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It was outwardly so for a bit and people really wanted it to be a different kind of story than what the direction the author picked, so people were willfully in denial about it for a while.
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Sep 15, 2020 09:42
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I'm enjoying reading Agenda of the Villainess, which, if you're at all familiar with isekai, you should already have an idea about. It's a western take on the otome villainess genre, in which someone from earth finds themselves in the body of the heroine's villainous rival from a dating sim. The only problem I have--if you can call it a problem--is that the characters we've seen and heard about so far correspond almost perfectly with the cast of Bakarina. That said, it's actually quite well-written, and I think it's probably going in a different direction from Bakarina.
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Sep 15, 2020 09:42
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Argue posted:I'm enjoying reading Agenda of the Villainess, which, if you're at all familiar with isekai, you should already have an idea about. It's a western take on the otome villainess genre, in which someone from earth finds themselves in the body of the heroine's villainous rival from a dating sim. The only problem I have--if you can call it a problem--is that the characters we've seen and heard about so far correspond almost perfectly with the cast of Bakarina. That said, it's actually quite well-written, and I think it's probably going in a different direction from Bakarina. Stuff like this is weird to me sometimes. It makes sense and sounds interesting as an individual story, but it's a bit bizarre that it becomes an entire genre of stories about becoming an otome villainess. It doesn't seem like there would be much "meat" to the genre after having been done a handful of times.
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Sep 15, 2020 17:28
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Sailor Dave posted:Stuff like this is weird to me sometimes. It makes sense and sounds interesting as an individual story, but it's a bit bizarre that it becomes an entire genre of stories about becoming an otome villainess. It doesn't seem like there would be much "meat" to the genre after having been done a handful of times. Especially the weird stuff.
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Sep 15, 2020 18:38
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Argue posted:I'm enjoying reading Agenda of the Villainess, which, if you're at all familiar with isekai, you should already have an idea about. It's a western take on the otome villainess genre, in which someone from earth finds themselves in the body of the heroine's villainous rival from a dating sim. The only problem I have--if you can call it a problem--is that the characters we've seen and heard about so far correspond almost perfectly with the cast of Bakarina. That said, it's actually quite well-written, and I think it's probably going in a different direction from Bakarina. Just checked it out and I’m kind of impressed with the world-building and the attempt to make almost a Brandon Sanderson style magic system.
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Sep 15, 2020 19:03
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Argue posted:I'm enjoying reading Agenda of the Villainess, which, if you're at all familiar with isekai, you should already have an idea about. It's a western take on the otome villainess genre, in which someone from earth finds themselves in the body of the heroine's villainous rival from a dating sim. The only problem I have--if you can call it a problem--is that the characters we've seen and heard about so far correspond almost perfectly with the cast of Bakarina. That said, it's actually quite well-written, and I think it's probably going in a different direction from Bakarina. I'm following and enjoying this so far as well, and I just want to point out the delightful two-star review of it in which the reviewer quit reading due to the main character "insisting that ‘hysteria’ was a misogynistic term from an outdated medical perspective". The reviewer isn't rude about it, I just find it hilarious that that's just too much for them to handle in their magical pseudo-victorian-setting otome villainess fiction.
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Sep 15, 2020 19:31
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nightchild12 posted:I'm following and enjoying this so far as well, and I just want to point out the delightful two-star review of it in which the reviewer quit reading due to the main character "insisting that ‘hysteria’ was a misogynistic term from an outdated medical perspective". The reviewer isn't rude about it, I just find it hilarious that that's just too much for them to handle in their magical pseudo-victorian-setting otome villainess fiction. Hysteria is a misogynistic medical term that is no longer tolerated. Among other things it was a common diagnosis for horny women and was treated “by digital or implement manipulation of the sufferer’s southern regions.” It also included a whole range of other “women’s issues” like fainting. The history of women’s health and medical practice in general is a bottomless pit of horrors.
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Sep 15, 2020 19:51
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Yeah, hysteria and hysterectomy have the same root because hysteria literally referrs to "wandering uterus." It's misogynistic bunk.
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Sep 15, 2020 22:19
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i think that was understood, folks they're making fun of a reviewer who believes that hysteria is real
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Sep 15, 2020 23:08
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The main thing that makes Agenda of the Villainess stand out is that the author is actually trying to research things rather than making up a setting inspired exclusively by other otome game isekai stories.
