please read my stuff and enjoy. Feedback and participation is always appreciated too if you want a say in the story.

That's pretty cool, man. I'll check it out!

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


Have any of you guys read the Cradle books? I'm giving the first one a try because someone pitched it as "Xianxia except with less sexism and juvenile humor," but it's already doing some stuff that makes me nervous to invest a full book's worth of time in it. I'm specifically worried by the way it constantly interrupts the fantasy pseudo-east asian wuxia stuff with jarring interludes from the scifi time cops, and I'm worried it'll pull a TGAB halfway through.

Silynt
Sep 21, 2009

Omi no Kami posted:

Have any of you guys read the Cradle books? I'm giving the first one a try because someone pitched it as "Xianxia except with less sexism and juvenile humor," but it's already doing some stuff that makes me nervous to invest a full book's worth of time in it. I'm specifically worried by the way it constantly interrupts the fantasy pseudo-east asian wuxia stuff with jarring interludes from the scifi time cops, and I'm worried it'll pull a TGAB halfway through.

Suriel gets a couple chapters worth of interludes in each of the first 4 books; Book 5 is the first where she isn’t featured at all and book 6 comes out in 5 days so we’ll have to see where that one goes. Thus far, the main storyline has stayed entirely divorced from her, except for the main character using her power level as a motivating factor/end goal. Because the series is called Cradle, the name of the planet it takes place on, the general expectation is that they won’t reach her level within this series proper because that would require ascension.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Yeah it seems like the Suriel stuff is mostly a framing device for expositing about various aspects of the setting, or in some cases giving you some alternative paths Lindon could have possibly taken. There have been a couple parts that directly feature her and whatever she's doing, and I have no idea how those connect with the main plot, but they only make up a few pages in each book.

I'm about half-way through the third book right now, for reference. I'm enjoying them a lot. One minor thing that bugged me a little in book 3 is Lindon went from not really being able to fight at all to being able to fight alongside Yerin with his new Enforcer skill during what basically amounted to a short time-skip. I guess it's pretty logical that gaining an art and practicing fighting a bunch would make a significant difference, but it was a pretty massive leap from being effectively useless in combat to being pretty decent.

Probably the biggest thing that strikes me as a bit of a potential "plot hole" is that it seems very weird that Lindon is in a position to become uber-strong simply by virtue of having not cultivated during his youth and being a "blank slate." It basically implies that almost everyone else is loving up their cultivation and taking paths that inherently have a dead-end at Highgold or Truegold. Part of it is explained by the fact that getting a really good iron body (which is probably the biggest component of Lindon's potential) really sucks and most people wouldn't want to do that, but you'd think that the stronger clans would still force their kids to get similar bodies. I guess there's also a strong luck component in Lindon's specific case, since he just happened to encounter Eithan, who was in a position to be able to give him access to Path of the Blackflame which just happens to have super ideal synergy with Lindon's two cores and pure madra, though you'd think that someone else would have figured out this option for "safely" using Blackflame. I guess it might be the case that the Heart of Two Stars thing Lindon used to split his core is completely unheard of in the outside world.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more it feels like "meeting Eithan" is by far the most important element to Lindon's growth, because it basically meant meeting someone who knew exactly how to best take advantage of Lindon's specific circumstances.

Anias
Jun 3, 2010

It really is a lovely hat

I always remember a snow fox leads the kid who punches the tree and Lyndon’s entire path starts from that fruit argument, then blame elder whisper. “You have eaten a wondrous fruit.” Indeed.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
It's a bit that Lindon is a blank slate but also that he is desperately hungry to get stronger. So Eithan has the blank canvas to work with and someone motivated enough to even go beyond his extreme training regiment.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Kyoujin posted:

It's a bit that Lindon is a blank slate but also that he is desperately hungry to get stronger. So Eithan has the blank canvas to work with and someone motivated enough to even go beyond his extreme training regiment.

Speaking of extreme training, it's kinda funny to me how (book 3 spoilers)Eithan was like "you're gonna scream when you hear my name, it's gonna be HELL" but he's like months into his training doing this course with Yerin and this is way less hardcore than the "locking him in a dark tunnel with a bunch of remnants and no help" stuff from Book 2. Like, the golem things (as controlled by Cassias, though Lindon doesn't know that) aren't even willing to kill him, and he isn't nearly as helpless (both in terms of having someone with him and in terms of being able to fight some himself). Granted, I won't be surprised if the later parts of this training (he just succeeded with the first part) are more intense*, but it still means he's passed like 1/3 of the year with a much less harrowing experience than he's previously dealt with. Even the "filling his core with Blackflame" stuff was described in a way that implied it wasn't nearly as painful as when he got his iron body.

