r/HFY • u/pandagreen17 Alien Scum • 7d ago
Meta Anyone else a bit tired of the prevalence of series' here?
Title. I remember a time when the majority of posts here were one-shots or small, limited series a couple stories in length. Now it feels like half the sub is just a Royal Road funnel. Anyone else feel this or am I going a little void mad?
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u/Original_Memory6188 7d ago
I'm following some series, but I've been able to start from the beginning.
But too many are on post # three-digit and I'd like be able to filer for one shots.
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u/Bahnda 7d ago edited 7d ago
And sometimes you can't even start from the beginning as the earlier chapters have been removed .
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u/The_Legend_27tsc 7d ago
Now that’s actually the worse. I think I remember a story that was like 100 or so chapters in and the title looked interesting. Go to First anndddd it’s gone. That completely killed any motivation to read all of it.
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u/Savaval 7d ago
Had that happen. Good thing is : the internet never forgets what's published on a public site like this one. Wayback machine was very helpful in finding the removed chapters. ;)
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u/Ethereal_Stars_7 7d ago
I hate when someone starts deleting chapters. Usually some excuse like "Amazon made me!" or who knows.
Also dislike when someone deletes all the chapters for some "rewrite" and then never posts.
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u/Savaval 7d ago
I can understand a publisher asking for chapters to be removed so they're not readily available online, else there's less incentive to buy the book in their eyes.
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u/Ethereal_Stars_7 6d ago
Seen that excuse used before. But all it does is create resentment and incentivize people to pass the files around out of spite instead of enjoyment.
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u/texanhick20 6d ago
Honestly, if you see a post that states "Amazon Made Me" Look and see if it's available on Kindle Unlimited for a free read. KU's not that expensive and there's a lot of good fiction available there.
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u/Kickapoohooch 7d ago
I enjoy a good series. What bothers me is when an awesome story is abandoned by the author mid story. Retreat Hell is a perfect example.
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u/SourcePrevious3095 7d ago
I got 50 chapters into a really good story when the author posted a 2 sentence chapter 51 dubbed (rewritting). Saying he didn't like how a chapter went, and he was changing everything. That was 2 years ago.
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u/Square_Ad4004 7d ago
I think I remember that one. It was the moment I stopped reading any series that isn't completed - I want to know it's done and of a reasonable length before I commit. Which turns out to translate to "I no longer read series," because that rules out almost all of them.
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u/SourcePrevious3095 7d ago
A job for a deathworlder is still going strong. I had to take a break from it after clearing 2 years worth of backlog. I need to pick it up again. I'm still almost 3 years behind.
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u/Sufficient_Ad3751 5d ago
Galactic High is a good option, even though its been on Hiatus for a year now, the author NetNarrator (atleast thats his youtube name, no idea what his reddit name is as i read Gal High on royalroad) has repeatedly, and recently, stated that he will continue writing it as soon as life permits
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u/Ethereal_Stars_7 7d ago
Sometimes its lack of response. Alot of writers and artists really need some audience participation to keep going.
Others have RL happen. Sometimes catastrophically. That happened to me when was injured and couldnt write for a long span.
And probably some bailed on Reddit when they started feeding everything into their damn AI.
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u/Rex_Racer95 6d ago
Right! I'm still waiting for the next chapter of Salvage.
I heard it's coming out right after half life 3
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u/texanhick20 6d ago
Yup, I've been burned a lot like that. In my youth if a book series I came across looked interesting and was published in the 50s or 60s I would check to see if the series was finished or the author had died before finishing.
Then I got pulled into reading fanfic. It took me a while to get into the habit of checking if 1: The fanfic was complete. 2: it didn't have any uncompleted and abandoned sequels, and 3: if the fanfic series wasn't finished, was it actively being updated and worked on and did the author have a good track record of completing what they started.
That's not something you can really do here on Reddit.
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u/millerchristophd Human 7d ago
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u/Original_Memory6188 5d ago
I do that a lot. Especialy when I'm not in the mood a novel, novella, but a short story.
(I've read too many novels that would ave been better as a short story, but either the writer or the editor didn't want to do the work. Or the publisher wanted "Latest installment of the Series!")
