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Actual Cannibal [wet crunching noises] is the hero this story needs. Incidentally, I got to thinking the other day, and what exactly is Mary's job? I remember her introducing herself as an operative for the department of mysteries department or something, but she was a prisoner on the plane (right? She didn't infiltrate the exclusion zone on foot?), and she's also an heiress, so does she just not have any supervisor or responsibilities? I think I assumed she was a professional spy for the first part of the story, but it's been months (I think? Or years?) since the party got together, and she's never done anything even remotely work-y, so by this point she must be a jobless murderhobo like the rest of the party? (Also a wanted criminal, I think, unless that part got cleared up.)
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Nov 20, 2018 02:45
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TWI patron update: Well this is gonna be a huge clusterfuck. But it sure is interesting! Stupid thanksgiving break.
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Nov 20, 2018 10:05
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A big flaming stink posted:TWI patron update: Well this is gonna be a huge clusterfuck. But it sure is interesting! Stupid thanksgiving break. Ungfff and today's non-patron update really made me anxious for the next one too; I guess I should wait two weeks before catching up if it's going on break before this story finishes. Mrsha 
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Nov 20, 2018 11:53
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A big flaming stink posted:TWI patron update: Well this is gonna be a huge clusterfuck. But it sure is interesting! Stupid thanksgiving break. Bird is gonna be a hero and I’m all for it.
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Nov 20, 2018 16:20
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New PracGuide. I was kinda getting tired of the Drow, but this new chapter has recaptured my interest.
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Nov 23, 2018 08:01
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I am always looking for new stories, but Lord all the anti-heroes and edgeness. Does anyone have recommendation for stories with a nice protagonists and the world is to people sometimes bad and sometimes good?
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Nov 23, 2018 08:16
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Gladi posted:I am always looking for new stories, but Lord all the anti-heroes and edgeness. You might enjoy Mother of Learning- bad things happen over and over, but outside the events of the main plot it's a normal bordering on upbeat world, and the main character's narrative arc is largely a coming of age/jerk-to-human story that seems relatively happy compared to a lot of serials and downright blissful compared to WB's stuff.
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Nov 23, 2018 10:06
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e- nvm
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Nov 25, 2018 12:13
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Omi no Kami posted:You might enjoy Mother of Learning- bad things happen over and over, but outside the events of the main plot it's a normal bordering on upbeat world, and the main character's narrative arc is largely a coming of age/jerk-to-human story that seems relatively happy compared to a lot of serials and downright blissful compared to WB's stuff. Unfortunately, reading and enjoying Ward requires someone to have read Worm. And Ward's optimism is definitely a thing that's relative to WB's other stuff. Speaking of, I never managed to get through Pact, but my impression is it ends with the demonic end of the world or prevention of such? And Blake starts to literally fall apart and Rose has to like, literally eat him. And the last words in Pact are Blake's pov as Rose is 'eating' the tattered scraps of his identity or w/e. Is that at all accurate?
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Nov 26, 2018 03:36
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PetraCore posted:Speaking of, I never managed to get through Pact, but my impression is it ends with the demonic end of the world or prevention of such? And Blake starts to literally fall apart and Rose has to like, literally eat him. And the last words in Pact are Blake's pov as Rose is 'eating' the tattered scraps of his identity or w/e. Is that at all accurate? I'm only halfway through Pact; I've been meaning to finish the rest, but I don't think so, as halfway through Blake is wiped from existence, with nobody remembering he even existed, and Rose (who doesn't remember Blake or being in the mirror) becoming the main character. I don't know if he comes back because I'm only a little bit past the part where it happens.
