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Apr 9, 2019 15:29
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Lone Goat posted:having never read that book it sounds a lot like colonialism Plus the impression I get at the start is that there's four adjacent major human nations with roughly comparable development, then Protagonist Timeguy comes along, kickstarts an industrial age in one country while taking it over, and now looks to be maybe aiming at other countries (though at this point two of them got taken over by the church so they're not exactly independent nations anymore anyway).
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Apr 9, 2019 15:42
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Nettle Soup posted:TWI Patreon (6.06D) We didn't NEED a description of that world's STDs, but we got one.
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Apr 9, 2019 17:33
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Lone Goat posted:having never read that book it sounds a lot like colonialism Yeah I never thought of it through that lens before. Normally in the Isekai stories I'm used to learning going both ways. The main character has to deal with a different culture and usually it helps them grow as a person. In release that witch everything the protagonist does is cool and good, and everything in the world is bad and wrong. Everything from the Native's religion to their culture to their food to their houses has to be changed and supplanted with his. Yes, good reasons are given for all these things, but colonial overlords always have 'good reasons' for why they do stuff. Anyway read it if you want to see knights and monsters get exploded by howitzers.
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Apr 9, 2019 19:25
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I mostly enjoyed the first chapter of TWI, but the second chapter is just painful. It seems like almost all of Erin's problems are caused entirely by herself, a lot of her friends are turning out to be not just funny-looking people but honest to goodness monsters. I just reached the chapter where she "hires" the princess-thief. The Interlude from Toren's perspective about the princess-thief-barmaid was gross enough that I skimmed past it but I have no desire to finish the chapter that's from Erin's perspective. It's just so obviously a terrible idea on every level. As a side note, I've been troubled by the way Erin treats Toren since he was introduced. She gave him a name, so she sees him as a person, but she treats him like a slave. Complete with beatings. Does TWI ever get better and is there some spot I can skip ahead to?
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Apr 9, 2019 19:27
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LLSix posted:As a side note, I've been troubled by the way Erin treats Toren since he was introduced. She gave him a name, so she sees him as a person, but she treats him like a slave. Complete with beatings. We love Toren here. Funny you should mention those things happening. TWI's quality goes up and down, when it's good its my favorite web serial, when it's bad I skip chapters. Which chapters considered good and bad will vary by reader, though I think most of us didn't like the recent goblin war. (Earlier goblin stuff was fine to good). I think part of what irks people is, a character with a lot of depth is not a protection from very bad things happening to them. I think there's only 3 people that have plot armor at this point out of a very large cast, and that plot armor extends to 'not dying'.
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Apr 9, 2019 20:17
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Ward I feel like this direction for the story is either going to be really exciting or really frustrating to read. I guess in a first-person story, the POV being just as much in the dark as the reader at least makes for a better mystery than when they know but the author still hides it for us, so it's got that going for it.
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Apr 9, 2019 21:13
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TWI Patreon: I am seriously tilted by the casual manner of Ken stating that the world in TWI is, in fact, flat. Do the fundamental forces of reality just not exist there???????? this is even worse than the fact that english just so happens to exist in this world as it does in ours. Did the ancient french occupy the ancient english and introduce half of their vocabulary to the language as well?????? loving excellent chapter though e: LLSix posted:I mostly enjoyed the first chapter of TWI, but the second chapter is just painful. lyonette gets much better, to the point that she is probably one of my favorite characters in the story today. Toren's treatment by Erin and his emerging sapience continues to have serious plot implications up to the present state of the story. despite being sort of a mary sue in how everything seems to break her way, Erin is by no means treated as a moral paragon by the narrative. A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Apr 9, 2019 |
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Apr 9, 2019 22:01
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quote not edit
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Apr 9, 2019 22:03
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Cicero posted:I viewed the public trials/spectacles as similar to the French Revolution, he's trying to rapidly change people's values to accept witches/reject nobility when they've had the nobility and been told witches are evil their whole lives, and the people in question were lovely enough to deserve it. Brutal, but probably effective. you, uh, should try learning about mao some time. I think you're confusing his personal idiosyncrasies with the concept of a centralized socialist state that is starting from basically medieval technology
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Apr 9, 2019 22:27
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A big flaming stink posted:TWI Patreon: I am seriously tilted by the casual manner of Ken stating that the world in TWI is, in fact, flat. Do the fundamental forces of reality just not exist there???????? the world being flat (or at the least the natives think it is) has been confirmed since the Flos chapters. He tells the twins about that and claims hes even seen the edge of the world. also, every continent is the size of Eurasia. The English thing continues to be inexplicable, and all of the Earth characters that think about it think it's incredibly weird.
