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It was clear from point one that Lisa's power was a horrible story crutch. Anytime someone can pull information out of thin air, it's going to just ruin things. Every problem in the story could have been solved by her power if Wildbow didn't put in a "already tried, I got nothing" from her. Making her capable of reading people would have been a lot better. She has to see the person and read them, and even then it's just telling if they're lying or something she says strikes a nerve. Would be a much more balanced power but still be useful. I think most of the power creep came naturally and reasonably. Skitter becomes The Lord of an entire neighborhood with lots of time and the resources of a super villain behind her? I can see her having a ton of spider silk. The range increases were bad, though. Also, the way Grue was handled was pretty hosed up. Oh, and the spider silk thing pissed me off the entire book. Spider silk is five times stronger than steel BY WEIGHT. You could maybe make a cable 1/5 the weight of a quarter inch steel cable that did what she did with those, but it would not be nearly invisible and the costumes would not be bulletproof without being so heavy to move. EVGA Longoria fucked around with this message at 01:20 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 01:16
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EVGA Longoria posted:Every problem in the story could have been solved by her power if Wildbow didn't put in a "already tried, I got nothing" from her.
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May 6, 2014 01:28
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New chapter is long and pretty great!
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May 6, 2014 07:03
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Mr. Wednesday posted:New chapter is long and pretty great! I don't think "out of the frying pan, into the fire" is expressive enough of a saying anymore to describe Blake's situation. 
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May 6, 2014 12:05
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I like that it was kind of a un-taylor moment. so whatever Conquest is weak and no one knows, I can totally take him now we all knew you big dumbass, he was just our puppet and now you want to take that away from us.Welp!
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May 6, 2014 14:06
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This is basically the original Slaughterhouse 9 scenario but worse in almost every possible way. Conquest and the Eye of the Storm are scary dudes in their own right, and both are probably immortal. The Shepherd seems relatively weak, but I'm willing to bet he's much tougher than Blake thinks just because the Hyena seems like a decent match-up against him and it's never that easy. Laird could be a minor nuisance or a giant issue, depending on stuff we don't know; does he have enough mojo to reset time without the stolen charm? Duncan didn't, but it kind of seemed like he was the runt of the litter. Even if not, he could have Maggie arrested or magically delayed, or any number of other shenanigans. The Astrologer is an even bigger wild card; we have no idea what she can do, or if Conquest can force her to work for him. Meanwhile everyone not on Blake's side wants to kill him, and unlike Taylor he doesn't really have a stress-tested team or even much firepower until Maggie arrives. He's got an entire team full of wild cards and no guarantee that any of them will pay off. Fell and Evan probably have some solid synergy, I guess; they probably won't have too much trouble surviving until Maggie arrives if her trip isn't interfered with. edit: maybe this is Maggie's second round of blood and fire as promised by the goblin in her interlude.  I wonder if there'll be a Toronto left afterwards, if it is.
Fetucine fucked around with this message at 14:58 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 14:54
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I wonder how the Drunk feels about all this, as we know that he had ambitions to become the Lord in the past. I could see a scenario where he (and possibly the Behaims, if that alliance can be officially remade?) try to double cross Conquest in a way that takes out both him and Blake.
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May 6, 2014 15:50
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Pavlov posted:Yes, having zero limits to her power would have made things pretty easy. That's also true for about every other power out there. Don't be a jerk, it's obviously not the same. We didn't get any definition on how her power worked, what her limits were, etc. Instead, we got a puppet the author could use to drop information into the story when the characters needed to know something they had no reason to know. And there's also the problem that she can be wrong and everyone has to pretend to doubt everything she says (and then dive right in and blindly follow it anyway). Was she even wrong after people started doubting her? It's a bad power that got used as a crutch. Other stories have used super powered logic and such to do something similar without it being so blatantly about whether the author wanted to give the information or not.