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Nov 26, 2018 03:45
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PetraCore posted:I will say WB has a (definitely earned) reputation for darkness but I've found Ward to be quite tolerable in this aspect. Part of that is bc the end of Worm is so dark that the fact that things are doing as well as they are in Ward feels good, but I think part of that is that it feels like Ward is framed as a story about recovery, in the same way that Twig is a story about relationships. Like, societal recovery, personal recovery, all that enmeshed. If Wildbow let Ward end in everything being crushed and a shrug it'd go counter to the themes I think he's trying to build. Also, Victoria is definitely a hero as opposed to Taylor's... anti-hero/anti-villain whatever. I mean, she still messes up sometimes and she's got some tendencies she's got to keep in track, but she's fundamentally heroic and deliberately so. I've only been keeping up with Ward intermittently because I found the structural and pacing issues alienating, but I'm glad to hear that it has a more upbeat tone; the ceaseless depression bordering on nihilism worked great for Worm, but at this point it feels like almost as much of a writing crutch as escalation, and I'd love to see what came out of his attempting to write a genuinely happy story. My understanding of Pact's ending is really unclear, so please correct me, but from what I recall the entire town got sucked into the abyss, Rose (I think that's her name? Girl-Blake?) became an avatar of the abyss whose job is to reap as much of the world as she can into nothingness, and Blake turned into a bird for some reason.
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Nov 26, 2018 06:56
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Omi no Kami posted:I've only been keeping up with Ward intermittently because I found the structural and pacing issues alienating, but I'm glad to hear that it has a more upbeat tone; the ceaseless depression bordering on nihilism worked great for Worm, but at this point it feels like almost as much of a writing crutch as escalation, and I'd love to see what came out of his attempting to write a genuinely happy story. I... wouldn't describe it as having an upbeat tone. I actually find it more soul-crushing than Worm ever was, largely because Wildbow has gotten much better at using happy moments to contrast and emphasize the sad parts. It has an ebb-and-flow where he hammers you for a bit, then eases up and lulls you into a false sense of security rather than just being unrelentingly bleak to the point where you no longer even care. There's a general upward trend (all of the main characters are clearly better off than they were at some point in the past), but it's not like any of them are "fixed" and we aren't done with the flashbacks showing just how bad they used to be. It is the first Wildbow story that I think could plausibly have a happy ending and I sort of hope he pushes himself to actually write one, since I'm not sure he knows how. Unrelatedly, the PGTE posted an update down in the comments which you could easily miss: So, announcement! I’ll make an official post at some point, but here’s the gist of it. Book IV has ended up significantly larger than I’d planned for, and would be ridiculously large if I kept to my original outline. Instead the latter half is going to be Book V, which will bring the Guide series to a total of six books instead.
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Nov 26, 2018 08:06
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Practical Guide's continuing insistence on hiding the plan from the reader is starting to get annoying four books in.
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Nov 26, 2018 10:29
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lurksion posted:Practical Guide's continuing insistence on hiding the plan from the reader is starting to get annoying four books in. Mmm, "the plan" was there if you were paying attention to the periphery. The fact that Cat worded the vows in such a way that the peerage were loyal to the title of Moonless Nights, and not herself as an individual as well as the subsequent conversation with Akua, gave it away that there was a plan in play, even if we didn't know what it was. I suspect that this will follow the pattern that has been established thus far. Cat comes into power. Cat mutilates herself and loses access to the power. Cat comes back into the fullness of that power and makes a lot of people really loving regret loving with her. If she doesn't stomp in Sve Noc's skull by the end of this, as she did William's, I'll be very disappointed. A friend of mine is convinced she's going to be Triumphant Mk2 by the end of this Arc. edit: something that just struck me, she's now nameless, powerless... the name of The Black Queen can still be claimed. She's about due to wrap up those outstanding plot points. As an aside, it was interesting to me the new commentary from Erraticerata in the comments.. erraticerata posted:So, announcement! I’ll make an official post at some point, but here’s the gist of it. Book IV has ended up significantly larger than I’d planned for, and would be ridiculously large if I kept to my original outline. Instead the latter half is going to be Book V, which will bring the Guide series to a total of six books instead. tithin fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Nov 26, 2018 |
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Nov 26, 2018 12:09
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tithin posted:even if we didn't know what it was. And the "periphery stuff" had a chapter was dedicated to discussion of it (though yet again, with zero details). Though this particular case I think it's yet another case of Regalia II's “Quite literally not what I was aiming for, but I can work with this.” lurksion fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Nov 26, 2018 |
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Nov 26, 2018 12:42
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Something else I've been thinking of is the revelation that you don't get to choose what fey title you give. That means there's even more symbolism in "Moonless Nights"
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Nov 26, 2018 18:54
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I expected all the drow stuff would get wrapped up fairly quickly after or during this battle, but if book 4 is now two books that has me a bit worried. I had two years of practical guide to catch up on so I haven't been reading the whole drow arc as it was being written, but it is a pretty long time to keep the party split.
