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I'm clearly not a fan of these recent Patreon SupSup chapters, but I'm clearly in the minority Though interestingly, the Royal Road crowd is actually at the point where the Patreon growth leveled out in the story as of the last chapter.
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Dec 12, 2023 02:22
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LLSix posted:
There's also the reason that all Avowed are exiled to Anesidora to begin with - Avowed are inheritly instruments of violence. 100 S Ranks or A ranks congregating in a protest outside a government people is threatening in a way that 1000 regular people is not, because every one of them has been granted superpowers that are tuned towards violence. They are essentially going around with rocket launchers strapped to themselves at all times. And I doubt you disagree that a bunch of people protesting with a assault rifle holstered on their back is a different situation to the same group protesting without it, even if it's a peaceful protest. And this isn't unintended - remember Stuarts offhand comment about how eventually they expect Avowed to take over Earth's government? The expression of potential power Avowed represent changes how they are perceived. On the Lute discussion. I agree it's basically a seperate story at this point, but it's neat so I'm enjoying it. SS is a very different story at this point when it blew up on moon Thargold, and that is going to disappoint some people, but I'm happy to read Anesdorian slice of life for awhile yet. Nothingtoseehere fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Dec 12, 2023 |
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Dec 12, 2023 02:22
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Nitrousoxide posted:I'm clearly not a fan of these recent Patreon SupSup chapters, but I'm clearly in the minority I mean it looks like it went from growth to completely flatlining in October so there's definitely some people who aren't enthused.
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Dec 12, 2023 02:25
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awesmoe posted:this treats wanting plot progression as a gauche quirk of litrpg fanatics rather than the consensus desire of consumers of narrative fiction. most people, by and large, regard 'nothing happening' in fiction as a criticism. The problem isn't the numbers arent going up, it's that in the early chapters sleyca nailed all of character development, world building, and exciting stuff happening, but now it's down to two out of three. Yeah, I can't argue with what you're saying, and to be honest I unfairly glossed over it. To explain what I was getting at a bit better, maybe: It's very easy for a reader to adopt the position of a protagonist, especially one with a good mix of generally admirable and relatable traits like Alden, right? And the most pressing social issues that touch this protagonist are basically A) "non-avowed don't want avowed living among them", which is somewhat of a second-hand issue to him, experienced via Boe and Maricel and B) in a superhero context people have low expectations for low rank, globie rabbits, which is strongly counterbalanced for him specifically, because he's Like you say, there's a lot more inequality and other messed up stuff to be spotted, in how people's lives and time are valued, in how enormous the wealth gap is, in how absolute and seemingly set in stone the power relations are, in how look-ism is now numerically quantifiable and an explicit prerequisite for emergency response jobs. But, like, those are all things we bring to the text, and they don't really have a place of actual importance in Alden's high school drama worries and high society-adjacent lifestyle, or any of the conversations he is otherwise party to. It would be nice if it wasn't all just dystopian world-building, but maybe something people in this world actively engaged with? I don't know, I guess what I'm trying to say is that currently my confidence is low that the story will use this stuff for more than set dressing any time soon. Just seeing it displayed as a neutral thing, and going '  that's a capitalism / inequality / power dynamic rife for abuse', feels bad, I get plenty of that outside of fiction.
