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Zorian's return from the timeloop and subsequent involvement in greater society starts a hellish new age of simulicrum-embedded golem warfare.
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Oct 29, 2018 06:14
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Yeah, it's not really salient to the core story but I'm really interested to see how the business stuff rolls out. There were a few occasions when small side projects (his buddy's alchemy for sure, and I think one of his spellwork things?) generated huge levels of international interest when they got out, and he's invented dozens of widgets ranging from portable voice and face obstruction drones to those personal firearms with absurd amounts of firepower he built to hunt the giant spider thing. On one hand, he and Zach don't really need money, but on the other hand it's going to suck if he gets kidnapped by one intelligence agency or another just for his research. Maybe they should take a page out of lichdad's book and form an international conglomerate (or secretly fund tons of independent businesses), and divide discoveries among a zillion different small research teams.
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Oct 29, 2018 11:25
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(MoL) I do wonder what order of steps he'll take... It seems to me that the fact that no one knows he's out is probably his best asset at the moment. Zach is probably trustworthy, but really needs that mind-scan they've been putting off forever. Red Robe will probably be watching for him and Zach, but I don't think actually ever discovered his identity. The duty-bound Silverlake will probably look in on him, etc. My guess for how this'll go: - Send off loads of suitably-disguised simulacra to prepare, gather supplies, recruit allies, etc. - Do one more round of pretending to be an average wizard schoolboy himself, to lull his various enemies into a false sense of security. - Jump Zach at some point, do that mind-scan, get all the details about how the loop starts and how Red Robe got looped in and such. - Discretely try to contact original Silverlake at some point, but is unable to determine if it's the original or the dupe also playing dumb, so can't approach without giving himself away. Beyond that, no clue. What all does he have to deal with, at this point? - Prevent Silverlake from freeing the primordial - Stop Quatach-Ichl's invasion - Identify and hinder Red Robe - Shut down Sudomir's soul-gathering operation - Prevent his various friends and family from dying in the resulting chaos - I guess go talk to Veyers at least once, since he's literally the only character we haven't gotten to 'meet' in all these time loops. I feel like I'm forgetting something.
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Oct 29, 2018 16:28
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Shouldn't everyone effectively get out at the same time in the real world? I thought the loop was like a time dilation black room thing so you go in then come out and no time has passed. Everyone who's going to get out should also be out with Zorian, they just had more time in the loop after he left.
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Oct 29, 2018 16:35
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M. Night Skymall posted:Shouldn't everyone effectively get out at the same time in the real world? I thought the loop was like a time dilation black room thing so you go in then come out and no time has passed. Everyone who's going to get out should also be out with Zorian, they just had more time in the loop after he left. Yes, that's my impression of it.
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Oct 29, 2018 16:46
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Newest TWI Patreon chapter gently caress Lakan, gently caress all the humans. Not a fan at all of how this played out, especially how magically the leader of the army shows up to rescue him in some tiny village nowhere near where the army is fighting. Every goblin chapter always ends with them getting screwed, and it's getting really predictable and old.
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Oct 29, 2018 19:06
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Cinara posted:Newest TWI Patreon chapter gently caress Lakan, gently caress all the humans. Not a fan at all of how this played out, especially how magically the leader of the army shows up to rescue him in some tiny village nowhere near where the army is fighting. Every goblin chapter always ends with them getting screwed, and it's getting really predictable and old. I HATED the Deus ex Machina of Veltras showing up at the end, what an unsatisfying ending to what was already my least favorite story arc of the novel. So what, his grand strategy is to sit around and wait for weeks while his army gets close to rebelling and then pounce on two unrelated battlefields that just happen to be coming to a head at the same time? Like, from the last chapter he was implicitly waiting for Elia Arcsinger before moving. Right when she arrives (to go to the other battlefield), Veltras leaves for Laken’s village and arrives when he is literally seconds away from death, saving the day and adding an [Emperor] to his camp. gently caress that too convenient bullshit. Also, Laken’s refusal of Rags’ incredibly generous peace offering (after his army has pre-emptively struck and while they are actively losing the battle) made absolutely zero sense other than setting up Veltras to “save the day”.
