What are you reading?

[Dracos]

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/a-tale-of-transmigration-worm-au.3397/

Sort of a cross between a time loop and an AU.  A few characters with knowledge of all of their lifetime in Worm, Skitter being one of them and the protagonist, trying another go at being a hero in a world where capes came earlier, end bringers showed up more often, and just generally things seem to go better.

[Dracos]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/goblin-queen-vii-worm-exalted.307078/ Read through this.  It is sort of a mix of neat and incoherent, generally following a story of Taylor a reality warping raksha?  I dunno, not sure.  At it's best, it has Taylor meddling with the strings of reality while doing word-fu to people and trying to find a grounding for herself.

At it's worst it'll got like 6 chapters without any clear view of why any of this relates or will ever relate to any of the core cast.

It really is. It's a strange mix of interesting, odd and just plain weird. Very much hit and miss.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/divine-administration-of-gods-and-bureaucracy-worm-exalted.13442/

A better take on a similar concept.  Less 'everything gets changed over' which makes it more of a pertinent drop a stone in a lake effect than the other fic.  More generally meant to communicate what's going on as well, according to the Divine Administrator of Mandate.

[Jason_Miao]

Webnovel Translation sites I've been frequenting, roughly in order of comprehensiveness:

http://www.wuxiaworld.com/
http://gravitytales.com/
http://moonbunnycafe.com/novels/
http://shiroyukitranslations.com/
http://arkmachinetranslations.com/
https://scryatranslations.wordpress.com/
https://bluesilvertranslations.wordpress.com/
http://totobro.com/

Like some fanfics, a number of the translated Xianxia stories are about pointlessly powering up for no good reason, or starts out with "Protagonist is a super-talent.  Let's demonstrate this over and over."  And in a bizzare social twist, it seems that in a few stories, CEOs are the new fantasy royalty ("Hi, I'm your new rival in this MMO, and I'm the CEO of the Asian division of MegaCorp!"  "Instead of spending 12 hours a day playing a online computer game, shouldn't you go run your company?")  So, there's that.

On the other hand, if there's a story that works for you, it'll last 1000+ chapters.  Of the ones still in translation, I'm quite the fan of I Shall Seal the Heavens (found on the first site) which goes strange at chapter 6, took a turn upwards at chapter 11, and is now translated to chapter 301.


For Merc: The guy who is translating Ark is now also translating Moonlight Sculptor.  Per his Ark translations, he edits the machine translations, and since I know you quit reading those over the horrible editing, I thought you might be interested.  However, he also starts on Vol 28 and since you stopped reading at Vol 18, I'm not sure if you want to slog through badly edited translations to get to these.



Oh, and DOS updated again.  I'd summarize, but it's classified.

[Dracos]

I continue my trawl of those two fora.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/reconciliation-worm-au.12462/

Lung adopts Taylor on a trip ...to kyushu.  Returns years later to face the leviathan...and what's left of her family.  Lung is cool.  Taylor is superoverpowered.

Also read one called intreprid that had an interesting Taylor power (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/intrepid-worm-au.17470/) where she goes catatonic...except in combat where she becomes the unstoppable.  Sadly it focuses on Taylor once out of every five chapters, with the others dedicated to taylors 3 bullies (who all get superpowers) alongside everyone else in the city it seems...  and also, taylor basically moves to vegas.  What?  Anyhow, it's decent it's just I didn't really care to read of Emma taking Taylor's spot while taylor goes off to Merc heaven.

[thepanda]

The thing about intrepid is that it feels like the author's other work, only Talor is alive this time!

... Waaay over there, not contributing to the other three storylines at all.

I've been reading PsiEffect (xcom/mass effect crossfusion), Realignment (harry potter time fic), Everyday life of a supporting character (monmusu fic that is more entertaining than the source material), and A new jedi in an old republic; all of which can be found on spacebattles.

Also, The steep path ahead (FoZ fic same saito/au Louise) and Mana based system (FoZ Louise summons the gamer power set instead of a familiar but has never played a modern rpg so...) over at sufficient velocity. Primal is interesting but not spectacular. The Fine Art of Diplomacing and the Hard Art of Keeping Korra Out of Trouble is a fave I don't think anyone has posted about yet. Term Time (worm/terminator) is interesting but hasn't gone very far yet.

Dreaming of Sunshine has also updated. As it do.

[Anastasia]

The thing about intrepid is that it feels like the author's other work, only Taylor is alive this time!

Yeah. I like Atonement, but I don't really see needing another fic like that.

A few recommendations and things I'm reading/have read recently.

A Harsher Truth. Things go worse on Taylor's first night out. Taylor ends up saving Armsmaster's life against Lung before being greviously injured. This results in a grateful Armsmaster recruiting her into the Wards. Turns out the two get along and have a lot of synergy. A fun fic for how its shaping up and that it portrays everyone as human beings, rather than fanon cutouts.

Salve. A Harry Potter/Worm crossover. Bonesaw ends up tossed into the HP world during Golden Morning, just before Harry's first year. Shenanigans ensue.

Golden Evening. Not long before canon starts, Scion loses his memory and has to begin anew. An interesting fic for what it is and fairly unique. Has some issues but it's worth reading.