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Nov 26, 2018 19:00
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tithin posted:Mmm, "the plan" was there if you were paying attention to the periphery. While I think it's basically certain that she has already accounted for the possibility of losing her powers (I think she even explicitly mentions at some point that she's sure she's going to lose them later for narrative reasons), I don't think it really makes sense for her to come into some other Name. It's already been established that the whole Winter/Moonless Nights thing is basically the same sort of thing as a Name, and getting a Name wouldn't even represent any sort of meaningful "power-up" given she's already playing in the Big Leagues (like she mentioned, any of these drow sigil leaders could basically wreck almost any Named on the surface) and the other big apotheosis folks (Dead King and Sve Noc) don't have Names in the traditional sense. As a completely unrelated comment, it's funny looking back on my vague perception of this series prior to actually reading it. I had read some spoilered posts prior to reading the series, and I remember having the vague impression that the protagonist had a cape called "the winter mantle" and that this actual physical cape conferred powers.
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Nov 26, 2018 19:52
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Ytlaya posted:the protagonist had a cape called "the winter mantle" and that this actual physical cape conferred powers. Not gonna lie, this would be a -fantastic- con for a villain to pull.
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Nov 26, 2018 19:54
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Ytlaya posted:It's already been established that the whole Winter/Moonless Nights thing is basically the same sort of thing as a Name, and getting a Name wouldn't even represent any sort of meaningful "power-up" given she's already playing in the Big Leagues (like she mentioned, any of these drow sigil leaders could basically wreck almost any Named on the surface) and the other big apotheosis folks (Dead King and Sve Noc) don't have Names in the traditional sense. Disagree. Cat's been struggling this whole book to use the mantle without falling prey to principle alienation- if a Name gives her more usable power that's an upgrade, even if she doesn't have the vast pool of potential power lurking at the back there. There's also the problem that, supernatural psychological influences aside, Winter is just a bad fit for Cat. The whole core of her character is this desire to defend and strengthen her homeland. That love underpins everything she does, even her most brutal acts- Winter's cold bleak cruelty conflicts with that. I think Moonless Nights is a trap for her- if she does achieve godhood via that route she'll be the God of Moonless Nights, not the God Catherine Foundling. I think the conversation about godhood and domains from a few chapters back backs me up here- if she does apotheosise, it'll be rooted in Callow, in her relationship to Callow and Callow's relationship to her. That said, I do think a new Name is probably a red herring at this point. The two possibilities I see here are either this merging of Winter and Night ends up denaturing the power somehow and she can repurpose it (not sure how that tracks, though- seems like we're on course for the mantle to have all the worst properties of Winter and Night), or she parleys this into something so ridiculous and audacious that it slingshots her into divinity on some other path. NinjaDebugger posted:Something else I've been thinking of is the revelation that you don't get to choose what fey title you give. That means there's even more symbolism in "Moonless Nights" Thought: Cat somehow fast talks Sve Noc into giving her the same title-for-oaths deal she gave the Mighty. The mantle gives her Queen of Moonless Nights, because that's her fey title. It's that or Winter makes Sve Noc vulnerable to oath/rules lawyering shenanigans, I think,
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Nov 26, 2018 20:22
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lol if the drow become stupid monologue villains now that night has eaten winter
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Nov 26, 2018 20:26
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Autonomous Monster posted:It's that or Winter makes Sve Noc vulnerable to oath/rules lawyering shenanigans, I think, Cat was a potential sacrifice because of her mantle, right? I'd assumed that she was planning on trading it off so that Sve Noc was forced to take her place on the altar.