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Oct 29, 2018 19:32
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TWI theory Starting to suspect that whatever 'system' is in the background is forcing the goblins to be in this cycle. Rags (and other goblin leaders) are definitely getting some form of psychic/spiritual connection to other powerful goblins, or past dead ones. It would be easy to be manipulated into keeping the cycle going with that level of connection. They could literally be the designated newbie trash race, with occasional outbreaks of a larger threat. I have no excuse for Larken. He was one of my favorite characters till recently, I'm behind a few chapters as I tend to be when I don't like the direction of the writing. I'm half German/half Polish and seeing the token German guy basically aim to wipe out a race to the best of his ability left a bad taste in my mouth.
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Oct 29, 2018 20:04
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sunken fleet posted:Void Domain - It's a lot like Harry Potter, except instead of being a gormless capital "H" hero who gets by with the power of love and friendship Eva is instead a vicious girl with a penchant for brutal blood magic and deals with demons. It has an edge over a lot of other web fiction in that it is already complete! No waiting for updates here. The whole thing comes in at a hair over a million words. (The author has moved onto another project Vacant Throne that I know nothing about but if you like one you might like the other.) The "hidden world of magic" that exists in setting requires a bit of suspension of disbelief but if you can get past that it's all pretty well set up, the author clearly put a lot of thought into how the magic in his setting "works" and came up with some creative stuff. Plus who doesn't like reading about evil magicians, demons, and our marginally less evil protagonist all battling each other to the death? I just finished the first book of this. I've enjoyed it so far and am going to keep reading it, but it has some issues. The prose isn't great. Lots of short and stubby sentences that don't flow well and especially early on there's a lot of awkward paragraphs where a character's name is repeated in every sentence. It's gradually getting better so maybe in another 800k words it'll be good. Structurally book 1 really doesn't work as a book. To use a Harry Potter analogy, it's like the first book ended when the dragon subplot was dealt with. Yeah, a plot thread was resolved and there was sort of a climax, but it really just felt like the author went "wow I've written a bunch of chapters and here's an excuse to declare a book done so I should jump on it". The biggest issue is that the characters don't have distinct voices. None of the adults ever come off as actual adults, and in particular when Zoe and Eva are talking to each other it's like two overly mature YA protagonists are talking to each other, not a teacher and a student. Devon's not quite as YA protagonist, but it's still super weird to have him introduced as Eva's master and then have them immediately start talking to each other as peers. Maybe the author's just pretty young and didn't really have an adversarial relationship with any of the adults in their life as a teen?
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Oct 30, 2018 04:14
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It’s been a while since I read Void Domain, but I recall the problem with its prose being that it read like a translation of a Chinese web novel. I have a hunch that there’s a generation of amateur authors out there whose understanding of how pop fiction should be written is based heavily off of translations of popular material from East Asian countries. Prose is structured differently in Japanese than it is in English, and I’ve found that even some of the better professional TLs of light novels out there still feel weirdly stilted. Hell, I’m reading through the internationally acclaimed Three-Body Problem trilogy, which are Real Serious Books and not light novels, and even through the stellar translation there’s just something off about how things are structured that makes it feel, indescribably, like it was translated from Chinese. I myself am nowhere close to professional, but when I’m translating Japanese text, it takes me two or three editing passes to make it feel like English prose to me, and when I go back weeks later to reread it it still somehow feels off in a way I don’t know how to describe or, worse, fix. I don’t read a lot of Western serial fiction, honestly, so I don’t know if this is actually a trend among young authors of middling skill or if this is just wild speculation, but between novels like Void Domain and the comments I see praising mediocre translations I can’t help but wonder where a good chunk of kids are learning what writing looks like.
