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I think I understand what's going to happen next in Prac Guide. Think.
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May 1, 2019 14:47
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Silynt posted:I liked the extra chapter this month in Practical Guide. It took me a second to process that it was the extra chapter, I thought they might be waking him up for the trip. It's what Cat promised Larat in Book 3 to get him to show up with Winter's armies. When they captured the summer princess she said ominous things about how it would be bad if he got it, but refused to specify. I wish my memory would do this for actually useful things.
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May 2, 2019 02:52
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I'm catching up with Ward, and I like the whole Tattletale/Victoria buddy cop situation (and the broader mystery is also pretty interesting). It would have been funny to show the current situation to TT/Victoria circa the bank robbery from Worm. edit: lol quote:“Thpeaking of romantic thuff,” Ratcatcher said. She held up her phone, now all folded up. “Thtarting with rat factth and ending with putting thnakes up boy’th pooperth-” edit: Man, Teacher's power is pretty loving ludicrous. I get the impression that the only reason he didn't absolutely dominate society prior to Gold Morning was Cauldron and Contessa existing and preventing such a thing from happening. Without such a powerful authority, he can basically transform into what is effectively a ultra-thinker/tinker (plus the ability to brainwash various other capes). And now I guess he also has millions of soldiers, lol. I have no idea how our heroes are supposed to address this. vvv Yeah, I'm also wondering this. Later on there will be an interlude where Teacher is walking around and talking to people like this, and suddenly Victoria will just come out of nowhere and slam into the ground at 200mph with the wretch active, cratering him. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 07:41 on May 4, 2019 |
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May 4, 2019 04:32
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I like their dynamic but this most recent interlude with Teacher's whole organization is bringing me right back to "alright now how the gently caress is anyone expected to beat this?" territory again.
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May 4, 2019 05:15
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application of violence
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May 4, 2019 05:33
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Nighthand posted:I like their dynamic but this most recent interlude with Teacher's whole organization is bringing me right back to "alright now how the gently caress is anyone expected to beat this?" territory again. vic is a brute so uhhhh, maybe she can punch it? violent sex idiot posted:application of violence 
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May 4, 2019 05:36
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Teacher can't do nefarious thinker bullshit if his body gets wretched to pieces!
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May 4, 2019 07:13
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Not All Heroes 2.34: Holy poo poo Milky. That ending. Sabra really jumped off the ledge, I'm looking forward to seeing how she catches herself on the edge and clings on.
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May 4, 2019 07:26
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Oh, one other thought from the recent Ward chapters - Kenzie is totally hosed. She is not doing well, and I don't see any solution. She has basically not improved at all over the course of this story; any progress she made has been completely reversed. Like, she is even more "broken" than the Heartbroken kids, and I think Tattletale may have been onto something with her comments about her. Sveta is actually doing better than I expected, and I'm optimistic about her chances of ultimately making it through a Weld break-up. It'll still ruin her pretty bad, but she's already acknowledging the likely reality that the issue is her body and is keeping it together fairly well.
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May 4, 2019 07:44
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Nighthand posted:I like their dynamic but this most recent interlude with Teacher's whole organization is bringing me right back to "alright now how the gently caress is anyone expected to beat this?" territory again. If Valkyrie gets access to a single person Teacher has used his ability on or transferred his ability to via Scapegoat, she can killswitch Teacher and manifest him as a ghost, which either a) purges all the effects (positive and negative) of Teacher's ability from his thralls or b) puts his mindless thralls (including Saint, Valefor and Mama Mathers) under her control. Will this happen? Probably not, as hilarious as it would be, but his entire organization is based on a single ability, which is a crippling weakness that I hope ends up getting exploited one way or the other.
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May 4, 2019 08:44
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:Not All Heroes 2.34: Holy poo poo Milky. That ending. Sabra really jumped off the ledge, I'm looking forward to seeing how she catches herself on the edge and clings on. 
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May 4, 2019 09:14
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I haven't read it yet but jesus gently caress TWI patreon chapter is 30000 words pirateaba's hands are gonna fall off 
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May 4, 2019 18:02
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Normal TWI chapter - author remains incapable of writing about religion. Also a Flos chapter so yeah lurksion fucked around with this message at 18:33 on May 4, 2019 |
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May 4, 2019 18:30
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to be fair I cant figure out how to explain any particular religion without basic concepts that most religions share. so how would you explain it to someone who is not just unreligious, but doesn't even understand the idea of it?
