NEW EPU!

[katreus]

I realize this is sort of tangent to the discussion but I read my first UF stories last night and couldn't stop till this morning. O.O
Why didn't I read this before?! What stupidity entered my mind?! ._.
For those curious, I read several of the first season of Symphony of the Sword. Kate rocks. Muchly. ^_^
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[WengFook]

Keep going Aside from the incomplete symphony, which is irritating because it isn't finished, its all good
EPU stuf tends to be very very readable _______________________________
We are the swords in the darkness, the watchers on the walls. The fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn. The horn that wakes the sleepers. The shield that guards the realms of men. -The Brothers Black
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Take Your Candle, Go Light Your World.

[Acyl]

It's good light entertainment.
I love the EPU stories, though it took me a while - a couple years - to figure out why. Or at least to properly articulate it in my own head.
I mean...we all know the Undocumented Features stuff grew out of old self-insert crossover fanfics.
Thing is, the new stuff? It's still got the same vibe. "Ain't this cool", "The good guys are sooooo awesome", "Heroism always wins", and so on.
For the most part. It's built on the same notions...just...very well written. Very, very well written.
And that's not a bad thing.
I don't watch movies often. But when I do, I prefer to watch action flicks, or whatever's the big blockbuster movie of the time. Or comedies, comedies are always good.
I never go to see all those, y'know, art films. I mean, yeah, they're probably richer and more intellectually stimulating, but...hey. I want to be entertained.
And that's what EPU stuff does. The stories are cool. They're funny. They're populated by people who are cool and funny.
's good enough for me.
-- Acyl

[Florin]

The only real problems I've ever had with UF is the occasional obscure cameo, which a little google-fu usually fixes up, massive time skips, which are slowly being filled in, and the fact that Gryphon's apperantly incapable of putting anyone in a stable hetrosexual relationship. Practally every character in Symphony of the Sword is either a lesbian, in a threesome, or hops mates every time jump. Which isn't really a problem really, it just strikes me as kinda odd.
Other than that, like Acyl said, it's good entertainment. I'd like to see some more PCHammer stuff though.--
I am the Borg-again Christian. Resistance to my sermon is futile. You will be baptized. Your dogma is irrelevant.
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

[Acyl]

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Practally every character in Symphony of the Sword is either a lesbian, in a threesome, or hops mates every time jump. Which isn't really a problem really, it just strikes me as kinda odd.

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I'd be tempted to pin that on the self-insert cliches of male writers...
...except, y'know, the EPU team has a couple ladies, so that can't be entirely right.
-- Acyl

[M Fnord]

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Practally every character in Symphony of the Sword is either a lesbian, in a threesome, or hops mates every time jump. Which isn't really a problem really, it just strikes me as kinda odd.

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Dude, the relationship tango in Symphony (always struck me as more late-period Heinlein than anything else, really) is nothing compared to others out there. Like, say, Fred Harriot.
"But that is another story."---
Mr. Fnord
Raving blogger
http://www.jihad.net/
"when edison thinks down pipes into special Future Death Machine, in 21st Century another teenager on MySpace gets hit by a car." --Warren Ellis
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[katreus]

Hah. Yes. I had noticed that. =p Although Wakaba and Saiyonji are in a relationship yes?
Even after reading up to the second season, my favorite bit is *still*:

---

Juri snorted. "Some achievement. Anyway, I'm certainly not better at being rich."
"Oh, we can fix that," said Zoner. He took back the red WDFCredit Union card, slid it into a slot on a small PDA-type device, made a few adjustments with a stylus, and handed the card back after it beeped, saying, "There. Now you're well-endowed."
There was a brief, awkward pause. Juri raised an eyebrow.
"You have a lot of money," said Zoner, his expression wooden.

---

[katreus]

Is anyone else having problems connecting to EPU?
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[zero sum mgame]

Gryphon's livejournal seems to indicate that Zoner's service is down again.
-z

[Black Aeronaut]

That must be the case - I can't get into Eyrie either.

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Black Aeronaut Technologies Group, LLC
Aerospace Solutions for the discerning spacer

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What!? Were you expecitng something witty?