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Dec 12, 2023 02:26
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Nitrousoxide posted:I'm clearly not a fan of these recent Patreon SupSup chapters, but I'm clearly in the minority Complicating this is that where RR is matters too - new Patreon members will overwhelmingly be people who are enjoying the current RR chapters, while people leaving Patreon may be because the current Patreon chapters interest them less. So it's hard to tell from just membership whether it's RR chapters or Patreon chapters driving the numbers. For what it's worth, I don't dislike the current patreon chapters. Or maybe it would be better to say there are things I like that are more or less equally balanced by things I dislike. Not worse than previous chapters so much as different. In the comments for the latest chapter I suggested that (minor spoiler about patreon chapters) Sleyca label them a sidestory when they come to RR and I think that alone would do a lot to help - someone said the flashback chapters have now hit 200 book pages so I feel like at this point it's more a sidestory than just an interlude or explanation within SupSup itself, and if it's clearly labeled as a sidestory people will probably be more accepting of the story getting put on hold/the difference in tone than if they click a chapter expecting more SupSup. Bremen fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Dec 12, 2023 |
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Dec 12, 2023 03:42
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awesmoe posted:this treats wanting plot progression as a gauche quirk of litrpg fanatics rather than the consensus desire of consumers of narrative fiction. most people, by and large, regard 'nothing happening' in fiction as a criticism. The problem isn't the numbers arent going up, it's that in the early chapters sleyca nailed all of character development, world building, and exciting stuff happening, but now it's down to two out of three. There is plot happening, though - just of a different character. And the issue here isn't "the absence of plot happening in the story," but instead "the main/Alden plot being delayed for a few weeks" - an issue unique to web serials and motivated primarily by, well, impatience (and why I strongly doubt people will care once they're not waiting on a week by week basis for each chapter). If anything, we've learned more from these chapters than we did from most of the other post-Thegund (or pre-Leafsong, for that matter) ones from Alden's perspective. I can understand people wanting bigger things to happen on a week by week basis in a web serial, but I see that more as just a matter of personal preference rather than anything constituting "the correct/incorrect way to write." I find the current chapters enjoyable because I think the stuff happening in them is interesting. I want to learn the details about what happened to Lute and what life is like for Avowed growing up on Anesidora. I don't feel like I'm losing anything by having to wait an extra couple weeks to find out what happens next to Alden (and the stuff with the boater is also pretty low on the list of interesting subplots IMO). Also, I would argue that, in the earlier chapters, Sleyca didn't actually do a bunch of exciting stuff. The difference is that most of us were able to read those chapters without waiting week by week (since I think most of us started reading sometime at least like 15-20 chapters into the story). But very little actually happened until Alden became Avowed. awesmoe posted:interpreting stories and deriving meaning from them is just art consumption tho. sure there are some works that will give you a happy little asterisk telling you how you should feel about something but by and large those works are garbage for children. for example, you read the quoted bit about protests and think "hang on" and, like, good! you had a thought! this is a positive outcome. probably you didnt think "in a society of superhumans all laws are unnecessary" (maybe you did, that would be remarkable) so then it prompted you to consider in some small way what an appropriate balance of personal vs collective rights would be in a situation like that. and thats neat, two sentences from the work made your life a little more interesting than something blatantly obvious like I think a lot of this stuff is basically the result of people just becoming way too used to media that is specifically crafted to appeal to them (and that includes most of the media I consume, so this isn't me being like "all those other people with their trashy media"). It basically defines web serials as a medium - you rise to the top through directly appealing to as many people as possible. And there's also an element of "media as personal expression" where people expect media to have some sort of clearly expressed politics - you get a warm fuzzy when the author makes it clear that they agree with your values. It's an understandable paranoia since you don't want to spend a long time reading something only to later find out that the author is a bigot or something, but that doesn't mean it's good or desirable for art to always be super direct and obvious about the values of the artist/writer. If anything, it's flat-out bad writing to insert the author's personal views into a situation where it doesn't make sense for the PoV character to share them. To use the same example you're talking about, it's reasonable for a character in this setting to not feel offended or concerned about things that feel normal to them in their society.
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Dec 13, 2023 06:26
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Bremen posted:That in no way describes anything Kon did, it was pure spite. So yeah, it really does read to me like Lute lashing out at innocent people, even though it makes sense given the situation. Istvun posted:Nah, even from the very first day Kon wasn't talking to Lute, he was being nice to the whiff because that was the most important thing about him. That became enough for Lute at the end, but that it was is in itself a tragedy. (SupSup 113 discussion contd) I'm seriously confused at where Bremen got the vibe that Kon was doing anything more than 'being nice to the whiff'. Like, on the one hand I get the recoil when you see Lute lashing out at people who were at least superficially polite to him---the bullies and the kids who hosed with him to make themselves feel better at being C and below are the ones who deserve that way more. But at the same time, I don't remember reading anything in those chapters that did not indicate that like 90% of the superficially polite kids (including Kon!) viewed Lute as someone that didn't count, didn't matter. The bullies mattered more than he did because they could be Avowed and, as far as everyone knew, Lute couldn't. Ytlaya posted:Also, I would argue that, in the earlier chapters, Sleyca didn't actually do a bunch of exciting stuff. The difference is that most of us were able to read those chapters without waiting week by week (since I think most of us started reading sometime at least like 15-20 chapters into the story). But very little actually happened until Alden became Avowed.