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Oct 30, 2018 06:00
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It's a very big trend, up there with LitRPG as being one of the current pillars of the web fiction world. Basically, there are a lot of Western kids basically aping translated Eastern works, then other kids mimicking that and so on. Let a big name serial author lay it out. quote:I do think the scene has changed in another way, and I’m not sure it’s positive. Personal bias may come into play here, but I’ve seen several Serial communities get inundated with people & works from the Light Novel communities. The light novel from Asia tends to have a very particular flavor, tone, and style, and I worry that as much as the sites and communities might be bleeding together, they maintain very different readerships – enough that regular readers might be turned off by light novel writers and vice versa. I’ve seen some frustrations expressed in general about it, and worry it holds us back.
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Oct 30, 2018 06:11
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:It's a very big trend, up there with LitRPG as being one of the current pillars of the web fiction world. Basically, there are a lot of Western kids basically aping translated Eastern works, then other kids mimicking that and so on. On that note, were you taking the piss with the Division by Zero rec? The prose is extremely weird in the way you and blastron describe re: translated works so I’m wondering how much slack I should cut it.
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Oct 30, 2018 06:43
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Plorkyeran posted:I just finished the first book of this. I've enjoyed it so far and am going to keep reading it, but it has some issues. yeah, since I plugged it I've actually been giving Void Domain a skim through re-read and while I don't know if I agree with there being a lack of "distinct voices" for the characters (my main gripe with the story is how much POV shifting to flesh out the side characters there is honestly) it is very "YA fiction" in tone. Eva never really comes across as a child in any of her interactions - but in setting she's like 13-16 years old. So it suffers a bit from the whole "why is some random teenager at the center of everything" problem that plagues all YA stuff. Still, despite that, the clunky prose, and the awkward structuring of the story, I think it's a fun read.
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Oct 30, 2018 08:01
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blastron posted:It’s been a while since I read Void Domain, but I recall the problem with its prose being that it read like a translation of a Chinese web novel. I have a hunch that there’s a generation of amateur authors out there whose understanding of how pop fiction should be written is based heavily off of translations of popular material from East Asian countries. Prose is structured differently in Japanese than it is in English, and I’ve found that even some of the better professional TLs of light novels out there still feel weirdly stilted. In this specific case I'm not sure. The defining quirk of LN translations is a lack of paragraphs. Even if it's not actually formatted with a paragraph break between each sentence (although there is in the bad ones) most translators fail to reflow the sentences to form real paragraphs. Void Domain has a stilted flow between sentences, but the author does clearly understand the concept of a paragraph and writes using them.
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Oct 30, 2018 16:46
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TWI: literally the most  chapter possible
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Oct 31, 2018 00:44
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A big flaming stink posted:TWI: literally the most Lol, I assume you mean the Patreon chapter (which I agree with), because that’s like the exact opposite of today’s regular chapter.
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Oct 31, 2018 00:52
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Silynt posted:Lol, I assume you mean the Patreon chapter (which I agree with), because that’s like the exact opposite of today’s regular chapter. oh, yeah. The regular chapter is the most  chapter possible.loving laken A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Nov 1, 2018 |
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Oct 31, 2018 01:05
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A big flaming stink posted:TWI: literally the most I was legit worried we were about to lose the happiest of Ants, but it turns out he really was a special snowflake.
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Oct 31, 2018 01:12
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Yea Patreon chapter really redeemed it today. Also. A big flaming stink posted:loving laken
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Oct 31, 2018 01:45
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Laken is right and the goblins had it coming. 
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Oct 31, 2018 02:44
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In Ward we learn a tiny bit about Chris's past.
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Oct 31, 2018 06:59
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Started, and finished Worth the Candle. It meanders a bit, the whole pregnancy thing was kinda weird, but overall, worth reading. Still need to catch up on Ward, the further back I end up, the less I want to push through it...
