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Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Welcome to the Web Serial Megathread!

What is a Serial?
With the advent of the printing press, newspapers and magazines were all the rage. As the Victorian era began, many fiction authors started using them to publish fascicles, stories that came in multiple parts over a period of time. Many popular books were originally published this way, such as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Sherlock Holmes, among others. While it declined in popularity over the years, especially in the past several decades, it has always remained present as a form of publication particularly for fiction.

Then along comes the internet, which gave a lot of would-be authors a platform to easily show their stuff through Bulletin Board Systems, and then websites such as Fictionpress, Wordpress, and Livejournal. Translators started publishing translations of Light Novels and Xianxia in serialized form. Fanfiction grew from a weird thing middle-aged people wrote in Star Trek fan magazines into a behemoth of teen amateur writing. Then, in June of 2011, a guy going by the name Wildbow publishes Worm, a darker, more modern superhero story that becomes absurdly popular and starts a new trend in web serial publication, and it's been growing from there.

So, to put it simply, a Web Serial is an internet-published story that is written and published one entry at a time. There's a lot of good ones, and far, far more terrible ones, and this thread is for talking about them!


Sounds great, what should I read first?
There are several popular web serials that are considered by many in the thread to be pretty good. Here's a few:

Worm, by Wildbow.

quote:

An introverted teenage girl with an unconventional superpower, Taylor goes out in costume to find escape from a deeply unhappy and frustrated civilian life. Her first attempt at taking down a supervillain sees her mistaken for one, thrusting her into the midst of the local ‘cape’ scene’s politics, unwritten rules, and ambiguous morals. As she risks life and limb, Taylor faces the dilemma of having to do the wrong things for the right reasons.
Worm is a behemoth (heh), sitting at 1.7 million words. It is a long read, but a good one, and it's been finished for a few years; the author is looking at finding a way to have it heavily edited and published, while also writing his next novels Pact and Twig. Always remember that the main chapters are told from the perspective of the protagonist, so you aren't directly seeing how others view her actions - some of which can be seen as horribly immoral. I, personally, recommend you skip the comments sections at the bottom of each chapter because some of the readers are... eccentric, to say the least, and there are tons of awful fan theories and bad interpretations of events that will likely confuse you. Also, in case the summary didn't spell it out clearly enough: This story can be dark. It is not your granddaddy's superhero comics.

Ward, by Wildbow.

The sequel to Worm, currently updating and pretty much the hottest poo poo on the block right now. Spoiler policy is in effect as described below, but as always read the thread at your own discretion.


Twig, also by Wildbow.

quote:

The year is 1921, and a little over a century has passed since a great mind unraveled the underpinnings of life itself. Every week, it seems, the papers announce great advances, solving the riddle of immortality, successfully reviving the dead, the cloning of living beings, or blending of two animals into one. For those on the ground, every week brings new mutterings of work taken by ‘stitched’ men of patchwork flesh that do not need to sleep, or more fearful glances as they have to step off the sidewalks to make room for great laboratory-grown beasts. Often felt but rarely voiced is the notion that events are already spiraling out of the control of the academies that teach these things.
I haven't read this so I don't have anything to say about it, but someone else will write something for me to put here soon! Also it's now completed.


The Gods are Bastards by D.D.Webb.

quote:

It was a land of sword and sorcery, knights and castles, adventure and heroics . . . but that was a thousand years ago. The Gods are Bastards brings high fantasy forward into the Industrial Revolution, to a more complicated and more cynical era. In the world of Tiraas, an ancient Church is making its final grab for ultimate power, an upstart young University seeks to bring its Enlightenment ethos to the world, and a teetering Empire struggles to balance tradition with progress. Better weapons, magics and technologies have changed the landscape, for better and for worse, and the age of ancient evils and heroic deeds is long over. So when an ancient evil does rise again and heroes are needed to beat it back, the people of Tiraas must scramble to meet the challenge . . . if they can only stop scheming against each other long enough. One thing is becoming clear: this time around, the gods will be no help.
TGAB is a story that combines elements of a Dungeons and Dragons style high fantasy setting with classical Westerns, coated with a veneer of urban industrialization. To start with, it follows the freshman class at a university dedicated to teaching politically-sensitive proto-adventurers how to not blow up the countryside around them as they go through their inevitably action-packed lives, as well as religious-political machinations of the Tiraan Empire, its Universal Church, the Thieves' Guild, and several other organizations. In short, there are a fuckton of characters. Thankfully, the author does a really drat good job of making all of them very unique and very memorable, from the ludicrously overpowered, thousands of years old elvish archmage, to the random street rats that can barely tell their boots from their asses, to the gods themselves. The worldbuilding is second-to-none, the plot twists are pretty twisty, and the bonds of friendship and camaraderie are thicker than blood. It's a pretty optimistic story, for a modern fantasy. It was started in 2014 and has been updating consistently 2-3 times a week since, and is not quite half finished at a bit over a million and a half words.


