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SerSpook posted:I've been thinking about the whole "Good wins, Evil loses" thing that Black and Catherine think about a lot. It seems to me that it's a pretty skewed perspective of things to be honest. The same with the whole fact that the God's Below don't intervene whereas the God's Above do. But then you look at the sort of damage a Villain can do, particularly in the first phase of their plans that narratively will succeed. And you start to wonder what the God's Below consider to be a "win" condition for one of their Villains, and what a "win" condition is for a Hero. Yeah, this seems to be the big flaw with Black's whole outlook; it basically ignores things from the perspective of normal people (who don't give a poo poo if the heroes or villains end up winning if they were killed in the crossfire). Though at least Black openly admits that his goals are entirely selfish. As I mentioned before, a good theme might be trying to somehow remove or neuter the pushing and pulling of the Gods Above/Below as opposed to supporting either, though there's the issue I mentioned before about Procer apparently not being guided much by Named (though I guess Named being rare doesn't preclude them still being a guiding force). edit: By the way, does Robber ever get introduced to Tyrant? I feel like they'd get along well. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jun 23, 2018 |
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Jun 23, 2018 19:08
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I hope there are like three books left. I want it to cover like the dwarves, chain of hunger and gnomes before it ends.
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Jun 23, 2018 20:03
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Ward 7.10 - Welp. Given the 'desire camera' conversation earlier in the chapter, my first instinct is to assume that she's somehow blackmailing these people into being her parents. It probably isn't that though, it's probably something worse, somehow.
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Jun 23, 2018 20:53
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Random rear end in a top hat posted:Ward 7.10 - Welp. This chapter exceeded my expectations for the scene in good ways. It has been a while since I've wanted the next chapter for something immediately instead of it being a more 'simmering anticipation'. I don't think that these aren't her parents. She does have pictures of her when she was young with them (and there are artsy pics of the parents, and pics of Kenzie solo, but none mentioned of them together so probably no photoshop action), and if you go back to descriptions of them and Kenzie they seem biologically connected to her. I did see someone posit that they're her parents.. from another Earth. That seems much more likely than random people she picked, but I can still see them being her actual parents that she just tracked down after Gold Morning. Also someone pointed out that like every conversation Julien has had with Victoria he has asked about how dangerous whatever they were doing was. At the times it seemed like a parent worried about their kid, but perhaps it was more him hoping she'd get smoked during a fight. Enough things are too vague to really make a call right now, but any way you cut it the situation is pretty hosed up. I'm really curious as to what exactly they were spiking her food with, and what Kenzie has on them (because otherwise I would have expected the Wardens to have separated them before). Her parents were *pissed* that they failed, which in my mind really rules out any 'misunderstanding' situations like trying to slip prescribed meds into her food. Subtle bits I didn't connect at first: when Irene is talking to Victoria, she mentions that Juline is "out to pick up some ingredients I forgot". I also have a feeling that when Kenzie stopped the conversation about tinker tech while staring at her phone was when the food spiking happened, because she changes the conversation to her diary box right after.
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Jun 23, 2018 21:16
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Ward: So the parents explicitly trying to poison their kid seems far-fetched and stupid, and I've seen people speculating that it was tranquilizer/psychiatric meds, but I'm pretty sure Kenzie would take the latter if asked and the former wouldn't hurt adults in kid-doses. The thing is, apparently everyone else on the team realizes that something bad is going on, and I can't possibly figure out what would be bad enough to freak them all out, but not bad enough to justify immediately yoinking either Kenzie away from her parents, or her parents away from Kenzie. I think it's definitely a cuckoo thing: either they're alternate dimension versions of her real parents, her real parents who never actually raised her (until she kidnapped/blackmailed them), or she just stole a couple who lost a daughter around her age. My best bet is that they're dimensional variants of her original parents, who maybe weren't even married in that dimension, Kenzie built a Parent Camera to rip 'em across time and space to her weird stepford fantasy, and their entire life is now a waking nightmare that involves them regularly trying to off Kenzie in increasingly goofy Tom & Jerry-esque ways while she threatens to send them to the cornfield. So, that's what the evidence looks like to me... but it still begs the question of why. I cannot possibly see anything that both explains her situation, and explains why Jessica/Ashley/everyone allows her to stay in that house for one more minute. Edit: Also, I missed it on the first readthrough, but Ashley's specific line was "She's not your mom, and that's not your dad". The pronoun usage is super-duper weird, so maybe Robodad is still on the table? Edit edit: I feel silly for not realizing sooner, but this could also be innocuous - maybe Kenzie's mental illness is much more severe than she lets on, it's a manic/paranoid episode triggered by stress, and there wasn't actually a camera or poison. But given the parents' reaction plus this being a wildbow story, I'm guessing it's (fake) parents poisoning their precocious parahuman. Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Jun 23, 2018 |
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Jun 23, 2018 22:53
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Omi no Kami posted:Ward: Here is a crazy theory for you: They're alternate reality parents that the Wardens brought in to anchor Kenzie (ie give her some sort of solid ground that they also can leverage at her). Now that the Wardens are gone they want out of the arrangement and are trying to kill her off, which is a new thing that the rest of the team doesn't know about.
