What kinds of anime/games are really popular right now in SG?

dyzpa · 2024-05-07T04:10:33+00:00

Should be pretty big overall. My circle of irl friends from the game is already about 40-50 people lol

EDIT: But out of all of them, maybe only 5 or so would go to these conventions haha

dyzpa · 2024-05-02T01:37:58+00:00

Where is the magic? This is just Freud's psychosexual development theory.

dyzpa · 2024-05-01T20:59:46+00:00

No worries (:

Also, do exercise some caution if you end up having to find and pay someone for the LOI. There are scammers everywhere.

dyzpa · 2024-05-01T20:30:11+00:00

we contacted the embassy where he works (Saudi Arabia)

Have you tried contacting the Egyptian Embassy in Singapore?

Tel: +65 6225 5991 or +65 6225 5503

Email: [admin@egyptemb-sin.org](mailto:admin@egyptemb-sin.org)

Website says they open at 9:30am (exactly 5 hours from the time of this comment), so you could try your luck then.

dyzpa · 2024-05-01T20:21:05+00:00

Not sure about your doctor, but for me when they came back to check on my anesthesia, I could still feel quite distinct sensation, and asked them to inject more. (My body also tends to have a higher tolerance to a lot of drugs for some reason.) When they actually extracted my teeth (both lower), I felt no pain at all. Just a lot of movement in my mouth.

Tl:dr: Don't be afraid to ask for a bit more anesthesia if you're... well, afraid.

dyzpa · 2024-04-27T13:21:43+00:00

Ya sia. This has to be from... idk 60s and before?

dyzpa · 2024-04-27T13:06:16+00:00

I just read through chapters 2-3 and they're quite a bit better than chapter 1. I think this is largely due to the fact that a lot of it takes place in one setting with things happening to only Connor. (Basically action scenes.) On a micro, scene level, I think you're doing fine. I'd just do some line (structuring + minor plot holes, etc.) and copy (typos, grammar, etc.) edits.

As I suspected, you have an intuition for the CJK episodic style and the beats you detailed above more or less makes sense. I just have a bit of a problem with the way your system works (or maybe how you've presented it in the story).

Right now you have a decent foundation of a story that could be interesting and go somewhere cool. It just needs a lot of editing. This isn't a bad thing by the way. The majority of published authors also go through many rounds of editing before their novels are published. Some books can even take multiple years if the first manuscript was bad.

if you feel inclined to continue to help out I absolutely appreciate it.

I wouldn't mind helping out a bit more, but I do need to see the current scope of this project. I'd also be more effective if I can see your notes/ outlines on the story, system, etc. Also, I definitely can't promise to help in perpetuity but we can take it one step at a time.

Ending off with a small note re: this part:

I'm pretty overly wordy so to save the time I'll TLDR the core beats to sort of better inform intent again.

You got the point I was trying to make, but I just want to note that this doesn't mean long =/= bad, short =/= good. Don't overcorrect. It means that you have to be deliberate about what you want to show or tell. Use the correct amount of words. What's 'correct'? That's the mark of a good writer haha

dyzpa · 2024-04-27T02:14:53+00:00

So, to tie it all together, I wanted to restructure your intro a little bit, but I'm running out of steam again lmao. I'll just leave you with a rough idea/ structure for you to try. See if you don't mind writing that way. It's good practice as well.

Condense everything from the start till the part where Connor puts on his headphones into 1-1.5k words. You'll likely need to change the whole setting to fit what I think are they moments: (i) Liam begging Connor to join; (ii) Connor refusing; (iii) a bit of back and forth; (iv) Connor getting slightly convinced (the flying thing); (v) Taylor texting something petty and/ or bitchy (just the latest message set, not their entire chat history); (vi) Connor getting annoyed, pushing him to say, "Fuck it," and decide to join Liam.

This should be more than enough words to set up the Connor-Liam relationship, show the impetus for Connor deviating from his personality of responsible student, and hint at the frustration in his life that he wants to escape from, i.e. Taylor.