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Dec 13, 2023 10:12
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can't wait for tabitha to meet amy lee edit: this is a serious post also 58k twi drops are loving brutal even if they're split into two parts and even if they're extremely good
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Dec 13, 2023 12:21
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Ytlaya posted:It basically defines web serials as a medium - you rise to the top through directly appealing to as many people as possible. And there's also an element of "media as personal expression" where people expect media to have some sort of clearly expressed politics - you get a warm fuzzy when the author makes it clear that they agree with your values. It's an understandable paranoia since you don't want to spend a long time reading something only to later find out that the author is a bigot or something, That's a very sound observation. I don't even disagree with calling it paranoia. The thought that supsup says "this world is hyper hierarchical, everything revolves around money and control, and that's just the way it is, and maybe that's even for the best, the right people are generally in charge after all" and that it might keep saying that for the foreseeable future, that thought is more disheartening to me than it really has any right to be. quote:but that doesn't mean it's good or desirable for art to always be super direct and obvious about the values of the artist/writer. If anything, it's flat-out bad writing to insert the author's personal views into a situation where it doesn't make sense for the PoV character to share them. To use the same example you're talking about, it's reasonable for a character in this setting to not feel offended or concerned about things that feel normal to them in their society. Mostly agree, just one note: who the PoV character is, and whom they meet is not random chance. If everyone that a PoV character meets passes as cis, and everyone who matters to them is straight or ace, that's the text saying something about gender and sexuality, whether it wants to or not.
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Dec 13, 2023 16:37
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babydonthurtme posted:(SupSup 113 discussion contd) SupSup 113 Kon is specifically called out as acting nervous when Avowed topics come up around Lute, and when he realizes Lute sees Alexi as more of a friend than him he specifically starts trying to be nicer and spend more time talking to Lute. He tries to be a friend, just doesn't succeed, and Lute refuses to tell him what he's doing wrong. That strikes me as the complete opposite of "viewing him as someone that didn't count." He's awkward dealing with someone in Lute's situation, he doesn't understand how Lute wants to be dealt with, but to me he specifically does come off as caring and wanting to befriend him. I mean, maybe I just read it wrong, but I feel just being polite out of obligation and not caring about Lute would come off completely differently. As it is, when I read the chapter, it felt like Lute had been primed by the shitshow he'd already been through to just assume that Kon and others could never care about him, so he just automatically jumped to assuming it. Bremen fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Dec 14, 2023 |
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Dec 13, 2023 18:25
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Holy moly. I haven't read this new supsup 112 chapter yet, but it's 20k words. That's like a Wandering Inn chapter length.
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Dec 13, 2023 22:58
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Dec 13, 2023 23:19
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Nitrousoxide posted:Holy moly. I haven't read this new supsup 112 chapter yet, but it's 20k words. That's like a Wandering Inn chapter length. I mean, that's like a light chapter that Pirate rushed in at the last second, and is currently doing 50k more words as a make up so their fans don't get worried.
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Dec 13, 2023 23:57
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SS 114: Holy christ, Aulia's a loving monster.
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Dec 14, 2023 01:03
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Nitrousoxide posted:Holy moly. I haven't read this new supsup 112 chapter yet, but it's 20k words. That's like a Wandering Inn chapter length. The new Patreon app has really been having trouble with these recent updates. I’ve had to swap to reading it elsewhere so it doesn’t choke on the extra long chapters. Also no wonder Sleyca’s been struggling with the backlog, this could have easily been another week or two of updates on its own.
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Dec 14, 2023 01:26
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The website seems fine, except for the prompts trying to make me use the app (Edit: and I even see italics?)
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Dec 14, 2023 01:30
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OddObserver posted:The website seems fine, except for the prompts trying to make me use the app (Edit: and I even see italics?) Website is fine/tolerable, the app is utter horseshit
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Dec 14, 2023 01:54
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uPen posted:The new Patreon app has really been having trouble with these recent updates. I’ve had to swap to reading it elsewhere so it doesn’t choke on the extra long chapters. Email wins once again. Also 114: What if your grandmother who like to plan out their kids lives for them can tie you into her career of choice at 14 and also control the tap to eternal youth? Aulia is no worse a person than many parents and grandparents in reality - she does seem to care about her family. Just that as a religious person, her version of caring isn't yours and you're not going to convince them you know better than the universe. Jessica is worse, honestly. Poor Lute
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Dec 14, 2023 02:29
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Finally finished Pale. Probably my favorite completed web serial, but I did have one serious issue with the finale. Charles, his conspirators, and the Judges were all well established as antagonists, and perfectly good ones. But in the last 20% or so of Pale there's a lot of time spent on a bunch of new lackeys to fight, and it ended up feeling pretty artificial. The St. Victor's kids were the most severe of this. They were introduced too late into things and were so adamantly opposed to the protagonists without good cause, it was too obvious that they were dropped in to create someone to fight that didn't have awesome reality-warping and plot-warping powers to complicate things with. On the plus side, the main cast was great, and Verona is easily my favorite Wildbow character. And it ended on a high note. Certainly something I can recommend.
