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Silynt posted:Everything that Akua said is true, and Cat is so deep in the self loathing that it's starting to drive me nuts. Also, the bit about this plan making no sense is very true. I wonder what the dwarves are up to, I hope we finally meet some after hearing about them in hushed whispers for the past 5 books. From what I understand, dwarves are basically a super big and mighty civilization that exists underground throughout most/all of the continent, and are powerful by virtue of their numbers and innate strength (that IIRC is greater than that of orcs), while gnomes are basically untouchable due to having super-advanced technology. I wonder if gnomes get their own Named. I bet they have a Named that pilots a gundam. edit: Ivah is Cat's pokemon that she is raising through having it gain XP from the dead bodies of its kin edit2: Just read the most recent chapter, and I disagree about the basic essence of what Akua said being true. It's technically true that things wouldn't have been better without Catherine (though Catherine definitely made some bad decisions), but it's also a logic that doesn't lead to improvement. It's important that Cat continue to strive for some better solution, and the fact that things would have been terrible regardless of her actions doesn't somehow justify saying "and thus there's less pressure for me to make things better now." At the end of the day, she still chose to have the power she has, and as a result it's her responsibility to seek the best outcome possible with that power. And Cat realizes that stepping down currently won't help, so it's not like she's telling herself that her existence is actively harming Callow. Also, both Akua and Cat (through agreeing with her) were flat-out wrong about Callowans being unwilling to accept being a province of another country. We know from the earlier parts of the story that your average Callowan commoner is actually totally willing to accept living as a subject of Praes or whatever, as long as their basic needs are met. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Sep 12, 2018 |
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Sep 12, 2018 19:43
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Even on the power level that Cat is on right now, even if she could defeat an army of dwarves in single combat they still hold too much power over the one thing she cares about more than anything else, her country, and she's not powerful enough to prevent a city or a country from collapsing into a giant sinkhole indefinitely yet. I have a feeling we won't actually get them as an antagonist for a while, if ever - I could easily just see them being an undefeatable excuse as to why technology is forbidden, since actually coming into conflict with them is too risky and this isn't one of those 'uplift the world into the modern era and make old fashioned wizardry obsolete' stories.. yet, anyway. Honestly I can't see even an army equipped with modern technology escaping the narrative or Names, it'd just be the equivalent to using some Invincible Magical Superweapon for the purposes of the plot, which means you'd get punished by heroes or villains for your hubris if it wasn't used extremely carefully, so it's not worth the risk to even try to get guns or something. Though, it makes you wonder about the dwarves and their relationship to the narrative and Names. Maybe they're doing their Gods-given job to keep the parameters of the whole experiment in line and not letting it escape into a different genre and are deliberately not part of the 'stories' going on elsewhere. Ytlaya posted:Also, both Akua and Cat (through agreeing with her) were flat-out wrong about Callowans being unwilling to accept being a province of another country. We know from the earlier parts of the story that your average Callowan commoner is actually totally willing to accept living as a subject of Praes or whatever, as long as their basic needs are met. I think it's more that they're unwilling to accept being a subject of Procer, who they have an extra special grudge for beyond even Praes, especially right now. Callow has rebelled against Praes rule during the many times it's been conquered in the past - it was only Black and Malicia's social engineering and unusual methods of maintaining control that actually managed to stamp out most rebellion. If Procer took over, they definitely wouldn't be as savvy as Black was, and would probably shamelessly squeeze Callow dry, inviting resentment and rebellion. Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Sep 13, 2018 |
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Sep 13, 2018 05:25
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callow was only conquered by praes once before, but procer many i think. also the anti technology people are gnomes not dwarfs
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Sep 13, 2018 05:55
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violent sex idiot posted:callow was only conquered by praes once before, but procer many i think. also the anti technology people are gnomes not dwarfs For some weird reason I thought there was only one race of underground people, but people were calling them both gnomes and dwarves.
