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I always thought that the Cauldron members overestimated Contessa's power as a means of psychological self protection. First they do some morally questionable things on Contessa's recommendation. Then they convince themselves that her power is less fallible, to justify their actions. Then they do even more questionable things.
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Feb 12, 2018 16:42
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tonberrytoby posted:I always thought that the Cauldron members overestimated Contessa's power as a means of psychological self protection. That's a pretty interesting take on it, I like it.
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Feb 12, 2018 16:45
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Finally caught up all the way on Wandering Inn. Those Flos chapters towards the end were a real slog, but new Toren chapter made it all worth it.
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Feb 12, 2018 22:46
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So, in Mother of Learning (chapter 20-something spoilers) all the aranea were just killed and red robe was revealed as third time traveler. Zorian has decided to travel around. I like this story quite a bit. It is written pretty well and Zorian has ended up becoming a much better character than I expected (I like the gradual progression from being a nerdling to engaging with other human beings, and it was nice to see him admit that he formed an emotional connection with Novelty), though I'm not sure what to make of his general skill/competence. Logically speaking, he shouldn't be much better than your average newly-graduated mage at this point, since he's only been in the loop 2-3 years, but he seems dramatically better than most of the other characters we've seen in action except Zach and the big antagonists. I'm not sure how much sense it makes for him to be wrecking these mook mages during the invasion, since presumably those mages should at least be at the level of a magic school graduate or something. It seems like he has the advantage of being a mage who is willing to "think outside the box" and deal with things like spell formulas, though I'm not sure how plausible it is that so few other mages seem to have that level of common sense. My one gripe is the lack of visual character descriptions. I think I mentioned this before, but I have no idea what any of these characters are supposed to look like, aside from maybe Zach (who I think was described as having raven black hair and being generally good-looking).
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Feb 13, 2018 19:39
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I hope rain brutally murders some dudes.
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Feb 13, 2018 20:52
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Ytlaya posted:I like this story quite a bit. It is written pretty well and Zorian has ended up becoming a much better character than I expected (I like the gradual progression from being a nerdling to engaging with other human beings, and it was nice to see him admit that he formed an emotional connection with Novelty), though I'm not sure what to make of his general skill/competence. Logically speaking, he shouldn't be much better than your average newly-graduated mage at this point, since he's only been in the loop 2-3 years, but he seems dramatically better than most of the other characters we've seen in action except Zach and the big antagonists. I'm not sure how much sense it makes for him to be wrecking these mook mages during the invasion, since presumably those mages should at least be at the level of a magic school graduate or something. It seems like he has the advantage of being a mage who is willing to "think outside the box" and deal with things like spell formulas, though I'm not sure how plausible it is that so few other mages seem to have that level of common sense.
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Feb 13, 2018 21:45
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Todays Ward chapter was the first one where I got to the end and thought "Yeah! That was good." But I think that might be because Wildbow enjoys writing tourtured assholes, and Vicky is too nice.
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Feb 13, 2018 21:48
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Stairmaster posted:I hope rain brutally murders some dudes. All this build up to him being all sinister and bad to the bone and then he gets beat up by a farmer. His powers seem to suck too. I'm curious to see how they play out and end up being super great.
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Feb 13, 2018 22:08
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I don't think his powers suck, I think he just sucks. He's unimaginative and, from what we've seen, isn't experimenting too much or pushing his limits.
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Feb 13, 2018 22:27
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Plus he hesitates to use his most obviously effective power, because it's almost all-or-nothing. Though even then, he just learned it has one big weakness.
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Feb 13, 2018 23:39
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Pussy Quipped posted:I don't think his powers suck, I think he just sucks. He's unimaginative and, from what we've seen, isn't experimenting too much or pushing his limits. Yeah, him not even knowing about the clothing thing is a big sign that he hasn't really put much effort into figuring out how his powers work. Which makes sense, anyone who got powers in the same scenario he did would probably fear and/or resent them, but it's also not great for his overall survival chances. At least he (hopefully) knows now: aim for the head. ... Now I'm thinking that the lovely arms he makes are probably much better then he thinks, he just hasn't figured out what they actually do. In the other examples of cluster-triggers (like The Stable) none of the powers they get are useless, they're just very specific and situational because everyone got a fragment of a broader power.
