#Web Serial

[victoriadallonfan]

Massive spoilers under cut

- 8 year timeskip!? Insane but… honestly it feels right for this kind of story? But so fucking sad that she got 2 extra years because she defended herself from bigoted assholes

- Lots of focus on warships this chapter! Not complaining, I find the past of the Belt to be fascinating. Interesting that we get a time frame it being her "great grand father" generation… assuming the max lifespan of 160 years or so, since 80 is "middle aged", that's over 300-400 years ago!

- This does open up questions of what constitutes "youth" and "adulthood", since 60 years old is seen as young by that one prisoner in A's fan club, and they are fine with sexual content of teens at 16 years old

- Carlen Holder returns! Her bigotry is on full display; even if she has valid concerns about the Families murdering any dissenters and child marriages, it's clearly clouded her judgement of the Sleek as a whole

- Winnie and Carlens entire dynamic is really fascinating. Carlen clearly feels a connection to Winnie, even though it's a toxic one, while Winnie has no positive feelings about Carlen in any capacity that we see

- Winnie has a new house! And A has a whole new planet, holy shit. Perpendicular Belts will never happen, as we see from Orion's time, but god.. I hope it's not because the Gray Frocked yeet A and her planet out of the galaxy and Basil needs to use nanotech to save the living organisms (creating proto-cogs)

- It is very funny that Winnie does not see the need for a kitchen or bathroom and just decides to rip it all out as junk. And wanting to form a crew!!! Aww, she ended up liking Anide despite everything

- Toby gifting Winnie a meeting with Basil and A is so fucking lovely but also has my anxiety soaring through the roof. Jesus Christ, I hope this doesn't end in disaster

[qrowscant]

LINK ROT / TRANSMISSION 001 / APRIL 3rd, 2024

Link Rot is a multimedia webserial following those within a research station. Once dedicated to the study and containment of a newly discovered life form, complications arise following its unexpected merge with the station's AI. TRANSMISSION 001 - In which you survive the unthinkable, and the world is worse for it.

General warnings can be found in the 'About' section. Any videos will have flashing warnings if applicable.

additional rambling under the cut

wow!!! it's been (checks archive) almost exactly a year since i originally conceptualized Link Rot, and since then it's grown into a beast of a story i cannot wait to tackle.

currently i'm aiming for updates once every month/month and a half (with occasional vacations to work on bite-sized projects). i'd like to do more, but i have a job and don't want to burn myself out. for now, i will take things slow B) maybe this will change in the future!

i hope you all enjoy reading my story as much as i enjoy creating it. there's a couple of hidden things on the website, so if you find anything fun let me know

and lastly,

take this

[gengarguy27]

Evil Wildbow be like "Taylor fucks girls"

[tagamantra]

SLIT THE THROAT OF SELF RESTRAINT.

The world ended after the Second World Revolution failed. The Utter Islands is nothing but a divine corpse; humanity its festering maggots. But in an ancient temple guarded by demon bodhisattvas, the murdered martial artist Raxri Uttara awakens from a pool of azure healing waters.

Without memory, without power, but with rage: Raxri scours the archipelago to re-attain their lost martial arts and magicks, which once shattered godly spines. If they don't? The full force of Heaven will crash down upon them.

GOD OBLITERATING VAJRA is a Sword, Gun & Magick Wuxia webnovel set in the Utter Islands, an archipelago inspired by Revolutionary Asia and Esoteric Buddhism. A thundering archipelago where gun mystics duel with charnel saints. Dead gods power karmic skyships. The Latter Day of the Law: Revolution billows through streets and rivers lit by fulgent karma.

In a realm this belligerent, the chance of an amnesiac surviving is near 0.

But what can you do to someone that has nothing left to lose and everything to gain?

WHAT TO EXPECT

[✓] Disco Elysium X The Raid X Ip Man X Ruroni Kenshin X Tsongkhapa's Philosophy

[✓] Slow Burn Wuxia in an immersive Post-Apocalyptic Sword, Gun, & Magick world.

[✓] Multiple POVs

[✓] Brutal and kinetic martial art action. 

