14 KiB
Just finished The Games We Play by Ryuugi and I have a few questions.
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Author: u/None *
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URL:
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Score: 16
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Created: 2016-08-13T17:01:26
Post:
[removed]
Comments:
u/TophMelonLord [+20] (2 hours later)
I know you said you dislike reading from a womans perspective, but I think you are making a huge mistake with Worm. Her gender is largely irrelevant anyway. Of all the stories you mentioned, the protagonist of Worm is defiantly the most badass. I won't say you need to commit, but give it a fair chance.
u/waylandertheslayer [+18] (3 hours later)
defiantly
Normally I'd think this was a typo but it could also either be a Defiant pun or a description of Skitter.
Either way I agree - I normally prefer male to female protagonists (easier to relate to) but Worm is different. I don't really know how to put it. It's not that Skitter's gender never comes up, it just isn't important I guess?
I would recommend for new readers to try out the fight against Lung for a good idea of what the story is like.
u/None [+17] (22 hours later)
It's probably not about the quality of the story, but his desire to be able to self-insert as a male protagonist. I mean, asking for romance in this sub is pretty awkward.
But what annoyed me in all of them was the utter lack of romance, the authors seemed to avoid it like the plague for some reason.
Obviously there's a reason why rational authors avoid romance like the plague. It's an emotional tangent that almost always involves no rational elements whatsoever.
u/None [+4] (3 days later)
Even worse: it seems thrown in to add a broader demographic appeal or as something you "should" do.
Partly, I suspect since writers need to have female characters and don't really think through how to make them work, so they give them the romantic role.
This is more for film and it's one female in the middle of a scifi/action film but it's there.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+11] Godric Gryffindor (a day later)
Rational story with romance = Lois McMaster Bujold, Barrayar saga
u/Alphanos [+6] The Bright Powers (7 hours later)
Ryuugi hasn't yet started posting TLWT. Unknown whether he's started doing some prep work for the story in the background, but I think he's taking a break and working on other things.
If you liked The Games We Play, there's a good chance you'll like the main story he's been working on since then, Prytaneum. He's over 100 chapters into it so far, though recently there's been a pause as he's been disrupted by a change in jobs and schedules.
It's a crossover between DanMachi and Percy Jackson, neither of which I had any familiarity with when I started reading the story. That's fine, Ryuugi tends to do a lot of exposition of story points that come from the backgrounds of either story. The story draws more from DanMachi, so after a certain point I decided to watch DanMachi which only has a single short season so far. But he explains enough that you don't need to have seen it.
Much more recently, during the pause for Prytaneum, he's posted some pre-written chapters he had of an old story called Ceaseless Flow, which also has similarities to TGWP. At this point it's doubtful that it will continue in the long term, though it's always possible he may switch which story is getting his main focus.
u/makingupmynewmind [+6] (40 minutes later)
I found a link on his profile to his stories: https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/22779892/
u/None [+7] (2 days later)
Get over yourself and read Worm.
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+3] fear of last pages (16 hours later)
IIRC, HP & Natural 20 had romance in it. So maybe check that out?
Fall of Doc Future is another web original with elements of romance, but I don’t know whether it will be the type of romance you had in mind and will enjoy.
u/None [+1] (18 hours later)
[deleted]
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+6] fear of last pages (20 hours later)
I usually read the first big half, then put the story in the Follow story list without touching it until it’s finished. For what it’s worth, the author has said that they’re not dead and the story’s not abandoned~~(just temporarily comatose?)~~.
p.s. If I remembered any romance in Waves Arisen (completed) I’d’ve recommended that too.
u/Kishoto [+4] (23 hours later)
p.s. If I remembered any romance in Waves Arisen (completed) I’d’ve recommended that too.
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+1] fear of last pages (23 hours later)
Thanks, I couldn’t remember whether any of their in-group relations eventually turned into romance or not (also, your spoiler is invisible if the subreddit style is disabled).
u/CCC_037 [+1] (a day later)
So far, that point is midway through the sequel to the sequel to HP & Natural 20. (Why he put them all as one story is a good question).
I think it's worth reading.
u/vallar57 [+6] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (5 hours later)
A couple of WNs:
u/TophMelonLord [+5] (2 hours later)
Ryuugi has more stories. I don't think any of them have romance in them though, and none are of the same scale as TGWP. He does a lot of crossover fiction so if you haven't read both original works a lot of stuff might be lost on you. TGWP is good in this regard, as you don't really need to have watched or read anything prior.
Also, The Iron Teeth is new favorite web fiction of mine, though the author is now actually going back and writing an arc that takes place between two other ones he's written already, so at the pace he's going I would either wait a few weeks to read it or stop when you get to the end of Written in Blood. Really do recommend it though.
u/the_steroider [+7] Trascending Humanity (an hour later)
[deleted]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.0916
u/TophMelonLord [+12] (2 hours later)
And is also terrible. Reads like a cross between a junior rational fic and a middle schoolers wet dream.
u/rumblestiltsken [+10] (5 hours later)
Just for a dissenting voice, time braid is a fantastic piece of fiction and I reread it regularly. It isn't rational in the strict sense but isn't stupid. Protagonist is really intelligent and actually gets heavily challenged by intelligent antagonists.