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Feb 13, 2018 23:40
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lmao when it turns out the reason the tinker power is trying to drive him towards making more hands is because he can produce a blade for every hand he has
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Feb 14, 2018 01:34
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Pussy Quipped posted:I don't think his powers suck, I think he just sucks. He's unimaginative and, from what we've seen, isn't experimenting too much or pushing his limits. This was really apparent to me because he had no idea how long his mover power would hold him in place. Like, that is basic poo poo to know before you're using it in a fight. I think that he's just been in such a lovely head-space since his trigger (literally everyone besides team therapy are on him about being lovely, even in his dreams) that he believes they suck and has mostly thrown in the towel on actually figuring them out in an objective way. All in all, this chapter finishes rounding out the current situation really nicely and puts us in a spot with a bunch of stuff to worry about that isn't members of the team falling apart.
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Feb 14, 2018 11:21
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tonberrytoby posted:I always thought that the Cauldron members overestimated Contessa's power as a means of psychological self protection. hadn't thought of that but it makes sense. the more sins you pile up the more you're going to lean on this rationalisation, and you'll be conditioned in other ways to be dependent on it.
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Feb 14, 2018 11:36
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Despite all the rampant speculation on secret bad guys, 'oh it looked like they were really shady but actually they're mostly just pathetic' is basically the conclusion for both Rain and Kenzie at this point (except she's still shady as gently caress too). So I'm guessing the same will be true for the rest of the team too. Replace shady with megalomaniacal in the case of Ashley and team mom in the case of Sveta.
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Feb 14, 2018 14:46
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Insurrectionist posted:Despite all the rampant speculation on secret bad guys, 'oh it looked like they were really shady but actually they're mostly just pathetic' is basically the conclusion for both Rain and Kenzie at this point (except she's still shady as gently caress too). So I'm guessing the same will be true for the rest of the team too. Replace shady with megalomaniacal in the case of Ashley and team mom in the case of Sveta. rain might actually have been less pathetic before the post-trigger stuff messed him up and, ironically, let him be a better person kenzie's great though
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Feb 14, 2018 20:59
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I think Ashley has a bad case of trying to figure out who she is, when all her memories are "bonesaw's guide to being damsel of distress 101". So when she doesn't know how to or want to deal with a situation, she just defaults to that. I'm guessing doing stuff with the team and getting real experiences to ground herself with will fix that. Tristan has the potential to be a complete piece of poo poo that rips the team apart, but that is more of a wait-and-see. His mexican standoff with Byron is pretty worrying. Chris is maybe the most worrying since we don't really know anything about him, except his power works his emotions over, so he is possibly less stable than the others if he doesn't balance himself out well. He at least puts on a front of having taken a lot out of the therapy sessions at least. Kenzie seems like as long as they're keeping a pretty close eye over her she'll be ok, but if things get too hot and they start slacking on monitoring her it could get pretty bad pretty fast.
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Feb 14, 2018 21:17
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Let's all make peace with the fact that Victoria will definitely have the biggest blow-out of all, sure she's one of the more functional members of the team in day-to-day life but she's also probably the most liable to randomly explode without warning too. And the more poo poo goes down around town, the more likely for Amy or whoever's coordinating her around Victoria is to slip up on just that.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:20
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Insurrectionist posted:Let's all make peace with the fact that Victoria will definitely have the biggest blow-out of all, sure she's one of the more functional members of the team in day-to-day life but she's also probably the most liable to randomly explode without warning too. And the more poo poo goes down around town, the more likely for Amy or whoever's coordinating her around Victoria is to slip up on just that. I'm half-convinced that when she finds out how Rain's trigger event went down she's going to go "gently caress this" and refuse to protect him.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:40
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Prac Guide always cracks me up hard with the undead names.
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Feb 15, 2018 10:47
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Rain's friend has the sickest tats. I'm not sure if the implication was meant to be that Rain doesn't know how long his power holds him in places, or that it's not consistent.