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Dec 14, 2023 03:27
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SupSup 114 Say what you will about Aulia, but she's straightforward with what she wants out of you. Jessica lied to and manipulated her son his entire life to maneuver him into fulfilling what she thought his role in the family should be.
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Dec 14, 2023 03:35
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Soups Up 114 Ehhhhh, Jessica maybe lied to Lute his whole life because she didn't want him to get his hopes crushed if and when he didn't affix age 16-19. It was traumatizing for her and she didn't want her son to go through that. And I think it just genuinely didn't occur to her that her son was freaking out about his mother dying of old age when she was in her 40s. Now she definitely lied to to him on purpose to get him to accept chainer. But that was like, 4 or 5 days of manipulation, not his entire life.
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Dec 14, 2023 04:28
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Patrick Spens posted:Soups Up 114 Yeah. From the sounds of it (SupSup 114) no one ever intended to make Lute think they'd let his mother die, that was just Hazel being utterly horrible. Then Jessica found out he was afraid of it and decided to use it to motivate him. I can give her a little credit that yeah, she was worried about her son dying, and also part of the whole family brainwashing that Chainer is by definition the best thing ever, but still, that was a big betrayal. Aulia gets blame too (there's plenty of it to go around) for agreeing to Jessica's suggestion and playing along with it, even if it was because Lute's mom asked her too and, from the looks of it, because the tarot cards told her to. But I could at least understand the motivations of everyone in the chapter, which makes it more tragic in a way. Bremen fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Dec 14, 2023 |
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Dec 14, 2023 04:50
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Bremen posted:Yeah. From the sounds of it (SupSup 114) no one ever intended to make Lute think they'd let his mother die, that was just Hazel being utterly horrible. Then Jessica found out he was afraid of it and decided to use it to motivate him. I can give her a little credit that yeah, she was worried about her son dying, and also part of the whole family brainwashing that Chainer is by definition the best thing ever, but still, that was a big betrayal. "Trick your kid into taking the safe thing and maybe they start hating you" vs "They take the dangerous job and have a 10% or whatever chance that they die young" isn't a straightforward choice. Plus, Lute is supposed to be a 14 year old middle schooler at this point, which is well in the realm of being an idiot child who shouldn't be making massive life-altering decisions
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Dec 14, 2023 05:48
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Foxfire_ posted:I'd be pretty generous to her about being afraid of Lute dying. Shaper's death rate is apparently big enough for Lute's dice thing to be upsetting and make kids cry. If Lute refuses Chainer, Aulia is probably not burning resources to get him Rabbit instead, so Shaper is probably what he's ending up with.