Mother of Learning by nobody103.

quote:

Zorian, a mage in training, only wanted to finish his education in peace. Now he struggles to find answers as he finds himself repeatedly reliving the same month. ‘Groundhog’s day’ style setup in a fantasy world.
Mother of Learning follows a self-centered rear end in a top hat through the first month of his third year at Wizard College, then poo poo goes horribly wrong and he's stuck in a time loop. As he progresses through several iterations of that month, he goes on a journey of self discovery, bonding with people he had previously disregarded as not worth his time, and learning a bunch about magic and the world around him. It's got a very strong "power fantasy" feel, but in a way that feels earned, if that makes sense. It's a constant uphill struggle against something that is impossibly difficult for him to fight against, so it never feels cheap even a lot of how Zorian gets more powerful can feel contrived. It's been going since 2011 and updates fairly slowly, at ~550k words now.


Unsong by Scott Alexander.

Unsong is a pretty huge departure from the rest of the stories here. It's set primarily in the modern day, with lots of flashbacks and other perspectives over the past several decades following the Apollo moon landing. It's about Jewish mythology, Kabbalah, and religion, with the divine machine keeping the world running on physics having been broken and the Names of God now functioning akin to magic spells... sort of. It's a comedy, with some similarities in presentation to Douglas Adams' stories. No background in religion is required to understand the basic gist of this, but a basic understanding of Jewish mythology or at least the Bible's old testament will help make a lot of the jokes make sense. Just be prepared for puns out the wazoo. Completed as of early 2017.


The Wandering Inn by pirateaba

The Wandering Inn is a a story about--well, several people, actually, but primarily, a girl from earth who finds herself teleported into a fantasy world while trying to enter her bathroom. Rather than become a legendary hero, she ends up becoming an innkeeper. However, life isn't so simple, as she still ends up becoming very important to the world. This story takes some obvious inspiration from both western serials like Worm, as well as from Japanese isekai web novels like Kumo Desu Ga--primarily by using the conceit that everyone in that world has discrete levels and skills, like in an RPG. Unlike other stories of the sort, though, the level system isn't an excuse to have a quantifiable power fantasy where we just watch the numbers keep going up. Rather, the level system actually ties in to the larger story, with hints that there are sinister reasons behind why such a system even exists at all. The Wandering Inn updates regularly and consistently every Tuesday and Saturday, and occasionally on other days, when the author has some side stories to share. --Argue

Worth the Candle by cthulhuraejepsen: A slightly emo but surprisingly mature teen gets dumped into a grotesque amalgamation of (early setting spoiler) the settings he created as a dungeon master. Aerb is not a kind world: there are lots of hells, no heaven, and the motorcycles run on extracted souls. But at least our plucky hero is OP as all hell and has the key to seven locks.

WtC is a LitRPG that tonally feels nothing like other LitRPG's. Want a story where the hero is amazed and delighted by their new world and abilities, and has lots of fun, energizing adventures? Well then get the gently caress out because that ain't Worth the Candle; this is a LitRPG that takes poo poo serious. WtC is very well-written, especially by web serial standards, but also ratfic (rational fiction), heavy on on the rat, which is not to everyone's tastes. --Cicero



A Practical Guide to Evil by ERRATICERRATA

Ra by qntm



If you are a web serial author

If you're writing or have written a web serial of your own, you're welcome to post a link to it here and request feedback, engage in discussion, etc. That said, don't use this thread to frequently advertise, and don't directly post paypal/patreon/gofundme/etc. links in the thread.