[katreus]

So I've been non-stop reading a bunch of SoS and I'm at the end of the third symphony. I know I still have a ways to go esp. with all of the fourth symphony but I'd like to ask some of you who've read all this before: Any suggestions of what to read from here?
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[Herr Bad Moon]

Redneck: Wilderness series is good stuff, and that nicely dovetails into the Twilight arc, where a lot of the old guard EPU avatars go from galactic heroes to Galactic Heroes!---------------
-Jon
Being the Mariner hitting coach is like being the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.
-Poster on USSMariner.com
---
Jon
"And that must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!"

[Bob Schroeck]

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Redneck: Wilderness series is good stuff

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Mind you, it's pre-Core 4, so there's a lot of "that stuff is fictional, where did it come from?" here and there that would otherwise simply not exist in the later stories.
-- Bob
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...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Acyl]

If you're new to EPU in general, and not just the Undocumented Features stuff...
...maybe check out Neon Exodus Evangelion, one of their other projects.
NXE also has the virtue of being complete - three seasons and a 'movie'.
(That said, Gryphon posted a short teaser bit on the Eyrie forums some time ago, set something like twenty years after. But that's a different matter.)
-- Acyl

[katreus]

Having finished what's posted on SoS thus far, I can see why Elsa said what she said.
(And hey, there -is- a lot of threesomes, lesbians, and otherwise unstable relationships. On the threesome issue, I wonder why it's only two girls and a guy format? Why not two guys and a girl? Three guys? Three girls? For that matter, where are the gay guys? There are tons of lesbians but no gays? o.O I also was sort of weirded out by the whole sleeping with guy means you've put your traumatic rape behind you.)
I am sort of disappointed that Kate's story seemed to get swallowed up by Utena's starting from the second season. I know Kate's more of the lynchpin as she seems to draw people around her and let them interact but still, it would have been nice to see more of her. Even then, after a while, she wasn't even the lynchpin. :/ The thing with Miki sort of came out of left field and clobbered me. With Juri, yeah, you could see it as soon as they met and then the whole evening in Paris but huh? Wah? It's as much of a 'huh?' moment as the throwaway line regarding Kate thinking Liza was hot.
My other thought is that a lot of the characters seemed very black and white. The bad guys are Evil and the good guys are godlike (literally, in the case of Corwin ;p). Yeah, there's Shan Bastila, but mostly, they're either cool and good or dastardly and bad. A lot of the fight scenes are fantastic to read even if it did seem a big ridiculous. The Duelists v. Psi Cop Fortress comes to mind, esp. Jackie Chan v. 300 Psi Cop Elite Forces. Not that Jackie Chan in the movies now doesn't take on tons of people and escape without a single scratch, but hopefully, the enemies become more of a threat.
I liked the Utena v. Jedi Council scene. That was pretty interesting to read. The humor as well peppers the pieces and makes me giggle almost the entire way through. Cameos are fun as well. Shiori and Agent Smith had me grinning through that entire section.
All in all, a fun ride. Reminds me a bit of that author -- uh Oneshot Wong? -- and his Ranma stories although much better written. I'll check out NXE and then the Rednecks.

[Duane Peters]

Ome thing to remember: Gryphon and company do *not* write science fiction.
Let me repeat that. This is not science fiction.
What EPU writes is really incredible *space opera*.
Buck Rogers. Flash Gordon. The Shadow. Star Wars. The Lensmen. That's the legacy EPU's following, and doing it damn well, and if they're using other people's characters, well, they've managed to in most cases do it better than the creators have.
The characters are somewhat cut-and-dried because Good is Good, Evil is Evil, and the two sides are easily recognizable. While there may be some overlaps, everyone will have to come down on one side or the other in the end. Even given that basic restriction, though, none of the characters are two-dimensional cardboard cutouts; they're well drawn. They're quirky. They have *personality*. (The thought of Dr. Doom and Ben Grimm opening a detective agency together still leaves me giggling silently; but I digress.)
As for the relationships being a bit *odd*; lets face it. These are Heroes, in the operatic sense. *Nothing* they do is going to be Normal; that's just the way things are in Space Opera. There are weirder relationships going on in Heinlein and Spider Robinson's stuff; shoot, these are tame compared to twenty minutes surfing LiveJournal.com. (duane_kc.livejournal.com; check my friends list. {evil grin} Your mind will be blown. You Have Been Warned.)
Personally, I've read every word of all of EPU. There's some stuff that's incredible; there's some of the early stuff that leaves me scratching my head and going "what were they *thinking*?!?!" But it keeps geting steadily better, every chapter of every story, and I hope to keep reading it for a long time to come.