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Jun 23, 2018 23:26
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ZypherIM posted:Here is a crazy theory for you: That seems like an awful lot of trouble for the Wardens to go to, especially since they don't seem particularly interested in recruiting her... if they wanted leverage, I would've thought that finding her the most loving foster family in the world and constantly showering them with gifts would be the way to get in her good graces. Or honestly, given her track record, just go "Hi Kenzie, we want you on our team". The thing is, part of why I'm genuinely not sure where the dinner party is going is that it seems so weird. Like, apparently this is something that the rest of the team have witnessed or heard about from each other, but I cannot possibly imagine what would simultaneously explain everyone's behavior, but not be bad enough to merit calling Jessica/the wardens to get her out of that house right now.
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Jun 23, 2018 23:58
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pisssss (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 24, 2018 00:37
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Jun 24, 2018 00:38
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So, I accidentally got sucked into a re-read of PracGuide from the beginning and one thing I noticed in an early heroic interlude with Lone Swordsman and Bard was that the heroes feel the exact same way Black does! That the deck is stacked against them and that nothing they do matters and that Evil always returns. This adds credence to the idea that Cat is going to turn over the table and change the whole system.
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Jun 24, 2018 03:40
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Ward 7.10 Dumb speculation but I'm almost positive that Irene was also a career criminal, more specifically a forger, explaining her fine technique and attention to detail while also tying into her comment about not being very original. That mostly just ties into my wider speculation that Irene and Julien are absolutely Kenzie's biological parents but they didn't want her. She was given up for adoption as a baby, which is why Kenzie's precious picture of her and Irene is one of Irene shortly after childbirth. Saying they didn't want her is maybe a bit harsh, there's a lot of factors that can go into that especially if you're living a dangerous lifestyle inappropriate for children, but anyway. Either Kenzie doesn't get adopted or she does but the family is not good. Either way she's left with severe abandonment and emotional issues. [???] happens and she triggers, she's bounced around foster care even more because even with a useful superpower people just don't want her what with the emotional problems that come with it. And I don't think the power is causing all her emotional problems, she was probably unintentionally a difficult child even before that! The world ends when she's 9, she uses her power to track down her biological parents (or has already been monitoring them at that point but couldn't admit it), and desperate for parental love and affection, she forces Irene and Julien to play Happy Family and Be Good. Instead of turning back to crime they get above-board jobs using their talents, but neither job is sustainable long-term given what just happened. Any love they have for Kenzie as their daughter is replaced by fear because she's always watching them. The long-term stress isn't really sustainable because even if Kenzie doesn't see it that way, she's holding them prisoner. If they didn't have anti-cape sentiments before, they definitely do now. Kenzie, meanwhile, doesn't see the moral issue here because in her mind she's helping them. I don't think the twist is that Kanzi isn't Kenzie, because I could absolutely see Kenzie's name getting changed by adoptive parents with no attachment to the birth name. But she says she was always having to correct the spelling, so idk. The thing about Kenzie is that a photo is not proof of anything with her, but if she'd altered the photo or if Kanzi was not Kenzie I feel like she'd have corrected the spelling. The awkward name clash is what's convincing me it's true. Ashley thinks they're not Kenzie's parents both because Ashley has an understandably strict definition of what parenthood means and because Ashley probably doesn't actually know the full story either. If she does, she doesn't consider biological parenthood 'enough' when the relationship itself is built on duress. this broken hill posted:pisssss
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Jun 24, 2018 06:08
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PetraCore posted:So, what's your problem? This is a very dark, very long path. You are not prepared.