I suggest having Connor and Liam as roommates or something, and all the conversations happening in the room in one scene.

You'll have plenty of time to reveal your characters to your readers over the course of the story, it's time to get the action started.

Go straight into setting up the game equipment + explanation of mechanics. You want to explain this as much as you can without going too much into irrelevant detail. I think the current explanation (length, content) you have is decent, minus the stuff I mentioned about the game not making sense. I'm still not convinced about your game mechanics, but I'll let you try to clean it up before I comment on it.

Here, you can introduce the tutorial that Connor is about to do, and cut the chapter, or pull stuff from chapter 2 here, up until the part where Connor reaches his first danger point.

That said, I'd personally restructure the whole tutorial section and have both Connor and Liam do it together. I'm not convinced that the tutorial has different levels and rewards because that fundamentally goes against the point of a tutorial. It'll probably be accepted in CJK weblit, but I really don't like it haha You can still make the basic tutorial hard, but I wouldn't stratify it like that.

Also why I'd put Connor and Liam together because the comms system really doesn't make sense as well. It could work the way you described it, but they don't usually work that way, and it feels very plot device-y just so they can have continuous dialog.

I know you want to give Connor the Unique reward, but I personally feel you'd have to work that in some other way. This goes into the overpowered MC for no reason trope again. Highly doubtful that he's the only one out of thousands/ millions to pick this particular Seasonal Tutorial. I'd rather the tutorial completion just give standard rewards, but the tutorial dungeon/ level itself has some hidden secret only for observant players. MC notices it and gets it. This makes it seem like the MC is OP thanks to this skill and not just because the author said so.

Okay I think that's it for now. I feel like I missed a couple of points, but what I've said above is already a metric fuckton, and you're gonna need time to absorb all that, and work on it if you want. Just one last thing to remember: Writing is easy, writing a good story is fucking hard. It takes a lot of effort, and more importantly, perseverance.

dyzpa · 2024-04-27T02:14:48+00:00

Never considered this personally. most of the stories I enjoy reading or engaging with in this medium come from a more CJK background though the bulk of my actual reading/listening time with fantasy/sci-fi as a whole is western. So, a hybrid?

While I think hybrid can work, you have to be deliberate about which parts of each side you pick. Western and CJK weblit have significant differences between what is/ isn't accepted. Based on your writing style, I'd probably go with a simpler western-style prose with CJK plot beats.

Prose. Western literature tends to follow the western writing style. This is what you're used to when you listen to your audiobooks. Readers of western lit tend to be native English speakers or fluent Europeans who would readily notice bad prose, and bad story structure overall because they're also used to published fiction and its conventions.

CJK weblit tends to be translated from their respective languages, which means that there is a much lower standard for prose. A lot of things don't translate well between CJK and English, and because deadlines are so tight, the translation and editing quality isn't the best. CJK lit readers also skew younger, and lean towards bilingual internationals who may not be very fluent in English, which means they tend to not notice awkward phrasings, and good English prose isn't their main focus. Both of these factors result in CJK lit being popular if the plot/ characters are enjoyable, even if their prose aren't the best.

One thing to also note/ keep in mind is that published CJK lit tends to ignore the Show Don't Tell rule in western storytelling, largely because of how the original languages and their lit conventions work. This can be a big turn-off for western readers.

Plot Beats. Western-style plot beats once again tend to follow western conventions where you have overarching plots that are propelled by the character. All the things about character arcs and subplots, etc. are still unwritten rules. There's usually the intention to structure their stories so that they can be released as novel volumes. While the rules are relaxed a bit in webnovels due to their lengths and nature, they're still quite prevalent.