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Feb 15, 2018 12:02
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Dzhay posted:Rain's friend has the sickest tats. I said it earlier, but Wildbow has done an excellent job of fleshing out a cult. They're loving scary poo poo. Either he doesn't know, or it isn't consistent. If it isn't consistent, why would you ever use it that way without being able to ensure the other guy can't counter attack? Either way its really dumb and shows that in terms of fighting and using his powers he is really, really bad. That is just another thing showing that it isn't his powers that is the problem, even though he thinks they are.
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Feb 15, 2018 12:14
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:Prac Guide always cracks me up hard with the undead names. I'm surprised none of them were called "Mage Goat" or something like that. Crackpot, tin-foil hat theory time (most recent chapter of Practical Guide) What if Cat low-key transitioned at the start of this chapter, with Fall now as her first aspect of the new name? This theory is mostly based on this paragraph: "So I seized my hatreds and accepted them for what they were: the foundations of my power. I’d been told once that a Name could not spring from void, but that’d been untrue. It was Roles that were shaped by the currents of Creation, left glittering and polished stones at the bottom of the riverbed. Names were something more… intimate. A collection of sharp moments before and ahead of you. Huddling hungry under covers, after the price of bread had risen. Blood in my mouth as I fought a man too large and strong to beat, defeat crawling ever closer. It was a lesson on the nature of stories, learned by burned shores. It was a faceless tribunal whose verdict I had refused. I’d tried for so long to make something of all this, to weave together a tale that did not have bile rising in my throat. But there was nothing sacred about baring your blade, nothing laudable about telling the world it must bend or break. If I disdained the lay of Creation as ordained by the Gods, the banners of black and white, then I must either make my own or find myself nothing but a butcher among butchers. And so I took those vivid moments and made them a blade, and that blade I bared once more. It could begin here, under cover of moonless night." To me that quote sort of seems like she's forging a new name for herself out of nothingness, unbound to Gods Above or Below. Or maybe she's just sinking deeper into her name than she ever is before. I dunno, just tossing out a random thought
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Feb 15, 2018 14:24
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https://twitter.com/qntm/status/962707817835782145
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Feb 15, 2018 14:33
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Cicero posted:The main explanation for Zorian being so good I think is that a) he's a generally smart dude in general, b) by virtue of the time loop he can access resources that others could not, and c) he can take certain risks to accelerate his learning that would be too dangerous for someone not stuck in a time loop. I agree. It's like he's been studying 100% towards a goal for 3 years with unlimited resources and connections. On top of being not only a generally smart dude but probably just as smart and talented as his famous older brother. Most people take breaks and have hobbies. He dedicates his entire life to learning poo poo. Can you become a mage in three years if you study hard and are talented? Sure anyone can do that. Can you become a great mage in that same time if you're really talented and have the best tutors and the chance to really experiment with little to no risk and basically infinite resources? Definitely. He's still no archmage and not one years later either but he is good and he is always prepared. Also he has one unfair advantage that lets him defeat most of these probably experienced battle wizards. He is very very good at mind magic
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Feb 15, 2018 16:02
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Regarding Ward, I'm not caught up yet but one thing that's been bugging me a little is that I feel like Wildbow is trying too hard to create "unique" powers. Like half of the powers that have been introduced so far have been pretty convoluted. In Worm, even the grab-bag capes generally had a set of powers that worked together in some coherent way. An example of one of the newly introduced characters with a power that is both unique and easy to understand is the guy who you can't look or aim at from Arc 1. But a lot of these other characters have powers that are just overly complex in my opinion. I wouldn't mind if just a couple characters had powers like this, but they're so frequent it feels noticeable in comparison with Worm.Affi posted:I agree. It's like he's been studying 100% towards a goal for 3 years with unlimited resources and connections. On top of being not only a generally smart dude but probably just as smart and talented as his famous older brother. Most people take breaks and have hobbies. He dedicates his entire life to learning poo poo. Eh, he makes it pretty clear he's not as talented as Daimen, and his experience prior to the time loops basically supports this. If it were just him having low self-esteem, his talent would still be reflected in the way his teachers and classmates view him. Daimen was apparently a prodigy throughout his entire life, and it was clear before he reached Zorian's age. Also I'm not sure where you're getting the "infinite resources" stuff. He can spend his savings over the course of month, but he's still limited in the info he can acquire from the library (and certainly doesn't have access to more than any decent graduated mage, or a mage from a wealthy family, in that regard). His situation (so far) completely explains him leaving other students in the dust, but not so much a decent adult mage. As far as I can tell, there are two things that reasonably set him apart: 1. The mind magic is really the big thing that could reasonably make him truly stand out, because he's not only an empath, but likely one of only a handful ever taught to use the ability correctly. Granted, this isn't really relevant to his other mage skills, but it's relevant to his overall ability. 2. I get the impression mages are generally not very creative. They mentioned them being taken completely off-guard by widespread use of guns, and it's possible that mages generally aren't willing to make use of basic spell formulas for combat items in the way Zorian does. It's not that hard for me to believe that Zorian would at least stand out above his fellow non-Zach classmates, and the one combat oriented teacher we've seen (Kyron) still leaves him in the dust. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Feb 16, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 22:32
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Cool. Apparently 3 more chapters on top of that to come.