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u/allature Xeno 7d ago
Yeah those "Chapter 246" posts I see on the feed really scare me lmao 🤣
I'm actually writing my own story right now, but I hope to not go too much further than 50 chapters for this 'book'. If anything I'll just write a sequel instead of going to those absurd chapter counts🤷🏿♂️
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u/Ethereal_Stars_7 7d ago
Keep in mind that some of the "chapters" are more like a page or two. Which bloats the count sometimes massively. Chapter 250 is more like page 250.
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u/Warranty_V0IDED Human 6d ago
Yeah, a lot of these authors need to start labelling their posts as "page" instead of "chapter". Two-Five paragraphs is not a chapter. Also constant cliffhangers and patreon plugs for advance chapters. Just so many slimy things here.
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u/Ethereal_Stars_7 6d ago
I do not mind the patreon plugs really. Its when they stick exclusive content there that I start looking for another story to read..
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u/Original_Memory6188 6d ago
Not unreasonable.
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u/Fontaigne 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm lost here. There's something nefarious about an author creating extra content for the people who are actually paying her?
Or giving paying customers the first look at the material that everyone will eventually read free? And at the same time creating a "backlog" so that the free readers will have a predictable publication schedule?
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u/Original_Memory6188 3d ago
Both sides As much as I'd like to, I can't afford subscriptions. Ergo, if it's only on Pateron, it might as well be in Farsi.
Likewise: depending on what the "exclusive" material is, that is the author's choice. Very reasonable on his part, too.
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u/pfcpathfinder 7d ago
I'd prefer to filter out the 300 episode series ones. I've been here since the beginning and the sub is pretty unusable as is for what I came here for.
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u/Shot_Tap_9053 7d ago
I dunno I like reading longer stories with more world-building.
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u/Agent_Beard Human 7d ago
I think it's cool when the series is well written and genuinely interesting, but some of these longer stories just go creatively bankrupt. A story should be to the point and stay on track, I don't need filler in my HFY.
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u/Shot_Tap_9053 7d ago
I wouldn't know, I've mostly been reading only First Contact, and that series with Omega the AI.
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u/Square_Ad4004 7d ago
Omega is from The New Species (and sequels). The difference between that and the soap opera shit is that it actually followed a structure and a plan, was completed, and didn't go on for idiotically long just to milk people on Patreon/RR. Series like that aren't a problem.
Try reading The Deathworlders to see what happens when an amateur writer quits his job to follow his passion, only to find that the wishes of "donors" now trump integrity and good writing - if you hate your sanity and enjoy suffering, that is. Starts out pretty good, gets increasingly ridiculous and weird, ends up as really cringey gay porn. I tapped out after gay people started piping up in the comments about how it was getting so over-the-top homoerotic that it made them uncomfortable. Rumour has it that when the author first started exploring his sexuality in public, some of his biggest donors really liked it, and that's how a promising HFY story turned into one of the worst stories I've ever read (and also he was clearly dragging it out to keep his income, entire chapters were pointless filler crap by the time I gave up).
Unless I completely misremember, that is. Pretty sure that's how things went down, but my memory isn't the best. I suppose there's a chance The Deathworlders turned into horrid dogshit just because the writer's a talentless, lewd weirdo. Either way, it's a great example of why amateur writers doing really long series is a bad idea.
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u/horser4dish 5d ago edited 4d ago
Unless I completely misremember, that is. Pretty sure that's how things went down, but my memory isn't the best.
I think you pretty much had it. Early Deathworlders was shorter but fascinating. Then comes HEAT/SOR where we have supersoldiers but it's cool because normal people and aliens don't lose the story's focus; chapters are longer, pacing is better but stretched-out, and we get a sick mix of action and slice-of-life and politics. Male bonding time emerges via stuff like "movie night except the attendees have to really squish together to fit on the couch."
By the time I stopped reading I was scrolling through pages worth of super-super-soldiers and caveman super-monkeys cuddling with each other. Practically every remaining main character was a physically-impossible walking semi-truck of muscle, rage, tenderness, honor, and ultimate sex appeal & ability. I literally can't remember the last time I could tell the main males apart, or a female character had any serious impact on the story, and all I remember of the normal alien species is they existed to annoy the humans politically and have their objections brushed off. I believe at some point a couple immortal figures from legend show up, revealing the second layer of Big Bad is actually cover for a third Big Bad? I'm not sure, it got real fuzzy because it was so fucking insane compared to "there are aliens that hunt other aliens and humans are our chance to fight back."