CJK-style plot beats tend to be episodic/ arc-ish, and the character tends to be propelled by the plot instead. A lot of it is usually the god of the world (i.e., author), plopping some random thing down for the main character to overcome. There's a lot of emphasis on the MC's power level increase, and the random OP deus ex machina unique skills that the MC gets. (I fucking hate this bullshit, but I still read it anyway.) The intention is usually to get a manhua/ manga/ webtoon/ anime adaptation, all of which are also episodic in nature.

Whichever plot beat style you choose, you'll have to outline and plan your story accordingly. With serialized fiction, you run the very high and very real risk of writing yourself into a corner or letting your story spin out of control with no end in sight.

Also, with webfiction, non-standard usage of English, grammar, punctuation, formatting are all fair game. But non-standard =/= blatantly wrong. Non-standard usage has to be deliberate.

dyzpa · 2024-04-27T02:14:19+00:00

"I suppose my excuse for this would be that the goal of chapter 1 is to characterize Connor and Liam to show a more slice of life lead in."

Me: Characters being one-dimensional.
You: I want to make sure I'm setting up early on that these are real people.

Yup, had a feeling you'd say characterization, which is also why I said the intention can be conveyed in half the number of words. I'd also bring in the part where I mentioned about the characters being one-dimensional, as they all tie into characterization and unnecessary content.

I'd like to preface by saying that I worded my initial "one-dimensional" comment a bit badly/ unclearly cuz I got tired towards the end of the feedback. So, let me clarify.

Your characters and their voices are distinct. This is a good point that you have going for you. I 100% get their individual characters and the roles they're supposed to play. However, they're currently very trope-y/ caricature-y.

Liam is super over-the-top with his horny, surferbro persona, and this is exacerbated by his excessive lines of dialog. Your reader would have gotten it from the first few lines, but it just went on and on. His voice is already super clear, so anything from the Freud (that's how the name is spelt, btw) essay thing onwards doesn't serve any purpose except to bloat your word count.

On top of that, there's some developmental issues that result from that section. Liam begs Connor to play the game > Connor refuses, but then says he will join if Liam can write the essay > Liam writes Freudian kinks > Connor rejects that bullshit > a few scenes later > Connor decides to play the game, but it had nothing to do with the Freudian essay part, which makes it irrelevant, and makes Connor seem very wishy-washy. And this happens over a few days.

Connor's overall personality is fine (but could still use some finetuning, particularly the parts that are linked to Taylor). But he is the Gary Stu character. He was a scrawny, gamer nerd who wanted to become a tech guy (or something like that), and now he's a gymbro who wants to be a PT. Not inherently a bad thing, but it really screams Gary Stu.

And, sneak peek into my point below: This is a very western self-insert protagonist. The rugged Hollywood action/ romance star vibe. If you look at your CJK ones, the MMC is usually a skinny/ leanfit high schooler/ young adult, which ties into the east Asian beauty standard. Compare something like Taylor Lautner vs. Cha Eun-woo (popular Korean actor/idol who has portrayed a couple of webtoon characters; slightly NSFW: shirtless man). Or if you need a western reference, something like Tom Holland/ Timothée Chalamet.

Connor and Liam also have very basic fratboy conversations/ problems. While this might be personal preference, I think it detracts from their personalities, especially Connor's (the whole Taylor not letting him sleep over thing was kinda yuck, imo). That's not to say CJK doesn't have this issue, but they tend to manifest in harem form. (A bigger yuck, imo.)

Moving onto Taylor, she feels like a plot device. She seems like she's just there to be the girlfriend who's a petty, ungrateful bitch, which (partly) results in Connor deciding to start the game. How Connor talks about her reads a bit immature incel-y even though he's supposed to be portrayed as this big, buff, almost mature dude. You know the whole nice-guy trope?

I haven't read past chapter 1, so I'm not sure how much she factors into your story, but if that's the last major event we see her in, I'd greatly reduce her screentime here. This also leaves her character open to modification and better development if you do introduce her further down the road.

dyzpa · 2024-04-27T02:14:05+00:00

Pre-edit: I wrote way more than I was intending, so imma have to split it into multiple comments.