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Apr 9, 2019 23:32
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LLSix posted:I mostly enjoyed the first chapter of TWI, but the second chapter is just painful. yes it gets better soon, the lyonette introduction is probably one of the lower points of the book but keep in mind literally everything you brought up is important, they're not just unintentional annoying things that the author threw in. you've identified all of the conflict points in erin's life, and right now she's being dumb about basically all of them - that does change.
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Apr 9, 2019 23:48
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Some general TWI stuff: It's all but confirmed that the world is run at the whims of some god(s?) which is likely responsible for bringing the Earth humans there. All species/cultures speaking the same language with no variation, the complete lack of social progress for generations, the absence of entertainment, the gamification of the setting with classes and levels etc. There's probably gonna be some big reveal that ties all that together in a way that makes sense.
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Apr 10, 2019 00:05
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The Shortest Path posted:Some general TWI stuff: It's all but confirmed that the world is run at the whims of some god(s?) which is likely responsible for bringing the Earth humans there. All species/cultures speaking the same language with no variation, the complete lack of social progress for generations, the absence of entertainment, the gamification of the setting with classes and levels etc. There's probably gonna be some big reveal that ties all that together in a way that makes sense. I'm pretty sure we know exactly how they were summoned. Go re-read the later Clown chapters. I suspect the cost was 1 unborn baby per earthling summoned, which means there was 100 total summons, though many must have died. Now, that the demons pushed the humans to the point of needing to summon heroes is all part of the general 'fight!' setup of this world.
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Apr 10, 2019 00:43
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LLSix posted:I mostly enjoyed the first chapter of TWI, but the second chapter is just painful. I'm going to disagree with the goons here and say no, things don't get better. Erin remains a Mary Sue where everything goes her way because she is just ~so nice~, sure she gets called out on some things but a lot of the time it's treated as her being so quirky and weird. Also something really bugs me about the Christian girl goes to fantasy land and teaches the godless natives about the values of charity and being nice and whatever. Sure that's a super unkind reading but hey there were at least two Jesus chapters and one of them was about being persecuted for it.
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Apr 10, 2019 01:51
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LLSix posted:I mostly enjoyed the first chapter of TWI, but the second chapter is just painful. 2.36 is where that storyline comes to a head. In between that you have character, if not growth at least realization, and the chapter you're on is definitely the worst of the bunch. Characters continue to cause problems for themselves, and miscommunication or ideation continues to be a theme. Xun's reading is silly - besides Erin's "goblins are people too" stance it's an extremely minor part of the story. Also Erin is absolutely a Mary Sue, but things do not always go her way.
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Apr 10, 2019 02:55
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Yeah she "suffers setbacks" for all of five minutes before benefits pile up in her lap for her awesome niceness and wow she's better off than before  I wrote a big rear end write up of my issues with Erin specifically and why I found her so a while ago. I starting disliking her characterization a lot from the moment she met Ryoka and honestly I never thought it got better until I dropped it.
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Apr 10, 2019 03:06
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Insurrectionist posted:Ward I feel like this direction for the story is either going to be really exciting or really frustrating to read. I guess in a first-person story, the POV being just as much in the dark as the reader at least makes for a better mystery than when they know but the author still hides it for us, so it's got that going for it. I'm hoping it's great and bracing for it to be terrible; honestly at this point I don't trust WB to be capable of writing a compelling mystery. His philosophy towards writing seems to be "It's alright for something to make no sense or not be fun to read while you're reading it, as long as it makes sense in the end," and I prefer reading things that are fun to read.
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Apr 10, 2019 03:55
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Xun posted:Yeah she "suffers setbacks" for all of five minutes before benefits pile up in her lap for her awesome niceness and wow she's better off than before This is kinda how I feel about it. I actually like wandering inn despite its obvious faults (even the Flos chapters, although that's less because of Flos himself and more because of Trey and Gazi's stuff), and I like an Erin chapter once in a while, but it become pretty clear that she's a quirky Mary Sue that everyone looks up to. It's almost literally stated several times during the goblin war chapter that several people are expecting her to solve it or have some answers because "weird poo poo happens around her", and that only becomes more apparent as the story goes on.
