I read in your June 2024 review you were waiting for an ATLA fic that does something outside the comfort zone. I am going to maybe shoot myself in the foot for any future recommendation I attempt here with this but here we go:
then everything changed` is one of the first glowfics I read and found so good (or maybe filled a craving for a kind of story I didn't know I was missing) and lead me to sticking around searching through others for more gold nuggets. It is only 24K words and finishes in a satisfying way that I can respect. The MC Tarinda is from a post singularity world, and has only ever grown up in that environment. She is isekaied into a fire nation colony and it goes from there.
Solid month, I like the inclusion of other forms of media, movies, games, tv shows, YouTube shows. Personally I finished Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It's kinda weird how 'real' books are so close to webfic. Set up a world, knock it down.
Will you try Total Forgiveness on Dropout? I liked Play it By Ear, but that is only because I used to watch the old seasons of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
I love Piranesi and second the recommendation to anyone who has scrolled down to this comments section.
I'm considering getting a Dropout subscription and checking out most of the shows, but maybe in a couple months. I'm pretty sure I watched over 100 hours of their content in June as it is.
It prioritized preachiness over story. I remember I dropped it after the titular character opened a woman's shelter, which any single non powered person could do, and claimed it was the best use of her time as some meta-dunk on the genre.
I realize this may not be fresh enough in your mind to debate, but I feel like that’s missing the point? The main premise of the story is “what if you were a superhero, but you already saved the world when you were a teenager and now there’s no one important to fight, so the fact that you can fly and throw cars doesn’t really make you more capable of being a hero than someone without powers”. Some of the characters handle this by finding a clever peaceful use of their abilities, like Alison’s friend with a regeneration power who undergoes perpetual organ harvesting, but Alison’s powers are intentionally not super conducive to that. I guess she could personally spin the turbine of a power plant? That would probably accomplish more good, but I don’t think it’s an egregious failure that instead she volunteers as a firefighter and uses her public profile to organize charities.
Yeah, "I guess she could personally spin the turbine of a power plant? That would probably accomplish more good," was my argument at the time I think. A women's shelter is a vanity project, not the secret optimal solution the comic paints it as. Even if she cares about something less utilitarian like "feeling better about myself", then she could start a more effective charity than a local shelter, or at least not paint the lame self-pat-in-the-back as an eureka moment.
This specific instance wasn't a deal breaker, it was just the last straw.
I recommend Counterfeit Monkey by Emily Short. An interactive fiction game, a wacky spy comedy with reality-warping wordplay-based puzzles. On the interactive fiction database, it's the highest-rated IF in the whole medium.
Your recommendation is too good, since I've already played it. I initially enjoyed it a lot, but it felt more impressive than fun after a while, there's something as too much freedom.
16 characters have been stolen from time and space and forced to play the deadliest game of Werewolf they've ever experienced. Xiaomu states that she's lived through this horror before. Will this be the game where the cycle is finally broken? Why are things the way they are? Is escape possible for all of the participants? Or are all sixteen doomed to a life of repeated deaths and failures?
NOTE: Even if you don't recognize all the major characters and fandoms, I still recommend this story if you like a good murder mystery.
On the 'civilised' world of Nuceria, the Primarch Angron prepares to make his final stand, an army of gladiators at his side.
In one reality, he is plucked from the battlefield by the Emperor at the last minute, and his brothers die alone. In another, it is the Twelfth Legion that find him, and descend on wings of fire to fight at their gene-father's side.
By cruel trick of the fates, intervention of stupid gods, or just the apathy of an uncaring universe I find myself woken up as Orochimaru just after he had possessed a woman for his new host. Now I need to find a way to turn this hoard of sycophants and psychos into something that will not only keep me from an early grave, but also how to change it to a force of change in this messed up world.
Versatile Violence's life sometimes feels like it's consisted of little more than an endless parade of picking the better of two abysmal options. Hide the goddess sharing her head due to the abysmal life expectancy of avatars in the Shaded Empire. Learn how to read and write instead of scrounging for more food. Enlist in the Army of Nacht to learn how to defend herself and stop starving. Avoid forming relationships so that they cannot be used against her. Fight a popular revolution that seems more intent on ideals than the horrific consequences of its stated goals.
