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SV's Pick of the Month User Submissions Thread

T_of_A said:
I've read and followed it, but I don't see how it's a deconstruction? It just seems like a total AU that rebuilds a different setting.
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our aim with minerva golding is to, essentially, rewrite the premise of harry potter in a way that centres and addresses all of its many problems instead of ignoring it; that's 100% what a deconstruction is. a deconstruction of a work or genre does not have to have the same characters or plotline, its writing a story which takes apart another and shows you all the pieces as part of its story

(ie: this is like saying that watchman isn't a deconstruction of superhero comics, it's just an AU of charleston comics lol)
 
open_sketch said:
(ie: this is like saying that watchman isn't a deconstruction of superhero comics, it's just an AU of charleston comics lol)
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This feels quite harsh.
Also, I don't actually agree? Like, Watchman takes superhero comics and goes "actually these are ways it's stupid, this is how these people would be messed up, these are the laughable bits of their lives that you don't see in the comics, and this is how the ideology behind them is toxic".
But Watchman is fundamentally recognizable as a superhero comic, and it's pretty direct about what it's deconstructing. It's a deconstruction so straightforward that twelve year-old me could understand that it was a deconstruction, even if I didn't have the same read as I later had an adult.

Meanwhile I like Minerva Golding. I have followed it and read it. But if you hadn't told me it was a Harry Potter fic (and if you'd renamed people) it would have taken me a while to notice it wasn't an original academic fantasy story or whatever.
I think the House-Elves would have tipped me off ?
And maybe it's going to go into a lot more detail later on, but... I posted that message after reading chapter 7 or 8, when the story was barely starting. And at that point it had a neat queer coming of age story with some magic. Setting-wise, it had mostly just re-established the problems of the Harry Potter setting in slightly different ways:
  • Okay there's prejudice and classism and economic oppression. Sucks to be a Weasley. I read this, saw her getting rich friends instantly, and assumed it wouldn't be much of a problem for her.
  • Okay, there's slavery. House-Elves! Oh, and rape. I guess you did tell me there was slavery, and this isn't a children's story so I should have expected you to show it to me on-screen.
  • Okay the children are put in boxes based on a bullshit five minute test upon entering the school...
Maybe my brain has rotted away beneath years of Harry Potter discourse : I no longer perceive these things as unusual in Harry Potter fanfiction.

I presume you plan on doing a ton of deconstruction later on as you show us how people react to all these problems. All I can think of so far is Harry himself, who showcases unhealthy power relationships in the school environment + the social impact of growing up a hero. Whenever Harry turns up the deconstruction light pops on.

Putting this into a spoiler because I don't want to seem negative. I like this story, much like I've liked your other quests.
 
It's honestly great to see so much discussion and submissions in this thread, there was a period where things kind of fell off and I love seeing more interest.

As far as Minerva Golding goes, I think that "deconstruction" is one of those terms which is not super clearly defined in discourse. In fact I've often seen "reconstruction" used interchangeably to mean the same thing, as opposed to deconstruction which is often taken to have a meaning where it can only refer to a certain kind of pastiche. Certaintly there are various more formal definitions somewhere which I'm too lazy to Google, but broadly it feels well within the bounds of what is a fairly amorphous term to call Minerva Golding a deconstruction given how the term is used widely on the internet.

Something like Invincible for example, could be called a deconstruction of the superhero genre, and you can find a lot of people doing so... Or you could consider it to simply be a darker, gritter superhero story, given a lot of the fundamental architecture of the genre is there and is not really being unpicked. There are some deconstructive elements to Invincible like asking "What would a superhuman alien as a father actually be like? What motives might an advanced civilisation realistically have for sending out "protectors" to planets?", but it is not really unpicking the motivations, themes and psychology of superhero comics at all levels like Watchmen.

Or to take another example, I think one could say that both Blood Meridian and Unforgiven are deconstructions of the Western genre, and people have done so. But Blood Meridian sets out to quite methodically (among many other things) demolish the ideas of the individualistic antihero and the myth of the West as limitless free frontier, whilst Unforgiven is almost more of a reconstruction; it is notably critical of some established genre conventions, but functionally and structurally it is still a cowboy movie. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is also sometimes called a deconstruction of more moralistic 50s cowboy movies, but plays things even straighter.

So I think many potential definitions are possible here, and we all have valid reasons for preferring one which includes or excludes some works. But in actual usage I think the term "deconstruction" describes something of a spectrum, and it's important to acknowledge that and enquire what the other person means, rather than assuming a common definition.
 