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Apr 10, 2019 03:59
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Xun posted:Yeah she "suffers setbacks" for all of five minutes before benefits pile up in her lap for her awesome niceness and wow she's better off than before Well the most recent major event resulted in the death or diaspora of a bunch of the goblins she was close with, and it was because of her that they were involved. It also potentially saved Liscor, so I suppose you can say it went her way, but it was traumatic in a way that has major story ramifications.
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Apr 10, 2019 04:00
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Omi no Kami posted:I'm hoping it's great and bracing for it to be terrible; honestly at this point I don't trust WB to be capable of writing a compelling mystery. His philosophy towards writing seems to be "It's alright for something to make no sense or not be fun to read while you're reading it, as long as it makes sense in the end," and I prefer reading things that are fun to read. Well, that and "It's alright for the answers to be in forum posts or the Discord."
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Apr 10, 2019 04:02
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Sailor Dave posted:This is kinda how I feel about it. I actually like wandering inn despite its obvious faults (even the Flos chapters, although that's less because of Flos himself and more because of Trey and Gazi's stuff), and I like an Erin chapter once in a while, but it become pretty clear that she's a quirky Mary Sue that everyone looks up to. It's almost literally stated several times during the goblin war chapter that several people are expecting her to solve it or have some answers because "weird poo poo happens around her", and that only becomes more apparent as the story goes on. This is a big reason I don't like Wandering Inn, though it's also the reason I can't tolerate most Asian WNs with an isekai (or similar) premise (which are generally even worse about this - see that Slime one, where the protagonist is basically treated like Jesus). I feel like PracGuide is pretty good about having a protagonist with pretty real flaws. Like, it's easy to see in retrospect how Cat's philosophy for most of the earlier story was just kinda wrong and she did a lot of genuinely bad things (like the thing she frequently comments on, with letting the Lone Swordsman go, was a Genuinely Awful thing she did). Speaking of PracGuide, one thing I kinda liked is how Cat was previously characterized as being sort of reckless and had a reputation for killing and insulting gods. Which makes it kind of "appropriate" that she shows her growth (and escapes the "punishment" of being bound to Winter) by just talking honestly with Sve Noc (instead of trying to pull some scheme like Akua was trying to help her with). It also fits with the idea that any "real" long-term victory will require the cooperation of others and isn't something that Cat and just force through with the weight of her personality.
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Apr 10, 2019 04:14
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Well, that and "It's alright for the answers to be in forum posts or the Discord." Yeah, on one hand I see where this works- people talking about/theorycrafting a story is fun, and builds community engagement. Doubly so when it's a toolbox-y setting like Parahumans and the fans have a track record of enjoying that sort of thing. But one of the biggest recurring complaints I've had about WB's stories is that he often struggles with structure and frequently writes a setup without a payoff, has a payoff come out of nowhere without being set up, or plain doesn't structure the story to give you the information you need until the last act. That actually works fine in some formats and genres, but I get the feeling that a WB mystery story would basically go like this: [300 pages of interesting possibilities intercut with angst and sadness] *cast gathers in the parlor for Mr. Holmes to reveal what happened* Sherlock Holmes: "The killer was the butler!" Everyone: "...there was a butler?" Holmes: "Yes, he was standing right behind you the whole time so he never appeared on-screen, but it was all so obvious in retrospect! You should've figured this out!" Everyone: "Wait, what?" [long expository section telling in one chapter what should've been shown over the course of the entire novel]
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Apr 10, 2019 04:17
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LLSix posted:As a side note, I've been troubled by the way Erin treats Toren since he was introduced. She gave him a name, so she sees him as a person, but she treats him like a slave. Complete with beatings. It's weird that she talks to Toren as a person, but later on she has to be explicitly told that he thinks like people do, and she beats herself up over that. And her prior treatment of him definitely has... consequences. So it's not that she's being hypocritical here so much as she is thinking of them as more like Siri than an actual person. A big flaming stink posted:
Definitely intentional; there's even a throwaway line somewhere where Pisces is about to launch into an unsolicited lecture about etymologies but he only gets as far as "this idiom is a linguistic curiosity" before being interrupted. Everyone in TWI is a Mary Sue in their own POV chapters, and not necessarily because of unreliable narration. Erin is admittedly the only one who's a paragon even outside her own POVs, but in general, I like her because as someone mentioned several pages ago, it turns out that all it takes (for me) to like a Mary Sue is for them to be peacemakers instead of unapologetic fighting machines (as in a bunch of other fiction where the earth protagonist arrives to help win a war).