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May 6, 2014 15:59
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EVGA Longoria posted:Don't be a jerk, it's obviously not the same. We didn't get any definition on how her power worked, what her limits were, etc. Instead, we got a puppet the author could use to drop information into the story when the characters needed to know something they had no reason to know. And there's also the problem that she can be wrong and everyone has to pretend to doubt everything she says (and then dive right in and blindly follow it anyway). Was she even wrong after people started doubting her? Except those things were explained. Her power works by 'focusing' her passenger on a specific person or topic. It works better when a the person is near her, and she doesn't choose what information it gives her, only the general category the information comes from. She can use discovered information to ask better questions on the topic, but if she drills too hard on a topic with little information it risks giving her faulty or vague answers. Each use of her power also puts her under mental strain, which keeps her from asking all questions all the time. I'm pretty sure there was at least one point where her power gave her really bad advice, but I'm not about to go sifting through all of Worm again to find it. Tattletale certainly was used for exposition, and for pushing the plot forward, but a certain amount of exposition and plot pushing was necessary for what Worm was doing, and I never got the impression she was being particularly overused. Pavlov fucked around with this message at 19:26 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 17:47
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Pavlov posted:Except those things where explained. Her power works by 'focusing' her passenger on a specific person or topic. It works better when a the person is near her, and she doesn't choose what information it gives her, only the general category the information comes from. She can use discovered information to ask better questions on the topic, but if she drills too hard on a topic with little information it risks giving her faulty or vague answers. Each use of her power also puts her under mental strain, which keeps her from asking all questions all the time. I'm pretty sure there was at least one point where her power gave her really bad advice, but I'm not about to go sifting through all of Worm again to find it. She got owned by Coil collapsing timelines to give her false answers or something, I don't remember the specifics. She was also out of action towards the end of the S9 with a massive headache caused by asking too many questions. And there are several points where she says she can't ask anymore questions without potentially getting wrong answers.
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May 6, 2014 18:13
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Coil made her think he gave a kill order on Skitter and then totally didn't. Tattletale also underestimated danger, got cocky, and paid for it several times. Like the bank job going worse than she thought, or when Jack Slash cut her mouth open.
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May 6, 2014 18:22
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Wittgen posted:Coil made her think he gave a kill order on Skitter and then totally didn't. My understanding of this was that he did give the kill order in his alternate dimension, thus fooling her power.
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May 7, 2014 04:23
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Probably? I was clarifying the specific situation Ranma mentioned.
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May 7, 2014 10:40
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Rose is a Tattletale lite, much more bearable but a lot less badass. In fact I think Rose is my least liked character in Pact by far. Hell, Blake is not my favorite either, but Rose is just annoying. I think my favorite character right now is either Evan or Fell.
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May 7, 2014 11:14
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I'm reasonably certain Evan is the most popular character in Pact.
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May 7, 2014 11:47
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I think I like Maggie best. But yeah, Rose is a pretty annoying character. I think part of the problem is that, being stuck in a mirror, she doesn't really have the ability to do anything, just to kind of hang around and complain about not being able to do anything. That's the real issue I guess. I can handle her being kind of useless right now, but she's just such so drat mopey about everything.
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May 8, 2014 00:57
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Hugoon Chavez posted:Rose is a Tattletale lite, much more bearable but a lot less badass. Team Fell
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May 8, 2014 02:01
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Thursday bonus chapter is out.
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May 8, 2014 06:22
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I thought we weren't getting one this week? Or did we not have one last week? Everything I know is a lie.