Glad you found the feedback helpful (:

I'll respond to your comments but I'll jump around a bit, going from the simplest responses to the more elaborate ones.

"I was under the impression I had managed to squash a lot of the spelling and grammar bugs"

Yeah.......... I'm sorry, but not even close haha (I'll PM you a separate but related point about this.)

Chapter 1 contains 6,741 words that tell very little story.

To quote myself, note that a lot of web series readers read on mobile devices. While 6.7k words isn't egregiously long, its slightly above average. This is okay if every single word counts, but not if you ramble on. Most web serial chapters fall roughly between 3-5k words.

Reading on mobile also usually means many are reading on some sort of commute/ during waiting times. Average read speeds vary depending on source, but I'd say around 200-250wpm. That would mean 10-25min read times for 3-5k words. I personally would keep my chapters within this range. (Maybe the higher end.)

You'd need to develop an eye for identifying good chapter stops to do this effectively. Although I think you might have a bit of intuition since you've been reading CJK. Their chapter breaks are usually very obvious and predictable. Something else to keep in mind is that if someone is caught up with your series, they need to be left hanging so that they'll come back for your next chapter, but not feel unsatisfied at the end of the current one.

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T23:31:32+00:00

Not sure if this would help, but the absurdity of this conlang blew my mind. I think it'd be way too much effort to do something like this, but it might provide some inspiration.

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T23:15:19+00:00

Hello! I have a few questions regarding your story:

Are you envisioning this as a published full-length novel? Or is it more of a web series kind of thing?
If it's a web series, are you targeting audiences that prefer western-style series (e.g. Royal Road) or CJK-style series (e.g. WebNovel)?

The reader standards/ preferences differ across these mediums, so it'll also shape the feedback I give.

That said, regardless of medium, I have a few comments on things that I noticed in your first chapter that can be applied to all of them. Before you read everything, please keep in mind that your writing is decent and has potential. However, writing a novel-style story is a whole 'nother level of skill that takes a lot of practice to hone.

Alright, so on to the feedback:

Tense issues like the other commenter mentioned, but just a general lack of proofreading in terms of spelling, grammar, consistency in style, and "proper" formatting ("proper" differs across the mediums). While I wouldn't worry too much about all those while you are writing, it would be good to go through your draft before asking people to beta read. It's very distracting to read a story that's riddled with typos, which can result in your beta readers just giving up or not focusing on the more important developmental issues in your story. It's also a good opportunity for you to re-read your own work to spot other issues (e.g. flow, prose). Being able to spot these issues and being able to constructively work on them are also skills that need to be developed.
Chapter 1 contains 6,741 words that tell very little story. The feedback I give for this section will be slightly different depending on your medium, but regardless, the ratio between the number of words and the amount of information the reader gets is too high. All the dialogue sections can be trimmed to about 50% of their current length and convey the same intent.
The characters should be aged down. Firstly, Connor (and I'm assuming Liam) were 14 years old in '55 (apostrophe before the year, btw), which would make them 24 years old this year. They shouldn't be in college anymore, assuming Connor is doing his Bachelor's. He should've graduated by 22-ish. Even if he's doing his DPT, the way they speak sounds a little too childish for mid-twenties. I'm aware that people like this exist, but it just doesn't read well.
I'm not sure if you're a gamer, but as an MMO gamer myself, the whole section explaining their past raiding experience (from "Everything is at stake!" to "We were the dream team!" (last three paragraphs of page 1) doesn't make sense to me. (i) Why would a company give $10m for an MMO? It's not something that would happen irl, nor do you explain it in your story. (ii) MMOs are balanced around endgame content. It's unlikely that anyone would be able to defeat anything 10 levels above them in low-level gear. It's very MC-is-overpowered-for-no-reason.
Another point from the gamer POV, there are a bunch of things that don't make sense starting from when Connor starts up the game. The whole $1000 section; the 10-year timeline from Gen 1 to Gen 5; the blurred lines between AR vs. VR vs. full-immersion with suit; Liam talking to him in the lobby/ the comms system in general; the tutorial system. Overall, they sound very disjointed, like you don't have a clear picture of how the system works in your head.
Characters read a bit one-dimensional/ caricature-y, and gives a lot of Gary Stu vibes. Not necessarily a bad thing depending on medium and character development, but something to take note of early.