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Oct 31, 2018 12:53
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I have no idea how far I am in Worth the Candle (the sociopath lady just had sex with a plot of land in the form of a deer), so far it's a lot better than I was expecting! I wish they'd knock off the constant D&D/meta-narrative talk, and for a group obsessed with keeping the story going lest the DM get bored and smite them they've sure had an awful lot of downtime, but I'm having fun reading it and I tend to absolutely despise isekai/litrpg stuff, so that's a pretty decent recommendation. Although I do wish they'd stop constantly talking about dwarf cloacas.
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Oct 31, 2018 14:02
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I'm surprised there's not been much talk about these last two Prac Guide interludes - that last one in particular seems extremely portentious.
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Oct 31, 2018 23:47
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The (alleged) backstory for Chris is super interesting and fits a ton of what we know about him. I feel like, in true Wildbow fashion, it creates almost as many questions as it answers, but I think it probably clarifies Chris's motivation for constantly throwing himself into dangerous situations and running off with Amy, in a position of equality or superiority to her. Presumably the danger either helps him figure out something or helps keep himself together, since the Chris we know formed as a result of the... let's be real, super loving gross torture he was put through. Like, his power impacts his personality. As for whatever is ultimately motivating him, it's got to be connected to the people who had him or information he got when in their captivity. There's not a ton of details filling in that loose outline, but there's something. On a writing note, I really liked how this chapter was used as a way to explore possible motivations or aspects Chris has without confirming or denying anything, using Tristan and Kenzie's conversation. Sometimes that can come off really heavyhanded, like the author going 'hey, look at all this stuff you guys should have picked up on' or 'this is what you should be thinking!', but I think it fit the characters involved. Most notably, both Tristan and Kenzie are actually really bad at reading other people in different ways, so it feels like Wildbow is acknowledging that there are several ways you can interpret Chris' actions without too loudly broadcasting what Chris was really thinking.
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Nov 1, 2018 05:55
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I think I'm caught up in worth the candle they just got to the library, it was a fun read but I'll probably wait for it to be done before continuing- the pacing often feels simultaneously exhausting and meandering, so reading it on a weekly basis would be way too frustrating. I'm also a little worried about where it's going: on one hand it feels like they're gearing up for the big final quest, but on the other there are so many hanging plot threads and unresolved side issues. Given that the entire world is built around an explicit deus ex machina, I also can't help but worry that it'll wrap up in an abrupt or unsatisfying way. I enjoyed reading it though, and am totally on board to see where it ends up. One thing I'm confused on though, were we ever explicitly told what Fel Seed is? I know it was something juniper came up with while depressed and writing dark, nihilistic campaigns to cope with Arthur's death, and that it was one of the first things he asked Mary about because he was worried about running into it. I assume from context that it's a guy, but the only hard details I remember seeing where from the one conversation where he, Raven, and Mary talk about ways to handle it: it has brides, flesh constructs of some kind, and apparently has veins running underground everywhere. A few random thoughts: Juniper isn't a particularly compelling protagonist. I know being the generic everyman is part of his thing, but building his entire character on a foundation of teenage angst and poor coping skills wasn't great; I mainly want to see him succeed because I like his party members. The constant flashbacks to D&D sessions don't work for me; I find them jarring and frequently unimportant, and wish we could just hear him relate the key points from this stories to his party instead of reliving them. The fenn/juniper breakup felt like it came out of nowhere, maybe I was being an inattentive reader but it felt like their transitioning from a healthy couple to a troubled one was a change we were told about and not really shown. I really don't like how romance in general is handled in the story; the mary weirdness with her mutilating her own soul, the toxic aspects of his and fenn's thing, and all the absurdly uncomfortable side flings including arthur being a house pedophile and the demon kid being simultaneously hyper-sexualized and a blank slate. I see shards of interesting stories you could tell with most of this stuff, but I feel like it frequently doesn't get used well, and that the story would often be better without it. The group's dysfunction in general is really frustrating to slog through. It serves a purpose, but it's such a constant, overbearing part of every single scene that it isn't very fun to read. The