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May 4, 2019 19:44
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lurksion posted:Normal TWI chapter - author remains incapable of writing about religion. I really don't see how that's your takeaway, the characters are a teenaged girl that explicitly has a very superficial understanding of religion and a man of a world in which every single individual is bereft of not just religion, but spirituality in general. Like that's completely counter to our understanding of what it means to be human, and it's clearly the result of a deliberate act of something. A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 22:01 on May 4, 2019 |
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May 4, 2019 20:05
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Nighthand posted:I like their dynamic but this most recent interlude with Teacher's whole organization is bringing me right back to "alright now how the gently caress is anyone expected to beat this?" territory again. this world is a machine for pigs
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May 4, 2019 23:35
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well god drat was that game a letdown A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 00:54 on May 5, 2019 |
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May 5, 2019 00:42
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A big flaming stink posted:well helpfully its less disappointing than A Machine for Pigs Yeah.  Especially after Frictional's other products.Oh well, they then produced Soma, which owns.
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May 5, 2019 00:45
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Yeah. it wasn't made by frictional, it was made by TheChineseRoom. Their other stuff was pretty good though more in the vein of "walking simulators" and they certainly missed the mark when it came to making the "game" parts
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May 5, 2019 00:53
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Frictional only published A Machine for Pigs, they didn't develop it. efb
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May 5, 2019 00:54
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latest ward speculation : case 12 works for teacher, works by having people eat bits of him, teacher provided the food that broke goddess's master effect during the prison break. did victoria and everyone else on breakthrough and a pile of other people besides give back doors into their brains?
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May 5, 2019 09:19
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PracGuide: Meanwhile Neshamah offers Cat everything she wanted with the hidden caveat that it makes him win forever*. I guess after her deal with Tariq turnabout is a fair play. * And thus also validating Laurence on the way.
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May 6, 2019 20:25
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It'd be pretty awesome if the Dead King refuses to take advantage of the Tyrant's obvious treachery and willingness to betray the Band of Five, because he knows that just leads to the other four truly uniting together and trust one another as they put him down, leading to his own inevitable defeat. It would feel very fitting.
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May 7, 2019 00:39
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I wonder what the Dead King's "long-term" goal is. It seems like he's just kind of loving around and being immortal. That's gotta get lonely and boring. The guy should at least have a go at the gnomes or something (anyone remember them? it's always funny when I remember that there's a race with super-high-tech airships and mechs in this setting).
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May 7, 2019 04:03
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I'm rereading worm and just finished the S9 arc. It's neat seeing everything and knowing what's coming. The puzzle pieces for Gold Morning have been around for a while.
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May 7, 2019 04:14
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Does anyone else get the somewhat subtle impression from Wildbow's poo poo that he's kinda racist without really realizing it?
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May 7, 2019 06:39
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Sampatrick posted:Does anyone else get the somewhat subtle impression from Wildbow's poo poo that he's kinda racist without really realizing it? Some of his characters are racist, but I never got that vibe from him as a writer/person. I mean the entire E88 arc.... At no point did he back down from writing those characters as anything other then white supremacists, including themselves self-rationalizing their actions. Though, I am WAY behind on Ward, I dropped it at least for now around arc6 or so. Kalas fucked around with this message at 06:55 on May 7, 2019 |
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May 7, 2019 06:53
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Sampatrick posted:Does anyone else get the somewhat subtle impression from Wildbow's poo poo that he's kinda racist without really realizing it? Yes, but. Wildbow is racist in the sense that there is a distinct impression that he has never examined any of the things he puts in his work. He is not racist in the sense of preaching racial purity, desiring to build a wall, or anything like that. I believe Wildbow makes an genuine effort to have a diverse, inclusive cast. The problem is, without examining anything, you end up with these weird, repeated notes. There's a Let's Read over on Spacebattles that has been really skewering his treatment of race, if people are curious, but I'll just reproduce the basics. A lot of it builds around the E88, the ABB and the way characters of color are used, especially in early Worm where this is at the forefront of the text. In early Worm, there's this recurring motif: white people must specifically mark their allegiance to