I'm not sure how someone could feel like it is trash. I'm fine with someone not liking it, but it is well written, develops characters really nicely, blends two Fandoms well and manages the whole groundhog day thing way better than all you need is kill or any other story I can think of.
I feel like the person above me just didn't like shounen manga or something. Ridiculous power is the point, but in my opinion has never been handled so well.
I would rate time braid in my top three fanfiction recommendations, and it might actually be number one.
u/None [+10] (8 hours later)
The reason Time Braid is terrible isn't shonen- in fact, time braid isn't even shonen at all. What's wrong with Time Braid is it's blatant and unexplained OOC-ness, Rape/Underage sex, and blatant character bashing. To make matters worse, Naruto is a blatant authorial insert. That's not to say it doesn't have its good parts; the crossover is handled well, the idea is original, and some of the lines are gold, like "What would it take for you to go out with me?" "A lobotomy.", but that's nowhere near enough to make up for it. tl;dr: If it was written a bit better (i.e. Naruto wasn't such a flagrant insert), had older characters and/or had less of the whole preteen/teenage sex, dropped the rape, and had an original setting it'd be really good. As it is, it's pretty terrible.
u/rumblestiltsken [+10] (8 hours later)
Well, you aren't the same person I was replying to, but those are certainly common criticisms. I disagree, and think all of those elements are handled sensitively and with the seriousness they deserve (this coming from a person who rails against sexualised violence and overt sexualisation in most media).
I actually think time braid represents some of the best handling of those elements in any young adult fiction.
But not going to argue with you. Each person has a different threshold about that stuff.
I will argue about the Naruto being a self insert complaint. For starters, he exists in about 5% of the story. Secondly, he is a clear subversion of the male wish fulfillment tropes, because he is all of that and yet the female protagonist still has agency. Thirdly, he is the rescuee more often than not.
If anything, Sakura is more of a Peggy Sue, and if she is then so is every rational protagonist discussed in this sub.
Obviously YMMV to anyone thinking about reading it. I would simply say I think it is one of the most tightly written action adventures I have ever read, and is fantastically plotted with a seriously well built world.
u/None [+1] (9 hours later)
I know you said you didn't want to argue about it, but rape isn't okay- and the story all but outright comes in support of it; he has the supposed enlightened hero against evil (Naruto) doing so, the main character doing so... in fact, the only problem with it even mentioned is that they shouldn't be doing it [i]because they're engaged[/i], not because it's bad.
That's why I said authorial insert rather than self, although perhaps I should have said authorial avatar? I'm not sure what exactly to call it, but it's not like DoS. He is, however, very blatantly written as the author- he talks almost exactly like ShaperV does in what I read of Fimbulwinter. Ofc Sakura is a Peggy sue- the story is literally about using time travel to solve your problems. There isn't anything wrong with that, though, just look at Branches on the Tree of Time or Mother of learning.
u/rumblestiltsken [+8] (9 hours later)
I'm ok arguing about the topic, but I don't want to assume everyone else is or wants to read about it. All I would say is that I found time braid presented every abhorrent act by antagonist or protagonist as abhorrent. Loss of humanity and... not redemption, but regaining some sort of stability, are key themes in the work.
It is dark. No doubt. Groundhog Day is a fridge horror narrative.
I don't think it is even vaguely possible to call Naruto enlightened in time braid. He is explicitly naïve and thoughtless. He is very moral, in the same way that any real person can have strong morals and be an absolute horror show because they don't know any better or have a different version of morality. I love that he isn't portrayed as perfect, but instead is possibly the most horrifying character in the story. A good foil to sasuke and Sakura.
If shaper V hates themselves and thinks they turn everything they touch to shit by passive effect, then maybe you could be right. I see Naruto more as successful subversion than anything else.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
Wow, you're misreading this story dramatically. It's supposed to be about fucked up characters in a fucked up world. Naruto is not supposed to be an enlightened hero at all.
Also, I'm assuming we're talking about Hana's scene with Naruto as an example of rape? Because it's really not nearly as rape-y as you seem to want it to be.
u/None [+2] (4 days later)
Actually, I was mostly talking about the whole sexy jutsu thing- getting them to use it and then taking advantage of the consequences. It's like getting people drunk/on drugs and then pressing them, albeit without the addiction side affects. It's not just Hana, though- Naruto also does the same to Tenten, whose only 14, tops, while using what nearly amounts to mind control to get them attracted. Admittedly he can't entirely help that part, but...
The whole point was that Naruto was the hero- he was the one that the darkness couldn't touch, the chosen hero- and he was still doing it. Enlightened was the wrong word, though.
u/the_steroider [+5] Trascending Humanity (2 hours later)
[deleted]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^0.3034
u/TophMelonLord [+4] (2 hours later)
Fair... though you could say that about almost anything. The shit I took this morning was better than Twilight. Better than Time Braid too, come to think of it.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
Strong disagreement. It's an amazing work of fiction. People who are terrified by sex tend to dislike it though.
u/Anderkent [+2] (a day later)
Trust and Providence is pretty good romance in a sensible setting. Rational, not rationalist.
u/None [+3] (37 minutes later)
Wrong subreddit. Might want to ask your questions on Spacebattles.