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Sep 15, 2020 23:23
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Sailor Dave posted:Stuff like this is weird to me sometimes. It makes sense and sounds interesting as an individual story, but it's a bit bizarre that it becomes an entire genre of stories about becoming an otome villainess. It doesn't seem like there would be much "meat" to the genre after having been done a handful of times. My issue with this genre is that most stories in it don't actually engage with the premise. It can be an interesting premise if it actually involves the original protagonist and game mechanics in interesting ways (or is funny, like that one I forget the name of that is based off of a reverse harem manga instead of an otome game), but it usually very quickly just becomes a regular romance-based isekai after the protagonist quickly gains her love interest/harem. One of the goofier things is that the protagonist will stay concerned about getting the "bad ending" even after the original plot has obviously been entirely derailed and everyone loves her. It's actually sort of similar to the way many combat/rpg isekai work, where there'll be a brief period near the beginning that is interesting and has the protagonist be disadvantaged, but then the protagonist quickly gains immense power (or immense love in the case of the otome villainess ones).
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Sep 17, 2020 02:44
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Velius posted:Not more Flos, boo! What have we done to deserve this? flos chapters are good now because they're also fetohep chapters
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Sep 17, 2020 02:58
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Jazerus posted:flos chapters are good now because they're also fetohep chapters He was only in it for two seconds. The only good thing about the second K chapter is that Flos lost and is now hosed though he'll probably wiggle his way out somehow.
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Sep 17, 2020 03:42
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asur posted:He was only in it for two seconds. doesn't matter all i want from TWI now is an arc where fetohep and teriarch buddy up for ridiculous adventures
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Sep 17, 2020 04:57
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Jazerus posted:doesn't matter At least Teriarch is on his way to Wistram, that is going to be a hilarious shitstorm
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Sep 17, 2020 15:48
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PracGuide: I wonder why Hakram is in a better mood. Recent events also make me curious why Catherine doesn't just do the "dropping lakes" thing more often. My speculation is that it's risky to expend her power like that in situations that aren't "attacking fortifications." Like if it were some sort of battle with the Dead King on the offensive, he could bait her into using it and then essentially have Cat out of the fight when he attacks again (but this isn't as much of an issue when attacking fortifications). edit: I also thought it was clever how the Dead King deals with the Mighty. The Mighty are all powerful enough (at night) to defeat most non-Revenant troops of the Dead King, but if Neshamah's troops continuously rain javelins on them they're forced to use their Night to defend constantly. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Sep 21, 2020 |
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Sep 21, 2020 05:36
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Ytlaya posted:PracGuide: I wonder why Hakram is in a better mood. Per story-fu, if you overuse a trick it will stop working at the worst time. It's why the invincible-due-to-artifacts white knight is going to be deleted soon; it's obvious it wasn't total inviciblity because he freaking died in the first place. This is also a subtle reason why a Named like Roland is more powerful than you'd think, having tricks you can't repeat is actually a boon in the story sense. For example, when Cat stole the Grey Pilgrims aspect it had fewer restrictions since it was one use only.
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Sep 22, 2020 02:41
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also pracguide also the battle of the camps shows why she doesnt drop a lake on people all the time, she was put into a coma after someone messed up the portal and is much less powerful now than then
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Sep 22, 2020 03:16
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Brain Candy posted:
I think the knight actually is invulnerable... To weapons. Abigail is going to kill him with the standard.
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Sep 22, 2020 03:17
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NinjaDebugger posted:I think the knight actually is invulnerable... To weapons. Abigail is going to kill him with the standard. My boring suspense killing suggestion is to portal 'em into a vat of holy water. We'll see!
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Sep 22, 2020 03:44
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Brain Candy posted:
Oh yeah, duh. Also there's the fact that the Dead King is one of the greatest mages and will likely counter any big working like this after the first time it's been used. violent sex idiot posted:also pracguide also the battle of the camps shows why she doesnt drop a lake on people all the time, she was put into a coma after someone messed up the portal and is much less powerful now than then I think the current situation might be a bit different because Sve Noc would likely "cut off" the working before it caused harm. Cat was using "her own" power when she previously dropped a lake, while this time she's borrowing the power of Sve Noc, so there's also a good chance that Sve Noc would be the one hypothetically affected. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Sep 23, 2020 |
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Sep 23, 2020 04:49
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Peachfart posted:At least Teriarch is on his way to Wistram, that is going to be a hilarious shitstorm I really need to catch up on this, I stopped reading it in May. It's just so much!