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Dec 14, 2023 05:52
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OddObserver posted:Soup 114: Or they could actually listen and talk and convince him. He is risk-averse himself, and Rabbit is a horrid class for a musician -- he could get summoned in the middle of concert because some wizard can't find their eyeglasses! To (SupSup 114) give Aulia the tiniest amount of credit, that does seem to be what she tried to do first. She asks him what he dislikes about Chainer, and makes a not entirely horrible attempt to explain how he can avoid those issues. He rejects her saying sounds okay, but it isn't his favorite, so he's going to affix shaper if she won't help him get something else, and turns to leave the room. She draws the ten of swords, which symbolizes an ending, pain, and loss. And that's when she suddenly jumps in to offering him the services of a rejuvenation healer, having not even broached the subject until that moment. Like I said, it feels tragic because you can see how all the people involved made the decisions that set them on that path. Bremen fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Dec 14, 2023 |
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Dec 14, 2023 06:12
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Bremen posted:To (SupSup 114) give Aulia the tiniest amount of credit, that does seem to be what she tried to do first. She asks him what he dislikes about Chainer, and makes a not entirely horrible attempt to explain how he can avoid those issues. He rejects her saying sounds okay, but it isn't his favorite, so he's going to affix shaper if she won't help him get something else, and turns to leave the room. She draws the ten of swords, which symbolizes an ending, pain, and loss. And that's when she suddenly jumps in to offering him the services of a rejuvenation healer, having not even broached the subject until that moment. she wasn't letting him leave that room without chainer, tho. If the card had symbolised happiness she would have justified it like he'd be happier with chainer. If it was a love card, well he loves his mother. She doesn't give a drat what he wants, or what's best for him, and we know this because she immediately bulldozed him into a contract that he doesn't understand or agree to, over the objections of the tattooist. It's tragic, because aulia is willing to cause tragedy to get what she wants Basically issuing a correction regarding a previous post of mine, on the subject of the Velra family, you do not under any circumstances gotta hand it to em
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Dec 14, 2023 07:38
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A question about Practical Guide to Evil (Book 3) A Tyrant has arisen in Helike. Does that mean that Dread Empress Malicia is not a Tyrant? Or does the fact that Names are bound to cultures mean there can be a Prasean Tyrant and a Helikean Tyrant simultaneously and seperately?
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Dec 14, 2023 09:06
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It's been while but iirc, Malicia is Dread Empress. She can still act like a tyrant but she is Empress while in Helike is the Tyrant with a capital T.
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Dec 14, 2023 10:11
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Kyoujin posted:It's been while but iirc, Malicia is Dread Empress. She can still act like a tyrant but she is Empress while in Helike is the Tyrant with a capital T. When the Heiress is listing the notable Names of Prasea and what she considers their proper place to be she speaks of the Tyrant who molds the empire to their will, the Seneschal who leads from behind, the Warlock who crafts wonders and the Black Knight who crushes heroes. So I figured that the person who hold the title of dread emperor / dread empress usually has the Name of Tyrant.
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Dec 14, 2023 10:41
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SS114 If there's one thing that this has shown, its that Aulia is dangerous. If (and its probably when) she sniffs out that alden is on the track to become an artonan knight she is going to lock on him in a way that will make hazel's upbringing seem downright neglectful.
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Dec 14, 2023 10:44
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The Lone Badger posted:When the Heiress is listing the notable Names of Prasea and what she considers their proper place to be she speaks of the Tyrant who molds the empire to their will, the Seneschal who leads from behind, the Warlock who crafts wonders and the Black Knight who crushes heroes. So I figured that the person who hold the title of dread emperor / dread empress usually has the Name of Tyrant. Does she actually capitalize Tyrant there? IIRC Tyrant (the Name) is historically something that just popped up in Helike, one of the Free Cities (or whatever they're called). Also I'm guessing you meant Chancellor instead of Seneschal.
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Dec 14, 2023 11:02
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Ytlaya posted:Does she actually capitalize Tyrant there? IIRC Tyrant (the Name) is historically something that just popped up in Helike, one of the Free Cities (or whatever they're called). Also I'm guessing you meant Chancellor instead of Seneschal. She capitalised Tyrant and uses the term repeatedly Chiaroscuro posted:“Praes is a story,” she said. “A Tyrant to lead us. A Black Knight to break heroes. A Warlock to craft wonders. A Chancellor to rule behind them. And an Empire like clay, to shape into the tool they need: an entire nation built to empower the ambitions of a single villain.” quote:“But she doesn’t, Fasili,” Akua said. “This whole time we’ve been trying to win the same way we did with the Maleficents of the Terribilises of olden days. Acknowledging she has touched greatness but knowing that to grow again the Empire needs a fresh Tyrant. One still hungry.”
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Dec 14, 2023 11:38
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awesmoe posted:Ss 114 THIS. Jesus. I was half expecting Lute to get Swayed into accepting Chainer, but the "for your own good" manipulation was maybe only the slightest bit better than that. And only better to the extent that cutting contact with everyone involved is probably the gentlest solution to dealing with 90% of his family. They absolutely deserve the Chainer equivalent of custom dice. I feel even worse for Lute because he had this false idea that his mom (and to a lesser extent, his dad) understood the source of his misery and also wanted to get away from their shitbucket family and the culture that produced them, and then had to find out in the most direct and brutal fashion that neither of those things was true. Lastly I really loved the hints that Aulia's confidence in executing her grand plan is at least half hubris and half some dumbass theory that magic loves her/her family. I felt like that Artonan tattooist was probably thinking of all the colorful ways that raising powerful wizards that hate and mistrust you (and have significant incentive to become stronger than you) can go wrong.