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Jun 24, 2018 06:10
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I don't know what the gently caress is going on in this chapter but I'm so goddamn excited for Tuesday I could poo poo
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Jun 24, 2018 06:43
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:I don't know what the gently caress is going on in this chapter but I'm so goddamn excited for Tuesday I could poo poo
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Jun 24, 2018 06:46
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All sorts of new avatars for people tricking my brain!PetraCore posted:Ward 7.10 I actually like this thought, it fits pretty nicely. Especially since she seems to go study and pick up an art thing for a bit, then move on to something else. It also meshes with my thought that there is a reason that her parents couldn't have just gone to the Wardens and asked them to deal with her. I mentioned it earlier, but every interaction with Kenzie's dad he has asked Victoria if what they were doing was dangerous - instead of being parental concern he might have been hoping for her to die doing cape stuff (which sort of explains why she's even being allowed to do a front-line cape team). I'm expecting the 'poisoning the food' thing to be either a more recent development or something the rest of the group don't know about, I can't see Yamada/Ashley letting that go.
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Jun 24, 2018 06:50
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ZypherIM posted:All sorts of new avatars for people tricking my brain! I'm not even sure if they hate her, but the drive to be free of her is overriding whatever else they feel?
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Jun 24, 2018 06:57
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PetraCore posted:
Milky Moor posted:This is a very dark, very long path. You are not prepared. Yeah, kinda just - skip going down the Avshalom mind gently caress.
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Jun 24, 2018 07:05
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Ward - kenzie could easily make a camera that sees the wretch, couldn’t she? Antares is a cool name because according to wikipedia, it also has a wretch that recently changed relationships with it. “Antares has a magnitude 5.5 companion star, Antares B, that changed from an angular separation (from its primary, Antares A) of 3.3 arcseconds in 1854 to 2.67" +/-0.01" in 2006.“
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Jun 24, 2018 18:12
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builds character posted:Ward - kenzie could easily make a camera that sees the wretch, couldn’t she? Victoria is a huge dork and I love her new cape name.
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Jun 25, 2018 01:36
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builds character posted:Ward - kenzie could easily make a camera that sees the wretch, couldn’t she?
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Jun 25, 2018 02:23
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Antares as a name has a bunch of cool nerdy things with it, especially since with stuff from that far back we can't really be sure it came from 1 thing. Off of a greek root word you have a "rival to Ares", who is the Greek god of war. More than just a god of war though, he represented the more untamed/violent aspects of war. It could also be rooted off of a pre-islamic Arabian warrior-poet named Antar. There are a lot of versions of Orion's death, but several fitting ones involve him boasting/threatening to kill every beast on earth, and being killed by Scorpius.
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Jun 25, 2018 02:32
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Practical Guide God I love when Black makes it look just effortless Wekesa 
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Jun 26, 2018 00:57
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Uldor posted:Practical Guide It was beautiful. Black either intended for Warlock to die in that duel because he would side with Malicia over himself or Cat, or Warlock is in fact fine. He is probably fine. Man this chapter was just great though. All the battle interludes have been really strong this book actually. The interludes in general this book really. Procer has about 40,000 dead men and a counter-invasion by the most dangerous man in the world to show for their Crusade. I wonder what sort of political fallout Hasenbach will face for this, and how effectively Malicia can use it.
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Jun 26, 2018 02:20
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Worth the Candle updated a few more chapters. Was there an update to Prac Guide after Interlude - We Sing of Rage? I saw a placeholder that the author had some illness and it'd be delayed, but now it's gone and there's no new chapter yet?
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Jun 26, 2018 12:36
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Lone Goat posted:Worth the Candle updated a few more chapters. new chapter came up overnight it was good.