* I'm kinda operating on the assumption this is the case, because judging from what we've seen so far Cassias's extreme reaction and "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO THOSE POOR KIDS?!" doesn't really make sense.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Feb 25, 2019

Ice Phisherman
Apr 12, 2007

Swimming upstream
into the sunset



sunken fleet posted:

Wow this is really cool. Thanks for posting, I would never have thought to peek into Games to find something like this. I'll definitely check it out when I get some free time.

Megazver posted:

That's pretty cool, man. I'll check it out!

Hey, thanks. I'm glad there was some interest. If either of you manage to finish the monster let me know in thread. I always love hearing that someone enjoys my work. :)

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


Hmm, thanks for the reviews guys! I just started book 3 and yeah, so far it's been a pretty fun read.

I agree that Eithian's role in Lindon's growth is kinda weirdly central. Like, given the extent to which society is apparently stratified around magical wuxia stuff, I think it's perfectly reasonable for Lindon the underpowered hobo to find himself completely outclassed and unable to find a teacher or bootstrap himself without outside help, so it makes sense for a cool mentor figure to appear, but I thought it was a little unsatisfying for him to go from grubby hobo to apprentice/science experiment for the martial arts equivalent of the Targaryen dynasty in two books without doing that much (besides enduring plenty of suffering) to earn it.

This is grasping at straws, but it is also a little disappointing how hard it can be to follow his progress. Like, not to connect everything back to MoL, but one reason it's so satisfying to watch Zorian grow is because the author does a pretty great job at outlining how magic works and shows him experimenting, failing, and refining his approach, so when he figures out something clever the reader can appreciate why it's clever and get hype for him. Thus far the Cradle books have been fun reads, but it feels like Xvim just appears every 200 pages or so, goes "You need a [magical fruit/instructional scroll/to be locked in a demon room and tortured in isolation for several weeks], you probably could've tried that yourself if you or the reader knew it was an option. Anyway, here ya go," then peaces out until he needs more linear growth. It's not bad, but it feels less satisfying.

Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 12:12 on Feb 25, 2019

Anias
Jun 3, 2010

It really is a lovely hat

Well wuxia and magical rationalism have different tropes but share a, Hrm, motto? One of the defining tropes of the cultivator genre is that forward progress follows training after some kind of sudden insight, sometimes encapsulated as “study and grow strong”so teachers/artifacts/elixirs etc as sudden insight generators are de rigeur. Magical rationalism is rooted in something like “magic works now apply the scientific method to grow strong”. The motto is the same but the source of inspiration is different.

Kyoujin
Oct 7, 2009
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised that as time goes on, Eithan gets caught up in other things and Lindon developed new techniques and improves on his own.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Omi no Kami posted:

Hmm, thanks for the reviews guys! I just started book 3 and yeah, so far it's been a pretty fun read.

I agree that Eithian's role in Lindon's growth is kinda weirdly central. Like, given the extent to which society is apparently stratified around magical wuxia stuff, I think it's perfectly reasonable for Lindon the underpowered hobo to find himself completely outclassed and unable to find a teacher or bootstrap himself without outside help, so it makes sense for a cool mentor figure to appear, but I thought it was a little unsatisfying for him to go from grubby hobo to apprentice/science experiment for the martial arts equivalent of the Targaryen dynasty in two books without doing that much (besides enduring plenty of suffering) to earn it.

This is grasping at straws, but it is also a little disappointing how hard it can be to follow his progress. Like, not to connect everything back to MoL, but one reason it's so satisfying to watch Zorian grow is because the author does a pretty great job at outlining how magic works and shows him experimenting, failing, and refining his approach, so when he figures out something clever the reader can appreciate why it's clever and get hype for him. Thus far the Cradle books have been fun reads, but it feels like Xvim just appears every 200 pages or so, goes "You need a [magical fruit/instructional scroll/to be locked in a demon room and tortured in isolation for several weeks], you probably could've tried that yourself if you or the reader knew it was an option. Anyway, here ya go," then peaces out until he needs more linear growth. It's not bad, but it feels less satisfying.


Not sure if you're far enough for this to be made clear yet, but (spoilers for up through maybe half-way through book 3)the Arelius actually are janitors and not exactly high-ranked within the Blackflame Empire's major clans (and IIRC the Blackflame Emprie is one of the smaller major entities in the world). Eithan is really pulling out the stops for Lindon/Yerin.