a hate group with EEE tattoos and the like, whereas all Asians in Brockton Bay are assumed to be scary members of the ABB. The Empire-88 is actually a pretty clever name, I like it a lot. But Azn Bad Boys? Come on. The ABB is weird because they kind of demonstrate this attempt at going for inclusion which ends up... just off. The ABB is a pan-Asian criminal gang. This is basically unheard of. It's like having a pan-African gang. You might get a Chinise gang or a Korean gang or a Japanese gang, but you are very unlikely to get a gang that combined all of them under one banner because there are a whole heap of tensions between those groups that white people generally don't see or understand. We are told that Brockton Bay has a substantial Asian population. After all, that's why the ABB is such a force. But it's curious that, beside Lung and his henchmen, we don't really see any other Asian characters of note. Not one person in the Undersiders is Asian. Not one member of the PRT or Wards (Miss Militia is Kurdish) is Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Vietnamese, whatever. Flechette is, but she shows up post-Leviathan. In fact, what we generally know of the Asian population, is that Bakuda is somehow able to wire up every single Asian person with her crazy explosive devices. So, not only do Asians exist in one of three ways -- hapless victim, mindless thug, crazy supervillain -- but the biggest threat to them is not the Nazis or whatever, but other Asians. There are other things that should cause one to raise an eyebrow. Let's think about the black characters. The three most prominent in early Worm are as follows: Sophia, Grue, and Imp. Sophia is a sociopathic school bully who somehow holds an entire school under her thumb, able to get away with anything. Grue is the product of an abusive household and a generally nothing character who Taylor surpasses in a few arcs, someone who is so thoroughly unremarkable that fans prefer to ship Taylor with anyone but him. Imp, his sister, had a mother who did drugs during pregnancy and gave her brain damage. But honestly, I can look past a lot of that. Again, I think Wildbow genuinely tried for diversity and inclusion but didn't examine the biases that led to him creating characters of these ethnicities in these roles. So, let's talk about Kaiser and Skidmark. There's that chapter where the Undersiders meet with Kaiser and Skidmark shows up. Kaiser proceeds to just rip into him, and Skidmark correctly deduces it's because he is a black man. Kaiser tells him so. Meanwhile, Grue is sitting there, and he just... accepts it. He even gets in on it. For her part, the only thing Taylor thinks is that Kaiser is so cool and calm and collected, even when this should remind her of the way her bullies operate. What's worse is that Wildbow's prose makes Skidmark out to be absolutely disgusting. It's one thing for Grue to swallow his pride and sit there and let Skidmark take it. But Grue actually joins in. Now, this is part of a more broader issue on Wildbow's part, which is classism. Criminals who are slick and stylish with sharp uniforms and sharper burns are cool, like Kaiser. And I think this is why Wildbow WoG'd at some point that Kaiser doesn't actually believe in the precepts of E88, he just exploits them for power, as if that made him better. But even without that, given that Kaiser is a very rich man, he's basically a Crime Tourist (like the Undersiders, really.) But criminals like Skidmark, who are poor and probably forced into the life by circumstance, are worthy of contempt and ridicule. This is something Wildbow seems to have understood is pretty disgusting in retrospect, because he has said that Coil is actually black, too -- but it's not there in the text. It's not all bad. I should note that Wildbow is generally much better on sex and gender than he is on race and class. But he also made the choice to establish that Brockton Bay is something of a racial hotbed, then just used it to create groups of bad guys to beat up. Then, it spends a lot of time establishing the humanity of Kaiser, Purity and Theo... but when do we get a chapter on Lung, for example? Why don't we have a character in the Undersiders who is Asian, who might therefore provide insight into the ABB and so on. Why did Wildbow feel it was important to write a chapter stressing the humanity of the Nazis and ensuring they weren't 'two-dimensional' yet didn't do the same for the more prominent characters of color? I think people forget that Kaiser and Purity haven't even been mentioned prior to her interlude. It's just like, hey, care about this lady's family problems - and she's a Nazi! I mean, the E88 is just a weird concept, too. Where do the white supremacists hide out in our reality? In the police force, generally. The E88 should be this insidious force, not out-and-out card-carrying Nazis. But, for a lot of early Worm, Wildbow needs a punching bag (just look at the first Glory Girl chapter where she gets a consequence-free beatdown on a hate crime caricature) and Nazis are the least problematic -- but even then, they're hardly as relevant as Lung and his ABB are. And when the Undersiders do have a bit of a conflict with E88, it's about their dogfighting ring. The fact that Wildbow has made them Nazis doesn't actually matter, which is just strange. I'll borrow a quote from the Let's Read. quote:I don't think Wildbow is a bigot. I don't think the guy smoking in the fireworks factory is a pyromaniac, either, but he's still being a loving idiot. I really don't get Wildbow sometimes. The dude clearly didn't want to write a story that dwelled much on racial issues. Nothing wrong with that, but then he made his fictional city be on the brink of Helter Skelter and dropped some Nazis into the narrative. I never got far into Ward, and I can't recall much of Pact and Twig's treatment of race. But Worm is absolutely bizarre at points. Really, the core issue is that Wildbow has a center-left view that these issues are important but that they are the fault of failings on part of the individual and systemic violence and oppression isn't really a factor. Skidmark isn't a product of a broken system. Skidmark chose to be a disgusting idiot, so it's okay for Kaiser and Grue to berate him in public. I think by the end of Worm, Wildbow had identified these patterns in his work and sought to correct them without rewriting any of them. But early Worm is really something. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 08:49 on May 7, 2019 |