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Jun 26, 2018 12:41
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man kenzie is super hosed up
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Jun 26, 2018 16:35
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Yeah, I can't quite get a handle on her schtick. Like, attachment disorder aside a lot of her internal monologue reads like high-functioning extroverted sociopathy to me; framing things as managing/controlling Victoria, analyzing everything she does relative to how it'll elicit the desired response, and either noticing or having very few emotional reactions during the whole thing. But she apparently still has emotions and a need to socialize beyond what's required to fulfill her material needs and wants. Either way, I know it's not in keeping with the second chances schtick but I genuinely don't think it's responsible to keep her on the team; Vicky has no way of knowing this, but based on her own internal monologue I'm guessing they're never going to do better than Kenzie doing her own thing in a direction she thinks they'll find useful, and that is potentially really dangerous in an investigative/combat setting. Edit for bad joke: you're never too young to learn the dangers of irresponsible google searches. Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 16:45
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Omi no Kami posted:Yeah, I can't quite get a handle on her schtick. Like, attachment disorder aside a lot of her internal monologue reads like high-functioning extroverted sociopathy to me; framing things as managing/controlling Victoria, analyzing everything she does relative to how it'll elicit the desired response, and either noticing or having very few emotional reactions during the whole thing. But she apparently still has emotions and a need to socialize beyond what's required to fulfill her material needs and wants. Either way, I know it's not in keeping with the second chances schtick but I genuinely don't think it's responsible to keep her on the team; Vicky has no way of knowing this, but based on her own internal monologue I'm guessing they're never going to do better than Kenzie doing her own thing in a direction she thinks they'll find useful, and that is potentially really dangerous in an investigative/combat setting. It's interesting to think about which team members have entrenched personality disorders and which "just" have some horrible trauma they're struggling with. Sveta, Victoria and Rain seem firmly in the "trauma" camp. Ashley and Kenzie seem deep into severe personality disorders, with Ashley's being very much coupled to and fed by her shard, and Kenzie's existing in fully developed form prior to triggering. Chris and Tristan, could go either way, we don't really know their deal. People have called Tristan a sociopath, but I think there's a narrative where he's genuinely just a very single-minded person and stuff got away from him. We'll see. Chris actually seems like the big red herring that we're supposed to worry about but he's actually just a kid who's dealing with some legitimately tough physical problems and keeping things together admirably. I await being proven completely wrong about that. Byron, of course, is the real monster. edit: quote:Why You Gotta Do This, Wildbow? Calef fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 17:18
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I just want to give the poor girl a hug.
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Jun 26, 2018 18:16
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Omi no Kami posted:Yeah, I can't quite get a handle on her schtick. Like, attachment disorder aside a lot of her internal monologue reads like high-functioning extroverted sociopathy to me; framing things as managing/controlling Victoria, analyzing everything she does relative to how it'll elicit the desired response, and either noticing or having very few emotional reactions during the whole thing. But she apparently still has emotions and a need to socialize beyond what's required to fulfill her material needs and wants. Either way, I know it's not in keeping with the second chances schtick but I genuinely don't think it's responsible to keep her on the team; Vicky has no way of knowing this, but based on her own internal monologue I'm guessing they're never going to do better than Kenzie doing her own thing in a direction she thinks they'll find useful, and that is potentially really dangerous in an investigative/combat setting. shes a child of abusive controlling parents and as a result she tries to be controlling in an air quotes good way ask me about how shes basically the other way i could have gone with my life
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Jun 26, 2018 18:58
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Yeah, like, she's definitely got good intentions and is willing to let herself get hurt to 'help' her parents but it's wrong. It's not good. She's got 5 whole days worth of severe abuse recorded from just the past year. And yeah, she's holding her parents hostage, but after this chapter I'm not exactly feeling too bad for them, it's just a bad situation for everyone regardless of how much you care about anyone involved. She needs to get away from her parents and honestly they should probably be back in jail or at the very least never ever have responsibility over another living creature. Kenzie's not a sociopath, she's just responded to trauma in an extremely unhealthy way combining being controlling to combat severe anxiety, difficulty with boundaries because she was never allowed to have any until she was 8-ish, and, well, other stuff. All of this made a lot more sense to me once I realized they'd raised her until she was 8 and did a horrific job at it, because those are really formative years for learning to relate to other people. Sure, her power doesn't help because it gives her the tools to act on her anxiety as well as probably more of an inclination to, but knowing what we now know I suspect the shard selected her because her anxiety manifests as a strong desire to know exactly what everyone is doing and because she lacks proper boundaries, rather than adding or even strengthening those aspects of her personality much. I think it's irresponsible to say Kenzie's deal is a personality disorder rather than a result of trauma because she's 11 and because she's improving. By the time she's an adult all of this could be a lot less disordered. That's why you can't diagnose personality disorders in kids, because they can get a lot better as the brain develops. Note that I'm not saying that Kenzie's behavior is less severe, just that it's easier to course correct for kids even if it's still clearly very hard for Kenzie. PetraCore fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 19:14
