|
TWI 
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 04:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 12:51 |
|
|
It gets worse. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 05:29
|
|
|
fuuuuuuck tristan
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 08:04
|
|
|
That was a really really good chapter of Prac Guide
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 09:18
|
|
|
New Mother of Learning is out.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 11:42
|
|
|
Grognan posted:fuuuuuuck tristan What gets me is that he lets Paris go. He realizes at some point that catching Paris isn't actually going to make him happy and or get him what he wants; it's such an un-superhero character moment that I honestly kind of love it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 12:45
|
|
|
Cicero posted:New Mother of Learning is out. Looks like we might be in the final iteration of the time loop? That's exciting. I noticed in the chapter the characters were all pretty unanimously convinced that Silverlake betrayed them - but the primordial never says that explicitly. And I mean she is the super obvious candidate (that coincidentally got turned into a soulless husk right after the bargain was struck) but it feels to me like the author might be leaving the door open for some sort of surprising eleventh-hour tweeeeest. In the chapter, Zorian deduces that the loop was probably set up with the intention of letting Zach figure out some way of averting the future where the primordial is released? Which I guess hangs together - but feels like a bit of a stretch to me. If that's the case it means some - heretofore unmentioned - power sent Zach into the loop before the story began with a do or die mission to save the world or whatever. Which seems weird to me, from a storytelling perspective, to introduce some entirely new group or powerful individual who was ~behind it all~ this late in the game. I keep expecting them to stumble across who or what exactly prompted the timeloop to start and under what circumstances... and it just keeps not happening. Maybe there will be a post-timeloop third act that will wrap that up? Unrelatedly, it's interesting how much the primordial wanted Zorian to betray Zach. I guess that it expects that Zach will be able to ultimately escape the loop no matter what? I was under the impression that he was barred from escape the same was as Zorian because of the Guardian operating under the assumption that the controller had already left - but maybe not? The primordial didn't seem to think so in the chapter anyway. My wild guess is that his status as the primary controller of the loop will let him deus ex machina him and Zorian out at the end of the day and that's why the primordial is so wary. If that happens it looks like we might be headed toward Zach + assorted hangers on finally escaping for good and going on to try to save the world for real while facing off against Silverlake, Red Robe, and the invaders huh?
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 17:29
|
|
|
The Sovereign Gate is a divine artifact, the people behind it are angels.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 18:33
|
|
|
That's a bit of a leap. The gate is a divine artifact - but it's also under the control of some super secret government organization. As for chalking the instigators of the whole story up to "angels" uhhh...? There isn't really anything in the text to support that is there? All we know about angels is that they are the ones propping up the various world religions and occasionally they move to bless or guide their flocks. I don't know why Zach, as opposed to like a priest or something, would end up as their chosen champion if they were the ones pulling the strings.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 19:17
|
|
|
Grognan posted:fuuuuuuck tristan I'm genuinely curious how (or even if) Tristan became a somewhat decent person. I'm skeptical because I don't think we've seen a Tristan PoV chapter outside of these interludes (that portray him as almost* being a sociopath). If Goddess's power is making Tristian view her in the same way he views himself, I wouldn't be terribly shocked if he's trying to deceive Victoria (though I'd prefer a situation where Tristan genuinely became better as he grew up and got therapy and stuff). * I say "almost" because he appears to care about that Reconciliation guy and Furcate
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 19:35
|
|
|
The Shortest Path posted:It gets worse. I am taking break from TWI for this. Please, could you post in thread when the story thread plays out? Yes it is still less terrible than a lot of what is happening in other works of fiction, but this TWI, and I read it primed for Erin's zany hijinks. Gladi fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Sep 24, 2018 |
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 20:07
|
|
|
sunken fleet posted:That was a cool chapter. Some random thoughts I had... I wonder if for some unknown reason either Zorian or the controller is in a unique position to obliterate the primordial's plans? It seems really suspicious that it's investing so much time into screwing with those two despite having multiple agents on the outside. It doesn't make much sense to me that two agents are enough, not when it could've used the time dilation hijinks to mass-recruit most of the group; maybe it killed/excluded from the loop the person it thought would most heavily disrupt their work and sow dissent? I'm really not a fan of the sudden presence of angels, and I kinda hope they're not a big part of what's left; one of the big unanswered questions is why Zach, of all people, was the loop's originator (I still have my money on it either being a bloodline thing only his family can do, or him sneaking in/accidentally triggering it), and "Angels told me to save the world" would be a bit of a letdown. My best guess is that Z&Z either have a synergy, or the controller has some specific thing, which can ruin the primordial's day and they're unaware of.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 21:26