Nowadays I view Watchmen not as saying 'superheroes are bad', which would be a pretty limited message given superheroes don't exist, but more specifically 'accumulation of power into the hands of an elite few is bad,' with the comic using superheroes to represent that. Same thing with The Boys (the TV show anyway), which doesn't simply say 'superheroes are bad', but instead takes on America as a whole, centering on superheroes since they're one of the most recognisable American symbols.

I've heard Invincible's creator has said he didn't write the comic as a deconstruction, and while I'd say that shouldn't stop people from interpretating it as one if they wish, it's still something that should be kept in mind to not misrepresent him.

On a note from my own experience, I did once consider labelling my own finished Quest (Persona: The Beautiful) as a deconstruction, but that was mostly because I thought it'd get more views that way. However, one comment did say that it sure felt like a deconstruction
 
Since we don't seem to have any user Submissions this month, I'm gonna pull a RiverDelta and try submitting one I made earlier:

Doctor Who: A Deal with Time by ArlequineLunaire

A young woman who can't remember her name thinks servitude in an endless castle is the only world she'll ever know... until an alien time-traveller comes crashing right in and tries to start a revolution. A spooky, otherworldly Doctor Who fan-season, featuring a new Doctor and a new companion. First Episode is already completed.

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Doctor Who: A Deal with Time Sci-Fi - Historic - Horror

It was a strange woman called The Doctor who found me, saying she was a time traveller who'd lived for centuries. I was trapped in an endless castle, then she showed me what true endlessness really looked like. I can go with her anywhere in time and space now... except back home.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
 
I will once again submit Espernyan's Always Somethin' for consideration, following Spirit the monster hunting mutant as she tries to protect the townships of the southern frontier from monsters of all kinds

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Always Somethin' Original - Mature - Fantasy

A canon companion to Wicked Sanguine's Never Full, Always Somethin' is a fantasy/western monster-of-the-week following the adventures of Spirit, a monster-hunting Locust, as she strives to protect the frontier town of Coolwater from the dangers of the Uncharted South. Yet more dangerous than the...
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ArlequineLunaire said:
Since we don't seem to have any user Submissions this month, I'm gonna pull a RiverDelta and try submitting one I made earlier:

Doctor Who: A Deal with Time by ArlequineLunaire

A young woman who can't remember her name thinks servitude in an endless castle is the only world she'll ever know... until an alien time-traveller comes crashing right in and tries to start a revolution. A spooky, otherworldly Doctor Who fan-season, featuring a new Doctor and a new companion. First Episode is already completed.

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Doctor Who: A Deal with Time Sci-Fi - Historic - Horror

It was a strange woman called The Doctor who found me, saying she was a time traveller who'd lived for centuries. I was trapped in an endless castle, then she showed me what true endlessness really looked like. I can go with her anywhere in time and space now... except back home.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
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DocMatoi said:
I will once again submit Espernyan's Always Somethin' for consideration, following Spirit the monster hunting mutant as she tries to protect the townships of the southern frontier from monsters of all kinds

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Always Somethin' Original - Mature - Fantasy

A canon companion to Wicked Sanguine's Never Full, Always Somethin' is a fantasy/western monster-of-the-week following the adventures of Spirit, a monster-hunting Locust, as she strives to protect the frontier town of Coolwater from the dangers of the Uncharted South. Yet more dangerous than the...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
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Just FYI, I haven't forgotten these, but as we've had four Picks this month plus a lot of banners for Summerfest, I thought it might make sense to leave the User Picks until next month so they don't get lost in the churn.

NHO said:
The link to the article about bronze in mesoamerica is broken.
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Fixed! Thanks for picking up on this!
 
I figure that completing a story is a good enough reason to submit it.

Hybrid Hive: Eat Shard?, my Worm/MGLN cross, is complete.
A damaged Unison Device is accidentally struck while Taylor is in the locker, causing it to land on her. Not able to determine what was happening, it interrupts the trigger event and sets Taylor down a different path. As with all memetic Taylors, this leads to significant escalation, some of it even intentional!
 
Since it's okay to submit our own stuff, I'd like to submit my science fantasy serial-in-progress, BEL0VED!

Book-jacket-length summary:

In the time of living gods, when blood poured like wine over the earth
and stars fell as petals from the heavens -
When corpses rose in unburnt pyramids
as dread miracles swept the world plaguelike...