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May 8, 2014 06:30
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Hugoon Chavez posted:Rose is a Tattletale lite, much more bearable but a lot less badass. Your first two statements are objectively wrong, but Fell's great. One of my favorite chapters, though, has to be the awakening of Blake's cabal. Wonder if they'll all make it out alive from this whole debacle - we pretty much have a sample size of one Wildbow work on his/her/its tendency to kill off members of Team Protagonist. (Although Peer murdered my favorite character at the end of the sample  )Edit: Like, look at poo poo from Rose's perspective. With the exception of her awakening attempt (and that was a fantastic couple of scenes for character development), all of her complaints are about Blake being an impulsive rear end and cutting her out of the decision loop. He had good reasons to want to move fast, but her concerns are extremely fair. Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 07:05 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 07:03
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I guess one of his opponents isn't too concerned about civilian casualties 
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May 8, 2014 12:50
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Your first two statements are objectively wrong, but Fell's great. I don't know - All she's done in this ENTIRE ARC is go 'that's a stupid idea' but offer no other suggestions other than essentially 'give up and sit around and do nothing, maybe it'll fix itself in a few weeks' then get pulled into conquest and forced to reveal all his plans and weaknesses. She has offered pretty much no useful suggestions or advice other than read from mirror-world books, which isn't so much her as her just being fortunate enough to still be able to reach the library. Her biggest contributions have been breaking some glass. In the mean time, Blake has gone through hell, 90% of the time with Rose somewhere else, and she attacks him for literally making any decision at all when she's not there, (and she'll attack him for the same decisions when she IS there, too!). I'm sorry, but when he's trying to save thousands of lives including his own AND HERS, sometimes you have to make autonomous decisions without waiting for the person who ISN'T THERE AND IS IN FACT KIDNAPPED to consult with. I'd respect her more if she had more to offer other than opposing everything Blake is doing. Blake is impulsive because they are both so unfamiliar with the magic world that there's really very few thoughtful, well planned decisions they can make, and they HAVE to make a decision. Despite Rose's constant nagging 'do nothing and hope a solution falls into your lap' is NOT an option for them. Oddly enough, in the comments I see a ton of people accusing Blake of being super manipulative and controlling and totally deserving it.. but I'm not really seeing it. Being a practictioner that can't lie pretty much by definition makes you at least somewhat manipulative just due to the way you have to communicate without lying while still not flat out telling everyone everything, but Blake seems like practically one of the most 'honest' people in the story - in that he tries to treat people well unless they're trying to screw him over, and the people he really deceives are the ones usually trying to harm him. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 13:03 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 13:01
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It's been mentioned a couple times that Blake is very good at short-term planning with Rose looking towards the long term. Unfortunately things have been changing too fast for any real long term planning to go on, so Rose hasn't been able to offer much other than complaining about Blake doing things too fast.
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May 8, 2014 13:22
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Ah, so Rose doesn't get better. That's too bad. I read a few more chapters and the "can't lie" thing is getting really aggravating. Like, it could be interesting. Aes Sedai did it pretty well. But I swear every dialog is *reasonable, not even that prying of a question* *evasive BS non-answer answer* *but seriously?* *Seriously* OR *lol gently caress u* Does that get toned down?
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May 8, 2014 13:37
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At this point I'm almost expecting Rose to end up as an antagonist. This last chapter had her saying that she's more Thornburn-y than Blake, which is pretty synonymous with saying she's the bigger rear end in a top hat, and yet still tries to make Blake seem like he's some kind of bad guy. It's almost like she's just angry at life in general, and taking it out on Blake because he happens to be the guy who's always around. Still, I bet if she had the chance, she would throw Blake under a bus to get out of the mirror world in an instant.
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May 8, 2014 13:48
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Pavlov posted:At this point I'm almost expecting Rose to end up as an antagonist. This last chapter had her saying that she's more Thornburn-y than Blake, which is pretty synonymous with saying she's the bigger rear end in a top hat, and yet still tries to make Blake seem like he's some kind of bad guy. It's almost like she's just angry at life in general, and taking it out on Blake because he happens to be the guy who's always around. Still, I bet if she had the chance, she would throw Blake under a bus to get out of the mirror world in an instant. To be fair, her situation does suck. Having your whole life not be real, unable to interact much with the real world, getting messed around with by every bad guy who shows up, and being tied to someone who leaps before he looks every time is kind of a downer. I mean, she has all the bad stuff Blake has to deal with, except she doesn't actually get to do anything about it and has to hope Blake does a good job.
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May 8, 2014 14:04
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Also he keeps jumping into these things head-first, and every time he does, he also puts her life at risk...