|
|
|
Gladi posted:I am taking break from TWI for this. Please, could you post in thread when the story thread plays out? Don't get me wrong, it's very, extremely good so far. It's just a massive cavalcade of bad communication and misinformation and racism converging on each other and it's gonna be a clusterfuck.  I'll let you know once it's played out.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 21:39
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:I'm genuinely curious how (or even if) Tristan became a somewhat decent person. I'm skeptical because I don't think we've seen a Tristan PoV chapter outside of these interludes (that portray him as almost* being a sociopath). Tristan in these prologue chapters is definitely more of a hardcore narcissist (which is treatable with therapy) then a psychopath/sociopath* (which basically isn’t), so there’s definitely hope that his improvements between now and then are genuine. While him hiring a hit man to force time sharing is obviously super dangerous (and not at all fun for Byron), the fact that he’s aware he needs it seems like a sign of real growth, and it’s not something a typical sociopath would submit to willingly. *If Goddesses’ ability works the way it’s speculated to then a sociopath would probably be highly resistant or immune to it, like Regent in Worm.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2018 23:08
|
|
|
I think it's worth remembering, re: Tristan, that his and Byron's whole situation is a result of Byron strangling him and going "it's Tristan's fault I'm murdering him right now."
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2018 01:14
|
|
|
sunken fleet posted:In the chapter, Zorian deduces that the loop was probably set up with the intention of letting Zach figure out some way of averting the future where the primordial is released? Which I guess hangs together - but feels like a bit of a stretch to me. If that's the case it means some - heretofore unmentioned - power sent Zach into the loop before the story began with a do or die mission to save the world or whatever. Which seems weird to me, from a storytelling perspective, to introduce some entirely new group or powerful individual who was ~behind it all~ this late in the game. I keep expecting them to stumble across who or what exactly prompted the timeloop to start and under what circumstances... and it just keeps not happening. Maybe there will be a post-timeloop third act that will wrap that up?
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2018 15:01
|
|
|
Cicero posted:The story has been hinting at this for a while. I mean, just in the first place, creating a pocket dimension that contains the whole world isn't something an entity does on a whim, and Zach has been viewed as the "original looper" since the time loop was established. That the loop ends when the primordial gets released fits with that too. So does the fact that Zach has mongo-huge mana reserves without the expected loss in control. As for why more details aren't known, Zach has memory problems, and possibly a compulsion to not let anyone into his head (that might fix those memory problems). You know, it never occurred to me that Zach might have an explicit compulsion to resist suggestions to have his head examined, and that would fix one of my biggest gripes: it bugs the heck out of me that even though Zorian almost instantly deduced that he had major psychic tampering when they teamed up, they've now spent years (I think?) working together, yet nobody has ever made a point of trying to explicitly fix his head and figure out what the heck is going on. I just read it as Zach being stubborn and Zorian not liking conflict, but it being an explicit conditioned response makes the whole thing way easier to believe.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2018 15:27
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:
That's been pretty obvious, IMO.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2018 15:43
|
|
|
Megazver posted:That's been pretty obvious, IMO. Yeah, I'm surprised it didn't occur to me earlier... there are so many possible avenues of investigation/research to explore that I probably just shrugged and assumed they had weird priorities.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2018 16:41
|
|
|
Angry Walrus posted:I think it's worth remembering, re: Tristan, that his and Byron's whole situation is a result of Byron strangling him and going "it's Tristan's fault I'm murdering him right now." What Byron did was very stupid, but stupid in a more understandable way (particularly for an emotional teenager who had been dealing with a narcissistic twin brother for years). He starts to worry when it seems like he might have gone too far: quote:Byron: “Just… nod, okay? Nod, agree. Or tap out, show me you can tap out.” Then Tristan stabs him, and Byron panics and keeps choking him because he's afraid Tristan would keep stabbing him if he doesn't make him pass out or something* (which is admittedly a pretty realistic concern; I wouldn't be surprised at all if Tristan kept stabbing him after he let go). I obviously don't blame Tristan much (if at all) for continuing the stabbing at this point, but he's the first one who took an "obviously extremely violent and potentially fatal" action. Byron took an action that could have been just as dangerous, but one that a teen could easily misunderstand as not being that dangerous. It's hard to really make the same excuse