pregnancy time compression thing went on for way too long, was incredibly weird and uncomfortable, and didn't feel like it had a particularly strong payoff since we'd barely gotten to know Solace before she was ganked. I know one of the draws of rational fiction and litrpgs is watching the protagonists munchkin themselves through the stratosphere, but the way the party grows felt strangely paced. I was 100% on-board from the beginning through their rescuing mary from the gold mage, but the instant they unlocked soul magic and started mass-console hacking everyone's character sheets the stakes kinda fell through the floor. I wish the story wouldn't dwell so heavily on the role of narrative; the DM was very explicit (and I'm pretty sure truthful) about trying to never put his thumb on the scale unless it was 100% vital, and I'm pretty sure I believe him. Every time they jump into a new round of trying to meta-game, I skip ahead. I don't think it's intended, but Mary comes off like a monster to me. Even though the story is explicit about that being her pushing herself and being the most naturally task-oriented member of the group, I can't believe anyone would be that consistently insensitive and difficult to worth with. I was convinced that she was either an explicit sociopath or a master spy/liar working an angle all the way up until juniper explicitly got to look at her character sheet. The group feels oddly unbalanced in terms of narrative focus; I have a good sense of the juniper/mary/fenn triangle, and grak's entire character is grumpy outsider, but it felt like everyone else got five minutes in the spotlight when they were introduced, then just got taped onto the party so their abilities would be there at-need. Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Nov 1, 2018 |
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Nov 1, 2018 17:06
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I wish they'd just do the thing with the loving deer-in-a-bottle already. It was bought up as TIME SENSETIVE IT'LL DIE and then it's been ignored pretty much ever since.
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Nov 1, 2018 19:59
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Yeah, even their druid buddy has started to go "Dude, wtf- bottle deer" at every opportunity. I know serials have it tough when it comes to maintaining good narrative structure, but it feels like we've gotten so many partially-resolved quests/tasks that I honestly can't remember most of 'em.
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Nov 1, 2018 20:16
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TWI patron chapter: It's Hogwarts! Well not really. I wish we had more Lizardfolk and their variants. Them talking like a kid on sugar rush is loving hilarious.
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Nov 1, 2018 22:24
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I'm partway through book 4 of Void Domain and what the gently caress is going on here are they playing Starcraft or something in the theatre demon's doman??? It feels like this is just meandering aimlessly and I very much agree with this statement: Plorkyeran posted:Structurally book 1 really doesn't work as a book. To use a Harry Potter analogy, it's like the first book ended when the dragon subplot was dealt with. Yeah, a plot thread was resolved and there was sort of a climax, but it really just felt like the author went "wow I've written a bunch of chapters and here's an excuse to declare a book done so I should jump on it". Where (at least) one of the books has ended on a huge cliffhanger where nothing is resolved. Lone Goat fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Nov 1, 2018 |
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Nov 1, 2018 22:40
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In today's PracGuide we find the extent of the Drow scientific knowledge of humans:quote:The sight of it made Ivah uncomfortable, for it was very unnatural. Humans, it was well known, ate only herbs and stones – as a learned Mighty, Ivah knew the stones were eaten not for sustenance but to help digestion – and became struck with terror when away from the light of the sun. Did the secret of humans and the secret of cows got their wires crossed which is why the drow refer to humans as cattle?
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Nov 2, 2018 07:52
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In case anyone misses it, because I did at first, the Ivah chapter at the top of the Practical Guide main page is the extra chapter for the new month, and there is also a continuation of the Masego interludes if you scroll down past it.
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Nov 2, 2018 11:27
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I started Fifth Defiance yesterday and it absolutely bangs. One of the POV characters seems to be an alright person because the other ones we've met are alright and then whoops there's human experimentation happening turns out she sucks farts New POV characters getting their back story and powers explained as a file by s group trying to kill all of the supers owns too
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Nov 2, 2018 13:14
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PracGuide: Well, Malicia officially jumped off the slippery slope, and is giggling all the way down. No way "let Hidden Horror eat Calernia whole" is a rational course of action.