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May 8, 2014 14:20
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I get that Blake is going through some poo poo, but Rose is literally a mirror person who can't do much of anything beyond try to get this guy she barely knows to stop acting like such an impulsive dick and maybe listen to her calmly for a bit. I'm on her side for now, maybe if she had actual freedom then things might be different.
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May 8, 2014 14:34
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The thing is, while Rose is in a pretty lovely situation, she's also literally feeding of Blake's life-force for sustenance, and Blake hasn't complained about that once. Sure he's thought about how much it sucks, but who wouldn't. Hell, he's gone out of his way to try to be cool about her, making a pact to help her out, promising to consider her input, getting her out of Conquest's control, slitting his wrists to bring her back to life. How has she reacted to that? She manages to be more dissatisfied with him after each of those. When he promises to help her, she complains how she now feels obligated to promise the same. When he takes her input, she gets mad that her ideas aren't as good as his, even when she comes up with gems like "lets summon more demons". She hates not having any agency, but when Blake brings her back in the jail cell, and gives her some, she complains that he's putting too much pressure on her. He probably would have had an easier time escaping if he had just tried to do it himself. And when he manages to manipulate Conquest to get her back? Not even a "thank you", instead she gets into a huff about how much the whole situation was his fault. If anything, when she mentions how their partnership isn't equal, it's because she's being a burden. I think I managed to convince myself to like her less just by writing this. Pavlov fucked around with this message at 16:58 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 16:56
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Pavlov posted:I think I managed to convince myself to like her less just by writing this. We pretty desperately need an interlude from Rose's perspective. I'm very dissatisfied with her character right now, but we haven't gotten to see inside her head. From Blake's point of view, yeah, she's not a particularly sympathetic character. Edit: Remember how Fell commented that by exhausting his life force, Blake opened himself up to invasion by all sorts of nasties? Rose is connected to Blake somehow, and doesn't have a whole lot of life force to begin with. I wonder if we'll find out that she's the one who took in something unpleasant.
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May 8, 2014 17:07
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Yeah, one thing I love about these serials is how so many secondary characters are just as interesting or more interesting than the main characters. Grundulum posted:
Oooh, good catch. I was thinking that should have hit him by now.
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May 8, 2014 17:22
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Wolpertinger posted:Oddly enough, in the comments I see a ton of people accusing Blake of being super manipulative and controlling and totally deserving it.. but I'm not really seeing it. Being a practictioner that can't lie pretty much by definition makes you at least somewhat manipulative just due to the way you have to communicate without lying while still not flat out telling everyone everything, but Blake seems like practically one of the most 'honest' people in the story - in that he tries to treat people well unless they're trying to screw him over, and the people he really deceives are the ones usually trying to harm him. I feel like the comments section is more sympathetic to Rose because they see the descriptors of Rose as being smart, a long-term planner, etc, as instantly meaning more competent and then assume she's the real protagonist of the story. Or should be. The problem with Rose though is she views things as being too set in a certain structure, of rules and laws, when the key to being successful in this world is understanding which ones are bullshit and which ones aren't. See the fact that she was wary about using fire against the abstract demon. But that's apparently it's super big weakness of doom. Or see Blake's using of rather different things in the Awakening Rituals recently, but it worked just as well. What I'm saying is that Rose is an asset, sure, but a lot of people consider her to be way more competent than she is and Blake to be way more incompetent than he is. She actually shines when it comes to dealing with people more than anything. She can better spot the bullshit in what's said and produce bullshit of her own. Should be noted thought that Rose not only is in a lovely situation, Blake recently took from her (accidentally) the one thing that was undeniably her greatest attribute: the Thorburn voice. She got it back when he bled himself out, but he basically showed that if you just reverse the power transfer, she has literally nothing concrete to offer beyond her own personal abilities like thinking ahead and dealing with people. That's gotta make you feel pretty bad.