regarding stabbing someone. All of this being said, it's the stuff later that shows Tristan is way more hosed up than Byron; the stabbing is actually probably one of the most excusable things we see from Tristan. Nothing later indicates that Tristan is behaving the way he is as a result of Byron's strangling before they triggered. We see multiple direct examples of Tristan not giving the slightest thought to his brother's feelings or opinions, but we do see examples of the reverse. Byron is obviously flawed, but in a way that falls within the realm of "normal." The same can't really be said for Tristan (and this culminates with Tristan making the decision to effectively kill his brother, in a situation where Byron doesn't make the same decision despite having the same difficult circumstances). * obviously in reality it's far more dangerous than this, but it's the type of thing a teen like Byron could easily misunderstand (that choking can result in more than just the person passing out) edit: The main thing that makes me lean towards "Tristan is actually much better now" is that Byron seems to believe he's made real progress, and we know from the interlude that Byron was previously aware when Tristan was bullshitting his way through therapy, so Tristan likely doesn't have the ability to fool Byron into believing he's made progress. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Sep 26, 2018 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2018 19:47
|
|
|
Yeah, what Tristan did (in their trigger event, I mean!) was a reasonable panic reaction especially as I fully believe he couldn't hear Byron at that point, and while it also pushed Byron to a point that I don't think he could have let go even if he wanted to, since he was panicking so hard, I consider Byron as having taken the first violent action there. I think Tristan was right that Byron bottles things up until he explodes in a disproportionate manner. I think it's fairly likely that if they hadn't triggered Byron would likely have unintentionally killed Tristan and then hated himself for it. HOWEVER. None of that justifies the slow ways things slide more and more off the rails once they've triggered, and how much Tristan takes advantage of that. Tristan actually seems less distressed than Byron at the particulars of a shared body - at least, we never see him bitch about eating or anything - but because he's louder about his distress, people pay more attention to him. Meanwhile Byron was doing stuff like self-harming and then hiding it. Tristan knew Byron was doing stuff like that, but he still dominated the therapy sessions and the like, and then blamed Byron for not putting himself out there. And while I'm sympathetic that the shared body situation means Byron's extremely reasonable boundaries cut off Tristan's coping mechanisms, a 15 year old should really not be using hard partying and sex as a coping mechanism. Which isn't to call it unrealistic, but like, it's disordered behavior. And, of course, right as Byron starts thinking they're getting along better, Tristan pulls off that plan to 'kill' him just so he can do what he wants with the body, which is, wow. I don't think Tristan is a sociopath. I think Tristan had and has hardcore disordered personality traits (not quiiiite sure if narcissism works?) that probably wouldn't be diagnosable in a teenager bc the thing is teenagers have a lot more chance of improving if they work at it than adults do. And I think he has improved, because Byron agrees he's improved, and Tristan is really good at bullshitting people but Byron is the person who'd know best given what happened there and the shared body. Obviously Tristan can bullshit Byron given Byron got blindsided with Tristan's bodyjacking plan, but once Tristan shattered that trust he'd have had to rebuild it and Byron in the present is much more comfortable with Tristan. I also wanna point out that Tristan is 100% responsible for his actions and choices, but there were responsible adults in Reach that completely and utterly dropped the ball on how this situation was brewing up. I wanna especially call out their shared therapist who, given two patients sharing a body and a 2 hour session, spent an hour and 45 minutes with Tristan and then talked to Byron for 15 minutes about what Tristan's needs were. Even with Tristan being manipulative, that is completely unacceptable and firm boundaries should have been established and stuck to from the start. Furthermore, while no doctor-patient confidentiality can exist in their situation, I think there needs to at least be the ritual of setting it up as two separate sessions where the twin going second can choose to not touch anything addressed in the first half. I imagine that's what Jessica did.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2018 03:52
|
|
|
But man, you guys. Kenzie's reveal was super hosed up. Tristan and Byron's is even more hosed up. Following the pattern, exactly how bad is the eventual Chris flashback interlude going to be? And speaking of Chris, he went at Goddess with a form specifically designed to counter her and at least 3 layers of subterfuge ready and still got caught, and we haven't seen him or heard from him since then, only gotten a secondhand account of someone saying they were totally watching him scratch out something in the dirt. Goddess says she's working with him, but are we like... sure she hasn't done something horrible to him in the process? Because I think it's somewhat likely she's done something horrible to him in the process. EDIT: I appreciate that while Kenzie and the twins' deals were reasonably broadcasted, the only three pieces of info we have about Chris' past is that he's definitely killed at least 1 person, someone else's power is interfering with his and causing his body to degrade, and he's probably 14. PetraCore fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Sep 26, 2018 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2018 03:58