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Feb 16, 2018 01:58
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Ytlaya posted:Regarding Ward, I'm not caught up yet but one thing that's been bugging me a little is that I feel like Wildbow is trying too hard to create "unique" powers. Like half of the powers that have been introduced so far have been pretty convoluted. In Worm, even the grab-bag capes generally had a set of powers that worked together in some coherent way. An example of one of the newly introduced characters with a power that is both unique and easy to understand is the guy who you can't look or aim at from Arc 1. But a lot of these other characters have powers that are just overly complex in my opinion. I wouldn't mind if just a couple characters had powers like this, but they're so frequent it feels noticeable in comparison with Worm. Yeah I agree with that. Rain's, Tristan's, and Chris's have a ton of complexity up front. It's a pretty standard issue I think. You see it in game design too. The first few designs have mechanics that are simple at first but having deepness underneath, and then later stuff oscillates between no simplicity and no depth. It's a fine line to walk, particularly as the easy (for the designer) design space gets filled.
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Feb 16, 2018 02:03
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Ytlaya posted:Regarding Ward, I'm not caught up yet but one thing that's been bugging me a little is that I feel like Wildbow is trying too hard to create "unique" powers. Like half of the powers that have been introduced so far have been pretty convoluted. In Worm, even the grab-bag capes generally had a set of powers that worked together in some coherent way. An example of one of the newly introduced characters with a power that is both unique and easy to understand is the guy who you can't look or aim at from Arc 1. But a lot of these other characters have powers that are just overly complex in my opinion. I wouldn't mind if just a couple characters had powers like this, but they're so frequent it feels noticeable in comparison with Worm. I'm trying to get into Ward -- really, really trying -- but I can't help but feel the audience he's writing for are the 'core fans'. The story feels secondary to the metagame, for lack of a better term. That sort of over-complexity is the result.
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Feb 16, 2018 02:08
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It's only in this last arc + interludes that Ward has started to click for me. I was pretty bored before then. It's still not at the point where I'm recommending it to anyone.
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Feb 16, 2018 02:12
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Milky Moor posted:I'm trying to get into Ward -- really, really trying -- but I can't help but feel the audience he's writing for are the 'core fans'. The story feels secondary to the metagame, for lack of a better term. That sort of over-complexity is the result. The current chapter (4) is really excellent, I’d encourage you (and anyone else catching up) to stick with it. I know that three whole chapters of dense setup (four, including the prologue) is a lot to get through but it finally feels like we’ve hit the meat of the story and I’m loving the hell out of it.
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Feb 16, 2018 03:14
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The author's been pretty blunt that Ward is for people who finished Worm, and I think it'd be fair to call people who finished Worm "core fans". That poo poo's 1700000 words. I'm also really not seeing the complexity everyone here is talking about. Rain has a collection of unrelated powers, but they're individually simple. The only complicated thing about Tristan is the thing he has going on with Byron; you take that away and his power is really simple (he makes rocks, and water, and can turn them into each other), so it seems like the author picked a simple power to be a better showcase for the twin thing. Chris turns into monsters based on emotions, and needs to do so on a regular basis to feel those emotions. They all have a lot of nuances to them, but so do the Undersiders; in both Worm and Ward you can reduce the characters' powers down to short descriptions or go into more detail.
