|
By the point they started interacting with the lich beyond a fight at the invasion, they were time pressed and also getting lessons from him. It makes sense not to go phylactery-hunting at that point since it would probably block getting lessons and end at least a few loops early when they got killed (Zach probably should have done it back when he thought he had infinite time though)
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 22:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 02:46 |
|
|
I think the reason they won't tell the government is because the government sucks. I think they'll include xvim and firepriest though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 22:41
|
|
|
Affi posted:I think the reason they won't tell the government is because the government sucks. I think they'll include xvim and firepriest though. Does it though? I can't remember where this happened, but I think there were one or two occasions where Z&Z actually managed to convey what sort of threat was coming, and were actually impressed by how decisively the government moved the army in to deal with it. I always figured the core problem was that it was super-tough to actually convince anyone in a position to do anything that Bad Things were afoot. Either way though, I think focusing on the invasion at all is a misstep. The latest chapter explicitly says 'Man, it's weird how red robe/silverlake aren't being aggressive and trying to defuse us early', and on top of that we know from recent-ish chapters that red robe only needs to break the primordial out; the whole invasion failing is an acceptable outcome if it gives him an opening to pop the cork. The ritual they did with shifter kids was twitchy and prone to failing explosively, so the invasion was a pretty essential distraction, but silverlake has apparently been observing/tinkering with the prison for years, and I find it pretty reasonable to assume that she could get it open with a lot less effort. So I'm betting the entire back-and-forth is either a massive distraction, or red robe himself not being up on the real plan. I think you guys are right though- no matter what their plan is, the entire army sitting on the prison's access point for the next 30 days would basically solve everything.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2018 23:33
|
|
|
I thought the reason why they never messed with the litch was because it could do soul magic and that's the one thing that could actually seriously gently caress them up, especially since Zorians soul marker is already accidental.
|
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2018 04:58
|
|
|
That's definitely the reason they never did much with him, but I remember them briefly discussing the phylactery/other buggery once they realized that his mental defenses were shoddy, and the consensus seemed to be "Eh, it's probably a good idea, but look at all this other stuff we have to do". And yeah, I think they prioritized correctly given how late in the cycle that was, but holy crap is that dude a huge, glaring potential problem for them now.
|
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2018 05:10
|
|
|
Was it ever addressed what lichdad did to their souls? Didn't he do something to both their souls really early on and it wasn't really explained other than "something weird"?
|
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2018 06:43
|
|
|
Early on his soul magic is what caused Zorian to get the marker in the first place - later he just blindly injured them in an attempt to soulkill them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2018 08:09
|
|
|
Argue posted:Was it ever addressed what lichdad did to their souls? Didn't he do something to both their souls really early on and it wasn't really explained other than "something weird"? Zach's comments made him think he had some sort of unknown resurrection method, so he mashed Z&Z's souls together on the assumption it would screw that up.
|
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2018 08:34
|
|
|
TWI: Well, so that was it. Good for Erin to do better than I thought. That said, while on one hand I am relieved that no one died it does feel bit strange that no one died. Also, interesting skills there.
|
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2018 10:32
|
|
|
Affi posted:I think the reason they won't tell the government is because the government sucks. I think they'll include xvim and firepriest though. So they are either trying to arrange a way to actually inform the government, without outing at least Zorian. Or they are treating them as plan b.
|
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2018 11:23
|
|
|
edit: wrong web fiction thread sorry
Argue fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Dec 11, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2018 14:20
|
|
|
tonberrytoby posted:The more likely reason is that the government doesn't accept anonymous tips of that magnitude, and they don't want to out themselves. I think there is also the problem with the head of the local mage guild being part of the dragon cult. Which means a large scale mobilisation of forces would tip the invasion off, and as we saw before, probably lead to an early invasion. Escalation leads to greater collateral damage, I don't think that Zorian and Zach are eager to see the city turning into a battleground if they can help it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 11, 2018 18:02
|
|
|
Ward: Yet another use for suppressant foam! That stuff is good at too many things, no wonder it got killed off between the two stories.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 01:44
|
|
|
me reading ward : aaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaa? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa *consults wiki* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA anyway looking forward to We've Got Ward podcast to explain
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 04:39
|
|
|
That Ward update... sure answers a lot of questions. Chris being a... not-quite-clone isn't that huge a surprise, but everything else was. I was totally snowed on him being a tinker.