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Omi no Kami posted:Yeah, I can't quite get a handle on her schtick. Like, attachment disorder aside a lot of her internal monologue reads like high-functioning extroverted sociopathy to me; framing things as managing/controlling Victoria, analyzing everything she does relative to how it'll elicit the desired response, and either noticing or having very few emotional reactions during the whole thing. But she apparently still has emotions and a need to socialize beyond what's required to fulfill her material needs and wants. Either way, I know it's not in keeping with the second chances schtick but I genuinely don't think it's responsible to keep her on the team; Vicky has no way of knowing this, but based on her own internal monologue I'm guessing they're never going to do better than Kenzie doing her own thing in a direction she thinks they'll find useful, and that is potentially really dangerous in an investigative/combat setting. some flavors of sociopath have both recognizable emotions and a need to socialize that said i don't think she's a sociopath
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Jun 26, 2018 20:10
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She might be a bit on the spectrum what with the extreme sensitivity to smells and trouble with social cues, but it's hard to determine how bad that is independent of the trauma from the extreme abuse she went through and how that fucks up socialization. Regardless, I don't think Kenzie minimizing her emotional reactions in narration is a sign of her having dulled emotional responses, rather I think she's highly emotional and minimizes that because it's hard for her to deal with.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:36
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This chapter of Practical Guide from Apprentice's perspective about him and Archer is funny:quote:“We need a bigger fish, then,” Archer had suggested.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:49
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Ytlaya posted:This chapter of Practical Guide from Apprentice's perspective about him and Archer is funny: Dude doesn't even know about giant catfish. Jeez.
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Jun 26, 2018 21:27
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Ytlaya posted:This chapter of Practical Guide from Apprentice's perspective about him and Archer is funny: The supporting cast of PracGuide is honestly amazing. Interludes are often annoying digressions, but in PracGuide we get Robber, Hierarch and Tyrant, Zeze and Archer. The Proceran ones are a little dull, but I can live with it.
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Jun 26, 2018 21:32
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PetraCore posted:She might be a bit on the spectrum what with the extreme sensitivity to smells and trouble with social cues, but it's hard to determine how bad that is independent of the trauma from the extreme abuse she went through and how that fucks up socialization. Regardless, I don't think Kenzie minimizing her emotional reactions in narration is a sign of her having dulled emotional responses, rather I think she's highly emotional and minimizes that because it's hard for her to deal with. Kids can be pretty sensitive to the smell of Parmesan cheese, which even at my age I dislike the smell of. Minimizing emotional responses or presenting certain emotions is 100% a 'learned behavior' in response to the abuse she suffered. When nothing she does is right she learns how to present herself to prevent/minimize abuse. Kids can also pick up that she acts a bit different from them, and then being kids they're little shits, and she has no way of learning how to befriend any of them. Not a sociopath at all, or dulled emotions, or anything like that. Just severe emotional+physical abuse followed by the system really not taking care of her problems (probably even more so after she triggered and they valued surviellence tinker over making sure she was ok). I'm actually really glad this chapter was written in an interlude so that we got her inside view, because while there are perhaps some questions still remaining it clears out a *ton* of the potental "oh she is lying/her parents are robots/whatever the gently caress insane theory" things.
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Jun 26, 2018 21:39
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ZypherIM posted:
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Jun 26, 2018 22:01
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navyjack posted:The supporting cast of PracGuide is honestly amazing. Interludes are often annoying digressions, but in PracGuide we get Robber, Hierarch and Tyrant, Zeze and Archer. The Proceran ones are a little dull, but I can live with it. I do wish that they went for a more broken up approach rather than the interludes all being one after the other, though.
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Jun 26, 2018 22:08
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Jade Mage posted:I do wish that they went for a more broken up approach rather than the interludes all being one after the other, though. Honestly, I don't even read most of the interludes anymore; I glance at them to see if it's from the perspective of someone I care about, but there are so many, and they break up the pacing so much that around book 2 I just stopped caring.
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Jun 27, 2018 00:31
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