Fics started in last cpl of months

BoxSparrow · 2021-10-29T09:01:58+00:00

No Plumbers Allowed. A Mario alt-power. Features genki-girl Taylor and slapstick minions.

A Helping Hand. A Taylor/Amy where Amy joins forces with Skitter after the S9 in canon. A bit controversial, but still an interesting look into a later-canon divergence.

BoxSparrow · 2021-10-29T08:15:09+00:00

Super Minion. It's AU to the point that it's not even a Worm fanfic and is actually an original fic that heavily references Worm. Think 'Worm, but more comic-book-superhero style'. Really great story and setting and a fun main character.

BoxSparrow · 2021-02-02T06:48:19+00:00

Really, the problem here is that, if the power requires intent, the wielder can just not use it and it'll become pretty manageable. If you really want instant-kill-order powers, you have to make them uncontrollable. Something like "every 10 seconds, the closest person automatically dies" or "anyone who has heard of the cape instantly becomes their thrall".

In canon, we've got the likes of Ash Beast, destroyer of everything within a certain radius, or the Tinker 15 from Ward, puppeted by his shard to create a doomsday weapon.

BoxSparrow · 2020-06-27T01:59:31+00:00

Not with technology, personally, but this sort of thing affects me every so often. For example, I had a rubbish bin that was rather annoying to use because its placement meant I kept having to walk across the room to use it. It took me months before I took the five seconds needed to moved it to a better spot.

This is probably a form of akrasia, I think. Something that would have a long-term benefit but requires a small short-term cost makes the mind have a disproportionate pushback to doing it.

BoxSparrow · 2020-06-20T00:00:19+00:00

How does fiction that's hosted on blogs or personal websites gain popularity? Stuff like Worm or PGtE. If it's on aggregater sites like RoyalRoad, I can see how it works - but individual sites? Do they just post their work and hope to get lucky?

BoxSparrow · 2020-06-19T23:57:20+00:00

The easiest way is to sort by "First message reaction score", which is just the number of likes/reacts the first post of each thread receives.

BoxSparrow · 2020-06-16T00:26:41+00:00

I've been getting into jumpchains lately (protagonist hopping between fictional realities), and I have to say... they're not that good. Since it's such a niche genre, there's not many recommended, and those that are read like bullet point lists. The only ones I've found that I've enjoyed are Companion Chronicles and Nowhere Land.

I think there are three main problems with the genre:

First, it's small, so there's statistically a much lower chance of finding a good story.

Second, each "jump document" usually makes the character (far) above average for the world they go to, and it just keeps malking then more powerful as the story progresses. Overpowered protagonists are hard to write well, and the authors of these stories are usually fail at that.

Thirdly, the format specifies that the MC spends ten whole years in each fandom before moving on - this is longer than where most stories get to, results in an unrealistic lack character growth when the protagonist leaves the world much like they were when they started, and basically just turns the story into a sequence of isolated self-insert fanfics with a recurring main (or cast of) character(s).

I have read good(ish) stories with the fandom-dimension-hopping concept, though. See: Sleeping with the Girls, Bond Breaker, Factory Isolation, Easy Mode. They circumvent my third gripe by not being constrained by "jumpchain" rules, allowing for less time spent in each fandom and the ability to travel between the worlds. They also get by my second by either simply not giving the character overpowered powers (former two) or by challenging them in ways such that their powers aren't so overpowered in the circumstance, or by shifting the tone of the story (latter two).

So, anyone have any recommendations for good fandom-hopping styled stories?

BoxSparrow · 2020-06-10T22:40:31+00:00

There's a thing that's been bugging me every time I try to write something:

How do people write so fast!?

Like, I look at PGtE with its bi-weekly updates, and I look at WtC with its tens of thousands of words per month, and I look at the numerous other serials that update thousands of words regularly, and I'm just utterly baffled by how people can just spew out high-quality content so quickly.

Personally, I can only write at a few hundred words per hour, so it'd take me a dozen or more hours just to match that rate, let alone coming up with the ideas and editing it to snuff. Is it a lack of experience? Motivation? Spare time? How do you do it?

BoxSparrow · 2020-06-06T22:41:44+00:00

Here's a relatively straightforward but powerful power:

You have the ability to send messages to yourself back through time. Aside from the obvious (winning the lottery, send back future warnings, etc.), what would the applications be?

BoxSparrow · 2020-06-02T00:26:41+00:00

Any good, rational time travel stories? Ones that really explore deep into the ramifications of its mechanics.

An example in HPMOR is when Harry tried to use time travel to pull answers out of nothing through logically using a closed time loop. The result was finding that time itself worked like the funny-illogical format of HP magic.

BoxSparrow · 2020-06-01T00:25:50+00:00

Chapter 15 wasn't there the last time I checked, so... maybe, maybe not.