PetraCore fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Dec 12, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 04:50
|
|
|
PetraCore posted:That Ward update... sure answers a lot of questions. Chris being a... not-quite-clone isn't that huge a surprise, but everything else was. I was totally snowed on him being a tinker. I think it was a decently-done reveal; at this point I've thoroughly soured on the story, and I still really enjoyed it- the thing where he grew up with a horrible serial killer sister and nobody would believe him was weird, but the whole thing was pretty fun. I suppose his being a tinker (and apparently needing to extract stuff from capes for his experiments) explains what he was doing to those terrified people during the fallen raid, when it looked like he might be eating people? I am a bit disappointed that my own stupid, crackpot theory didn't pan out- given that Rachel seemed to recognize him, I was holding out hope that he was a dog with a trigger event who was just wearing a people suit.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 05:21
|
|
|
Somebody predicted this a few months back on reddit, as crazy as that sounds. It was a great chapter!
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 05:26
|
|
|
The funny/sad thing is Lab Rat already got his big win. His formula was what saved Taylor's life on the oil rig, and she went on to defeat Scion using a philosophy not dissimilar to his 'a thousand rats can eat an elephant' one. Meanwhile String Theory was a legitimate danger to Scion in terms of the sheer force she could bring to bear, which is exactly why she failed catastrophically because Scion knew that and wasn't going to let her set up the dominoes beforehand. But Lab Rat had an ego and now Chris is the one stuck with the imperative to do 'something big', which is both forceful enough and vague enough to cause some real loving trouble. And further analysis of the reveal. Weirdly this doesn't change that much in my read of Chris' personality, it just fills in a lot of info on his goals and the forces that went into him. The 'kept by a tinker and experimented on' story explained some stuff but rang just a little off, meanwhile this sets things into place. I feel like the extreme dislike of observation is an almost purely Chris thing as opposed to Lab Rat, and the fact that he was an experiment does explain why, even if Lab Rat was long dead and couldn't actively observe him. I feel like the couple that helped Chris and died might be the seed of truth in his claims of involuntary manslaughter. Uuuh, what else... now that we finally get a POV look on Chris it's impressive he tolerated Kenzie as well as he did, since her whole deal is observation and figuratively tapping on tank walls. But I don't get the impression he hates her so much as she's unimportant in comparison to his biological imperative. Omi no Kami posted:I think it was a decently-done reveal; at this point I've thoroughly soured on the story, and I still really enjoyed it- the thing where he grew up with a horrible serial killer sister and nobody would believe him was weird, but the whole thing was pretty fun. My personal theory was that Chris had never been human to begin with, and the bit with the dog with a trigger event was foreshadowing that. Of course, that was based on the impression Chris was a changer, but I think it still applies. It's not just that Chris is a clone, or that whatever body Chris started out from seems like it was more human looking than actually human, but the way that combines with his actual first memories and thoughts. Ashley started out thinking she was Ashley because that's how Bonesaw designed her. Chris... started out as something else, adapting extremely quickly, pulled along by hardcoded biological imperatives so that humanity and more specifically the identity of Lab Rat could be forced onto him. The ending convo with Amy essentially told me that he doesn't actually identify as human and I think that's extremely interesting and kinda Twig-ish.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 05:32
|
|
|
Oh my god, Chris is essentially a Twig-type character in the Worm/Ward setting.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 05:33
|
|
|
PetraCore posted:The funny/sad thing is Lab Rat already got his big win. His formula was what saved Taylor's life on the oil rig, and she went on to defeat Scion using a philosophy not dissimilar to his 'a thousand rats can eat an elephant' one. Meanwhile String Theory was a legitimate danger to Scion in terms of the sheer force she could bring to bear, which is exactly why she failed catastrophically because Scion knew that and wasn't going to let her set up the dominoes beforehand. But Lab Rat had an ego and now Chris is the one stuck with the imperative to do 'something big', which is both forceful enough and vague enough to cause some real loving trouble. This isn't even the main way Lab Rat could be considered responsible for Scion's defeat; Tattletale used his formula on one of Bitch's dogs to test the idea of attacking Scion emotionally.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 06:03
|
|
|