[✓] Fucked up relationships and coping mechanisms.

[✓] Some Horror. Some Opt-In Sexual Content. 

ABOUT HINGSAJAGRA

Hingsajagra is the Fantastic Realist world of God Obliterating Vajra. Inspired by Esoteric Buddhism and Revolutionary Asia. Giant cats turned into apartment complexes, ghost horse steeds that tire not, walking giant mechanical armors turned into public transportation, charnel wizards summoning the long-dead, witches wielding the Pureflame of Creation, the Machine God beginning its slick advance into forever progress... the Age of Furor is upon us. The Latter Day of the Law. The Termagant Buddha watches closely.

Art above by @gnarlyghost! Logo by me.

[fireandslate]

Blank Slate is a dark fantasy webserial about fire, hope, lesbians, religious oppression, and rebellion--and also includes:

post-apocalyptic fantasy kingdom

evil church (and not-so-evil theology)

malevolent sellsword haunted by a benevolent demon

uncertain-hero minstrel who is smarter than she lets on

cold-eyed and conflicted traitor knight with a cool sword

devout and defiant nun who is a dead shot with a bow

courtly knights, cryptic druids

the legacy of the true Queen's bloodline

occasional and spectacular combat

infrequent but frightening bursts of otherworldly dread

and of course, ever-present even in a bleak Spring,

--an indestructible, stubborn thread of hope--

--hope that even the darkest times will end, and that the turning of the seasons will bring a new beginning.

Sometimes dark, sometimes sapphic, sometimes mystical, and always updated on Sundays, this character-driven fantasy web serial is available to read at fireandslate.com!

[maxwell-grant]

So is Worm good from what you have read

"Yes" doesn't begin to cover it but yes. Worm is a brain-rewiring mobius strip disguised as a bible disguised as a superhero web serial that either cured your cancer or shot your dog or both depending on who you ask, and it has many extremely dedicated, brilliant scholar priest surgeons publicly dissecting it on this platform on the regular to the point I don't think I have much to add to the conversations surrounding it, even if I do have some The Thoughts about it. I had never even really seriously thought about superhero prose before and Worm isn't a thing I go back and reread frequently but it did a complete and total 180 on the way I think about superheroes and even fiction, and I've never stopped thinking about it since I've read it.

It is a monumentally impressive story with completely absolutely incredible characters that I cannot stop thinking about. No matter where it was going, even past stretches that were less interesting or more of a slog to read or worse, I could not put the story of Taylor Hebert down for one minute. Tattletale fascinated me every step of the way, I had to keep up with her. Rachel Lindt was a character I feel like I'd been waiting my whole life for. What was I gonna do, not see them through? I feel like Worm easily loses you if you don't particularly connect with the characters enough to justify to yourself the amount of time you'll spend with them, but man, I could not unglue my eyeballs from these people enough (I love all the core Undersiders, to be clear, I'd say it's Rachel > Taylor > Tattletale > Aisha and Alec and Brian, there are very small gaps between these, I just don't go berserk for the last three like I do for the first three, I'm taking Bitch and Skitter to the grave I'm dead serious)

Everybody who read it has one or several gripes with it with some major dealbreakers in the mix. Tumblr's kinda the only place online where you can really talk about them at length without the spectre of John Wildbow hanging over the discussion, which enables discussion to the point where yes, maybe it does look like to outsiders that nobody can agree on whether Worm is good or what is it even about or whether it even has worms in it (it has at least one, although it's a very big one).

And it is good, it has the Undersiders in it and the Undersiders are one of the greatest groups of characters ever put together, but everyone has at least one major point of contention with Worm whether it's the timeskip or the length or the racism or the gross fatphobia or aspects surrounding the Dallon-Pelham Torment Nexus and etc. I'd say it has maybe the most racist vision of Latin America I've ever seen in a superhero text a hair short of pro-colonial tracts in Golden Age comics and that is a tall fucking order by any metric. It is Complicated, and that winds up making it so fascinating to talk about.