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Apr 10, 2019 04:33
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Cicero posted:It's definitely empire building but I dunno about colonialism; rather than sending people from his domain out to other areas, he seems more interested in taking in refugees and experts from other places to his new capital to make it a bigass metropolis. I have no idea which novel you're talking about but it sounds a hell of a lot like Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee
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Apr 10, 2019 04:40
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GreyjoyBastard posted:I have no idea which novel you're talking about but it sounds a hell of a lot like Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee it's connecticut yankee with a strong dose of socialism with chinese characteristics
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Apr 10, 2019 04:42
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I stopped Release that Witch once it started it's dreamland superhero (???) subplot with the church loli instead of pew pewing monster hordes and building bridges and ports. Or at least that's what I sort of remember of it.
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Apr 10, 2019 04:50
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EDIT: Bad at posting
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Apr 10, 2019 04:52
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lurksion posted:I stopped Release that Witch once it started it's dreamland superhero (???) subplot with the church loli instead of pew pewing monster hordes and building bridges and ports. Or at least that's what I sort of remember of it. yee I lost a lot of interest when the modern dream world got introduced. Does every main character in a Chinese novel really have to be a "cultivator"? It's just so random and completely at odds with the entire story up to that point.
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Apr 10, 2019 06:26
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Personally about TWI, I always saw Ryoka as the mary sue that has everything always falling in her lap while shoving her PoVs on others, and Erin constantly being the toy of the fates and having her messes actually impacting what she is doing and her goals rather than "and it's just an excuse for things to get better".Ytlaya posted:This is a big reason I don't like Wandering Inn, though it's also the reason I can't tolerate most Asian WNs with an isekai (or similar) premise (which are generally even worse about this - see that Slime one, where the protagonist is basically treated like Jesus). I gave up on Practical guide because there was no "in restrospect" there. Cat was flat out evil and a monster from very early, and no matter how dumb or how much she never thought things through things always worked out perfectly for her. While it's possible it got better, I got enough of people saying that, no, Cat just continues to be the author masturbating in your face about how dumb everyone else and how she will always succeed at everything she tries even when she break every narrative rule of the setting.
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Apr 10, 2019 14:01
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Arkeus posted:I gave up on Practical guide because there was no "in restrospect" there. Cat was flat out evil and a monster from very early, and no matter how dumb or how much she never thought things through things always worked out perfectly for her. I mean, I pretty firmly disagree here. Catherine fails all the time and the entire Crusade going on right now could be considered the ultimate culmination of her own failures. Which she's really only true begun to be self-aware about more recently. The only place she really seems to shine is in fairly direct conflict. It's also pretty key to establish that Black's tirade about Good always winning in the end because they cheat is basically wrong. We actually get a similar perspective from a Hero at one point, who basically believes Evil wins most of the time. The whole reason for Creation to exist is as a debate between Good and Evil, and if Good got to always win... that'd entirely invalidate its existence. And dudes like the Dead King wouldn't exist.
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Apr 10, 2019 16:45
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SerSpook posted:I mean, I pretty firmly disagree here. Catherine fails all the time and the entire Crusade going on right now could be considered the ultimate culmination of her own failures. Which she's really only true begun to be self-aware about more recently. The only place she really seems to shine is in fairly direct conflict. I thought the idea of good always winning is underpinned by the fact that evil heroes tend to be immortal. It's not heroic to kill a crippled old woman who once was empress so the narrative doesn't let them age. Heroes can 'win' in that they slay the villain and then become the good king and raise a family and die of old age. Villains though, stay around until they are defeated. They can't 'Win' in that sense because their story inevitably ends in defeat.