Goon authors:

Not All Heroes by forums poster Milky Moor


Into the Mire by forums poster Anomalous Blowout, which has been nominated for a slew of awards:

Anomalous Blowout posted:

Into the Mire has been officially longlisted for my country's highest literary honour for fantasy:


:captainpop: :captainpop: :captainpop:

This is, to put it mildly, extremely cool. I have also since been informed that at least one SFWA member has nominated Mire for a loving Nebula too, holy balls.

The email goes on to say that if too many works are nominated in a category, the final ballot may be chosen by number of total nominations. With Shortest Path's blessing, I'm linking the nominations form here if anyone wanted to chuck in a vote for me. Since it's an awards committee, the nominations form is of course a slightly outdated google form.

You don't need to be a member to vote and all you need to do is provide some really simple answers: title (Into the Mire), category (Best Collected Work), author pen name (Casey Lucas), publisher (Self), and contact (https://www.intothemire.com). If you felt like chucking in a nom for my short story as well, you can read it here and input the publisher as Sponge Magazine and the contact url as https://www.sponge.nz.

But wait! There's more!

The Sir James Vogel awards are being held at the same ceremony as the Hugo Awards this year, at WorldCon. This means the SJV awards panel will be the same judges as the Hugo awards' judges and it means that the "nominee information pack" gets sent to all those people as well. This year ol' Gamer Thrones himself George RR Martin is emceeing and there will be a whole slew of serious literary agents and authors there, and if I'm a nominee they'll literally have to read my terrible webfic.

Thank you so much to all you goons who have supported Mire and read it over the last couple years. This is leaps and bounds beyond anything I ever imagined when I started it. I find out if I've made the shortlist in April and you can get your dog, your dad, your wife, and your landlord to nominate me until the end of March!


Katalepsis, by forums poster Hungry:

Hungry posted:

It's an urban fantasy story / lesbian supernatural soap opera, with a little bit of a horror coating. I didn't want to link it here until I was certain I'd be sticking with it, so here it is. New chapters currently every Saturday, though I'm trying to build up to twice a week instead. I'm not an incredible writer or anything, and I guess the story can get a little grisly at times, so it might not be to everyone's taste. If anybody does check it out, I sincerely hope you enjoy it.
(it's loving amazing and I love it)


Blood is Mine by forums poster Lunatic Sledge:

Lunatic Sledge posted:

alright, so in 2017 I started Blood is Mine, an interactive sci-fi / body horror story with (original) sprite art. I hosed up toward the end, so it doesn't stick the landing as well as I'd like, but overall I enjoyed working on it. People would post in the comments what the protagonist should do, and I'd write new pages accordingly; at the start I was updating 10 to 20 times per day, but the average size of each page eventually got so big that I had to slow it down.

I learned a lot from my mistakes writing BiM, and November of last year I started My Delirium Alcazar. It's a sequel, but (hopefully) you don't have to read BiM to understand what's going on in MDA. MDA is more fantasy/isekai compared to its predecessor, basically split into two parts: the waking reality, which is still done in sprite art and is the same almost-cyberpunk world as BiM, and a less consistent, more fantastical dream world, which I illustrate with my lovely, sketchy hand drawn art. I'm trying to skate a litRPG line with a lot of videogamey elements, but without going face first into full blown "YOU DO 36 DAMAGE TO ITS HP" business

it's a weird beast with a really dedicated reader base, but I'm struggling to expand my audience (partly because advertising sucks a fat one in 2020)

quote:

The Postapoc Project by D34THROW

Launching December 2021

quote:

In mid-2028, the geographical and geopolitical landscape of Earth changed irrevocably when two megalomaniacs joined forces against the world and tried to take what they thought was there. When conventional turned to nuclear, everything fell apart in clouds of fire and destruction that ended life as we know it. Now, in 2151, it is a struggle to survive, as the descendants of those who survived the Last War scrape by on the skin of their own knuckles - and the efforts of the Outcasts, who brave the Wastes and scour the Exclusion Zones for Old World fortunes and technology, in the hope that perhaps one day the world might return to the better days that are now gone.




Spoiler Policy

To avoid ruining surprises for anyone who hasn't quite caught up yet, discussion about anything in the past two updates of any active story must be enclosed in Spoiler Tags.

Additionally, if there is someone actively posting in the thread who is currently reading a story, please put spoiler tags around any significant plot details of that story. That said, this thread will not necessarily be safe to read in its entirety if you haven't finished Worm, or caught up on Practical Guide or Mother of Learning or what have you. Use your best judgment!