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Sep 23, 2020 09:28
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Couple of weeks ago the first 5+ chapters of a cyberpunkish YA series sitting in a scrivener project popped back into my head. Rather than wait till I have everything written to query tradpubs, RoyalRoad and/or the serial format became the best option for getting what I've written in front of as many readers as possible. I've made a living as an indie writer and publisher for the last 8 years thanks to a dusty SA thread, but I have zero experience publishing outside the framework of an eBook search engine. The plan is to immerse myself in this thread after posting this, but I'd like to say hello! first. Is there a good primer on web serial publishing somewhere on the web that google doesn't know of? Looking forward to reading the other goon-works.
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Sep 23, 2020 19:06
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Ytlaya posted:PracGuide: I wonder why Hakram is in a better mood. I presume it's because Cat is no longer pitying him or treating him as somehow lesser from before the injury. Sitting down and rejecting his proposal based on actual facts and logic is way better than accepting it out of hand because she feels bad that he got injured. Also I noticed that Cat is once again putting him on "equal level" with the Scribe in her thoughts. No lingering on his injuries or how hard it must be for him to do x, he's the Adjutant and his reports are valuable.
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Sep 24, 2020 18:05
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Bakanogami posted:
Tricks is the word alright, you... you smut-peddler! I see why it's called Blue Core, huh? Pervert.
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Sep 24, 2020 20:22
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John Lee posted:Tricks is the word alright, you... you smut-peddler! I see why it's called Blue Core, huh? It's okay popcorn reading with tentacle porn, which isn't to everyone's taste. It's also one of those litRPG dungeon core serials which will also turn off the majority of people here.
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Sep 24, 2020 20:58
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Xun posted:I presume it's because Cat is no longer pitying him or treating him as somehow lesser from before the injury. Sitting down and rejecting his proposal based on actual facts and logic is way better than accepting it out of hand because she feels bad that he got injured. I don't know about this - Cat's response letter was still clearly being sensitive (like how it says "I still think this idea has merit" at the end even though she pretty clearly thinks it likely doesn't from her internal monologue), and Cat's own feelings seem to still be very self-conscious and worried about Hakram (and she apparently hasn't even spoken to him since sending that response letter), so it doesn't seem like she's treating him the same (for completely understandable reasons on her part). It'd be kind of neat if Hakram just worked through this stuff on his own.
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Sep 24, 2020 21:15
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John Lee posted:Tricks is the word alright, you... you smut-peddler! I see why it's called Blue Core, huh? What's smutty about the phrase "blue core"?
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Sep 24, 2020 23:49
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LLSix posted:What's smutty about the phrase "blue core"? The written content of the story. EDIT> drat reading comprehension. Well, core is a ... core...
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Sep 25, 2020 15:54
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monkfoot posted:Couple of weeks ago the first 5+ chapters of a cyberpunkish YA series sitting in a scrivener project popped back into my head. Rather than wait till I have everything written to query tradpubs, RoyalRoad and/or the serial format became the best option for getting what I've written in front of as many readers as possible. Somebody wrote a good post a while back about how royal road works and how to get on/how important it is to get on the trending list, if somebody can find it.
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Sep 25, 2020 18:29
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I remember that post. IIRC the trending page tracks changes in readership more than raw counts. So if you start strong, you never hit trending. Instead what you want to do is post a single chapter, wait a month, then dump a pile of them all at once to grab people. I'm not a writer though, so someone else will probably have more accurate info.
