I get why CYOA's are popular. They're 99.9% vastly overpowered characters. And most people like a good curbstomp at the beginning of whatever fandom makes it to Fanfic status. Much like the slew of Indy!Harry's that dominated the fandom for a long while. They like to see the characters they hated in canon get trashed and the hero undeniably win.

Worm FF already had this in its infancy with almost everyone jumping on the OP wagon in Alt Power fics. Thing is, they started petering out, because OP characters, like Indy!Harry get boring after the hundredth curbstomp.

Worn FF started to actually produce some better thought out plots instead of the typical canon rehash. Then suddenly CYOA comes out and it's back to the, "OP is awesome! I'm jumping on the bandwagon!"

So I get why they're semi-popular, I just don't get the timing. Maybe it's just the last vestiges of the OP trope gasping it's dying breath? Then again, after glancing at the HP fandom, I'm still seeing Indy!Harry blaming "Dumbles" for all his problems and whipping out the Multi-core wand to cannon blast the enemy even after all this time.

BTW every time I see CYOA I think of nothing else than Cover Your Own Ass at first.

 

The CYOA images that get made are somewhat interesting to play with. They just don't lead to good stories, because it's all visual and no substance.

 

I remember reading Goosebumps CYOA when I was a kid, and I really enjoyed them, but for Worm it seems to be more 'Choose your own Overly Powered Premise' as opposed to '...Adventure'. Would be an interesting creative experiment to try and make an actual fanfic CYOA - not a Quest but a story written out in that style with multiple paths. Coil as a character is almost tailor-made for the focus.

 

Worm seems to be the biggest fandom on DLP now, behind the big ones like HP, Naruto et al.

Out of interest, is anyone here planning a story?

We should definitely have a 10k story challenge soon, or something - preferably something non-taylor centric.

 

I have a one-shot I'm planning. Post-epilogue, exploring the mystique of Khepri. Probably around 7-10K words.

 

It probably drew in a lot of the less-established writers that probably weren't going to be writing the non-OP -or OP with good writing like the Transformers crossover- fics anyway until it got critical mass.

It's like the altpower thing except you need about 0 familiarity with any universe and it's so OP and structured that the mechanics are basically whatever you want so very little of the "hard stuff" is needed at the beginning. Plus, people treat SIs as "me" and not "character that has foreknowledge drops into the world" so they can just easily pretend that the huge, huuuge problem of writing a character dropped into another world are far more minor than they are since they're barely writing a character.

It's a perfect storm.

 

My god. The fucking SIs. Why are there so many of them? I don't write. I haven't tried my hand at writing anything not a research paper in four years, so I generally avoid being overly critical of people's writing choices unless I feel like I can be constructive.

That said, SIs seem like the laziest shit fic idea of them all. I mean, it takes Mary Sue to whole new levels of "oh god why?" Is it just me or does it seem like Worm attracts more SIs 'per capita' as it were? Or is it just because the fandom is relatively small? And Space Battles/Sufficient Velocity seems to love the damned things...

I mean, write what you want to write, since that's fundamentally the point. But I just don't get why someone would bother putting an SI to paper rather than leaving it as the half-remembered day dream it should have stayed as. Or better yet, just scrap the SI part of it and develop an original character.

 

I don't mind self-inserts when done right. Its the over-powered SI character and "fix-it" aspects of the Worm CYOA that turns me off.

 

Has there been a good SI yet? I think they've all been fix-its so far.

 

I used to say the exact same thing.

Here's the thing though...I can't remember running into one that didn't turn me off. So I'm not sure that the claim is sound for me.

I think I ran into a Star Wars one once. But apart from that? Honestly, even then.

 

You know what I'd like to see? An SI where the character says, "Fuck this, I'm moving to Montana and live in a cave. Endbringers? Whatever?" Granted, it might be a really short story...

 

It would still have to be pretty long, since you actually have to deal with the mindset of someone like that, willing to let everyone die.

 

There are some Naruto ones that I like listed in this Naruto thread here. I can't think of any other fandoms that did a good SI though.

I haven't found a Worm SI worth reading though. Especially not a library worthy one.

 

I got bored and read through a bunch of Ack's stuff. Recoil is pretty good, but that got me into some of his older stories. I picked up Hope Comes to Brockton Bay. I'm still reading it, but I must be a masochist. It might be the worst Mary Sue I've ever read.

 

IIRC he writes to pass the time while working (In his breaks? I don't know how it works though)

 

I have some ideas kicking around but still trying to flesh them out.

I'm trying to write an Alternate Universe story with Parian as the main character/narrator, it's kind of a what could have happened to Brockton Bay if some of the major events happened differently so some events will echo cannon (like Leviathan and Dinah Alcott) but outcome will be different - because certain people never triggered.

The other story I want to write is a Worm/Dresden Files fusion with an adult Maggie Dresden as the main character - I think that it may be a bit too ambitious to pull off convincingly though. The idea would be somewhere around the events of "Ghost Story" in the Dresden universe Scion appears. This story would take place about 15 years after that. The Denarians would be the major antagonists.

 

Any story out there with Taylor ending up in the Birdcage? I'm getting tired of almost every fic starting in the school with bullies or with first Lung fight.

 

Ack is essentially the Worm fandom's Darth Marrs. Except Darth Marrs has actively gotten worse and Ack probably hasn't.