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Sep 13, 2018 07:27
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gnomes are from a different continent and have flying machines i think
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Sep 13, 2018 07:32
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Not sure I fully understood the conversation between cat and akua, but i am not feeling great thanks to this cold, so maybe I'll re-read it later
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Sep 13, 2018 10:05
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My hot take on the conversation between Akua and Catherine is that Akua is correct in her arguments but Catherine's own guilt and all that poo poo is the only thing keeping her from becoming a complete monster, so she should just be ignored. And yeah, Akua is completely correct. poo poo would have probably gone way worse if it weren't for Catherine. Akua, for one, would have undoubtedly done even more damage. Callow is targeted not because it's occupied by an Evil power, but because it is weak. Procer occupied it plenty of times when it was Good and also weak. If the Heroes were really interested in combating Evil they'd go knock off the Dead King or Malicia or the Black Knight. But they deem Catherine a more reasonable target, so they target Callow, then they get to declare victory and head home having actually accomplished nothing other than consolidate Cordelia's power (who came to power on a mountain of corpses of her countrymen as well).
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Sep 13, 2018 10:22
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Wolpertinger posted:Even on the power level that Cat is on right now, even if she could defeat an army of dwarves in single combat they still hold too much power over the one thing she cares about more than anything else, her country, and she's not powerful enough to prevent a city or a country from collapsing into a giant sinkhole indefinitely yet. I have a feeling we won't actually get them as an antagonist for a while, if ever - I could easily just see them being an undefeatable excuse as to why technology is forbidden, since actually coming into conflict with them is too risky and this isn't one of those 'uplift the world into the modern era and make old fashioned wizardry obsolete' stories.. yet, anyway. I think the dwarves and gnomes are separate things. The Dwarves are more technologically advanced than the surface Calernian nations, but not hyper-advanced like the gnomes (for example, they still use crossbows, just better ones, while gnomes have magical airships that can drop atom bombs and poo poo). SerSpook posted:My hot take on the conversation between Akua and Catherine is that Akua is correct in her arguments but Catherine's own guilt and all that poo poo is the only thing keeping her from becoming a complete monster, so she should just be ignored. Akua made the kind of argument that is technically correct but used in support of a wrong conclusion/outcome (in the sense that it's sort of implied that Cat should stop being hard on herself, when she absolutely should still be hard on herself - the fact that things would be even worse without her doesn't somehow make her less guilty for the mistakes she's made). edit: Cat and Thief are basically the only two members of the Woe who aren't extremely hosed up morally, so there's not much stopping Catherine from devolving into something pretty bad if she loses her current perspective. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Sep 13, 2018 |
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Sep 13, 2018 19:36
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Unexpected Thursday Ward interlude! It's pretty nice getting backstory on Capricorn.
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Sep 13, 2018 21:08
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21 Muns posted:Unexpected Thursday Ward interlude! It's pretty nice getting backstory on Capricorn. If by nice you mean soul-crushing then yeah.
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Sep 13, 2018 21:15
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Pussy Quipped posted:If by nice you mean soul-crushing then yeah. Looks at the thread title. Yep, checks out.
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Sep 14, 2018 01:46
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Pussy Quipped posted:If by nice you mean soul-crushing then yeah. I just read it and this might be one of my favorite chapters to date.
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Sep 14, 2018 04:15
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Lone Goat posted:Looks at the thread title. 
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Sep 14, 2018 06:51
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Ytlaya posted:Akua made the kind of argument that is technically correct but used in support of a wrong conclusion/outcome (in the sense that it's sort of implied that Cat should stop being hard on herself, when she absolutely should still be hard on herself - the fact that things would be even worse without her doesn't somehow make her less guilty for the mistakes she's made). that is basically what i said, yes
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Sep 14, 2018 09:26
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Jesus loving christ, the Worm fandom (especially reddit) is driving me up a wall with how they're reacting to 9.X: They're deep in a "Byron is a pure cinnamon bun" and "Tristan is a literal rapist for wanting to have sex with his condition" circlejerk. I liked this chapter, but I really hope the next chapter is a Tristan interlude because the reaction to this one is obnoxious and I want something to balance it out.