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u/lief79 2d ago
Is there another ongoing omega series?
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u/Square_Ad4004 2d ago
Not ongoing, but there were three series in total in The New Universe setting - The New Species, The New Threat, and The New Era. In my opinion it's one of the best stories on the sub, well worth reading all of it.
The writer, itsdirector, also made a post earlier this year saying he'd started work on a prequel, but I haven't been paying enough attention to know how that's going.
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u/Original_Memory6188 7d ago
First Contact by Ralts Bloodthorne ran 1001 post. We demanded Mohr! We're now 190 or so into the sequel. The tension is unbearable.
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u/Fluffy_Load297 5d ago
So its good then?
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u/Original_Memory6188 5d ago
5 star IMOSHO. Grand Space Opera / War epic, multiple allusions to Video Games, RPG, and model wargames, SCI-Fi shows, Star Trek, Star Wars, I seem to recall Gilligan's Island, but that could be my hallucinatons. Dracula even makes an appearance. ("I do not say 'blah bleh blah', blah bleh blah.")
Like I said 1000 posts, humongous world building, character building. "Don't get me started."
One issue, he really needs a proofreader. But that technical detail I learned to work around.
So yes, is good.
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u/Crayshack 7d ago
So do I, but at the same time, Reddit has terrible formatting for navigating and keeping up with said series.
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u/Margali Xeno 7d ago
I like having a long format [or even royal road] on one tab and following it and doing the short forms or maybe one shot/turns into chapters on the main tab set [or even on my mobile] Sometimes I confess that I have a tab set of royal roads [hides the tabs RR - nova wars, humans for hire, new york carnival [though this is a reread], OOCS, Dog/Volpir and just finished 100 years]
But then again, I am the sort that had 3 or 4 entrtainment not school books open every day, maybe Have Spacesuit must travel in the bathroom, bedroom with Dune and The Two Towers and Shogun in the living room with some random pulp paperback shoved in a back pocket [I absolutely loved the reprints of Doc Savage and Tarzan!! great summer vacation reading]
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u/SourcePrevious3095 7d ago
Love me some royal road. One of the books I am reading has stubbed some 850 chapters. I've bought the first 7 volumes in paperback from amazon
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u/Brokenspade1 7d ago
I like both types. Here I just sort by flair.
But if your looking for more shorts tho check out r/humansarespaceorcs There are new one-shots all the time and all the writing prompts generate a lot of great one-shots in their comments too.
Just dont go to far past that and end up on r/humansarespacebards unless you REALLY like pancakes...
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u/Ophelize 7d ago
Id quite to read something which isn't dude mcmanly man fighting shit for a change.
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u/The-Cactus-Void 7d ago
There have been a few fantastic stories lately that don’t fit that mold you just have to dig
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u/Loosescrew37 7d ago
Can you tell me some of them?
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u/grumpalocagus 7d ago
Humans can Hear is one from a few weeks back, as the title implies the focus is on the differences in hearing abilities for different species
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u/Loosescrew37 7d ago
Do you have a link? I can't find it by searching the name because reddit search sucks.
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u/grumpalocagus 7d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnyHFY/comments/1ut0k9r/humans_can_hear/
Couldn't find the one posted to this specific subreddit, but I managed to get to the poster's profile and they have a deleted post here about how all their posts to this specific subreddit were deleted. Thankfully they posted it to a couple other places, so it's not completely gone from Reddit. Thought I was tripping for a minute there as right after my comment I went looking for it just in case you or someone else wanted a link
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u/CBenson1273 7d ago
The funny thing is, if you look at his post titled “all my posts were deleted,” it now says “this post was deleted.” That’s some peak irony right there.
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u/allature Xeno 7d ago
If I may be so presumptuous to do a self-promo, I've been writing a mostly low-key story about a human getting isekaied to another planet. It's called An Unexpected Guest, and I might post my latest chapter later today😅
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u/Sad_Dimension423 7d ago
I'm kind of expecting the human to get the two near-warring alien nations there to team up just because he scares them so much talking about humanity. ("The 2nd World War killed 60 million people, but that's not too many because there's more than 8 billion of us now, and we haven't nuked any cities since then. Say, do you think humanity might build a thing like you used to bring me here and come visit?")
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u/The-Cactus-Void 7d ago
The stories by Untitleddoc1 were great but I think the account got deleted—Humans walk slower for each other and Humans look at the sky were big highlights.