I know early on I'd been flirting with the idea that Chris was an adult in a child's body, mainly based on the fact that his vocabulary usage and general personality weren't consistent with a teenager, but it's also true that kids are hard to write. I think I tossed that speculation during the fallen raid when Tattletale saw him in a changer form and identified him as "a kid." Incidentally, it's kind of interesting that he doesn't identify as human, but her power very definitively did; I wonder if he's not more human(ish) than he feels, and isn't just suffering from severe body dysmorphia that his research/tinker inclinations don't help? I think my very earliest theory was that he had a severe personality disorder, his various forms were physical manifestations of the stages of his pathology, and the reason he was struggling to remain stable was because combat/general superhero stuff forced him to rapidfire iterate through his forms with an order and frequency that caused mental dissonance once he was back to human mode. I don't think there was much evidence for that outside of the earliest chapters, but it did seem like a neat idea.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 06:34
|
|
|
I think there's a lot of characters that fall into a liminal spectrum of humanity. Is Victoria human, considering Amy used nonhuman biomass to make her new body? Is Ashley human, as she's an artificially made and grown clone? Is Sveta human, when she doesn't even have a body anymore? Is Chris human? That's part of what I mean by calling him a Twig character, I guess... there's a lot of that identity stuff explored there with the experiments. I think Chris is human in pretty much every way that matters, but I also think given his origin, there's a definite reason for him to resent that. I also am pretty convinced now that he really is mentally about the level of a young teenager, just a young teenager with information imported from a 32 year old man. He definitely comes off as not a 'mature' person yet, I mean. He's at that unfortunate developmental stage where a lot of the stuff he does to prove he's not a child comes off as really childish. A big part of that is probably just lack of life experience, though. I mean he's got secondhand life experience but his emotional maturity and stuff is all Chris, and he's technically not even 3 yet. EDIT: Actually, Omi no Kami, I was thinking of your speculation about Chris' age today when I read. You definitely picked up on some good stuff!
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 06:51
|
|
|
PetraCore posted:EDIT: Actually, Omi no Kami, I was thinking of your speculation about Chris' age today when I read. You definitely picked up on some good stuff! Thanks! What impresses the heck out of me is that someone called almost the entire explanation from start to end months ago, I really appreciate that level of forethought and foreshadowing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 07:50
|
|
|
PracGuide I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that we got an interlude after the cliffhanger at the end of the prior chapter. Interesting that the interlude got a viewpoint on Cat following her awakening, though - that means that we won’t get a scene from her perspective of her first moments after becoming the High Priestess of Night. And I know that Night is its own thing, but how does Night + Winter = access to fire? Anyways, I’m interested to see how this all plays out.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 14:21
|
|
|
Silynt posted:PracGuide I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that we got an interlude after the cliffhanger at the end of the prior chapter. Interesting that the interlude got a viewpoint on Cat following her awakening, though - that means that we won’t get a scene from her perspective of her first moments after becoming the High Priestess of Night. And I know that Night is its own thing, but how does Night + Winter = access to fire? Anyways, I’m interested to see how this all plays out. Yeah I’m not reading more Practical Guide until the current end of arc stuff finishes. I’m familiar enough with the story beats by now to know it’s going to draw out for a few interludes and cliffhangers, and I’m very burned out on those.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 14:53
|
|
Silynt posted:PracGuide I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that we got an interlude after the cliffhanger at the end of the prior chapter. Interesting that the interlude got a viewpoint on Cat following her awakening, though - that means that we won’t get a scene from her perspective of her first moments after becoming the High Priestess of Night. And I know that Night is its own thing, but how does Night + Winter = access to fire? Anyways, I’m interested to see how this all plays out. How else do you keep warm on a winter's night?
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 14:56
|
|
|
Velius posted:Yeah I’m not reading more Practical Guide until the current end of arc stuff finishes. I’m familiar enough with the story beats by now to know it’s going to draw out for a few interludes and cliffhangers, and I’m very burned out on those. Isn’t this (one of) the fundamental problem with the web serial? Everything is always an escalating cliffhanger to keep you coming back.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 15:20
|
|
|
Silynt posted:PracGuide And I know that Night is its own thing, but how does Night + Winter = access to fire?