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Nov 2, 2018 14:44
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Malek Deneith posted:PracGuide: PracGuide: I am pretty sure she doesn't think he would actually be able to conquer the rest of Calernia; she just wants him to shatter Procer itself or the Grand Alliance so they couldn't attack Praes. It is playing with fire though (not to mention all the deaths of Procer civilians and the Grand Alliance forces), but she doesn't care about them as long as Procer losses the ability to wage war on Praes. Now, if Black dies the she will vow to burn Procer to the goddamn ground. SITB fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 17:28
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Lone Goat posted:I'm partway through book 4 of Void Domain and what the gently caress is going on here are they playing Starcraft or something in the theatre demon's doman??? Yeah, I'm on book 8 now but that part sucked, I skimmed most of it. Completely pointless and nothing really happens until the very end of that section. In 8 there's a bit where one of the characters 'removes an iv needle' puts it back in afterwards. It's not really a problem with the story but cannulas just don't work like that and it bugs me. I'll preface this by saying I don't have experience with US hospitals and I'm not a cannula expert, but from a quick Google PIVCs look pretty much the same as here. 1) They have dressings on, they don't really stay in on their own. Have fun taking that off without claw marks, Eva 2) There's no needle after it's inserted, it's a small plastic tube that sits in the vein. Maybe there's some variants that leave needles, but that sounds unsafe. 3) I admit I've never tried to get them back in, but it's a small, flexible tube and a very small hole and I can't imagine it's easy to do. 4) There's a dressing on them. If you muck up taking it off, you'll have to get a new one, and the character definitely didn't take a quick jaunt to replace it (or take one off in the first place because the author doesnt/didnt know how IVCs work). I know it's completely inconsequential and needless pedantry but almost every part of that interaction was wrong and it bugged me way too much.
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Nov 3, 2018 08:39
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I gave void domain a try, but after finishing book one I don't think it's for me... could someone spoil me about what the deal was with arachne's obsession with/attachment to Eva? That's the one outstanding thingie I'm somewhat curious about.
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Nov 3, 2018 09:46
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SITB posted:PracGuide: I am pretty sure she doesn't think he would actually be able to conquer the rest of Calernia; she just wants him to shatter Procer itself or the Grand Alliance so they couldn't attack Praes. I don't reckon Malicia's realised how badly she hosed up in that deal. Black hates the very idea of the hidden horror. Doesn't trust him. knows that dealing with him will get your rear end declared on by every loving named hero on the continent - and doing a deal like that? That Cat would treat with him would horrify him, that Malicia would do a deal like that, would break him - it would be a betrayal of both of their proclaimed principals. I'm putting this in spoilers because it's just my thoughts on where this is going but I see this story arc ending with a very succesful rescue of black... that ends with the rest of the calamities except Ranger (who won't be there) dying, and then Black finding out about the deal and killing Malicia himself. Procer will go up in flames when the Dead King's forces finally arrive, and the showdown to end all showdowns will begin.
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Nov 3, 2018 12:45
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i liked the idea someone had of black being the token bad guy on the heroic band of 5 that rise to fight the dead king
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Nov 3, 2018 13:24
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tithin posted:I don't reckon Malicia's realised how badly she hosed up in that deal. At least Cat intended to betray the Dead King at the last second? She tried to go full hilt into the rear end in a top hat hero narrative where she fucks up and then is instrumental in fixing what she broke. I don't think that Black is going to survive this book. Even if what you predict will come true, I heavily doubt that Black is going to outlive Malicia by more than a chapter or two. Though I don't think that Black is going to kill Malicia because of her deal with the Hidden Horror, Black has always been goal oriented and his whole 'thing' was how he could discard everything to achieve his goal (As opposed to Malicia, who recently had the opportunity to consolidate her control of Praes and yet is willing to risk it all to save Black). Basically, Black is literally the worst and doesn't deserve the love of his friends and his surrogate daughter.
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Nov 3, 2018 13:25
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