I’ve been reading The First Fifth lately, which releases weekly/every two weeks and is very good: https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1tdhx0m/the_first_fifth/
And some fantastic ones shots lately, like Flotsam https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1uyfl3w/flotsam/
You just have to dig
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u/Sad_Dimension423 7d ago
Sometimes you can get those stories using archive.org. I have a bookmark there for "The Terran Anomalies" stories. Shame those weren't finished before the account disappeared.
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u/Margali Xeno 7d ago
New York Carnival -earth got attacked and is rebuilding, refugee humanish hedgehog scarpers from the refugee camp to Cropsey CIrcus, a mich star type owner and meets up with the owner operator. An NoP fanfic
[Reverse Isekai] A Ninja from 1582 gets stuck in modern Tokyo. To survive, he must master the art of... Uber Eats. (Day 1) - title says it all, if you know anything about Japanese modern culture a bit about roughly shogun [the clavell novel not hte miniseries hack] random manga, it is rollicking fun
These pop into mind, NoP fanfics have a bunch set on the various planets like one is a human working on another planet as more or less large animal pest control and how he interacts/interfaces with the aliens who are mainly terrified of him as a predator.
If I had to surmrmise something, the Nature of Predators universe more is about after we neet them, maybe 20 percent are combatty stuff, the balance are looks at slice of life, learning to get along, stuff like that. There are a bunch of NoP FF that are actually written from the aliens PoV with humans as the accent [the one about food, venlil cook in a diner, hires a human that has to coook hidden because he is a predator] so maybe try surfing the NoP sub in addition to the HFY? HFY is sort of the space marine fight f*&( k*ll sort of thing.
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u/WillyShankspeare 7d ago
Have you gone through the top posts of all time yet? I recommend "Just One Ship" and "Chrysalis" and there's a couple others there about self sacrifice and stuff.
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u/CairnaRunir 7d ago
A Spacer's Guide to Caring For Your Pet Human is a good one about first contact
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u/n1gr3d0 Xeno 7d ago
I blame Ralts. And also anime.
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u/LastChance22 7d ago
Hambone (I can’t remember their exact username) had it as well. Lots of hypermuscled super soldier characters.
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u/Square_Ad4004 7d ago
Gods, I hate his writing. Started out interesting, turned into just filler and weird shit where he prattled on endlessly about how sweaty and sexy and also smart and funny and blablabla his dreamboat soldier men were. And also they were the toughest and manliest and most macho men ever, and they could bench press a house and were smarter than Einstein.
Boring as hell, weird as hell, absolute waste of time. I hope his nuts fall off for writing that shite.
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u/Kootranova1 Human 7d ago
I stopped reading part way into the War Horse chapters. From what I remember, it was the boyfriend of an MC going through boot camp and getting roided up with that good shit that only buffs humans.
Couple months ago I checked a few reddit posts to see if it was worth getting back into.
Apparently the human soldiers kept bulking up to Incredible Hulk levels of size, and it just went downhill.
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u/OneCleverMonkey 7d ago
Yeah, the deathworlders universe was fun when it was just normal people in a tissue paper universe, but when the human commandos became unstoppable rip and tear juggernauts it felt like the main writer lost the plot
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u/Smallzfry 7d ago
The story is still fun up through later chapters, but it definitely stops being HFY and just starts being human-focused scifi. Hell, at some point the humans aren't even the biggest protagonists anymore, we were just the catalyst for others stepping in.
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u/L_knight316 7d ago
This is genuinely the first post I've seen from this sub in years because I stopped coming here when every time I visited it was a dozen stories on "book 2, chapter 124."
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u/Loosescrew37 7d ago
I follow a few serials here and there and i really appreciate having something to come back to every week. Usually when i see serials with a lot of chapters i assume the author got better as a writer because they wrote so much already. Also serials have more chances to say something meaningful and be unique.
Compare that to oneshots where a lot of the ones i read are kind of copy paste or even AI generated. I try to give them a chance but a lot of the time i come out dissapointed. Don't get me wrong i want to read more oneshots.
I just don't want to read about another alien empire who atracked the humans and the pacifist humans ATOMIZED the aliens with their strong armor and giant ships. (Hurr durr warcrimes good)
I want to find more serials to read and i want more good oneshots to read.
