Question It's about time ...

Like the title said it's honestly about time that I post this here. I am a longtime lurker, I have been around since 2015 I think, some time before the new website anyways.

Anyways my name on this forum will be Cerdaemon. I am pretty much your average guy, aged 25. Normally over from Germany, but right now I am finishing my game developement studies in the UK. I will most likely be back in Germany in a month.

So it might be not entirely surprising when I say I am normally not someone that is active on the forum. However a few days ago the friday annoucement said that some of the old guard returned that had left due to burnout and reader attitude/ingratitude. I felt compelled to finally make a post.

So first things first, I would like to thank all the authors that are posting their stories on this site and apologize for anyone not appreciating people who bring free stories to us reader even when they have no obligation to do so. I really do enjoy the stories on this site and hope you will continue to write, well as long as you do not burn yourself out.

As to how I found the Whately Universe. I somehow stumbled upon the book 'A Glass Half-Full' by Kristin Darken, I do not remember how exactly but I liked the book enough to google the author and I landed in the Whalteley Universe. So you can thank her for me being here. By the way I am still waiting for that sequel. I had read web novels before most notable a binge reading of 'The gods are bastards' which I can only recommend. Whateley however was my first time reading something in a shared universe done by several authors.

I can only imagine the amount of work and preparation for a shared universe with this many authors. A single author writing a story could just kill of a character or change the story on a whim, however I fell that that would be problematic with several authors. So I could honestly see if the authors spend more time actually talking to each other and making sure they do not contradict each other, than they actually spend writing. No idea if it is true, so if someone could comment on that it would be awesome, it would genuinely interest me.

Well back to the stories. I read alot, as in i can read several 300 page novels a day which basically means my reading speed is higher than any author could ever match. In this instance it meant it took me about a month to read every canon story out at that point in time. Starting with Billie's arrival at Whateley, who still is one of my favorite characters and who I still imagine having a tail, because one of the stories where team Kimba hangs out in their designated corner for the first time described her as having a tail even thougn it has never popped up anywhere again. I can try to find the exact story but it might take a bit.
And honestly I liked the gang. Well personality wise I was extremely annoyed by Jade but that is probably just prt of her character. She had and still has a lot of quite honestly shit to deal with.

Currently I am mostly checking up everyday for new Gen 1 stories even though they only come out twice a week. I will most likely wait withg reading Gen 2 for a while because I would only look out for Gen 1 characters. Which would be a disservice to the story and also quite impossibly to do, since the authors would have to have planned every detail happening in the next 7 years at Whateley and they would probably die of overwork if they did that. I think I will just treat it as its own continuity removed from Gen 1 once I read it.

As it stands I am very exiting to hear that some of the old authors are coming back because it felt like the members of team Kimba just dropped of the face of the earth one day. And while I like the other characters especially the outcasts they were not the characters I first learned to care for. I was already really exited when I saw the outcasts getting closer to the kimbas, I am sure nothing can go wrong there =P.
And the Imp, let us not forget the Imp. Shoutout to Morpheus because the Imp stories became a favorite of mine almost instantly. I just hope there will be more, I mean there is potential and the Imp is just too amusing to not hear more of.

Which brings me to other things am greatly looking forward to - whenever they ma y happen.

Sara Waite who is, as far as I can tell still trapped in a piece of pargament somewhere in a hidden compartment in a storeroom somewhere in lab area. I am always imagining a rampaging shitstorm when she is finally freed, because I very much doupt she is happy in there.

Billies starhopping. I mean she promised the giant spider Matriach to introduce her to Cecilia Rogers, besides I really want to know what is in that vault and what happeded to that AI she set free. Oh and the potential wealth that could be made in a chocolate trade monopoly.

Jade, who - and I do not know if I got this right, please correct me if not - as I far as I can remember was supposed to have shifter powers and a working BIT, is somehow cursed making her stuck as 11 years old boy. I am assuming mythos here because fucked up curses(and magic) and BITs gone wrong seem to have a connection.

Case study Ayla, who just as much as his cousin Puppet seems to be the result of people with mythos magic attemting to do something. And they apperently got what they wanted when they got their hands on the data from one of the slicer incidents. Not to mention the connection of the serial killers performing rituals that seemed to have popped up before those two manifested and their BITs looking stitched together. I think a connection was made somewhere and it was said that they were ready to try again. And since they seem to have a problem with the Goodkind family Ayla's brother would make a prime target.

I think those bother me most, aside from billie it doesn't bother me so much as that I just really want to see it^^.
Really anything with Billie would be fine, not like I am a fan or anything.

Oh maybe give the Outcasts the dark Kimba scenarios, would that not be fun =P

Anyways I think I am done, this has gotten long, sorry about that.

I just want to thank all the authors once again. Thank you for what you are doing. Please do not stop. May you continue to have the free time and motivation to write. And please rather take some time off and relax than to burn out.

All the best

Cerdaemon

EDIT: fixed the pronoun for Ayla and Jade. Just somehow messed up with ayla because he is always described as looking extremly hot which confuses my brain sometimes when I picture him =P. And with Jade I was actually meaning to say that she was stuck as a 11 year old boy which is the issure here made that clearer.
Thanks to lwasforger03 for pointing that out

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You got your pronouns backwards for Jade and Ayla. Ayla = He/Him/a guy, Jade=She/Her/A girl

Welcome! Glad you finally said something! We look forward to seeing you contribute!

Fixed. Thank you.

Wait, don't tell me - it's on the tip of my tongue. I'll get it ...

Got it! "It's About Time" - that crazy-stupid time-traveling-astronaut comedy from the 60's, right?
Am I right?

Shad, Gronk, Mlor and Breer as the family. Mac and Hector as the astronauts. Took me years to re-find that as the toon stuck in my head when I was a kid.

It's about time, it's about space. Ugh.

Actually, I was thinking of Tychus Findley from the Starcraft II cinematic, who says 'Hell, it's about time'. I am sorry to say that I do not know about any crazy-stupid time-traveling-astronaut comedy from the 60's. That was quite a bit before my time.


As for the speed reading. it is great but you either run out of stuff you want to read or you run out of money to buy books^^. Another thing I have observed is, having read somewhere around 1000-1100 books, that the writing industry has a bad case of imitation, someone writes a book that lands as a bestseller suddenly there a hundreds of the same type of book. This is not a bad thing per se most times there can be quite a few different spins but when you read three books and sit there sinking to yourself, 'have I not read the exact same thing 3 times already' then something is amiss. It led to me being way pickier in my choice of book. And considering I Mostly read all genres of fantasy, my favorite is Urban Fantasy, and most Science fiction, it limits me somewhat. The amazon self publishing corner is actually really nice for finding new ideas.

I will also keep an eye out for that LitRPG book. I know the genre quite well, I have been on royalroadl ever since their Moonlight Sculptor days when it all started and branched from there to Wuxia World and other web novels. Before that I never realized things like that actually exist, for some reason. Any way there is some good stuff hidden on royal road even though most stories are just a few chapters long and then abandoned. It seems to me most people highly underestimate the difficulty of writing even a decent story.

Another devourer!!!! *Squeeee* Glad you came out of the shadows. We can always use more vocal people. Enjoy your stay!

Cerdaemon wrote: Actually, I was thinking of Tychus Findley from the Starcraft II cinematic, who says 'Hell, it's about time'. I am sorry to say that I do not know about any crazy-stupid time-traveling-astronaut comedy from the 60's. That was quite a bit before my time.

Don't worry, that's immediately what I thought about when I read your title. (even if I have never played Starcraft)

And welcome.