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 15:21
|
|
|
Cicero posted:I thought that some of the Drow had already demonstrated Night-based fire in the past? Did they? I honestly sort of skimmed through a lot of the drow fights, but I mostly remember Night being used as a corroding darkness, not a literal flame (she uses it to light her pipe so it clearly is producing heat). I definitely could be wrong though, by the time they got to the Longstride cabal Night was basically at “gently caress it, do whatever you want” power levels.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 15:39
|
|
|
Silynt posted:Did they? I honestly sort of skimmed through a lot of the drow fights, but I mostly remember Night being used as a corroding darkness, not a literal flame (she uses it to light her pipe so it clearly is producing heat). I definitely could be wrong though, by the time they got to the Longstride cabal Night was basically at “gently caress it, do whatever you want” power levels. "Rumena stuffed my pipe half-heartedly and offered it. I clasped it between my teeth and leaned forward. “A light?” I asked. The drow’s fingers lit up with black flame and within moments the wakeleaf was burning. Black flame, really? Did every single application of Night have to colour appropriate? There was such a thing as taking an aesthetic too far. "
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 16:25
|
|
|
Cryophage posted:"Rumena stuffed my pipe half-heartedly and offered it. I clasped it between my teeth and leaned forward. Boom, I stand corrected! Maybe its only application is lighting pipes... Actually, now that I see Rumena (who was probably the most powerful Mighty that Cat met) use the same power in the same context that Cat did, maybe the juxtaposition is intended to foreshadow the level of power we can expect from her in the next book. Silynt fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Dec 12, 2018 |
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 16:33
|
|
|
God, I'm on Ward 10.10 and this is the closest I've ever been to reading it "live". I am trying to catch up so I can start participating in the conversations here and elsewhere. In the meantime I just skim the thread and see stuff like "Ward [giant block of spoiler text" and "Chris [giant block of spoiler text]" and it's driving me nuts not knowing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 18:50
|
|
|
Aranan posted:God, I'm on Ward 10.10 and this is the closest I've ever been to reading it "live". I am trying to catch up so I can start participating in the conversations here and elsewhere. In the meantime I just skim the thread and see stuff like "Ward [giant block of spoiler text" and "Chris [giant block of spoiler text]" and it's driving me nuts not knowing. You are in for one hell of a ride.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 19:28
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:Thanks! What impresses the heck out of me is that someone called almost the entire explanation from start to end months ago, I really appreciate that level of forethought and foreshadowing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 21:19
|
|
|
PetraCore posted:I agree, the fact that it was possible to predict means Wildbow did a good job, I think. I mostly just forgot Lab Rat existed, much less what his power was and that he'd thrown a mysterious orb into the sea. Hmm yeah... in a lot of ways, his approach to serials reminds me of how you would go about writing a tabletop campaign- shotgun optional content around the setting, then pick and choose what you drill down on when you need a new plot hook. It definitely works for a serial, but I think it also makes it a lot tougher to edit- if worm/ward had been submitted to a commercial publisher they would've pushed to cut everything nonessential and then chopped off another 20-30%. That sort of editing definitely makes for a better-paced story, but it would preclude the occasional really cool reveal like this one.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 21:59
|
|
|
Omi no Kami posted:It definitely works for a serial, but I think it also makes it a lot tougher to edit- if worm/ward had been submitted to a commercial publisher they would've pushed to cut everything nonessential and then chopped off another 20-30%. That sort of editing definitely makes for a better-paced story- Maybe it really doesn't. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 22:28
|
|
|
I like how it seems that (Ward spoilers)Chris really never gave a poo poo about the other Breakthrough folks. Also, Amy is definitely still pretty hosed up and seemingly unwilling to completely remove herself from Victoria's life (even her motive from leaving was the kinda selfish one of getting her to forgive her). It's cool how it seems wildbow has been preparing for this since Worm, since we see Lab Rat throw the extra thing off into the water.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 22:40
|
|
|
21 Muns posted:Maybe it really doesn't. Yeah, I think we enjoy different things about his work, and there's definitely room for both of us to be right; no matter how fun the resulting work is I will always lobby for it to be shorter, tighter-paced, and to go through an editor before it sees the light of day. That's obviously not realistic for a long-running serial, and since that's part of what I look for when reading for pleasure it's obviously going to stand out to me, but I'm also an impossible-to-please jerk and will happily concede that a lot of what bugs me personally won't be an issue for others. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 22:49
|
|
|
Well, Wildbow's had to resort to a ghostwriter to flat out write a new version of Worm from the ground-up to actually get the story taken seriously by publishers, so...
|
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2018 23:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 02:46 |
|
|
Milkfred E. Moore posted:Well, Wildbow's had to resort to a ghostwriter to flat out write a new version of Worm from the ground-up to actually get the story taken seriously by publishers, so... Has he? Would you mind elaborating?
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2018 01:07
|
|