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May 8, 2014 21:59
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I'm seeing a strange thing in the comments where people are trying to turn disliking Rose into a sexism thing - the whole deal with saying that a 'strong female character automatically becomes a 'bitch'' but I don't really think that's right in this case. Honestly I could easily imagine this story with Blake as a woman without needing to change much about him - (ignoring the fact that Rose wouldn't exist then) and I'd still think Rose was abrasive, unpleasant, passive-aggressive, and manipulative in a way that Blake isn't. I'm just not seeing where people are getting all the 'blake is a jerk' 'blake is a sociopathic manipulator' accusations that has everyone crying 'poor rose' from  . His worst crime is being impulsive under extreme pressure and not always telling everyone about everything important he may have done, but I've always gotten the impression that it's more out of the fact that he's so incredibly exhausted that he doesn't always remember to consult and remind everyone about the five hundred different lifechanging events that's happened in the last hour.
Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 06:00 on May 9, 2014 |
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May 9, 2014 05:58
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Wolpertinger posted:I'm seeing a strange thing in the comments where people are trying to turn disliking Rose into a sexism thing - the whole deal with saying that a 'strong female character automatically becomes a 'bitch'' but I don't really think that's right in this case. Honestly I could easily imagine this story with Blake as a woman without needing to change much about him - (ignoring the fact that Rose wouldn't exist then) and I'd still think Rose was abrasive, unpleasant, passive-aggressive, and manipulative in a way that Blake isn't. I'm just not seeing where people are getting all the 'blake is a jerk' 'blake is a sociopathic manipulator' accusations that has everyone crying 'poor rose' from Really? People see Rose as a "strong female character"? Do they mean that in the (strong character, female) sense, or the (strong female, character) sense? The first I could see someone arguing if they just happen to like her, though I'd still disagree. The second is actually the opposite of what she is. Her place in the story so far has been almost entirely defined by her weakness and lack of agency. Most of her character that we've seen so far has been her coping with that weakness, and most of the reason I don't consider her a (strong character, female) is because that way of coping is abrasive and doesn't contribute much to the story. As much as I like Evan, I kind of wish Rose had become Blake's familiar. I feel like she would have mellowed up a bit if she were the one flying around stealing magic keychains. Barring that, the story could really benefit from her getting her own power source to throw about. If she could cast spells out of her mirrors instead of just ineffectually hitting them, she might get enough self esteem back to stop taking it out on Blake.
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May 9, 2014 14:34
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I'd say the latter. She hasn't really been given any screen time or opportunity to be a strong character. I feel that Wildbow has to do something with her soonish though, because right now she's just sort of pointless.
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May 9, 2014 14:50
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I'm still pretty sure that the lawyers are trying to recruit her rather than Blake. They say it over and over again when Blake asks: they don't want him.
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May 9, 2014 16:27
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pumpinglemma posted:I'm still pretty sure that the lawyers are trying to recruit her rather than Blake. They say it over and over again when Blake asks: they don't want him. Now there's a scary thought. And Blake would get dragged along with her because they count as the same person. Unless she'd somehow manage to live on after Blake is dead... yeah, I'm getting more and more antagonist vibes from Rose at this point.
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May 9, 2014 16:52
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I would not at all be surprised if Rose was intended by Grandma to be an antagonist from the get go. At the very least the death of one of the two would probably make the other a "real" Thorburn (tho that is much more of a sure thing in the case of Rose dieing than Blake, but the power balance does, after the whole bleeding himself bit, seem to go both ways).
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May 9, 2014 20:21
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I really should wait a week for 3 or so chapters at once. I'm starting to get the feeling of no progress, even though there is some. Everything feels really direct and the interaction between Blake and Rose feels really, forced? I'm not quite sure how to put it. It just does not feel like natural character interaction.
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May 9, 2014 22:38
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Rose is now offering constructive advice and useful suggestions again. Well, a useful suggestion. A potentially contest-winning suggestion, in fact. I don't really argue that she's a strong character, because she's flawed in a lot of the same ways Blake is and reacts very badly to her enforced vulnerability, but she's one I totally understand.
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May 10, 2014 05:19
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