So dawns the history of the world called Tei Ura, where the air seethes with spirits; where seven houses bloodroyal rule from their seven courts; and where executions are both sacred rite and a cornerstone of the entertainment industry. At the center of this world lies the Opaline City, home to the Seven Spears who dispense mortal justice and the only place on Tei Ura where the executioner's red art is performed.

First among the Seven Spears of the Opaline City is Virenina II Tauhrelil. World-famous, idolized by millions, and descended from two ruling bloodlines, Virenina burns bright even in the Opaline City's garden of stars - the better to blind people to the blood-drenched secret that she shares with her paired spirit, Ai Naa, which even now eats away at her very humanity and leaves something shining and terrible in its place. Virenina has kept that secret for nearly twenty years…but between a mother who scents weaknesses like blood on the water, a father in search of empty revenge, and adoring fans who would do anything to get close, it may not remain secret much longer.


I will fully admit that I don't update it as often as I'd like (usually every 1-2 months), but I'm proud of what I do have written and would love to bring more attention to it. Other people who read this have praised the characterization, prose, and setting, and I've heard one person describe it as "science fantasy ASoIaF." If any of that sounds interesting to you, follow the link below!

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/bel0ved.103251/
 
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I meant to suggest this like both this month and last month, but I keep forgetting to do so...

So I am going to throw it in as the earliest possible suggestion for next months pick of the month.

Super Robot Wars Null

It's a fun, fast paced Mecha mash up that is right on past 75 pages at the moment, and has been criminally unvoted on. @theguynamedwafer is a quickly improving writer who is getting better with every update and really needs some more talkative readers than myself to be able to improve as much as possible. The fight scenes are fast paced and use a variation of the SRW systems to run the combat, but without the very detail orientated issues of the tile system instead being more cinematic in design.

Add on an original plot that feels like it fits right in with the rest of the SRW franchise, and you have a quest that is nearing it's one year anniversary. In fact, if this wins for the end of this month it would fall on it's anniversary.

I really suggest that everyone checking out this thread go give the quest a look.
 
A Different Story of Civilization. By Me (Rhymehouse)

Tizzy is your average high school student in the United States. He plays sports, hangs out with his friends, and plays games on his HUD glasses. His 1st class every school day is history where he learns about what happened in the world's past. Oh, I forgot to mention, Tisquantum is a resident of Mayabach in Xaman Pakal. He is from a timeline where Native Americans conquered a primitive Europe instead of the other way around. If you want to read a timeline that features a democratic Middle East & an authoritarian Polynesia, or a timeline that features an advanced Africa & a wartorn East Asia, or a timeline that features a heavily divided North America and a mostly united Europe, this is the story for you. If you want a book that features Maori pirates, Cherokee conquistadors, Aboriginal Australian emperors, and Zulus riding rhinoceros, look no further. If you want a story that has 12 continents, 415 countries, 932 named characters, is 1,163 pages long, and covers 8,500 years of history, then congratulations. You have found the most ambitious alternate history story ever; and one that will undoubtedly be the source for many more.

A DIFFERENT STORY OF CIVILIZATION


This won't be like any Story of Civilization you or your grandpa learned about!

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

A Different Story of Civilization Alt. History

A meta Alternate History story about a Native American high schooler in a high school history class. The story takes place in a bizarro timeline where similar historical events happen (for the most part) but the dominant and subjugated groups get switched around.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
 
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A Skirt's Not So Bad by Tekomandor

This was already chosen as a staff pick on 7/26/2021, but its been getting a lot of updates recently and is close to wrapping up the fifth year/sixth book. It continues to be an excellent read.

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

A Skirt's Not So Bad [Harry Potter]

A butterfly flaps its wings, and Harry Potter ends up taking the place of Pansy Parkinson via polyjuice rather than Gregory Goyle. She discovers being a girl is pretty great, in her view. She's a little kinder to herself, a little more confident - and that makes all the difference.
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Eater said:
A Skirt's Not So Bad by Tekomandor

This was already chosen as a staff pick on 7/26/2021, but its been getting a lot of updates recently and is close to wrapping up the fifth year/sixth book. It continues to be an excellent read.

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

A Skirt's Not So Bad [Harry Potter]

A butterfly flaps its wings, and Harry Potter ends up taking the place of Pansy Parkinson via polyjuice rather than Gregory Goyle. She discovers being a girl is pretty great, in her view. She's a little kinder to herself, a little more confident - and that makes all the difference.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
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This is a fantastic story, which we actually already did this as our Pick of the Month in User Fiction for July 2021. However I guess there's no reason we can't throw it in as a User Pick too. Thanks for your submission!
 