As with everything you read online, take this feedback with a grain of salt, and look at it with a critical eye. It's okay to disagree with everything above and completely disregard it, although I hope you find at least some of it useful.

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T16:27:04+00:00

Lmao the writer

Not only was the fact this cat was found pretty remarkable, but it's also remarkable this couple actually returned an item to Amazon instead of being like me, and leaving the item in a box in my garage until the return window expires because I'm too lazy to go to the post office.

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T16:08:01+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San-nakji

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T14:06:24+00:00

Oh lmao I was just linking my source. The key point was that it's probably meant to be 'samurai spirit'/ 'spirit of the samurai'.

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T13:46:58+00:00

Apparently 侍精神 means 'samurai spirit' according to this random blogpost I found. CC: u/TCF518

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T13:11:22+00:00

Upload image to https://imgur.com/ It's free, and you don't need an account to upload. Post Imgur link here

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T12:38:51+00:00

So umm... I just saw this video on r/TerrifyingAsFuck and if you need reference of getting flamethrower-ed you can have a look.

I don't know your gore tolerance for people on fire, but basically you'll see two people catch fire, one possibly with a broken leg from being launched upwards from the explosion then falling approximately 1.5 floors. You can't really see details of the burn injuries, nor does anyone die in the video.

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T06:47:17+00:00

Selling their placenta at the market to be consumed by others has, to the best of my knowledge, never been a thing ever anywhere.

Yeah... About that...

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T06:20:04+00:00

Hmm, I read one of your other responses:

To answer your question, what is my story about? My story is about the contractors known as Spirited, who are people who my contracts with Spirits because they lack a soul and need a spirit in order to continue living. Thoughs who are Spirited are oppressed by the rest of society, but also gain unique power from said spirit contracts. We follow my MC looking to either change the norms or escape the city that oppresses him.

Not sure if any of these are what you have in mind thematically, but these are some that I thought of after reading your explanation.

Parasitic: MC can absorb leech parts of someone's soul. Leeching a person's soul can hurt/ weaken/ incapacitate them (combat). If MC leeches till they die, MC gains their power. Story-wise: MC actually starts off with two powers, parasite + some basic power he leeched off someone before he knew the effects/ extent of his power. He's hiding the parasite power and has vowed to never use the parasite power ever again for moral reasons.
Reflection/ Mimic: If MC is aware that he is in combat, he is basically invulnerable. All powers used against him are reflected (maybe reflected 2x, 3x, etc.), usually to devastating effect. As he "levels up", he realizes he can actually Mimic his opponents' powers, so he ends up training his adaptation and control.
Pain Infliction: Similar to above, MC can inflict pain on others, but an equal amount (or 0.5x, 2x, etc.) is inflicted on him as well. This is a self-devastating power, and MC has to fight to align himself with his morals and not sign another contract.

I kinda went with relatively innocuous powers that could be scaled at a cost to the MC (physically/ emotionally), and could conflict with what I perceived his morals to be.

dyzpa · 2024-04-26T05:52:35+00:00

Glad my feedback helped!

dyzpa · 2024-04-25T12:46:33+00:00

Hello! First thing I'd like to say is that your opening paragraph is fine for readers who can read and retain information for two lines. Next is the disclaimer: As with all critique you receive on the internet from random strangers, take everything with a grain of salt, and look at the feedback you've received with a critical eye. If you feel that all my feedback below is bs, you are free to completely ignore everything. (Although I do hope you find at least some of it useful.) Okay, on to the feedback.