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Feb 16, 2018 03:24
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the powers in worm are deceptively simple on account of taylor doesn't know poo poo and nobody tells her anything
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Feb 16, 2018 04:11
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when you get the individual character interludes and see the world from their perspectives you see that the outward display of their power is much simpler than what it actually is. the group in ward explains to each other what their powers do so you get a bit of that i think. also Victoria just knows more about how everything works so the narrator knows more in this story than in worm. but yeah the powers are pretty out there
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Feb 16, 2018 04:22
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I'm getting a little worried that Victoria can't carry the story as the protagonist. The interludes just seem so much more compelling so far than the main chapters.
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Feb 16, 2018 04:39
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TheRagamuffin posted:I'm getting a little worried that Victoria can't carry the story as the protagonist. The interludes just seem so much more compelling so far than the main chapters. I feel like Victoria is just spinning her wheels, she doesn't seem very driven to do anything in particular and it's a weird shift from worm. Like she barely has control over her powers and her reaction seems to be to shrug and use them less.
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Feb 16, 2018 04:46
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It's a very different story because it has a very different protagonist, and like Worm you are stuck directly inside the protagonist's head seeing things exclusively from their perspective and via their stream of consciousness. Victoria is a very, very different person from Taylor, and that's gonna take a lot of adjustment for people. That said, the pace is also a lot slower, which matters. By this arc in Worm we'd fought and mostly beaten one of the strongest capes in the city, joined a supervillain team, robbed a bank, got nearly killed by an insane city bomber, and entirely dismantled a major villain gang. In Ward we've fought a small cape team, gone to a bunch of job interviews, gone to therapy, trained a bit, and done some minor espionage. It's a very, very different story.
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Feb 16, 2018 05:14
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Practical Guide No longer Squire I'm going to say Also now strongly suspecting Black in the takedown of the old guard generals. Clean slate for Cat. lurksion fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Feb 16, 2018 |
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Feb 16, 2018 06:19
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The Shortest Path posted:That said, the pace is also a lot slower, which matters. By this arc in Worm we'd fought and mostly beaten one of the strongest capes in the city, joined a supervillain team, robbed a bank, got nearly killed by an insane city bomber, and entirely dismantled a major villain gang. In Ward we've fought a small cape team, gone to a bunch of job interviews, gone to therapy, trained a bit, and done some minor espionage. It's a very, very different story. Holy poo poo, I was going by arcs, and I was going to say "neah, arc 4 of Worm was way earlier in the story than that". Then I thought to do it by word count instead of arc count, and you're actually downplaying it if anything; at this point in Worm by word count, we were midway through arc 7; we hadn't just entirely dismantled a major villain gang, we'd fought the adult heroes over the credit for it, solved the mystery we'd originally set out to solve, run away from home to commit to being a villain and helping a Bond villain take over our city, and maybe even set things in motion to dismantle another major villain gang by leaking their identities to the press. We're only a few chapters away from Leviathan. To be fair, I think that this Hollow Point/Fallen fight we're currently setting up in Ward will likely be on par with Leviathan as a turning point in the story; it's larger in scope than anything up to this point in Worm (at least sixty capes versus a much smaller but not insignificant force!), maybe even larger in scope than the Leviathan fight, and it's personal for our leads. It's coming up soon, too; I would be very surprised if it weren't the main subject of Ward arc 5.
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Feb 16, 2018 06:28
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21 Muns posted:Holy poo poo, I was going by arcs, and I was going to say "neah, arc 4 of Worm was way earlier in the story than that". Then I thought to do it by word count instead of arc count, and you're actually downplaying it if anything; at this point in Worm by word count, we were midway through arc 7; we hadn't just entirely dismantled a major villain gang, we'd fought the adult heroes over the credit for it, solved the mystery we'd originally set out to solve, run away from home to commit to being a villain and helping a Bond villain take over our city, and maybe even set things in motion to dismantle another major villain gang by leaking their identities to the press. We're only a few chapters away from Leviathan. I was really curious about this comparison.
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Feb 16, 2018 06:38
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