|
|
|
PetraCore posted:EDIT: I appreciate that while Kenzie and the twins' deals were reasonably broadcasted, the only three pieces of info we have about Chris' past is that he's definitely killed at least 1 person, someone else's power is interfering with his and causing his body to degrade, and he's probably 14. We don't actually know this, and I'd be surprised if it were true. It's basically a guess Victoria made in her internal monologue and then got overconfident about. She certainly has her reasons for favoring such a guess, too. I find it likelier that Chris is a "broken trigger". Both of the broken triggers we've seen have immediately killed lots of people and died. But just going off of the definition, it's entirely plausible that a broken trigger would give a victim an otherwise normal power that constantly threatens to kill them if they don't use it correctly. This would tie together a lot of Chris's features:
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2018 15:11
|
|
|
21 Muns posted:We don't actually know this, and I'd be surprised if it were true. It's basically a guess Victoria made in her internal monologue and then got overconfident about. She certainly has her reasons for favoring such a guess, too. I find it likelier that Chris is a "broken trigger". Both of the broken triggers we've seen have immediately killed lots of people and died. But just going off of the definition, it's entirely plausible that a broken trigger would give a victim an otherwise normal power that constantly threatens to kill them if they don't use it correctly. This would tie together a lot of Chris's features: Meanwhile, there was clearly something wrong with Kenzie's parents from the start and the reactions of the rest of Team Therapy confirmed it, and Tristan has been relatively open about what went down and being at fault. The trigger event the twins had was the biggest surprise there for me. PetraCore fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Sep 27, 2018 |
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2018 00:33
|
|
|
PetraCore posted:I think it's fairly likely that if they hadn't triggered Byron would likely have unintentionally killed Tristan and then hated himself for it. I'm pretty sure there's a good chance Byron would have also died; if anything I might give Tristan better odds of making it out of that alive, since Byron was apparently stabbed a LOT and likely wouldn't have been able to keep up his grip much longer. The biggest reason why I feel like Tristan's psychological problems are something very deep (and deeper than Byron's) is that, as I think you mentioned, it is extremely weird that he spends half his time in Byron's body, experiencing everything Byron experiences, yet still doesn't end up with any sort of empathy for him, or at least emotional engagement beyond just being annoyed (like, as he put it, being behind someone who's walking too slowly). While I'm leaning towards Tristan having improved, a part of me is still skeptical because we know Tristan is capable of manipulating others into thinking he's honestly addressing his issues, and he's had much longer to practice his acting now (and he was good at it to begin with). I had completely forgotten/ignored the fact that Tristan successfully tricked Byron about his plan to "kill" him, which actually puts a dent in my "Byron would know if Tristan was bullshitting about having improved" theory.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2018 02:27
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:I'm pretty sure there's a good chance Byron would have also died; if anything I might give Tristan better odds of making it out of that alive, since Byron was apparently stabbed a LOT and likely wouldn't have been able to keep up his grip much longer. But man, given that Tristan pulled the thing he did right as Byron was musing that heroing together was where he and Tristan had the best relationship, it's no wonder that Byron was completely against joining Breakthrough and mostly just lets it be a Tristan thing unless the situation really calls for it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2018 02:36
|
|
|
PetraCore posted:Good point. That knocks it down to two things we know about Chris' past. I'd been pretty sure Chris has a broken trigger before Victoria drew that conclusion. There's a third broken trigger we know about, by the way! It was discussed in Glow-worm, the kid whose family died from bad air and then she(?) triggered and gained the ability to control the mold and fungus around her while losing the ability to move and having to puppet her family's bodies to communicate. I don't remember all the details but basically what happened was so weird it was a broken trigger since the normal restrictions had been blown out of the water, and then it was later implied she'd died? So with that broken trigger it was a very weird, self-destructive power gained and while it didn't jump around and kill people or go as horribly wrong as the other two examples we've seen, it presumably eventually killed her. That'd fit with what's going with Chris. I think what was going there is that that person was a natural Case 53; Scion used to hunt down all the damaged shards, so the only source of them before was Cauldon Vials, but now that he's not around they're starting to happen in the wild, plus much crazier stuff like that scene early in with people's brains being nailed in place. One interesting thing I noticed with the flashbacks: Furcate's power works pretty similarly to Tristan and Byron's switching, makes three different copies that have to agree on which one stays real and which two... die? Go to the sunken place for a while? My current theory is thats how Tristan gets found out: he tells Furcate, maybe while drunk, hoping for some sympathy and instead they're horrified. It feels like a very Wildbow move if nothing else, establishing that this is one of the few people Tristan legitimately cares about at this point in his life and then taking away even that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2018 11:03