Starship Design Bureau by @Sayle

An excellent design quest about creating Star Trek starships in the years before TNG. It has lots of cool ideas about Starfleet technology and ship design, and has many interesting decisions about testing new prototype technology and balancing a ship's different needs. Sayle also makes gorgeous LCARS-style diagrams of each new ship, and makes in-universe "retrospective" interludes giving a more personal look at a ship's legacy. Currently only a week old, yet 26 updates in with 15k words and three ships finished.

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Starship Design Bureau Sci-Fi

Somewhere between TMP and TNG, the Federation started throwing out dozens of designs for specialised starships as technology testbeds or attempts at modular construction. Unfortunately this experimental regime combined with the explosion in Federation Membership increasing demands on the service...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
 
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Reach Heaven Via Feng Shui Engineering, Drug Trade And Tax Evasion by @Winged_One

Qian Shanyi hot off the heels of spilt soup and a less than stellar sect life finds herself in a hostile environment with injuries, her heart of a cultivator rebels under suffocating heavens. Wang Yonghao did not choose his vagrant life with the inability to simply relax or even rub two coins together, he is blessed with misfortune.
A cultivation novel following Qian Shanyi and Wang Yonghao. Talks of luck, freedom, shenanigans, and a touch of harnessing local magical physics to better shape one's environment. An enjoyable read.

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Reach Heaven Via Feng Shui Engineering, Drug Trade And Tax Evasion Original - Novel - Fantasy

Xianxia, engineering, tenacity, politics, economics, magic analysis. It starts with engineering that leads to tax evasion, but at the heart of it one question: cultivation is the path to ultimate freedom, but what does freedom mean when the heavens hold all the cards? From the moment Qian...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
 
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Illuminating Invitation by Alivaril and enabled by Ensou



In which the full powers of Social Maladaptation and Magical Friendship collide, fuse, and ignite a new rainbow of hilarity and adorableness. And also many ponies' manes.

"'I am not reading that because I am prejudiced against ponies.' And then the next thing I knew I was reading about the ponies and I full on cried three times (appreciative) about the ponies." -- An off-site ex-bigoted reader.

"It beats out Ignition." -- @Kaizuki



You can find the best active fic on the site here.

Or here, I guess:
 
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Murder The Hero by @EarthScorpion
A roll-reversal of the popularish visual novel Slay The Princess, done in a fascinating style and format meant to represent the feel of the game, it's one of the most clever and creative fanworks I've seen on this sight in a long time.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Murder the Hero (Slay the Princess Role Reversal) Romance - Horror

THE NARRATOR — You're on a path in the mountains. THE NARRATOR — Past the mountains, there is a lake. THE NARRATOR — And trapped on the island across the lake, there is a Hero. THE NARRATOR — You're here to slay him. If you don't, it will be the end of the world. This is (not) a love story.
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forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Intro to An Essay: Trans History & Retcons Regarding IDW1 Arcee & Her Spotlight

Thought we should share this here because we know some people will appreciate it, we were advised by other users to make a thread for this rather than just post in the Grand Transformers Thread, for which we are thankful because we weren't sure whether to do a thread for this or not at first...
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We got a good, easy to read and lengthy history of Arcee from an sv user about trans history from an unlikely source, a comic based off a toy franchise.
 
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I Walk in Dreams -- An Esoteric Journey Quest Original - Fantasy - Modern

At the summit of the dreaming-realm, the hidden world that underlies mundane reality, lies the prize occultists yearn for with all their being, the thing that will make it all worthwhile. Or so it's said, anyway. Ash is a novice, self-taught and casting about for meaning. They're not ready, and...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
At the summit of the dreaming-realm, the hidden world that underlies mundane reality, lies the prize occultists yearn for with all their being, the thing that will make it all worthwhile. Or so it's said, anyway.

Ash is a novice, self-taught and casting about for meaning. They're not ready, and know it. They're making the Ascent, anyway.
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By @picklepikkl. A now-finished quest, and a 68k word novel. Follow Ash on a journey into both the self and the dangerous and alien magic of the dreaming-realms. Features some incredible imagery, the treacherous RNG of a real world tarot deck, an an overall highly enjoyable and satisfying journey. What lies at the top of the Ascent?
 
forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Ciriel, the Abyssal Queen

A random person is kidnapped by a ROB and thrown into the Kancolle world. Given a cheat power they must weather the storm that is coming for them.
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New story of mine about a person being isekai into the KC universe by a ROB. Inspired by Abyssal Strays Home.
 
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