(OP under construction still, please write summaries)

Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Nov 16, 2021

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Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Reserved

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Thanks, and I did not know that there was an ADTRW thread, that's good to know.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

So do you guys want me putting everything that everyone recommends into the OP, or just the stuff that a lot of people are reading?

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Oh god, imagine the absurd quantity of porn parodies.

And that's not even getting into the possibilities of parahuman adult entertainment, but we definitely don't need to be going there.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

I just read 3.08H of The Wandering Inn and oh my god, what a fantastic end to that small arc. After all the despair and awful poo poo happening to the main characters since late book 2, things going stupendously well for once is really great.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Ryoka's misanthropy is a constant source of loving her over in small ways, and is equal parts "this is really tedious" and "these are the best fuckin one-liners goddamn"

I get why she gets a lot of criticism as a character, especially for one specific part of late book two where she asspulls a major plot element out of kinda nowhere, but she's also got a lot of interesting poo poo goin on around her especially once Winter starts.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

UNSONG's humor tends to be a bit out there, but goddamn when it hits it hits.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Lone Goat posted:

I think Patreon is only one or two episodes ahead? I just got the email for 3.12 E a couple hours ago.

This doesn't count the side stories like Doctor or Wistram Days, etc.

But yes I agree Emperor is great.

Patreon donors get one update more than everyone else, plus side stories which get made public monthly. Important Stuff like Emperor or Horns of Hammerhead chapters count as the main story.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

She also has textbook ASPD.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

They may be insufferable but they're easily my favorite part of the cast.

e: I mean the winter faeries, not Ryoka.

Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Sep 13, 2017

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Affi posted:

Oh no. I just read a chapter about mating habits.

The only reason I keep reading this story is the author said it was a "comedy" chapter.

But it was just so loving bad and long and cringeworthy. I mean. Ugh.

Ugh, yeah. There were a few bits that were funny but it was mostly just the worst kind of awful embarrassing cringe. I would highly recommend skipping it to anyone who hasn't read up to that point yet.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

pirateaba just posted 3.17 T. You know what that means!!!

:skeltal:

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Wildbow's best stuff has always been the small scale events ( and characters and dialogue ) so I will be absolutely fine if the biggest conflict Worm 2 ever gets to is dudes overcoming a Lex Luthor level villain.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

I dunno if I'm ready for this.


As an aside, I started reading Star Child and it's pretty good. About a kid with space warping powers that has to keep them secret because he lives in an orwellian state. Not really sure where it's going, though.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

It's Its probably not a character we have much info on, if not just a new one, though I suppose it could be shatterbird given that we don't really know anything about her personality.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

I would like the entirety of Worm 2 to be written from Bruce's PoV. He's a good boy!

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

I have to think that the name initials are all false because Mangled Wings is talking more and more like Rachel. The username was probably given by Heart, whoever she is.

These prologue chapters create like a dozen times as many questions as they do answers. :argh:

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Pussy Quipped posted:

I'm willing to put money on Mangled Wings being a Damsel of Distress. Her arms and fingers were modified by bonesaw to be extra long, like a bat's wing with no skin. She consider's herself damaged, fallen from where she once was. She has a hard time with computers/technology, etc. Plus Damsels real name was Ashley I think and they refer to her as A.

That actually makes a lot more sense.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

BENGHAZI 2 posted:

WE KNOW THE TITLE AND IT IS PERFECT

ffffffffffffffff

We need a whole bunch of emotes, also a new OP entry that I'll totally get around to writing eventually.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

For those of you who haven't entirely caught up yet, 0.9 was loving wonderful.

I wish I knew who Point_Me_@_The_Sky is, because that would probably make it so much better.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Posting for posterity right before I jump into chapter 1 that I'm almost positive Point Me is Laserdream because I have no better guesses, so I'll get to see if I'm right or not.


Edit: :shepface:

I'm so fuckin hype jesus christ

Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Nov 11, 2017

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

I feel like Yamada being the protagonist would have been better, but she was always my favorite Worm character so :shrug:

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Her mother is uh... not that great.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Extra chapter I guess? And it's EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED AAAAAAAAA :swoon:

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

We've got our first interlude, and it reveals in a bit of a roundabout way that Tattletale was running the villains' job through earpieces which raises all kinds of questions and is making me go back and comb through everything that's been released so far for more clues as to how the gently caress this is all fitting together.