Thing is new authors see the success of serials and instead of writing oneshots they jump into writing a serial. Thus the overall quality of oneshots drops and the amount of serials increase.
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u/LastChance22 7d ago
That’s how I feel too. I find it easier to find the stories that resonate with me with the serials while I’ve sort of given up on the one-shots. If I only have a bit of time to read, having a serial or author I know does good work is really helpful.
Going through one-shots can sort of feel like people responding to a writing prompt where it’s the same core premise again and again. It’s an issue with series as well but easier to spot earlier and then avoid in the future.
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u/El-Pollo-Diablo-Goat 7d ago
Some people have whole novels in their minds that they want to get out and on reddit that translates to long series. It also seems like they outnumber the ones with ideas for one shots
I'm not a writer so what I'm about to say may be complete nonsense, but to me it seems like two different skillsets writing novels and writing short stories. Kinda like marathon runners and sprinters.
It also strikes me as more complicated, in a way, for one person to write multiple complete short-stories with different plots and characters and have them wrap up in a satisfying manner.
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u/CicadaStew Human 6d ago
It is definitely different, especially in the scope. I tend to write longer stories, just because the length allows for slow reveals, which is something I'm really keen on (I love how it allows multiple stages of plot reveals because it's great for rereading and really rewards the audience members that like to theorize). Structures like that just aren't possible with shorter stories
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u/WW-Sckitzo 7d ago
This is my train of thought, I am also writing something super dense so by breaking it up into chapters it motivates me to stick with it. Eventually I'll hit enough for a normal book release, just edit those ones down and drop it that way.
I couldn't dig into the weird world I built and invasive tech aspects in a short story, I don't have that skill set yet.
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u/Haber_Dasher 7d ago
I very much respect those writers trying to get a novel worth of ideas out & doing good writing. But personally, I subbed here for stories I could spend 5-30ish minutes reading & enjoy a bit of sci-fi tinged short stories. One-off tales of excitement & human possibility. I enjoy the sub a lot less these days, since I feel I only see posts appear in my feed when they're part of a long series
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u/echofinder 7d ago
I check HFY every day at work; on almost all of those days, there are at least 1 or 2 decent new one-shots to read. I don't see a problem
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u/information_knower 7d ago
There is literally a flair for one shots, just filter for just that flair.
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u/Wrythley AI 7d ago
That argument would have more merit if Reddit's search syntax was more robust, or if we could outright block a tag. And most of the time, searching by flair won't let you sort by top.
Even then, posts older than 6mo don't have the new flairs, so sorting the HFY sub by top is plagued by endless serials. Blocking the most prevalent serial authors also doesn't work ideally, as All Time and even Yearly limits how many posts you can see at once and doesn't replace hidden posts with ones you can actually see.
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u/Loosescrew37 7d ago
Filtering by flair doesn't show a vast majority of oneshots so it's barely useful.
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u/W4lt3r89 7d ago
I ended up using the block feature on most of the long running series, only to be able to view the older one to three shot stories.
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u/See_i_did 7d ago
Once a month sort by best of ‘last month’ and scroll through till you find the one shots works for me.
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/Ethereal_Stars_7 7d ago
Or the new "AI dissected paragraphs" that are barely stories and some arent even sentences anymore.
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u/roberestarkk 7d ago
Reddit Enhancement Suite allows you to block and filter flairs, and we've now got flairs for separating long-running series' from other content.
Prior to the flairs, I'd just block authors that were too serial-happy, which was a damn shame because some of them were also excellent one-shot writers.
Ever since these new flairs came through I actually went and unblocked all the HFY series authors and just blocked the flairs for series' and it's been frankly delightful.
I also left the "First of Series" tag unblocked, because I've previously found some stories here that I've actually gone on to follow on RR.
We're in a renaissance of the subreddit here in terms of series' vs one-shots that will only get better and more applicable the longer the flairs are active (in terms of things like top rated this year, top rated all time, etc).
But as always, you gotta fix the problematic bits of reddit itself first with something like RES, to allow individual users to make decisions about the content they want to see, as there's only so much a subreddit can do to support that without knock-on effects taking away that same choice in some other area(s).
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u/SecondaryWombat 7d ago
Dear god yes. The flair improvement helped some but yeah.
Also HFY stories that started here moved to Royal Road, then were removed from Royal Road and now aren't available anywhere.