The six colorful, otherworldly young women fighting her know a Dark Magical Girl when they see one, but could they go back to pummeling hilariously incompetent villains of the week, please? Fighting Umbral Elite Captain Versatile Violence is such a pain.
For a comic about genies done better, I suggest Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed. It's tradpub, so probably outside your normal orbit, but I thought was good. It does have a couple pitfalls (occasionally kinda moralizing, probably in the same way that comic #1 was in this review, and the arc about depression is particularly weak, as all stories about depression end up being tbqh) but I enjoyed it overall.
The dip in quality of the Mortifying Ordeal HP fic was rough. Quashing onwards and the ratio of fun banter to melodrama got too much. The AI Dune fic is not worth reading. Even if you are apathetic to AI as a moral stance, the guy is clearly not using it well.
A quest. Big on powerscaling and build votes with some banter or lore as a side, but the fight scenes are some of the most enjoyable I have read in prose. Relatively brisk pace by quest standards, much closer to a conventional narrative than webfiction.
Calling Mythbusters an "ancient documentary" has psychically wounded me, and in two different ways.
Exactly my intention
I read in your June 2024 review you were waiting for an ATLA fic that does something outside the comfort zone. I am going to maybe shoot myself in the foot for any future recommendation I attempt here with this but here we go:
then everything changed` is one of the first glowfics I read and found so good (or maybe filled a craving for a kind of story I didn't know I was missing) and lead me to sticking around searching through others for more gold nuggets. It is only 24K words and finishes in a satisfying way that I can respect. The MC Tarinda is from a post singularity world, and has only ever grown up in that environment. She is isekaied into a fire nation colony and it goes from there.
https://www.glowfic.com/posts/2274
Solid month, I like the inclusion of other forms of media, movies, games, tv shows, YouTube shows. Personally I finished Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It's kinda weird how 'real' books are so close to webfic. Set up a world, knock it down.
Will you try Total Forgiveness on Dropout? I liked Play it By Ear, but that is only because I used to watch the old seasons of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
I love Piranesi and second the recommendation to anyone who has scrolled down to this comments section.
I'm considering getting a Dropout subscription and checking out most of the shows, but maybe in a couple months. I'm pretty sure I watched over 100 hours of their content in June as it is.
Do you remember what you hated about Strong Female Protagonist?
It prioritized preachiness over story. I remember I dropped it after the titular character opened a woman's shelter, which any single non powered person could do, and claimed it was the best use of her time as some meta-dunk on the genre.
I realize this may not be fresh enough in your mind to debate, but I feel like that’s missing the point? The main premise of the story is “what if you were a superhero, but you already saved the world when you were a teenager and now there’s no one important to fight, so the fact that you can fly and throw cars doesn’t really make you more capable of being a hero than someone without powers”. Some of the characters handle this by finding a clever peaceful use of their abilities, like Alison’s friend with a regeneration power who undergoes perpetual organ harvesting, but Alison’s powers are intentionally not super conducive to that. I guess she could personally spin the turbine of a power plant? That would probably accomplish more good, but I don’t think it’s an egregious failure that instead she volunteers as a firefighter and uses her public profile to organize charities.
Yeah, "I guess she could personally spin the turbine of a power plant? That would probably accomplish more good," was my argument at the time I think. A women's shelter is a vanity project, not the secret optimal solution the comic paints it as. Even if she cares about something less utilitarian like "feeling better about myself", then she could start a more effective charity than a local shelter, or at least not paint the lame self-pat-in-the-back as an eureka moment.
This specific instance wasn't a deal breaker, it was just the last straw.
I recommend Counterfeit Monkey by Emily Short. An interactive fiction game, a wacky spy comedy with reality-warping wordplay-based puzzles. On the interactive fiction database, it's the highest-rated IF in the whole medium.
https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=aearuuxv83plclpl
The oeuvre of Emily Short is solid. My personal favorite is Galatea
Your recommendation is too good, since I've already played it. I initially enjoyed it a lot, but it felt more impressive than fun after a while, there's something as too much freedom.
Worm:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/56162956/chapters/142671124
This one is hit or miss. I read this mainly to see what kind of bullshit new plotline the author pulls out of their ass each chapter. Some examples:
Danny joins the Slaughterhouse 9
Taylor and Aegis spend 1000 years in a Khonsu bubble
Taylor cheats on Amy with Sophia
All of these get resolved in 1 chapter. Complete
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/riley-alone-complete.1063889/
Bonesaw deals with losing family and identity and the struggles to reform those things.