[katreus]

Ah. Well. It's not like I don't like it. As I said, it's fun to read. ^_^
(Even if I don't know all of the sources they're drawing on. I only know some of the anime and even then, not many! I mean, I caught Agent Smith of Matrix fame, I've watched parts of Utena before, but someone like Dr. Doom -- I've heard of mentioned in passing -- but I have -no- idea who he is or what he did and so on. Hrm. Probably missing a lot of references now that I think about it... )
I wasn't criticizing that their relationships were odd. It just seemed like some of the relationships got tacked on with little to no foreshadowing.
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[Rieverre]

---

but someone like Dr. Doom -- I've heard of mentioned in passing -- but I have -no- idea who he is or what he did and so on.

---

Words fail me.
Y'know, I'm Polish, I've never been a big fan of the Fantastic Four, I haven't read Marvel for a few years, and I know who the guy is ... then again, I have weird hobbies.
Have a link toDr. Doom.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[Bob Schroeck]

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The characters are somewhat cut-and-dried because Good is Good, Evil is Evil, and the two sides are easily recognizable. While there may be some overlaps, everyone will have to come down on one side or the other in the end.

---

I think one of the best summations of what Gryphon and the rest of EPU are aiming at (and accomplishing!) comes from Gryphon himself:

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"I guess I'm just an old-fashioned sentimentalist at heart. I refuse to accept a no-win scenario. I hate the thought of a universe without justice. If the maneuverings of dark powers can't be exposed and defeated by the pure of heart, then there's no point in anything. I can't believe that."

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-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Bob Schroeck]

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(Even if I don't know all of the sources they're drawing on. I only know some of the anime and even then, not many! I mean, I caught Agent Smith of Matrix fame, I've watched parts of Utena before, but someone like Dr. Doom -- I've heard of mentioned in passing -- but I have -no- idea who he is or what he did and so on. Hrm. Probably missing a lot of references now that I think about it... )

---

Don't worry about it. Most people don't get all the sources for EPU -- and that includes most of EPU's own writers. Everyone in the group has their own favorite bits that they've contributed, and the assembled whole is just more than any one person can necessarily know. There have been attempts made by fans at assembling concordances to EPU; they have all failed under the massive weight of the project and the utterly encyclopedic knowledge required to do even half the job.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Norgarth]

somewhere around the house I have a list of sources for UF that I've identfied (some only because someone else IDed them and mentioned it in the forums)
despite condensing sources down (such as counting Star Trek as 1 source rather than list all the shows individually) my list totaled over 50 sources, taken from a wide variety of movies, TV shows, books, comics, and computer games.
Before reading Symphony, all I knew about 'Revolutionary Girl Utena' was that it invovle swordfights, roses, a school, and the main character had pink hair.__________________
If you shoot a mime to death... is a silencer even necessary?
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[katreus]

Eh. Ever since middle school, I'd go months without watching TV/TV shows. Still do in fact. I don't think I've watched any tv since... beginning of August. Last one I watched was an episode of a Chinese soap opera.
Edit: thanks for the link though.
--

[Sweno]

More EPU:
WotOR - The Fulcrum of Fate, Part III!
Edit: Note to self, always sanity check posts made after 1am. (thanks for the catch Zojojojo)-Terry
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"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
"Luge strategy? Lie flat and try not to die." - Carmen Boyle (Olympic Luge Gold Medal winner - 1996)
Mary Sue's theme music
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[zojojojo]

wow... i didn't know that w3.org published stories!
(there's a link error.... thanks for the update!)-Z, Post-reader at Medium
----
If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
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If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

[Florin]

Oh sure, the story seems good now, but just you wait: Soon Vader will use Padawan Rei in his plan to make everyone in the Galaxy one with the Force, just so he can see his dead wife again.--
Jimmy Hendrix is calling me! He's telling me to defeat Klingons! CAPTAIN PICARD!
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all.