Worm has self-sustaining ecological systems of posts up here, far away from the Spacebattles and Reddit battlegrounds where it has different ones and that's not getting into Weaverdice or the sequel or Wildbow's larger body of work, which I haven't gotten to and probably will not any time soon because Worm was enough of a commitment as is. Do I recommend Worm to everyone? It is certainly not to everyone's tastes and I personally find it difficult to describe it simply enough to make it sound appealing or not like a pyramid scheme. But yes I do think it's good, in fact great, in fact, amazing, except when it isn't, and except it Plainly Sucks, but then something like Taylor vs Mannequin or Kevin Norton's interlude or "You needed worthy opponents" happens and it fucks harder than anything has ever fucked before and you don't walk away from it the same, so yes I guess "good" will have to do now.

It's certainly a lot but I definitely found it worth my time to read and then read the texts written about it here. You'll have to take my endorsement of Worm as proof of it's quality and proof of how deranged it makes it's readerbase, they're not mutually exclusive. If you can make it, Worm and the wormosphere has layers and layers to wade through and talk about and enjoy, despite how we're all so very small in the end *gunshot*.

[st-just]

"Make your entire main cast walk into a magic thing that plunges them into a nightmare of their deepest darkest fears realized' really is an absolutely amazing character exploration cheat.

[elcuervoborracho]

you could grind meat on those

[else-creates]

Nobody Can Help You Chapter 15

You can read the new Chapter HERE

[literary-illuminati]

2025 Book Review #12 – Pale Lights Book 2: Good Treasons by ErraticErrata

Pale Lights has been, for the last few years, the only serial fiction I have been consistently reading week-to-week as each chapter drops. So I’m truly not sure if I can give any sort of objective recommendation on whether you should read it, both because I have long since lost all perspective and because reading this as a complete work is almost certainly an entirely different experience from inhaling each chapter as it comes out. That said: it’s really good! If you like janky epic fantasy webfics I would even say it’s actually the best out there (note that I hate most janky epic fantasy webfics).

Set in the subterranean, god-haunted, repeatedly post-apocalyptic and roughly early modern fantasy world of Vesper, Book 2 of Pale Lights picks up pretty quickly after Book 1 finished – though now with twice as many protagonists. Along with Tristan (alley rat, unrepentant thief, sole follower of a very involved and often unhelpful goddess of luck) and Angharad (noblewoman fleeing her family’s purge and massacre, masterful duellist, swore her soul to an ancient eldritch god for the strength to take vengeance) from the first book, the story now gives equal time to the POVs to their minders from the last trials: Song (expert sharpshooter, aspiring officer, heir to literally the most cursed and hated family name in the world) and Maryam (‘Navigator’ (sorceress), technically princess and first witch of a now-conquered and enslaved people, recipient of a ritual that was supposed to fill her with generations of occult knowledge and might which inexplicably failed). Together they form a cabal at the newly reopened Scholomance, the incredibly cursed and actively malevolent but otherwise extremely useful university used by the god-hunting Watch to train the next generation of their officer corps.

The book follows the four of them through their first year of studies, first at the Scholomance itself and then on a practical exam where the four of them are sent to the troubled principality of Asphodel to fulfill a contract for its ruling Lord Rector. As might be expected, nothing at any point goes according to plan, and all four of them are hounded at every turn by the ghosts of their past. Also scheming gods, titanic monsters, and incredibly unwise romantic entanglements.

Now this is serialized web fiction, and has both the strengths and the weaknesses typical of the medium. You spend an immense amount of time just existing in all four protagonists’ brains, and every one of them is by the end intensely nuanced, interesting and compelling (likeable, even!) after getting their own richly detailed character arc through the book (The friends reading along with me week-to-week basically all disagreed, but for me at least the story managed the rare trick of not having a single POV I sighed in disappointment to realize was the focus of an update). The worldbuilding is also full of fun details and extraneous little complications that don’t serve any particular purpose in the story, but do an incredible job of making Vesper feel like an actual place with a real history and not just dark fantasy set dressing. On the other hand, the pacing is...let’s be nice and say unhurried. Some of those fun tangents outstay their welcome, and I literally needed a reference page to keep track of all the supporting characters at points. It was also written in pretty much real time across nearly two years, and you can definitely feel that it took some time to decide just what the defining arcs and conflicts of the main cast were going to be – not to even mention the number of plot hooks or details that were basically forgotten about as things progressed.