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Apr 10, 2019 20:02
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SerCypher posted:I thought the idea of good always winning is underpinned by the fact that evil heroes tend to be immortal. I kind of have to reject that definition though. It's really narrow and doesn't fit what we really see when we step back. And besides, I bet most Heroes wouldn't consider it a victory that they managed to kill a Villain, but only after the Villain slaughtered thousands, killed several Heroes, and pushed a Good nation further towards Evil. That Villain may feel it was a loss, because they couldn't rule as an Eternal God Emperor, but just as the Hero wanting to save everyone is unreasonable, so is that Villain's goal. When we look at the continent at large, the balance of power between Good and Evil doesn't actually shift that much. Which nation is really holding that power may shift, sure, but there is no grand change. Good nations once occupied Praes, and it changed nothing. Triumphant conquered all of Calernia, and all it meant was the rest of the continent uniting against her. On that note, that's why you see Callow and Catherine (and Black) being homed in on so hard by Good. Callow going Evil for real is actually a very real danger and a very big victory for Evil, which would be bad. Black hatched the scheme that would cause it, and Catherine is the tool for it.
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Apr 10, 2019 20:33
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TWI Patreon: God dammit, right when the plot is kicking into high gear, this arc ends!  Kinda nuts that the new world is actively suppressing the people from Earth's memories, but only that of their previous family. Perhaps this is a side effect of the king of Rhir's spell calling for Heroes? The hero's journey generally calls for the hero to leave his home behind, so perhaps the ritual is modeled after that narrative itself.Just loving have Niers and Erin meet already!!!!!!
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Apr 13, 2019 17:48
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A big flaming stink posted:TWI Patreon: God dammit, right when the plot is kicking into high gear, this arc ends! If it makes you feel better, Neirs is obviously teasing himself as much as Pirateaba is teasing us over meeting Erin. Looks like Luan may be his first Earther contact assuming whatever happens with Valez gets Luan near him.
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Apr 13, 2019 18:24
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Ahahah goddamn, this Ward chapter. 
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Apr 13, 2019 23:36
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Well, that at least has me interested about what the gently caress is going on (re: Ward). edit: Also it's funny that whoever wrote them picked up on romantic undertones to Ashley's interactions with Victoria, since I also had the impression edit2: One plot hole of sorts about this is that it seems like it should be pretty easy to find a Thinker capable of directly or indirectly inferring whether Victoria is telling the truth about writing the diary. Like, Tattletale can do this, and while they're unlikely to believe her by herself, there are other Thinkers like that one Foresight dude who could likely get some sort of read on the situation. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Apr 14, 2019 |
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Apr 14, 2019 04:27
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Legend had that program he got Kid Win to write for him that could analyze audio and detect lies, so presumably that sort of thing isn't that hard.
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Apr 14, 2019 04:52
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Ytlaya posted:Well, that at least has me interested about what the gently caress is going on (re: Ward). I totally ship swantoria, though at this point I'm incapable of figuring out what's non-platonic subtext, and what's Victoria eyefucking the poo poo out of someone's rad fashion sense. Also yeah, like, a lot of WB stuff tends to fall apart if you think about it too hard, so I try to ignore the logical inconsistencies, but the logistics of this whole situation are really weird. Like, dragon illegally dumps a copy of Victoria's files (which she does all the time to everyone, so *shrug*), finds a diary which contains nothing criminal but is creepy and weird, brings it to the attention of her former friend who has been very clear about not being her therapist, then her friend starts running a double-secret investigation which, at the very least, apparently involved her actual therapist violating patient confidentiality? Something interesting could come out of the setup, so it's kinda whatever, but it is so weird to me that nobody is drawing attention to how bizarre the entire thing is. Like, this is basically the equivalent of dragon looking up Vicky's porn search history, then going to all of her friends and asking "Has Victoria ever talked to you about her sentient haute couture fanfiction?"
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Apr 14, 2019 05:04
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Omi no Kami posted:I totally ship swantoria, though at this point I'm incapable of figuring out what's non-platonic subtext, and what's Victoria eyefucking the poo poo out of someone's rad fashion sense. Dragon was given the diary along with the rest of Victoria's cape notes (back when they exchanged info and Dragon tipped Victoria off to the Chris issues) because that's where it was saved, it raised a bunch of red flags because several of the Breakthrough members are minors and the diary painted Victoria as borderline abusing them, so Dragon gives that information to Jessica (and possibly others, given the gravity of the situation, we just don't have any knowledge of that from Victoria's perspective) because she's responsible for the mental wellbeing of those minors and probably also in a legal capacity.
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Apr 14, 2019 05:21
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