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Dec 14, 2023 12:32
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The Lone Badger posted:She capitalised Tyrant and uses the term repeatedly Yeah, Tyrant isn't a Name in the Dread Empire. What names are given/grasped in a society is largely determined by its culture and history. Helike (and the other Free Cities) have some Greek city states vibes so names appropriate to that pop up there instead. Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Dec 14, 2023 |
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Dec 14, 2023 15:08
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Nitrousoxide posted:Yeah, Tyrant isn't a Name in the Dread Empire. What names are given/grasped in a society is largely determined by its culture and history. Also the Tyrant is hands down one of my very favorite characters, hands down. Nobody chews scenery like that mad little bastard.
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Dec 14, 2023 15:25
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Scenery-chewing villains are always some of the best characters.
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Dec 14, 2023 21:20
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LLSix posted:What are you trying to communicate? The summary of Pride and Prejudice you provide sounds the author undercutting themselves. A laser focusing lens is a lens which takes all of the light of a laser and focuses at a single point. Such a thing is useful on its own terms, but narrative fiction has different virtues; it doesn't make sense to judge it based on how it takes all of the complexity of the world and cuts it away or refracts it until it comes to a single bright shining point. Almost any decent novel that isn't just a straightforward allegory is going to "undercut itself", because people are full of contradictions, and there's nothing wrong with depicting them in all of their complexity. Of course Super Supportive indulges in the same type of power fantasy you see all over the place in web serials. I have vague memories of Milkfred calling this sort of thing "toyetic" but I can't find the post so I might be misattributing it or making it all up. Anyway, it's the thing where the writer puts in various "objectively true" measures of ability and readers can comprehend them and use them to run hypothetical fights in their head and find out if Catherine Foundling could beat up Goku. Super Supportive of course sets up a state of affairs where Alden is a relatively low-status member of an elite group of high schoolers, but in reality, he is secretly a super awesome wizard. Maybe its critique of the hierarchical Earth Avowed society it depicts is blunted by the fact that Alden doesn't really suffer from its problems, but I don't really think this is a flaw. It's a big, sprawling story; it's okay for it to have crowd-pleasing elements. Even Hamlet ends with a cool swordfight. In short, I just don't like the idea that the presence of simple, emotionally gratifying story element makes other statements the story makes somehow illegitimate, even if they're in tension; or further that parts of a story that are in tension with each other are a flaw. I'm not sure it's wrong to think this, but it's so foreign to how I enjoy narrative art that I don't think a meeting of the minds is possible. Stories are complex; they can be more than one thing.
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Dec 14, 2023 22:23
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nrook posted:Anyway, it's the thing where the writer puts in various "objectively true" measures of ability and readers can comprehend them and use them to run hypothetical fights in their head and find out if Catherine Foundling could beat up Goku. The answer to this is yes she could, if she could set up a rule-of-three.
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Dec 14, 2023 22:38
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SupSup 114 I think the only thing I somewhat sympathize with Jessica about is "convincing Lute he won't become Avowed." It was (probably) the wrong thing to do, but I can understand wanting to prevent him from going through an experience that was super traumatic to her. Of course, she doesn't really see the whole picture - that she's just trading one trauma for another, more drawn-out one (being treated like poo poo by his peers as a presumed 'whiff'). But that's still probably the whole reason Lute was able to find his current passion and become a serious musician. He would have probably ended up like most of his cousins otherwise. What was completely unforgivable, though, was Jessica knowingly using Lute's fear of her dying to manipulate him. That was completely hosed up no matter how you look at it.
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Dec 14, 2023 22:41
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nrook posted:A laser focusing lens is a lens which takes all of the light of a laser and focuses at a single point. Such a thing is useful on its own terms, but narrative fiction has different virtues; it doesn't make sense to judge it based on how it takes all of the complexity of the world and cuts it away or refracts it until it comes to a single bright shining point. Almost any decent novel that isn't just a straightforward allegory is going to "undercut itself", because people are full of contradictions, and there's nothing wrong with depicting them in all of their complexity. I've definitely called it that, or "toybox worldbuilding."
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Dec 14, 2023 22:52
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