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Sep 15, 2018 08:51
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Illuen posted:Jesus loving christ, the Worm fandom (especially reddit) is driving me up a wall with how they're reacting to 9.X: They're deep in a "Byron is a pure cinnamon bun" and "Tristan is a literal rapist for wanting to have sex with his condition" circlejerk. I liked this chapter, but I really hope the next chapter is a Tristan interlude because the reaction to this one is obnoxious and I want something to balance it out. I'm definitely curious to see where he was at mentally when he started refusing to let Byron out, and if that's why his parents basically gave up on him, but sadly I think the next few chapters are going to be about the boring old assault on an extradimensional prison full of villains and brainwashed guards.
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Sep 15, 2018 22:06
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Good to know that is Amy is still the loving worst.
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Sep 15, 2018 23:32
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Sinistral posted:Good to know that is Amy is still the loving worst. I’m about 99% sure that she was trying to remove Goddesses mind whammy on Icktoria but Jesus gently caress, she’s the queen of not understanding personal boundaries. If I were her I would’ve tried to get to Kenzie first, she’s probably the member of Breakthrough least likely to raise a fuss with Amy touching her, and also one of the most useful people for Operation: Stop Goddess.
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Sep 16, 2018 01:00
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In case anyone goes to TopWebFiction and sees 'Metaworld Chronicles' at #3 and thinks it might be worth a shot: it isn't.
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Sep 17, 2018 13:51
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The web serial reader base is pretty dire. I saw someone in the comments section of a recent Ward chapter wishing Natalie would trigger, and thinking it still had a good chance of happening because "triggering requires loneliness" (they somehow misread the conditions for Golem's trigger event as being universal). Edit: Also all the people constantly wanting Worm characters, including Taylor, to show up and do things.
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Sep 17, 2018 19:03
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I've been working through The Gods Are Bastards recently, and it's pretty okay but the structure is so weird. As of where I am (arc 7-ish) the kids at the D&D school have probably occupied 70-80% of the total story, and sure I have fun reading about what they're up to, but you could cut out everything that happens in Last Rock and not really effect the story. (I know it's not supposed to be the main focus, but I find what Darling and his squad of increasingly horrible friends are up to much more interesting.)
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Sep 18, 2018 05:11
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I assume TGaB is like TWI in that the side stories are vastly more interesting than the actual story?
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Sep 18, 2018 21:25
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It's kind of weird: there are very few interludes, but two main sets of viewpoint characters- about 20% of the chapters follow a con man and his buddies as they do high-level espionage, and the rest alternate between the viewpoints of a number of students at D&D hogwarts. Both stories are fun to read, the problem is that at least 7 arcs in, every time the con man appears massive Plot poo poo feels like it's happening, and when the kids have focus their story is much more street level. They're mostly children of extremely influential dudes who appear elsewhere, so you can picture how they could get roped into the intrigue and world-shaking hijinks you see in con man's story, but it never really seems to happen; they just run around doing mildly interesting but ultimately irrelevant stuff in service of their education.
Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Sep 18, 2018 |
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Sep 18, 2018 22:08
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I'm looking to get back into PracGuide once I catch up on the last two arcs of Ward, which book was the one with the faerie stuff, where she wrote herself into the narrative? Was that three?
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Sep 18, 2018 23:20
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Yes, the Fae are the first half of book 3.
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Sep 18, 2018 23:39
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Silynt posted:In case anyone goes to TopWebFiction and sees 'Metaworld Chronicles' at #3 and thinks it might be worth a shot: it isn't. You didn't like it? I thought it side-stepped a lot of the worst web serial tropes and pitfalls pretty well while also being about as well written as a web serial can be. If I were to voice a complaint it would probably the frequent fashion digressions - but that's hardly a cardinal sin. Also, it does the whole "insidious, corrupting power" thing pretty well. To the point that even when I, the reader, know what the main character is doing is probably objectively "wrong" her internal justifications are convincing enough that I find myself nodding along. Especially in the recent chapters that revolve around eating people.
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Sep 19, 2018 04:33
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I gave it a shot and thought it would be about a girl with no talent making up for it with knowledge and cool applications of her power. Instead it was surprise they screwed up the test and she is really super OP.