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Sep 25, 2020 19:17
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Well, first things first - this thread doesn't really discuss serials or look at them in-depth. You're asking them a question they're fundamentally unable to answer beyond, like, 'I like the characters' or 'it's fun' - like, wow, no poo poo. But that won't tell you what actually hooks the average serial reader and makes a serial get big, which is the real question here. Luckily, I compiled a whole bunch of information on this very topic over on the decaying WebFictionGuide forums about a year ago and, despite big ripples going through the serial community, it still holds true enough. Milkfred E. Moore posted:Nope. It's about how their Trending system works. It goes something like this - in the first x amount of time of posting a story on RRL, it's difficult if not impossible to get that story on the Trending list (which operates, if my tired brain can recall it correctly, on ratings and reviews over time.) Therefore, to get on the that list, you need to post your first chapter and then not post anything else until that amount of time has passed (a month, I think?) Once it has, start posting as frequently as possible. Because you'll go from few if any ratings and reviews to a lot more, you'll shoot right up the Trending list and get more eyes on which means more ratings and reviews which means you stay up there which means...
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Sep 25, 2020 20:03
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I hit trending on Royal Road once without knowing or understanding why, then got a lot of real weird comments for a few weeks. Fun! That is my guide to writing web fiction, thank you.monkfoot posted:Couple of weeks ago the first 5+ chapters of a cyberpunkish YA series sitting in a scrivener project popped back into my head. Rather than wait till I have everything written to query tradpubs, RoyalRoad and/or the serial format became the best option for getting what I've written in front of as many readers as possible. For real though, there's not really a lot of info out there, as far as I could tell back when I started doing this. I have no idea how to actually promote work, or get it in front of more eyeballs, or anything really. If anyone does, they don't seem to be sharing. At least topwebfiction is back and being actively developed again now, which helps. Good luck, seriously. edit: or hey you could check out the above post! That's good too.
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Sep 25, 2020 20:03
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RoyalRoad specifically has some pretty easy-to-manipulate metrics, so when you see a story shoot from obscurity to notoriety at around 30 chapters it's usually someone gaming the system on purpose. Otherwise, shrugging emoji? It's a weird place to work because it's small and super-esoteric, but unlike most small and esoteric interest groups there's not really a central aggregator. The closest I've ever seen was TWF when it was working and RRL, which is its own special breed of hellish weirdo desert. (RRL also seems to be growing into kind of its own semi-isolated biome, since the stories that do well there share a constellation of features that don't seem to guarantee success outside of that ecosystem.) Incidentally Hungry, don't feel obligated to answer but do you find that google ads help? I saw an AdWords blip for Katalepsis the other day and was surprised, just on the basis that in my head adwords is more what people use to squirt Fortnite at a million twelve-year olds with the hope that 1% of them convert into the sales funnel.
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Sep 25, 2020 20:18
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Thank you to everyone who posted above. As I suspected, the RR forums are full of bad advice and disinformation which is par for the course for anything with money at stake. I started dumping chapters for a week, but it started to drop off in effectiveness after a few days.
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Sep 25, 2020 21:06
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This post seems to have some helpful advice: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgressionFantasy/comments/ir5vik/5_months_posting_on_royalroad_what_ive_learned/
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Sep 25, 2020 23:17
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LLSix posted:What's smutty about the phrase "blue core"?
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Sep 25, 2020 23:37
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monkfoot posted:Thank you to everyone who posted above. As I suspected, the RR forums are full of bad advice and disinformation which is par for the course for anything with money at stake. I started dumping chapters for a week, but it started to drop off in effectiveness after a few days. When during the day you post chapters seems to have an impact on attracting new readers on RR too. The front page has a column dedicated to most recent updates. I seemed to get more views if I posted around 5 or 6 pm CST than other times, but my sample size was really small. John Lee posted:'Blue,' as in, having to do with crass sexuality? Blue laws, blue language, that kinda thing. That's the joke in the series, although it's not apparent just hearing the name. Blue laws aren’t really about sex, or at least, aren’t obviously so, but I see where you are going, and it makes sense to me.
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Sep 26, 2020 03:11
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LLSix posted:Ok. Aren't they? It's the only definition I've ever heard. It's kinda antiquated, sure, but Merriam-Webster has: Blue: . . . a : profane, indecent a blue movie b : off-color, risqué blue jokes People say of a place with a lot of ribald talk that 'the air is practically turning blue,' that sort of thing.
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Sep 26, 2020 04:34
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I've literally never heard anyone say that and have only ever heard of "blue laws" referring to alcohol sales restrictions.
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Sep 26, 2020 04:41
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