Complete
Also, The Kaiser’s New Clothes has 100k words
Chainsaw Man:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/50425567/chapters/127407097
Makima opened her eyes.
She in her bed in her apartment, surrounded by her dogs. There's nothing odd about this, except that she knows she's supposed to be dead.
Her calendar says it's the day before she meets Denji.
Now with its own TV Tropes page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/WishfulThinkingToggle1
Multicross:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/36891763/chapters/92040427
16 characters have been stolen from time and space and forced to play the deadliest game of Werewolf they've ever experienced. Xiaomu states that she's lived through this horror before. Will this be the game where the cycle is finally broken? Why are things the way they are? Is escape possible for all of the participants? Or are all sixteen doomed to a life of repeated deaths and failures?
NOTE: Even if you don't recognize all the major characters and fandoms, I still recommend this story if you like a good murder mystery.
WH40K:
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/eater-of-worlds-30k-angron-quest.57620/
On the 'civilised' world of Nuceria, the Primarch Angron prepares to make his final stand, an army of gladiators at his side.
In one reality, he is plucked from the battlefield by the Emperor at the last minute, and his brothers die alone. In another, it is the Twelfth Legion that find him, and descend on wings of fire to fight at their gene-father's side.
Quest. Complete, series not complete
Naruto:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/orochimama-naruto-si.858340/
Alternate Title: The Snake Goes Ara Ara
By cruel trick of the fates, intervention of stupid gods, or just the apathy of an uncaring universe I find myself woken up as Orochimaru just after he had possessed a woman for his new host. Now I need to find a way to turn this hoard of sycophants and psychos into something that will not only keep me from an early grave, but also how to change it to a force of change in this messed up world.
ASOIAF:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10379763/8/
What if Tyrion actually did fight The Mountain by himself?
Kind of a Tyrion Wank.
Youtube:
https://youtube.com/@strategystuff?si=0f_8d4KuvSikJvJJ
Original Serials from this year:
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/antagonistic-appropriation.141560/page-15
Versatile Violence's life sometimes feels like it's consisted of little more than an endless parade of picking the better of two abysmal options. Hide the goddess sharing her head due to the abysmal life expectancy of avatars in the Shaded Empire. Learn how to read and write instead of scrounging for more food. Enlist in the Army of Nacht to learn how to defend herself and stop starving. Avoid forming relationships so that they cannot be used against her. Fight a popular revolution that seems more intent on ideals than the horrific consequences of its stated goals.
The six colorful, otherworldly young women fighting her know a Dark Magical Girl when they see one, but could they go back to pummeling hilariously incompetent villains of the week, please? Fighting Umbral Elite Captain Versatile Violence is such a pain.
At a minimum thank you for reminding me about Kaiser's New Clothes, I ignored that one because it was too short at the time then forgot about it
Would you say you need to have played the DLC before reading the Dark Forest?
I think the DLC is slightly worse than the base game, but it's still pretty good, and you'd ruin it for yourself. I would recommend playing it first.
For a comic about genies done better, I suggest Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed. It's tradpub, so probably outside your normal orbit, but I thought was good. It does have a couple pitfalls (occasionally kinda moralizing, probably in the same way that comic #1 was in this review, and the arc about depression is particularly weak, as all stories about depression end up being tbqh) but I enjoyed it overall.
Both comics this review are actually tradpub and still made it to my orbit. I will give that a try probably.
The link for One of our Submarines points to Two Games. The correct link is: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341204/
Thanks, fixed
The dip in quality of the Mortifying Ordeal HP fic was rough. Quashing onwards and the ratio of fun banter to melodrama got too much. The AI Dune fic is not worth reading. Even if you are apathetic to AI as a moral stance, the guy is clearly not using it well.
On the topic of recommendations:
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/a-simple-transaction-i.66727/reader/
A quest. Big on powerscaling and build votes with some banter or lore as a side, but the fight scenes are some of the most enjoyable I have read in prose. Relatively brisk pace by quest standards, much closer to a conventional narrative than webfiction.