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Nov 26, 2018 20:36
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Omi no Kami posted:I've only been keeping up with Ward intermittently because I found the structural and pacing issues alienating, but I'm glad to hear that it has a more upbeat tone; the ceaseless depression bordering on nihilism worked great for Worm, but at this point it feels like almost as much of a writing crutch as escalation, and I'd love to see what came out of his attempting to write a genuinely happy story. Pact Ending that's probably not how the abyss works and it's almost certainly not Rose's job; her Scourge job is containment of critically demon-damaged Jacob's Bell in general and the Barber and Ms Lewis in particular, and she suggests that in her free time she plans on carrying on Rose Senior's work towards disseminating how to imprison demons she put what was left of Blake in a bird body so he could hang out with his dead-kiddo buddy and also that was about the size of Blake's remaining essence also, related to the earlier question, the Barber's scheme probably wasn't a threat to the world, just to a modest chunk of Canada (the abyss is a fair contender for my favorite Pact concept, and so very much of how it works was between-the-lines; imo it's the logical conclusion / evolution / defense mechanism of humanity in this setting) Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Nov 27, 2018 |
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Nov 27, 2018 02:41
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Autonomous Monster posted:Cat's been struggling this whole book to use the mantle without falling prey to principle alienation- if a Name gives her more usable power that's an upgrade, even if she doesn't have the vast pool of potential power lurking at the back there. I don't know about this. We know that people don't choose their fae titles, and Catherine had Fall even before getting the Winter mantle (which was basically the same sort of thing as Moonless Night, as they're both her Domain). So we basically know that this Moonless Night stuff is somehow fundamental to who Catherine is, since it's her Domain. Catherine isn't just a Callow partisan (that's Thief, as far as members of the Woe go). She's even said herself that she doesn't strictly identify with Callow in the same way as other Callowans. She wants to do good by Callow, but there's something else at the core of who she is and her motives. Given what we know, it's kinda impossible by definition for someone to receive a fae title that doesn't represent who they "actually are," and that's ignoring that I think she got Fall before the mantle. Also, even the relatively small portion of Winter she can safely use (without risk of principle alienation) is vastly stronger than anything all but the absolute strongest Named are capable of. Like she said herself, you could count the number of Named in Calernia who could defeat her on one hand (that's probably missing a few fingers). And I think she said that before becoming even better at using her power. The principle alienation is only an issue if she wants to start fighting like a ridiculous army-destroying demigod, and it's an issue that was largely self-imposed by her previously not choosing to develop a Court.
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Nov 27, 2018 05:13
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Ytlaya posted:I don't know about this. We know that people don't choose their fae titles, and Catherine had Fall even before getting the Winter mantle (which was basically the same sort of thing as Moonless Night, as they're both her Domain). So we basically know that this Moonless Night stuff is somehow fundamental to who Catherine is, since it's her Domain. Catherine isn't just a Callow partisan (that's Thief, as far as members of the Woe go). She's even said herself that she doesn't strictly identify with Callow in the same way as other Callowans. She wants to do good by Callow, but there's something else at the core of who she is and her motives. Given what we know, it's kinda impossible by definition for someone to receive a fae title that doesn't represent who they "actually are," and that's ignoring that I think she got Fall before the mantle. As a principle point, as I am re-reading Prac guide at the minute (just past the Summer Fae's repelled invasion of Liesse) Moonless Nights was chosen for her by the King of Winter. Her first meeting with him, after scraping through a victory against the Duke of Violent Squalls has him absently carving a sculpture of ice. When she mouths off to him and he pulls out her heart, she looks at it and the object he was carving was a moon. It replaced her heart and functioned as it moving forward. He then named her the Duchess of Moonless Nights. my memory of subsequent points is hazy, I seem to recall her getting her actual human heart back but I might be misremembering. To be clear, the reason I'm making the point about choice is that your earlier comment sort of indicates that the Fae title given is reflective of the individual recieving it, and while that may be the case, explicitly for Cat, the title was chosen by the king of winter. Maybe he saw something in her that made him think that this was the best fit for her as an individual, but even walking into that conversation he had a plan in place to make her the Duchess of Moonless Nights, long before she walked into Arcadia. Likewise important to note that Cat didn't choose any specific titles for individuals after the fact, nor did she choose to do the whole heart replacey thing either... which lends credence to the fact that her title, both in nature and in the way it was granted, was anything but normal.