Xander Quest (Story Only Thread) A quest thread that's actually worked out. Gasp. Features Ganondorf reincarnated as Xander from Buffy the vampire Slayer. Shenanigans ensue as it turns out the world is bigger than just the Buffyverse. Thrives with daily (and sometimes twice daily) updates. Canon Buffy is derailed for all sorts of reasons already and Xander's only 8. (By the way, read the omake thread linked in the first post if you get into this. A bunch are canon and from the quest master.)

[Dracos]

I actually mostly read intrepid just reading the taylor parts.  After a bit, it became even weird to look at the others.  "Like, why is this even relevant?  They're alll the way over there?"  Still, it ends up being really short that way, following Taylor and her merc crew through somehow simultaneously ineffective and happy perfect victory (Taylor ends up vastly overshadowing the rest of the crew, but more because the encounter scenes rarely end up having the others experience be effective).

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/what-rains-you-bring-worm-diebuster.904/  -with some exceptions, I quite like this fic.  Taylor gets 'saved' from queen administrator.  By Nono.  Who promptly starts upgrading her into Seventh Generation Cruising Decisive Weapon - Buster Machine 7.  She steadily gains power throughout the fic, going from thug, to surprise Lung, to solo lung, to 'Fight all 3 endbringers at once'.  It has some pretty good scenes with Taylor and Amy and with her trying to adapt to just really being Scion level strong.  Some suggestion that the powers are interdimensional parasites (Including them going out and battling one that way).  It is a bit white-washy, but up through arc 5 is a nice read.

Arc 5 suddenly like skips a chapter or more, so she goes from talking to Dragon for the second time ever to suddenly taking down the slaughterhouse nine in a wholly unforeshadowed fashion with no impact and a bunch of other skippy stuff.  It does starts introducing Nono-tier dangers showing up, but overall it just felt sudden and awkward.

Read Mana Based System a while ago.  It was kind of fun.  One of the few working Gamer crosses, with Louise literally ignoring ridiculous wounds because well, she's The Gamer.  And her friends being somewhat horrified at her drive for respect.

Continuing to basically sort both Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity by post count and click through.

[Dracos]

A Harsher Truth. Things go worse on Taylor's first night out. Taylor ends up saving Armsmaster's life against Lung before being greviously injured. This results in a grateful Armsmaster recruiting her into the Wards. Turns out the two get along and have a lot of synergy. A fun fic for how its shaping up and that it portrays everyone as human beings, rather than fanon cutouts.

This is a really friendly early era armsmaster.  Kind of weird and different.  In general, it actually seems to be a sort of more accepting/inviting world.  Spider silk underwear as a proposed thing from someone else?  ...Really?  Still, in general, people are more people in it.  Hasn't gotten really far though.  Just really past the first two criminal events, with Taylor getting set up on the sideline, and a handful of new OC characters crawling out of the woodwork.

Bank job is a lot more plausible though 5 on 6-7 then 3 on such though.

[Anastasia]

This is a really friendly early era armsmaster.  Kind of weird and different.  In general, it actually seems to be a sort of more accepting/inviting world.  Spider silk underwear as a proposed thing from someone else?  ...Really?  Still, in general, people are more people in it.  Hasn't gotten really far though.  Just really past the first two criminal events, with Taylor getting set up on the sideline, and a handful of new OC characters crawling out of the woodwork.

Bank job is a lot more plausible though 5 on 6-7 then 3 on such though.

Armsmaster is different because the entire situation is different. The doom spiral that started with the Lung fiasco didn't happen and he has reason to view Taylor favorably. Early Worm shows his worst side, this shows him in a situation that's less messy.

I'd say it's more inviting because it's actually going into depth about things. It's not perfect, but it's doing some fine character work along those lines.

[Dracos]

It was an interesting enough read to comment on :)  Even though it hasn't really gone anywhere yet.

Did the youth guard ever show up in worm?  *only read the latter half, from Alexandria's death onwards so his impressions of Armsmaster are really from his defiant era...where even when friendly, he's super standoffish.*

[Anastasia]

It was an interesting enough read to comment on :)  Even though it hasn't really gone anywhere yet.

Did the youth guard ever show up in worm?  *only read the latter half, from Alexandria's death onwards so his impressions of Armsmaster are really from his defiant era...where even when friendly, he's super standoffish.*

I think they're briefly mentioned or alluded to at most. Wildbow went into them a little more in author comments outside of the story.

[thepanda]

Hell is a Martial Artist updated. I gave up on this one back before it stopped updating but I recall it being somewhat popular here so...

[Anastasia]

Hell is a Martial Artist updated. I gave up on this one back before it stopped updating but I recall it being somewhat popular here so...

Awesome, thanks. Now let's see how it is.

[Dracos]

Neat.  Read already, and a lot of it was things I'd seen long ago, but good to see it still going.

Only two weird bits:
Th interplay with happosai on the whole sensei thing.
Cologne not even having a brief heart to heart "Don't force me...this is a matter of life and death to the tribe" with her own granddaughter before casting her out.

[Anastasia]

Neat.  Read already, and a lot of it was things I'd seen long ago, but good to see it still going.

Only two weird bits:
Th interplay with happosai on the whole sensei thing.
Cologne not even having a brief heart to heart "Don't force me...this is a matter of life and death to the tribe" with her own granddaughter before casting her out.

Pretty much. Firs tone I can live with, second one struck me as odd. You'd think there's be a few steps between that and disowning her.