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Sep 19, 2018 06:24
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I really like where the recent PracGuide chapters have been going; earlier on I expected they'd never really touch upon the races like drow/dwarves directly, so it's kinda nice to see them become involved with things. Overall I'd say that PracGuide is the most competently and entertainingly plotted web serial among all the ones I've read, even if others might have stronger prose or (in some ways) characterization. It somehow manages to maintain a high pace without falling into the trap that wildbow's series do, where there's a feeling of constant escalation and/or cliffhangers (Twig still had the latter, and Ward has a sort of subdued version of both).
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Sep 21, 2018 06:47
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Ytlaya posted:I really like where the recent PracGuide chapters have been going; earlier on I expected they'd never really touch upon the races like drow/dwarves directly, so it's kinda nice to see them become involved with things. I'd mostly agree... I'd argue that PracGuide's arcs might be a bit too long (I found arc 3 simultaneously exhausting and too packed with content), but that's highly subjective. I think my only big criticism of it (besides the fact that the author doesn't edit and proofread their stuff enough) is its tendency to go on incredibly long chains of interludes that, while individually interesting, aren't where I want to be as a reader. I know they're often the most interesting part of the story, but by late arc 2 I was already hitting a point where when I read two interludes in a row I'd just pop back to the table of contents and skip past however many were left to get back to the story.
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Sep 21, 2018 07:00
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I gave Worth the Candle another shot and ended up binging the whole thing. Everything , even the weird stuff, is actually building to something, and it all comes together wonderfully around the time he meets the dungeon master. The b plot about Arthur gets interesting when they find the house, and Juniper and the gang get some intense character development. Also, I'm now pretty sure Juniper killed himself
Ghetto Prince fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 13:43
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Omi no Kami posted:I'd mostly agree... I'd argue that PracGuide's arcs might be a bit too long (I found arc 3 simultaneously exhausting and too packed with content), but that's highly subjective. I think my only big criticism of it (besides the fact that the author doesn't edit and proofread their stuff enough) is its tendency to go on incredibly long chains of interludes that, while individually interesting, aren't where I want to be as a reader. I know they're often the most interesting part of the story, but by late arc 2 I was already hitting a point where when I read two interludes in a row I'd just pop back to the table of contents and skip past however many were left to get back to the story. I have mixed feelings about PracGuide's interludes. They're often some of the best standalone chapters, and they're nearly always positioned exactly where they need to be to work. There's only a handful where I've gotten to the end and thought "that really could have been told from Cat's perspective" or "that could have waited until the current sub-arc was done". Despite that... I'm still always initially disappointed when I open a new chapter and see an interlude, and one of the long blocks of interludes led to me dropping the story for a year or so. Ytlaya posted:Overall I'd say that PracGuide is the most competently and entertainingly plotted web serial among all the ones I've read, even if others might have stronger prose or (in some ways) characterization. It somehow manages to maintain a high pace without falling into the trap that wildbow's series do, where there's a feeling of constant escalation and/or cliffhangers (Twig still had the latter, and Ward has a sort of subdued version of both). PracGuide ends on cliffhangers all the time, but it helps that they're usually not too forced. If there's a cliff to fall off of then you can be sure that the last line of the chapter will be Cat tripping, but cliffs don't magically appear just for the sake of a bullshit cliffhanger that's resolved in the first sentence of the next chapter.
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Sep 21, 2018 20:38
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Plorkyeran posted:PracGuide ends on cliffhangers all the time, but it helps that they're usually not too forced. If there's a cliff to fall off of then you can be sure that the last line of the chapter will be Cat tripping, but cliffs don't magically appear just for the sake of a bullshit cliffhanger that's resolved in the first sentence of the next chapter. The cliffhangers don't feel the same, at least to me. I think part of it is related to the tone of the story and nature of the setting, where a life and death situation for Catherine doesn't feel the same as it would for, say, Taylor in Worm (and I feel like the truly life or death situations aren't quite as common). I don't end up with the same sort of "fatigue" from it, for whatever reason. Ward has been considerably better about this than both Worm and Twig, in my opinion.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:18
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One of Wildbow's strengths as a writer is that he's actually really good at horror, and while Worm isn't a horror story per se it often evokes the genre. PracGuide has none of that; even horrible atrocities have a somewhat comedic tone rather than horror.