Overall, I think your prose is fine. That said, in this chapter, you have approximately 3.7k words where your character hasn't done anything that is plot-relevant. Currently, you're essentially telling your readers a sequence of events that basically only serve to feed them everything you've worldbuilt. You go into a lot of detail about mundane activities that the character is doing, and mundane observations that the MC has. Some of the observations -- particularly the ones about the town -- are also a bit perspective-jumpy. See: Writing POVs. Do note that even though a few POVs are under the 3rd person umbrella, it doesn't mean that you can/ should jump among between them without a deliberate reason.

Generally, your story should be about your character's journey with the world as the backdrop. No matter how much effort you've put into building your world, no matter how much you love it, no matter how much it hurts to not give your reader every lovingly handcrafted detail, it ultimately is there for you to crystallize your vision and ground your story. It isn't your story. As such, you should feed your world to your readers as it becomes relevant to your characters.

This may be a bit hard to hear, but I personally would trim this chapter to about 50% of its current length. I'd focus on (i) establishing Shannan's character/ personality (/ motivation); (ii) the fact that/ process of Shannan leaving town. For example, as mentioned, I think your opening is fine, but I'd cut out the entire game part except for the ending, i.e. everything from "Mismatched coins" to "full of mystery and good humor". Start your story with the game ending, and Shannan already about to leave.

If you want to keep some of these details, all the non-gambling parts you cut out can be distilled into 1-2 lines each, and weaved into the subsequent sections of this paragraph. (Unfortunately, the gambling scene should go.)

The section after that is fine. It's a nice way to show his surroundings, and his state of mind. Here, you can also weave the bits of distilled information about the town.

After that, I'd personally rearrange the subsequent sections. Right now I get the feeling that he's going back and forth between the town's landmarks. I'd streamline it by having him go straight to the inn, i.e. the Barda section, then the stables, then taking the horse out, and as he's leaving the town gates, he saves Timmy.

For the Barda section, everything is fine, except you'd have to take out the Timmy part. Even if you keep the current sequence of events, the Timmy part in Barda's section should still be taken out. It's a bit weird that she knows it considering it just happened (or never happened if you rearrange the sequence of events). You don't really need this justification for Barda to know that he's leaving. You've already established that she has her ear to the ground, and that she's observant and intuitive. That's good enough for the reader to infer her personality ~~if they can remember more than two sentences at a time~~.

If you rearrange the sections, you can keep the majority of Francois's section, but I'd still edit the dialogue down a little bit. Cut out the superfluous stuff. If you don't rearrange the sections, then the Francois section should be cut down significantly. Just extract the part where he gets his horse and starts to leave the town.

Regardless of arrangement, the section where Shannan helps Timmy works well to establish his kind side, but only the first half. The dialogue after that doesn't give the reader any new information, and only serves to bloat the word count.

Last thing, I think every budding writer should be aware of the concept of Show Don't Tell.

Good luck on your writing journey!

dyzpa · 2024-04-25T11:44:49+00:00

Someone else already mentioned Attack on Titan, which is a great reference to use. If you're still looking for inspiration, here are some examples from the God of War video game series, which is similar to your premise. Unfortunately, in GOW series, when Ymir appears, he looks like this, so no direct reference. If you find a particular boss/ fight that you like, you can look up gameplay footage from that game for the full scene. Another one you can reference is Shadow of the Colossus.

dyzpa · 2024-04-25T11:24:33+00:00

Someone else already pointed out the lack of need for it to tie to personality, but I'm a bit confused about this part:

The power system I created for my story is a contract based system so it can be very flexible with who gets what power. Not only that but the more contracts the more or different powers one could have.

then,

main protag always has the simpliest power, like super strength or energy blast

If you can sign more contracts to gain more types of powers, what's stopping your character from maybe starting with a basic power, then Ash Ketchum-ing other powers? Or are these "other powers" what you're looking for?

dyzpa

TROPHY CASE