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Nov 27, 2018 06:50
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Pact Ending that's probably not how the abyss works and it's almost certainly not Rose's job; her Scourge job is containment of critically demon-damaged Jacob's Bell in general and the Barber and Ms Lewis in particular, and she suggests that in her free time she plans on carrying on Rose Senior's work towards disseminating how to imprison demons I barely remember most of Pact, so I'm probably wrong on this, but isn't the abyss just a semi-sapient drive for entropy? I thought it was mostly/only motivated by the desire to grow itself, and that Rose being a scourge was explicitly to further those goals and not specific to the jacob's bell stuff.
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Nov 27, 2018 07:50
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tithin posted:As a principle point, as I am re-reading Prac guide at the minute (just past the Summer Fae's repelled invasion of Liesse) when cat gave whatshisfuck the title lord of empty graves she didnt make up or chose the title, winter did. seems reasonable to assume that when the king gave her her title winter chose it in a similar fashion
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Nov 27, 2018 09:30
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I feel like Catherine moving to a hero or villain title would be counter to the way the whole story has been building. She rejects the whole idea that Heroes are somehow 'Good' and villains automatically bad, and seems to have a more utilitarian view of the situation. Like Deng Xiaoping said, "It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice."
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Nov 27, 2018 10:27
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#8/#3, baby!
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Nov 27, 2018 14:08
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Man, I should probably try to reread Pact at some time.
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Nov 27, 2018 16:57
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tithin posted:As a principle point, as I am re-reading Prac guide at the minute (just past the Summer Fae's repelled invasion of Liesse) If that's the specific wording ("he named her"), then it doesn't necessarily imply that it's something he subjectively chose; it's possible that the Mantle chose that title (like it's doing when Cat gives titles) and then he just applied it to her. I also just subjectively get the impression that there's some sort of significance to her Domain. Basically the same thing this post says: violent sex idiot posted:when cat gave whatshisfuck the title lord of empty graves she didnt make up or chose the title, winter did. seems reasonable to assume that when the king gave her her title winter chose it in a similar fashion (Speaking of that guy - Soln, I think? - I wonder what sort of power his title implies. If I had to guess, I'd assume some sort of raising from the dead, similar to what we've seen Catherine do with corpses.)
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Nov 27, 2018 18:13
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violent sex idiot posted:when cat gave whatshisfuck the title lord of empty graves she didnt make up or chose the title, winter did. seems reasonable to assume that when the king gave her her title winter chose it in a similar fashion And the fact that the King of Winter seemingly knew what title she'd get before hand can be easily explained by him having infinitely more experience with Winter and so being able to predict what it'll choose for someone.
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Nov 27, 2018 18:33
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PetraCore posted:Man, I should probably try to reread Pact at some time. This is a weird recommendation, but I think it's simultaneously WB's most interesting and most frustrating work. The writing's better than Worm, and the core idea is really neat; Pact probably contains more interesting ideas than the rest of his work combined, but a lot of them don't get explored. Combine that with the stuff everyone mentions (pacing issues, a cast that is like 99% awful and miserable people), and you have a neat idea that I felt wasn't executed on very well.