Also, I'm assuming you're not there yet, but it does detail him learning abilities later in Book 3. Previously he just had literally no techniques other than Empty Hand, so it wasn't that strange.

A big flaming stink
Apr 26, 2010
this is kind of random and i'm sure it's been asked before, but are there any web serials that are somewhat like I'm a Spider, So What? except actually well written and not translated by altavista circa 2001?

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

edit: So I just finished Book 3 of Cradle. How old is Jai Long's sister supposed to be? Because I imagined her as being like 10 years old or something, but now they're sort of implying that she would have been a love interest in the original timeline*.

* I'm very curious to know the circumstances that lead to her ending up in Sacred Valley in the "original timeline"

A big flaming stink posted:

this is kind of random and i'm sure it's been asked before, but are there any web serials that are somewhat like I'm a Spider, So What? except actually well written and not translated by altavista circa 2001?

It kinda depends what aspects of that web serial you liked. If you liked the "character leveling up in game-ish setting" there are zillions of series with that sort of premise. The ADTRW Web Novel thread would probably be better at answering that question.

You're pretty much always going to run into pretty poor prose if you're reading translated WNs like that, though (the closest native English thing I can think of to that is Wandering Inn). Actual professionally translated published LNs are the only format where you'll get decent prose for series like that.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Feb 26, 2019

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


Ytlaya posted:

edit: So I just finished Book 3 of Cradle. How old is Jai Long's sister supposed to be? Because I imagined her as being like 10 years old or something, but now they're sort of implying that she would have been a love interest in the original timeline*.

* I'm very curious to know the circumstances that lead to her ending up in Sacred Valley in the "original timeline"

I'm only partway through book 3, but I've always pictured her as being late teens or early 20s.

I haven't gotten to the love interest bit yet, but wasn't Lindon originally going to fall for a local villager in the valley? I remember in book 1 one of his flashbacks was him climbing over the roofs with a girlfriend and getting drunk, which I don't think her body could've managed.

Also, to be fair Lindon and company have spent most of their time post-valley in extremely hostile environments and borderline-active combat zones, so the quality of artists they're meeting probably isn't a good indicator of what the world as a whole is like, but holy cripes the sacred valley sucks- I think it's implied that hitting the lowest gold rank as an older teenager is pretty reasonable for even normo dedicated students, not just crazy-competent jerks with family bloodlines and sacks full of elixers? I find it amazing that the valley's knowledge regressed to the point that their best dudes would get curbstomped by random pedestrians in the wider world.

Argue
Sep 29, 2005

I represent the Philippines

A big flaming stink posted:

this is kind of random and i'm sure it's been asked before, but are there any web serials that are somewhat like I'm a Spider, So What? except actually well written and not translated by altavista circa 2001?

Most Japanese web serials have pretty bad translations, and the one I know of with a good translation isn't really a lot like Spider. For western web serials, yeah, like Ytlaya said there's The Wandering Inn, which is easily my favorite, but it's pretty light on the leveling. If what really tickles your fancy is stat sheets and numbers going up, you're better off checking out Threadbare, Worth The Candle, or The Daily Grind.

Plorkyeran
Mar 22, 2007

To Escape The Shackles Of The Old Forums, We Must Reject The Tribal Negativity He Endorsed
Unfortunately professional translations of LNs are also often dogshit. It's sort of amazing how much worse the official translation of Spider is than blastron's. The idea that you should reflow the text into paragraphs seems to be controversial.

A big flaming stink
Apr 26, 2010
Oh, uh yeah I should have specified that by "like spider" I'm actually interested in works involving transmigration in a similar vein. i was actually kind of interested in Shun and Katia's relationship before the loving Hugo parts ruined that.


The leveling parts, especially talking about it like a minmax grognard were my least favorite bits (besides, again, loving Hugo)

A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Feb 26, 2019

Argue
Sep 29, 2005

I represent the Philippines
You're in luck, then, because ADTRW now has a whole thread specifically for that topic! This is separate from the web novel thread, which has has largely become wuxia chat.

TWI q for patrons: Is the latest chapter, as speculated, the volume 5 conclusion? Because I don't know if I can wait til Saturday for that.

A big flaming stink
Apr 26, 2010

Argue posted:

You're in luck, then, because ADTRW now has a whole thread specifically for that topic! This is separate from the web novel thread, which has has largely become wuxia chat.

TWI q for patrons: Is the latest chapter, as speculated, the volume 5 conclusion? Because I don't know if I can wait til Saturday for that.