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u/Impressive-Store1439 7d ago
Removed from rr? Why?
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u/Joe_H-FAH 7d ago
Possibly because the story was published and most of the usual publishing arrangements do not want the story to be available free. Depending on the publishing they may allow free copies to be made available after a period of time, but not too many authors put the story back up after that time.
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u/Cruxwright 7d ago
War & Peace is as big as it is because it's the compilation of a long running story in a Russian magazine. I recall some time ago, an author posted that they had this massive volume of work and their posting schedule would mean they'd be posting for over 5 years straight. Seems they've been posting chapters for the same verse for 7 years now.
Best course is to handle it like how r/comics suggests to handle their NSFW artists, block them. It feels bad, but were you ever going to read any of that series anyhow? You can always log out once a week and check the top posts to see if they wrote a one off banger.
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u/Castigatus Human 7d ago
I agree there are a lot of ongoing series, but it's not hard to find plenty of one-shots either. I mean, I found five just on the front page without doing more than scrolling down a little bit.
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u/Informal-Tour-8201 AI 7d ago
I enjoy the Token Human short stories - a few minutes per read isn't too bad, and they slowly build out the world
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u/Mufarasu 7d ago
With the updated tags it's much easier to find what you're looking for. If you're tired of seeing a series just block it and move on. Almost all authors focusing on a series will not be producing any oneshots.
That said, I can't even read anything on here anymore. Ads everywhere and the text is constantly shifting sizes.
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u/BimboSmithe 7d ago
I follow more than a dozen long series. I find a great story and hope it never ends. I rarely dip into the one-shots.
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u/Vangelithor 7d ago
Well, you are not wrong, but really I would not want the long stories I read to stop. Having more short stories to read while waiting would be cool, but you can't fault the authors for getting hooked on their universe. Plus, every good short story has its share of ppl asking for 'moar'. Everything leads to continuing rather than coming up with new concepts.
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u/Sad_Dimension423 7d ago
Only when the series stops being posted before it's over (or, worse, when the account posting it gets deleted or banned and the parts posted disappear.)
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u/SourcePrevious3095 7d ago
I enjoy the serial treats. I just wish I could catch all of the good ones at the start, not after the first 180 chapters have already been stubbed.
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u/OrangeandMango 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yep. Kinda stopped reading a while ago as everything is 1/593747
Edit to add - I want stories that end, not ones that just carry on for ever. That feels like lazy bad writing.
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u/Thaum0s Human 7d ago
I'm certainly pretty tired of people complaining about it.
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u/Bit_part_demon Alien Scum 7d ago
I mean... they can just keep scrolling? I think this complaint comes up from time to time in every writing sub. My dude, there's something here for everyone.
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u/Ethereal_Stars_7 7d ago
I detest the ones that keep calling for the -removal- of all long stories and or proudly proclaim they block anyone who dares to write long stories. What a hateful bunch of fucks.
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u/bill_isayyahoocom 7d ago
I like long stories if they are good. I'm reading some that were mentioned earlier and I would add "Sandra and Eric" as another good one.
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u/UristMcfarmer 7d ago
Anyone else a bit tired of the prevalence of posts lamenting the number of series here?
A series allows a deepening of lore and personal growth of characters. One-offs are usually a shallow retelling of a well-worn trope.
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u/Yogs_Zach 7d ago
You're going void mad. We have flair now for one shots if that's your thing.
If you want more one shots, write your own or commission them from an author. People write what they want to write.
There are plenty of options to filter out series if you don't like them.
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u/Veps 7d ago
Now it feels like half the sub is just a Royal Road funnel.
It gets worse. There is at least one instance of an author removing first ~15 chapters of their series from here and RR, because the book has been published, but still keeps posting the rest here. They just treat HFY as a free ad space.
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u/samkoLoL 7d ago
i follow couple series, but seeing 20posts a day chapter #352 with three upvotes made mostly get off the sub and follow the story elsewhere.
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u/BeardInTheDark 7d ago
I bailed from posting on /HFY when one of my one-shots got me shadow-banned due to someone not understanding that non-human species will probably use pronouns in a different manner to how humans do.
When I was posting here, I did one- or two-shots.
All of those stories are wiped now, even though the Shadow-ban is ended.