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Nov 27, 2018 19:53
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The one thing that confuses me a bit about Catherine's concern over the principle alienation is that it seems like it wouldn't necessarily cause you to lose, especially if you were fighting other Evil-aligned people who don't enjoy the narrative advantages. Like, your super strong monologuing villains will still win most of their fights, until they lose in a big climax. It being a problem against Saint of Swords made sense, because Saint is both a powerful hero and one very experienced at putting down villains, but the drow are Evil-aligned, so even a monologuing Catherine with the full weight of Winter (which is definitely stronger than even the strongest individual Night-empowered drow, if used to its full potential) would likely be able to beat them. Is the issue that she just wouldn't be able to return from that state if she got into it too deep? Because that would make the most sense.
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Nov 27, 2018 21:50
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Ytlaya posted:Is the issue that she just wouldn't be able to return from that state if she got into it too deep? Because that would make the most sense. Running a heroic narrative is infinitely powerful, because you win as long as you are willing to pay the price. If you've got a villanous narrative, you always suceed at first, even if it's by the barest margin. If you've got a heroic narrative, you get your rear end kicked and then come back in and win. Remind you of any recent events?
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Nov 27, 2018 23:26
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Ytlaya posted:Is the issue that she just wouldn't be able to return from that state if she got into it too deep? Because that would make the most sense. That was my assumption. She talks about it like she's afraid of there being a point of no return where she'd start to think that going further was a good idea.
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Nov 28, 2018 04:00
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Brain Candy posted:Running a heroic narrative is infinitely powerful, because you win as long as you are willing to pay the price. This isn't really true; having a heroic narrative stacks the odds in your favor, but it doesn't guarantee a win (heck, look at all the heroes Black crushed). I think Catherine even explicitly mentioned during the whole "fabricate a story against the Duke of Violent Squalls" incident that having a story in her favor didn't even remotely guarantee victory; it just made victory possible when it otherwise would have been virtually impossible. Also, villains are only really guaranteed failure because they're immortal; obviously some heroes, with the the odds stacked in their favor by Above, will manage to win against them at some point. But they can last a really loving long time before that happens (like with Black and the Calamities). Part of the issue with Black's whole perspective is that, if he were a hero (and thus not immortal), he would have effectively already "won". He would be an old man who had never lost until his death. The only reason he lost in the end is because he was able to keep living until his luck ran out.
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Nov 28, 2018 04:42
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Today's Ward is a good reminder of why Ward can't ever really be called light-hearted even though I still think it's probably going to be an ultimately optimistic work. Also a really good example of the 'softening up the reader with slice-of-life lighter stuff and then swinging out with a punch of horror' thing that Wildbow's gotten very good at. I finished the chapter on my break at work and then just sort of kept thinking about it after. Like, when it was three dead heroes so ripped up that was bad, very bad, but it's not like we know any of them so it was more distant bad. Like, okay, time for Breakthrough to deal with serious villain pushback and fears on their side. When they're ripped into 15 pieces, scattered, and still alive, that's horror. I can't even say that only Scaffold is any sort of aware because we don't know that. But on the other, light-hearted hand, I'm glad Bitch is doing okay and staying out of Tattletale's crimes and making friends.
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Nov 28, 2018 05:09
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PetraCore posted:Today's Ward is a good reminder of why Ward can't ever really be called light-hearted even though I still think it's probably going to be an ultimately optimistic work. Also a really good example of the 'softening up the reader with slice-of-life lighter stuff and then swinging out with a punch of horror' thing that Wildbow's gotten very good at. I finished the chapter on my break at work and then just sort of kept thinking about it after. Didn't Bonesaw do something like this to Grue, where he was all unraveled and like his nerve endings were all over a kitchen or something? in Worm?
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Nov 28, 2018 05:34
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Prac guide: God, I missed this version of Cat. and the ending  Lone Goat posted:Didn't Bonesaw do something like this to Grue, where he was all unraveled and like his nerve endings were all over a kitchen or something? in Worm? She did. It was the basis of his second awakening.
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Nov 28, 2018 06:20
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