Also the poo poo with Nursery's "power" is loving terrifying.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Stairmaster posted:

my current wards prediction: things are gonna be okay

I really, really wanna believe that. Maybe Wildbow has turned a new leaf and this story will be fairly optimistic and upbeat!

:shepface:

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Xun posted:

So I just caught up to Wandering Inn, does anyone think that the main character is getting more than a bit..mary sue-ish? It feels like at the end everything she does is so quirky and also extremely successful/profitable/great. Not the mention the eyerolling stuff about her inventing plays. The only consequence she faces for leaving her inn unattended with no word to Lyon is someone says some mean words at her and then five minutes later they're helping her with another quirky plan anyway. Kind of a shame because I like the world building and side characters, and its really only the recent stuff bothering me. I hope this means they're building up to something here.

Yeah I was expecting there to be actual consequences for how much of a selfish jerk Erin is most of the time, and other than all the poo poo with Toren there seems to be basically none of it because all the people who should be mad at her get caught up in her utterly ridiculous feats of bullshit and just kinda go with it.

It's still wicked fun to read, though.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

I suddenly really, really like the direction Ward is going in. Victoria is gonna end up joining these guys and it's gonna be great.

Jessica Yamada remains the best character.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Angry Walrus posted:

Yamada sucks

:chloe:

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

eonwe posted:

I started reading The Gods are Bastards today. Pretty dang good. I didn't know web serials were a *thing,* much less written this well.

I'm glad you're enjoying it, it's one of my favorites. You should check out some of the others people talk about in this thread too, they're all good.

Which reminds me that I haven't updated the OP in like forever so I should probably get on that. Does anyone have a good summary of Twig I can slap on there since I haven't read it yet?

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

The new Wandering Inn interlude chapter is insane. I don't even know how to parse most of what happens.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

I'd advise anyone who is feeling a bit lost to reread the paralogue Glow Worm bit. Each chapter is from a single characters perspective: Point Me @ is Victoria, Heart is Kenzie, Cap is Tristan/Byron (who hires a hit on his other half it looks like?), Curious Cephalopod, Weird Insect, etc. are Chris (one account for each personality maybe?), Kraken is Sveta, Mangled is Ashley, of5 is Rain.

There's a whole bunch of weird poo poo going down and we still only have a few of the pieces. Most of the assumptions we are making are probably wrong.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

violent sex idiot posted:

christ had 32 accounts because he was trying to prevent kenzie spying on him not because of his multiple personalities i think

It seemed more like he was trying to bait her into revealing that she was spying on him? You're right though it doesn't look like it had anything to do with his power.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

I, too, am getting really loving sick of Flos and can't wait for his dumb arc to be over with.

Luckily, it looks like we only have one more chapter of him left.


E: I will say, though, that this chapter was the best of the lot imo. It had good fight scenes, and the bit at the end where Trey suddenly realizes how monstrously lovely the world he's in is was good.

Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Jan 25, 2018

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Brewmaster posted:

I just wanted to pop into this thread to say thank you for the recommendations. I finally finished reading Worm, it was really great. I've been reading it slowly, whenever I had downtime at work, for the last couple months. Now that I'm done I feel a little lost. I'm trying to decide on the next one to dive into. I'm thinking maybe The Gods are Bastards?

There's a sequel to Worm being written right now, he just started arc 4. https://www.parahumans.net/

TGaB is great, apparently Twig (also by Wildbow) is also great. The Wandering Inn is good, but not quite on the level of those imo.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

I've been listening to the We've Got Worm podcast at work as sort of a recap between Ward updates, and it's really fuckin good. I'm learning so much minor detail that I missed in my three readthroughs of the book.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

The bit where he accidentally predicted that Taylor would at some point be able to control other capes around act 8 or 9 was kind of hilarious.

Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

The new Wandering Inn chapter is really crazy and good. I was initially disappointed we got a side story chapter right after finally getting back to Erin, but goddamn was it worth it.

Regarding 'rationalist' fiction, keep in mind the people who write that schlock are the same weirdos that jack off to My Little Pony AI death cult fanfiction and Big Yud, and should be taken exactly as seriously as that would suggest.

Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Feb 3, 2018

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Fajita Queen
Jun 21, 2012

Objection: The Toren chapter was solid loving gold.

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