The plot is divided fairly sharply into two sections – first at the Scholomance and then on mission in Ashpodel. The break is sharp enough I wondered for a while why this wasn’t just broken into two books instead of one (it’s certainly long enough), but having actually finished it all four character arcs really do run through both sections and only get really satisfying thematic resolutions at the very end. Of the two, I vastly preferred the second half – but then, that’s at least mostly just because my tolerance for magical school/university plots has worn incredibly thin these days. (Even the Asphodel plot verged a bit too close to ‘this is all the protagonists running through their teacher’s rat maze and everything is going according to plan’ at times, especially with a couple late revelations that irked me for entirely petty and subjective reasons). But even the true university sections thankfully only spend a bare minimum of time on expository lectures and stressing about exams in favour of politics, vendettas, and kidnapping or murder attempts.

I really can’t figure out quite how to phrase this without sounding dismissive, but the overall shape of the story is basically about the power of friendship, and learning to implicitly trust and rely on (and risk and sacrifice for) your friends instead of trying to control or manage everything yourself. But it really genuinely works! In large part I think because all four protagonists have arcs that approach and reflect it in their own distinct ways and end up reinforcing each other (the big climax cutting between all of them as they culminated was incredibly well done) – but also just because the sheer length the medium enables let the story really dwell on the 2nd act where they’re all wounded and resentful and keeping increasingly dangerous secrets from each other. Entertaining, compelling dysfunction that almost convinced you they really were just going to fall apart.

The worldbuilding is – well, hardly groundbreaking (the historical inspirations of every cultural are entirely transparent, though there’s at least a little twist on each), but a fantasy world that’s early modern rather than medieval in inspiration is honestly still refreshing enough to buy more goodwill than it’s ever needed from me. And the execution of how it’s portrayed does an immense amount to make the place feel lived in and just compelling – the different cultures and states all cohere and are full of enough bigotry, hypocrisy and petty vendettas to be believable, mostly. The gods, monsters, and magic is all genuinely eerie and on occasion awesome in the literal sense. The aesthetics of the whole series are just incredible, really - just don’t think too much about the whole ‘everything is a giant underground cavern’ thing when picturing scenes.

It helps that sheer constant, unrelenting practice have left Erratic really quite good on the level of prose. The banter and little slice of life moments are endearing and both heart-warming and funny as they’re supposed to be, and the dire ruminations and real drama almost always lands like it’s supposed to. Not always in either case, but honestly far more consistently than a great many traditionally published (and edited) authors seem to manage.

It’s impossible to really recommend sprawling web serials like this to 90% of people, but if you are in the market for a secondary world fantasy epic I really don’t think you can do better than this one.

[valentinedagger]

READ FROM BEGINNING | LATEST CHAPTER

this is your reminder that book 2 of Stardust, my sci-fi-horror web serial, has finally begun—with a stunning new cover by @saturnine-saturneight

⚠️ contains mature/triggering content ⚠️ uses color-coded text that may not be fully screenreader-accessible 🔗 full trigger warnings on the front page of readstardust.com

In a near-future, post-alien-invasion United States, July—a psychotic bisexual soldier—and Cas—a sardonic, pretentious tactician—have spent their youth underground, raised by a conservative paramilitary group in the barricaded ruins of NYC’s subway tunnels. When a spaceship crashes in Jersey, they cross paths with Aston and Sage—key players in the Dusty invasion—and join forces in a doomed attempt to assassinate President Remus Taner. Once the assassination fails, all four are plunged into a hellish nightmare where the line between reality and dreaming blurs to the point of no return, politics intertwine with what can only be described as magic, and the stardust that chokes their atmosphere seems to have more significance than they knew. At the center of it all is June—July’s twin sister, presumed dead, now reappearing under the guardianship of the Secretary of State. She wants her sister back. By any means necessary.