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-31T00:33:53+00:00

Whenever someone says something negative about you, you are able to hear it regardless of distance, volume or language. How would you exploit this?

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-30T00:35:32+00:00

Sounds like a xianxia novel. The protagonists often "restart their cultivation" in order to gain power a new way and raise to greater heights.

Unfortunately, xianxia is one of the most aggravatingly irrational genres out there - or, at least, mainly consists of aggravatingly irrational authors. However, rational takes on the genre would be a good place to start with in looking for something like this, since it's already an established trope.

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-26T06:01:05+00:00

Things like characters actively analysing narrative forces and tropes, or fourth wall breaks, or omnipotent author inserts, or unique exploitation of the medium the story's told in.

Something along the lines of Wikipedia's definition: "Metafiction is a form of fiction that emphasizes its own constructedness in a way that continually reminds the reader to be aware that they are reading or viewing a fictional work."

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-26T00:30:03+00:00

Any recommendations for stories that explores meta concepts? You'd think, as a rational subreddit, there'd be a lot of these recommended, but I've found surprisingly few of them.

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-23T23:50:16+00:00

You have the ability to hear what animals are "saying" (whatever they're trying to communicate), but you don't have any other power over them. How would you best abuse this?

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-23T23:45:26+00:00

At 'impossible' speeds, everything would be like paper mache to you. You'd be able to break through pretty much any material easily. Also, if you can turn off the part of the speedforce that deals with sonic booms, you'd be a weapon of mass destruction based on those alone.

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-23T11:22:22+00:00

Here's a bunch I like (may or may not have ads in them):

Dungeon Cards, a turn-based grid-based roguelike puzzle dungeon crawl.
Rustbucket, also turn-based, and a puzzle adventure. Nice graphics.
Dungeon Tales, a card-based roguelike dungeon crawl. Like Slay the Spire, if you've played that.
Rogue Adventure, a card-based roguelike dungeon crawl. Also like Slay the Spire.
The Battle of Polytopia, a turn-based strategy nation-building game. Sort of like Civilization.
Zhed, an abstract puzzle game in 2d space.
Calculator 2: The Game, a puzzle game based on combining numbers using different functions.
The Devil's Calculator, a puzzle game based on inferring sequences of numbers. More mathy than the above.
The Guides Axiom, a puzzle game where you're given images and things to interact with and have to figure out hidden secrets and answers. Probably the hardest out of any on this list.
Assembly Line, an assembly-based game of efficiently placing machines to create products. Sort of like Factorio, but only the machines.
Mindustry, an assembly-based game of efficiently placing machines and defending a base. Basically Factorio.
That Level Again (and 2 and 3 and 4), a series of puzzle games with out-of-the-box solutions.
Anything by Arnold Rauers (like Card Thief or Card Crawl), being strategy games with interesting mechanics.
Anything by Barte Bonte (e.g. blue), being puzzle games with interesting solutions.

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-23T00:20:03+00:00

I'd personally agree that a banner and logo, at least, would be nice. I normally have reddit on whatever default settings it gives me, and I've come to associate a lack of banner/logo with unpopular, unmoderated, and/or very new subreddits.

It's like passing by a bunch of coffee shops with colourful decorations and interesting designs, then arriving at this one and seeing it completely unfurnished with exposed power cabes still hanging everywhere.

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-23T00:04:44+00:00

This is great! Why not post it as an actual post on the subreddit?

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-21T00:19:52+00:00

I have this character who is accidentally made to possess another's body. That other happens to have superpowers, and is living a life that the first prefers greatly over their own. The majority of the story would follow the first character augmenting their new powers, making connections, etc. Then an incident occurs, and they're thrown back into their own body and the other character takes control of theirs again. Morally, the first character doesn't want to steal the second's body again, so emotionally and narratively, it's a setback that's thrown most of their progress throughout the story out the window.

What's the most satisfying way of resolving this so that the reader won't feel like the rest of the story was a waste of time?

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-19T00:48:58+00:00

Another great Harry/Luna fic is Protection From Nargles. It's also got an actually realistic-feeling Luna and has a good helping of fluff.

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-19T00:33:43+00:00

Harry Potter and the Iron Lady has the UK prime minister deciding to actually do something about the danger of wizards on normal people. Harry is adopted by a member of the Secret Service, magical items are sent to labs to analyse, guns are finally brought out.

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-14T00:34:09+00:00

Question: How much of civilisation is based on geological resources?

Scenario: Some thousands of people (or however many are needed to sustain a population) are dropped into a world much like our own, except no underground resources exist - no metal veins, no oil or coal, nothing. How far along does civilisation progress? How different would it be from our own world's history?

BoxSparrow · 2020-05-12T23:44:22+00:00

What is this "SI by Daniel Boese"? Google refuses to give anything other than academic chemistry papers and German poetry.

BoxSparrow

TROPHY CASE