|
|
|
PetraCore posted:Yeah... I just feel that if Tristan wasn't willing to risk himself to improve as a person, he'd like, run away and never let Byron out again. Yeah, this is true. I think that, at the end of the day, Tristan isn't exactly malicious; it's more that he's extremely self-centered. Even the events of the last interlude were just because he couldn't cope with not being able to "let loose," and it's actually understandable to be under immense stress in that situation, even if his actions were completely inappropriate and immoral as a response. I guess we'll find out later how much Tristan himself was bothered by his choice. As an unrelated comment, Furcate's power is terrible. What a lovely power. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, it seems like an inferior version of Prism's power in practice (from what I can recall, they don't have any sort of super-strength/speed, and the only thing different from Prism's ability to split is that the clones might have variations in their costumes/equipment, which is a pretty mild bonus, especially when you don't know what those variations will be). And that's not even getting into the likely negative psychological impact of using the power.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2018 01:45
|
|
|
quote:She’d attempted correspondence with the Hierarch to probe intentions and six months past the man had finally deigned to reply. Cordelia almost wished he hadn’t. The missive had been three pages long, most of which castigating the notion of inherited rule as Wicked Tyranny, Procer itself as A Rapacious Pack Of Foreign Oligarchs and her suggestion of formal truce talks as Treason Against The Will Of The People. Which people in particular, she’d noted, he had not specified. He’d at least recognized her title of First Prince, as it was the result of an election. Anaxares 
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2018 14:29
|
|
|
The Tyrant bit was fantastic too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2018 18:01
|
|
|
Anaxares feels like he came right out of a Douglas Adams novel and I really love the author a lot for that. Hitchhikers Guide was so good...
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2018 19:55
|
|
|
I like how a bunch of the stuff Anaxares says is actually 100% true, but just mixed up in a bunch of other crazy/exaggerated stuff.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2018 22:59
|
|
|
I guess I need to catch up on Ward so I can read this bloody thread again.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2018 11:43
|
|
|
Nettle Soup posted:I guess I need to catch up on Ward so I can read this bloody thread again. I have a skill that lets me unfocuse my eyes as soon as I see a ward name and then scroll on down past it. Probably going to read ward one day so avoiding the spoilers.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2018 11:50
|
|
|
Just about caught up with TGaB. General thoughts: Western D&D is a fun setting and works well, the sci-fi stuff fell flat for me. Too much metafictional and real-world nonsense: the stupid anime tropes and constant later references to books and political commentators the author liked didn't do the story any favors. Massive disconnect between what's shown and what's told- the narration states that Trissiny is a judgemental hothead, Toby's a diplomat, and Justinian is a charismatic manipulator. Triss comes off in-story as the most consistently level-headed group member, Toby's a condescending jerk, and Justinian is comically incompetent. Far too many plotlines start strong, then fade into the background with no resolution. Too many characters, not enough focused narrative. All in all fun read, but I wish it were 60% shorter and a lot more grounded.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2018 17:46
|
|
|
look at all these weirdos / Decadent Foreign Elites who think the Glorious Republic of Bellerophon isn't an ideal system of government
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2018 17:57
|
|
|
Prac Guide: It feels like the current set of interludes are Black's last hurrah, that even if he lives his army will stop pestering Cordelia and possibly return to fight against Cat. I just can't see how Black will get away with breaking Cordelia's rule, it feels like she still has a role to play in the Callow/Procer war, whike Black's own prospects are dim.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2018 20:37
|
|
|
Nettle Soup posted:I guess I need to catch up on Ward so I can read this bloody thread again. Affi posted:I have a skill that lets me unfocuse my eyes as soon as I see a ward name and then scroll on down past it. Sorry about posting Ward stuff without spoilers, guys. I keep forgetting that other people have, y'know, lives and sometimes can't keep up with the constantly-updating webfiction equivalent of War and Peace.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2018 00:48
|
|
|
whens wild bow going to go on a months long essay on great cape theory
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2018 01:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 12:51 |
|
violent sex idiot posted:whens wild bow going to go on a months long essay on great cape theory Hopefully never or I'm hosed.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2018 01:05
|
|