you might like Stardust if:

you like complex narratives, metafiction, and color-coding such as in Homestuck;

you liked Ender's Game and Battlestar Galactica, but feel weird about that because of how pro-military they are;

your brain chemistry was changed by the dream logic, emotional surrealism, and gendered anxieties that make up Revolutionary Girl Utena;

you really liked the first season of Arcane but are very mad about the second;

you are a trans person who's into the whole "sisterkissing" trend.

it's free. it's weird. it's extremely uncomfortable. there's an intense fixation on holes. everyone is trans. there's spaceships made of meat. a lesbian commits atrocities. multiple lesbians, to be honest, and multiple atrocities.

give it a try. what's the worst that could happen? :)

[qrowscant]

things feel out of order

[gengarguy27]

Top 10 Blake Thorburn moments as of reading 5.5

In no particular order by the way

5. Promising Rose that he'll include her in descion making from now on before deciding to just tell the entire goddamn town that he summoned a demon and isn't afraid to use it

4. Reads about the most fucked up demon that lives in the attic and immediately goes "Ah cool, better check that out"

3. Finds out he's in a timeloop, immediately starts cutting himself with a toilet

2. Buys 20 mirrors, a chain, a hatchet, a baseball bat and then wonders why everyone else in the home depot is looking at him weird

Calls a pizza guy partly to test if the monsters outside his house will kill them

[tagamantra]

After being murdered, Raxri Uttara awoke in a healing pool at the end of the world.

In the depths of their Second Death, Raxri heard the Holy Madman speak: Walk. Uncover the truth of your death. Reattain your Enlightenment. There is no one to save you but you. Master yourself. Let the world sing through you. You are not alone. You are the world and the world is you.

A WORLD SHORN OF LIGHT. A SWORD DANCER TORN FROM THE HEAVENS. 

GOD OBLITERATING VAJRA is a new weird progression xianxia webnovel set in the sword & gun Maritime Buddhist inspired Utter Islands. Follow RAXRI who wakes up at the end of the world without their memory. Join them as the world is revealed to them, make bonds, and cultivate their love once again against a world that has ended after a failed Revolution.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Slow Burn in an Immersive Fantastical Antirealist Universe.Esoteric Buddhist Disco Elysium Xianxia. Sword and Gun Xianxia setting. Multiple POVs with a few Major POVs. Nonbinary Sword Wizards, Goth Devilwitch Gunners, Giant Dragon Blademaster. Ruthless, Brutal Martial Arts. Death is common. The world is dark and the end has come. Fucked up romance. Cultivation Systems inspired by IRL Eastern Esoterica. Ghosts and Demons. Horror. Warfare. Bigotry. Class Struggle. Optional Sexual Content. Strong Language. Revolution.

ABOUT HINGSAJAGRA

Hingsajagra is the Fantastic Realist world of God Obliterating Vajra. Inspired by Esoteric Buddhism and Revolutionary Asia. Giant cats turned into apartment complexes, ghost horse steeds that tire not, walking giant mechanical armors turned into public transportation, charnel wizards summoning the long-dead, witches wielding the Pureflame of Creation, the Machine God beginning its slick advance into forever progress... the Age of Furor is upon us. The Latter Day of the Law. The Termagant Buddha watches closely.

logo by me, art by @gnarlyghost!

[fireandslate]

Blank Slate is a dark fantasy web serial about fire, lesbians, religious oppression, and cultural exchange. If any of the following pique your interest, you might want to check it out!

Pseudo-medieval post-apocalyptic kingdom

evil church that is just catholic enough to be cool

malevolent sellsword haunted by a benevolent demon

uncertain-hero minstrel who is smarter than she lets on

cold-eyed and conflicted traitor knight

deranged and ironhearted nun awaiting her own execution

evil knights

mysterious druids

the occasional outburst of spectacular violence,

and, most important of all,

an indestructible thread of hope--

--hope that eventually winter will end, and a new spring will bring new beginnings to the kingdom of Frydain.

Sometimes dark, sometimes sapphic, sometimes mystical, and always updated on Sundays, this character-driven fantasy web serial is available to read at fireandslate.com!