It is, in fact, extremely loving conclusive.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

A big flaming stink posted:

Oh, uh yeah I should have specified that by "like spider" I'm actually interested in works involving transmigration in a similar vein. i was actually kind of interested in Shun and Katia's relationship before the loving Hugo parts ruined that.


The leveling parts, especially talking about it like a minmax grognard were my least favorite bits (besides, again, loving Hugo)

Finally, someone with the same opinion about that series as me! Most people prefer the spider leveling parts and hate the Shun parts, whereas I'm the complete opposite; the only thing that really kept me reading were the parts from other characters' perspectives and the overarching plot. A very common "talking point" about the series is that Shun is "a stereotypical isekai* protagonist," but the interesting thing is that if you've actually read other web serials the complete opposite is true; Shun is actually pretty unusual in the sense that he isn't that powerful compared with the actual major players in the setting. His parts are interesting partly because he's a (comparatively) weak character working on limited information in a setting where the powerful major players are doing their own stuff.

Unfortunately,most other transmigration web serials tend to focus more on the "leveling up" stuff (or they just make the protagonist ridiculously powerful from the very beginning). At its core, the transmigration is usually a plot device that exists to fulfill the fantasy of "escaping to another world and being powerful and well-liked." I'm a Spider So What is actually a bit unusual in this regard, as the protagonist isn't really a self-insert.

Here are a couple transmigration/reincarnation WNs/LNs that are kind of decent:

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash (I think you'd have to actually buy the LNs for this one, since most of it isn't translated for free online) - It's a very different sort of thing than I'm a Spider So What, and is mostly just focused on following the protagonist and his party as they try to get by as an adventuring/monster-hunting party in a fantasy setting. It stands out mostly because it keeps itself grounded and isn't a power fantasy like most series of this nature. It's about as "realistic" of a take on the "people with swords and magic trying to make a living by hunting monsters" premise as you'll find.
Ascension of a Bookworm - Woman who likes books reincarnates as a young girl in a poor family and decides to create books since the only ones that exist in the fantasy world are super expensive. Runs into some issues later common to the genre (mainly that the protagonist becomes too successful), but it manages to keep a measured pace for quite a long time, with the protagonist gradually making progress towards her goals

* means "another world" and is basically the name of the "reincarnating or being transported to a fantasy world" genre

Argue
Sep 29, 2005

I represent the Philippines
Yeah, if TWI is my top pick for Western, Ascendance of a Bookworm is my top pick for Japanese, albeit for different reasons. This is largely an uplift story before it starts getting all Game of Thrones in later (untranslated) volumes, with the main character reinventing all sorts of things from earth (her excuse for knowing all the things: she's a librarian and a book addict who's essentially a living Wikipedia).

It gets into excruciating detail at times, with entire chapters devoted to embroidery, or figuring out how to make colored ink, etc, as opposed to other works which consist of "and then I invented a university and three months later it's extremely successful". It might be slow for some but for a certain kind of reader (me), it's exactly what they're looking for. Plus, unlike a lot of other stories in the genre, she actually has to work hard to make these dreams a reality, and her "cheat superpower", which is pretty traditional in isekai, first manifests itself as a fatal disease, which even two hundred chapters later she's only just barely starting to understand. If what you like is bringing 21st century knowledge to a fantasy world and accelerating civilization, this will be right up your alley.

The translation team that picked it up after blastron dropped it didn't get off to a good start, but they have a bunch of editors now, so it's quite readable, although with a release rate of 1 chapter every two weeks I hope you enjoy waiting literally 22 years to reach the ending.

Argue fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Feb 26, 2019

Affi
Dec 18, 2005

Break bread wit the enemy

X GON GIVE IT TO YA

Argue posted:


The translation team that picked it up after blastron dropped it didn't get off to a good start, but they have a bunch of editors now, so it's quite readable, although with a release rate of 1 chapter every two weeks I hope you enjoy waiting literally 22 years to reach the ending.

Sad that blastron dropped it because his translation was really good.

Is im a spider so what finished?

Megazver
Jan 13, 2006
Andrew Rowe, who writes the Sufficiently Advanced Magic books, created a sub-reddit for books like his series, Will Wight's Cradle and Mother of Learning that he calls progression fantasy. If you enjoy terrible nerdbooks as much as I do, give it a look.

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Silynt
Sep 21, 2009
TWI Patreon
Woof, what a ride, I’m winded after that one. LOTS more deaths of named goblins than I was expecting. And the Ants! :( Kind of disappointing that everyone except for the “monstrous” races basically walked away unscathed, but it seems to be true to the setting at least. RIP Pyrite and Headscratcher and Shorthilt.

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