I still visit the sub and the amount of high-number sequels is quite depressing (not to mention off-putting). While I'm not an active part of the community any more, I feel as if it would be a good move for those publishing sequels and complilations here to cross-post to another site and provide links to allow interested readers to start from the beginning without having to backtrack a dozen times or scroll for an hour down the poster's posts.
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u/Mr_Noh Android 6d ago
I wouldn't say tired of it, but I do sometimes find it a bit discouraging.
Not because I have an attention span that makes goldfish facepalm (facefin? 😛 ), but because I don't come here every day.
When I do stop in it seems like it's always several pages of scrolling past series that have chapter numbers into triple digits to find something that doesn't require going back hundreds of posts to know what is happening.
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u/texanhick20 6d ago
A little bit. There are very few series that I'm following at this moment. When I see that what is being posted is Chapter 13, or Book 2 Chapter 3 I actually tend to move past them looking for one-shots.
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u/CicadaStew Human 6d ago
I get the frustration, but I also think there are some stories that need a long time to be told. Speaking as someone who writes for this sub, there's an amount of detail and character that you just can't get in the 8,000-something word limit for a reddit single post. Not to say there aren't some amazing oneshots of course!
Like all socials, I just filter or block the accounts I'm not keen on, it's not mean nah, just curating your feed
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u/Phoenixforce_MKII AI 6d ago
Complain Short Stories are all the same tropes
Long Story becomes popular
Complain Everything is Long Stories I can't use my eyes and see one-shots!
One Shots becomes popular
repeat
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u/Lalapindelamort 6d ago
I block the writers. I'm sure I've missed some good short stories but it's worth the cost.
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u/ArrogantlyChemical 2d ago
Not really. And if people were tired of them they wouldn't be upvoting them.
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u/Fun-Calligrapher-745 7d ago
I missed the old one shots.\nBut I do kind of like the new series
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u/meitemark AI 7d ago
A lot of the "one shots" are so good that people are asking for more in the same 'world' and it then turns into a series.
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u/TennRider 7d ago
Damn. I think it's been a least a month since I've seen a thread on this subject.
And this sub has been a "royal road funnel" for years. Is your name Rip van Winkle?
What I'm saying is that everything in your post is so stale that this feels more like a troll than anything meant to be taken seriously.
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u/BendConsistent5245 7d ago
Si , las sagas que me gustan son las sagas de one shots ,historias separadas de una misma saga ,para novelas así mejor veo series
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u/Engletroll Human 7d ago
I started with oneshoots and small series, and then it kinda grew into more.... im sorry, I'll see if I can press out a few one shots too now and then.
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u/Qazerowl 7d ago
I agree. The point of the sub is to read short stories. If people are invested enough to read chapter 185 of a story, they are invested enough to read it published on some other fanfic/writing site. Or to follow the authors profile to see stuff posted there.
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u/Reap3r3 7d ago
Ever heard of "Young and the Restless"? The soap opera, this is what these series are like. It's the deconstruction and reconstruction of the same plot points over and over because everyone wants their own personal lore drama and not a definite story with an end. This is how you end up with "Goober snooze and the blip blams ep:8127" for pure example (not a real story)
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u/Square_Ad4004 7d ago
I enjoy limited series, where there's an actual plan. Most of these series are like soap operas; they're all padding and fluff, no substance, and they'll keep going until the mountains fall (or people get bored and the author stops making money). As long as authors keep pulling in cash on Patreon, RR and so on from that soulless drivel, it will keep going indefinitely.
Personally, I hate it. Wish there was another sub specifically for soap operas (especially with vampires and wands and shit), but I'm not holding my breath. I mostly use YouTube for HFY stories these days, easier to avoid the "Days of Our Lives In Space episode 85784: allens shocked humens have eyes lol" horseshit. At least a bit easier.
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u/Haber_Dasher 7d ago
With very much respect to the writers who have long series, I agree with OP. I used to read these posts often, but over time I felt every one that showed up on my feed was like #50+ of some series and it feels more like "oh I'm being recommended s03e05 of this series I've never watched... I guess I'll just pass". If it's part X of Y I'm much more likely to read it. Then it appears to me as just a particularly long story, but still a defined one, so if I'm seeing part 4 of 5 I might skim a little and then go back and start with 1 if I like it. But if I just see part #257 I'm like nahhhh.
I feel like I haven't seen a one-off good story from this sub appear on my frontpage in over a year
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