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May 7, 2019 08:33
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So basically Wildbow is incredibly loving white
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May 7, 2019 08:48
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A big flaming stink posted:So basically Wildbow is incredibly loving white He's from a Canadian exurb I believe. White as white gets pretty much. Well meaning but, yeah. Also I've been reading Wildbow's poo poo for ages, but never found this thread because for some reason I assumed web serials wouldn't be in Book Barn. Hello.
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May 7, 2019 09:41
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Partially in defense of WB. I don't think he's a bigot, but he is pretty classist, yeah. However, as a person he's also incredibly isolated. He's basically a hermit who writes stories. He's basically deaf, but because he has cochlear implants, he doesn't fit in well with the deaf community. So I imagine that he's just not someone who knows many people in his life. At least not anymore. Not outside of online interactions. As far as societal stuff goes, I can see someone who writes superhero fiction falling into that trap pretty easily. It's pretty rare that mainstream superhero stuff talks about non-supers or societal stuff. The focus on squarely on individuals or superhero/villain led or adjacent organizations. Institutions tend to be pretty one note antagonists, obstacles to be overcome, like the government. They hold people back, are corrupt and are generally seen as bad. The light in which they're viewed is pretty simplistic. He literally writes in a genre where the individual is normally glorified or demonized. The superhero is from the genre of comics and the focus is not on society, but individual personalities. There are exceptions, but they tend to be rare. Also remember that he's something of a pioneer in Worm. There were other web serials before him, but nothing as large or as vast and what he's doing. And you can tell early on that he's not very polished as an artist. That's okay, he gets better with time. Not as much as someone who focuses on getting better, but his focus seems to be mostly on creating new content, not improving his craft. And he's sort of developing as an author by churning out more content. Remember that Worm came out in 2011 and racial relations, while never great, had not come to the forefront of peoples' minds like today. White dudes have generally been lovely about understanding race for a long time. I'm not excusing it, but I do appreciate that he's attempting something. Also when you talk about the racial organizations like Empire 88 being political and not street level, he's actually ahead of the curve when talking about racial gangs. You have gangs like Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys today. And while the latter tend to be made up primarily of cosplayers, they do engage in street violence. Patriot Prayer is definitely a white supremacist gang that is allowed to operate in Portland because the police and government work with them and give them cover. And you actually do see groups of white supremacists in the metal and punk scenes because there are Nazi metal and punk bands. Their listeners do engage in violence when their numbers are large enough compared to whomever they want to victimize. That's not new. You saw punks and skinheads squaring off as early as the 80's. Seriously, nothing fucks up a music scene like Nazis and they do form gangs and they do victimize people. Fascists definitely do infiltrate the police and government, but street level violence is something they engage in as well. Is WB not great on race? Yep. But I see this as part of his upbringing which reflects not only his race, but his isolation. And his gravitation away from societal problems (which is a serious blindspot) but talking about individuals is something I imagine that someone raised in the superhero genre would do. That said, he really does seem to do well with some characters. The arc with Lookout and her backstory of abuse by narcissists just gut punched me. I've known people like that. And I can tell you that felt like people I knew, though their stories tended to be way worse. He's not a bigot. He doesn't get a lot of racial stuff. His prejudices such as they are do shine through, but I don't think he was conscious of them. He does much better with sexuality and abuse though. His isolation probably does a lot to keep him from learning this stuff. Honestly I'd enjoy some analysis about how his views have changed from 2011 to 2019, because nine years is a long time for people to refine their views as we as a society have changed a lot between then and now. Honestly, he puts out stuff for free and has no editor beyond his fans. I don't expect a ton from him. I'm just happy that he makes stuff. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 09:59 on May 7, 2019 |
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May 7, 2019 09:55
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Ice Phisherman posted:However, as a person he's also incredibly isolated. He's basically a hermit who writes stories. He's basically deaf, but because he has cochlear implants, he doesn't fit in well with the deaf community. So I imagine that he's just not someone who knows many people in his life. At least not anymore. Not outside of online interactions. The deafness is really interesting, yeah. When you examine the prose, Worm is actually a really quiet story. Things that we understand intuitively to be loud (like, say, a swarm of flying insects) are presented like they're silent. Huge explosions happen near Taylor and her ears don't start ringing.
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May 7, 2019 10:06
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taylors ears ring i think from the bakuda fight until the hospital after Leviathan, like she disassociates things like that heavily to her swarm i think.
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May 7, 2019 10:08
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violent sex idiot posted:taylors ears ring i think from the bakuda fight until the hospital after Leviathan, like she disassociates things like that heavily to her swarm i think. They don't. Like, there's one mention of Taylor saying her hearing 'isn't as good as it normally was' or something during the Bakuda fight post-grenade, but the next ten chapters have her with perfect hearing and no mention of ringing is mentioned. Wildbow's not an idiot -- he understands that explosions do bad things to your hearing. But, like, Taylor's hearing that 'isn't as good' as normal still allows her to hear everything everyone is saying and such. Compare it to how he depicts vision in the same sequence, where Taylor is seeing triple and everything is bright and blurry. Just show and tell, and it's understandable that he'd lean more to telling when it came to the hearing sense. I find it really interesting because it's something that helps give Taylor this clinical, detached air.
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May 7, 2019 10:45
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:The deafness is really interesting, yeah. When you examine the prose, Worm is actually a really quiet story. My example is kind of picking at threads, but this made me think back to the end of the Coil confrontation about halfway through Worm: quote:I aimed the gun and fired. The imagery is fine, and hearing the ocean crashing is a nice little poetic touch, but here's the thing: that was Taylor's first time using a firearm, and guns are really loud. Like, way louder than you'd think. A sheltered teenager executing someone at close range with a high-power handgun she's never used before should be startled at the least, and physically uncomfortable or popping her ears at the worst. But nope, she just points & clicks, then listens to the nice ocean.
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May 7, 2019 11:02
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Omi no Kami posted:My example is kind of picking at threads, but this made me think back to the end of the Coil confrontation about halfway through Worm: Nah she uses a fun during the S9 arc. She shoots at Jack and is counting bullets. I don't think they mention how loud it is though. Ps where is that lets read?
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May 7, 2019 12:54
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As a deaf person working on her own story, this discussion of Wildbow's deafness and how it affects his writing is interesting.
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May 7, 2019 14:12
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Kaja Rainbow posted:As a deaf person working on her own story, this discussion of Wildbow's deafness and how it affects his writing is interesting. Can you elaborate?
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May 7, 2019 14:28
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:This is something Wildbow seems to have understood is pretty disgusting in retrospect, because he has said that Coil is actually black, too -- but it's not there in the text. I always thought Wildbow did the white person thing where characters are default white unless he introduces them with a racial signifier. In the first chapter of Worm, we meet Madison, who has “shoulder length brown hair”; Taylor, who has “dark curly hair”; Emma, who’s “red-haired”; and Sophia, who is “dark skinned” with no hair color noted, just as no skin tone is noted for the other three. Later on with the Undersiders, we get the same thing: Tattletale has “dark blond hair”, Regent has “short black curls”, Bitch is “dark haired”, and Grue has “dark chocolate skin” and cornrows of no specific color. Technically, they could all be black, but somehow I get the impression that’s not his intent. Coil is covered head to toe like Grue when Taylor first meets him. When she finally meets him unmasked, she’s blind, but finds out from her bugs that he has “close cropped, coarse hair”. I think that’s Wildbow trying to discreetly drop a racial signifier again, but if you don’t realize what “coarse hair” is a polite code for, it’s easy to miss.
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May 7, 2019 14:35
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RC Cola posted:Can you elaborate? Just, it brings to mind that I might want a beta reader capable of spotting those kinds of issues.
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May 7, 2019 14:57
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