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Sep 22, 2018 02:14
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Well, I binged Not All Heroes. It's okay. I'm not intending to keep track of it or anything but it killed a slow day for me and that's okay. With regards to future plot developments on it; I sort of doubt that the other two AI were as uncaring or uncomplicit as they were painted by SHIVA, and I'd be unsurprised if they used the chaos SHIVA caused to dispose of certain targets. I suspect that Gate is an agent of theirs - playing both sides of the game only makes sense and it'd give him a source of backup/kickstart. I also doubt that any of the three are/were wrong in their actions - it is a matter of time until someone rolls a doomsday power and uses it as such. Worse, if an alien rolled a fuckoff tier doomsday power out-system and the (hopefully metaphorical) blast wave is inbound.
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Sep 22, 2018 06:00
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Plorkyeran posted:PracGuide has none of that; even horrible atrocities have a somewhat comedic tone rather than horror. This is purely my own head canon, but I've always been fond of the idea that the Woe are intentionally hamming up their part as a way to buff themselves, and the comedic overtones are intentional moves on their part to get the benefits of being horrible villains in the story without actually being particularly bad folks. Speaking of monsters I'm still working my way through TGaB, and while most of it is good fun Basra's sections are really starting to grate on me. Earlier in the story Avei worshipers were depicted as so hard-line that even using gendered insults around a silver legionnaire was generally enough to generate a confrontation, but it seems like every single character shrugs off Basra being a sociopathic rapist who abuses at least one of her staff so thoroughly that literally everyone Covrin talks to who isn't Basra instantly figures out that something's wrong.
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Sep 22, 2018 06:57
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Omi no Kami posted:Speaking of monsters I'm still working my way through TGaB, and while most of it is good fun Basra's sections are really starting to grate on me. Earlier in the story Avei worshipers were depicted as so hard-line that even using gendered insults around a silver legionnaire was generally enough to generate a confrontation, but it seems like every single character shrugs off Basra being a sociopathic rapist who abuses at least one of her staff so thoroughly that literally everyone Covrin talks to who isn't Basra instantly figures out that something's wrong. The reason for that is, ironically, because Avei worshipers are so hard-line. The gods are presumed to generally keep an eye on their followers, and Basra is one of her most prominent and important. Avei has been known to seriously gently caress up even her own paladins who abuse her power. Therefore, how could Basra possibly be a sociopathic rapist without drawing the immediate and permanent wrath of her goddess whenever she tried to call on divine energy? That's what most of the people who aren't close to the situation are gonna think, with even Rouvad assuming it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it really was. This is obviously not the case, which is part of the whole overarching plot point about there being something seriously hosed up with the gods and how they work.
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Sep 22, 2018 07:17
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The Shortest Path posted:The reason for that is, ironically, because Avei worshipers are so hard-line. The gods are presumed to generally keep an eye on their followers, and Basra is one of her most prominent and important. Avei has been known to seriously gently caress up even her own paladins who abuse her power. Therefore, how could Basra possibly be a sociopathic rapist without drawing the immediate and permanent wrath of her goddess whenever she tried to call on divine energy? That's what most of the people who aren't close to the situation are gonna think, with even Rouvad assuming it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it really was. This is obviously not the case, which is part of the whole overarching plot point about there being something seriously hosed up with the gods and how they work. Hmm, is that really widely assumed though? I figured it was an open secret/public knowledge that the gods only tended to pay attention above a certain level. I'm thinking specifically of Darling's thing where he casually mentions that people generally stopped lying about their sexuality/gender identity as a way of generating sympathy from Vesk's people because once they rose high enough in the cult, Vesk would actually start vetting them. I suppose Darling is much better-informed about the structure and function of the cults than most people, though.
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Sep 22, 2018 07:32
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I don’t think it’s safe to assume that all gods are consistent in when/where they pay attention. Personally, it makes sense to me that Vesk vets his higher-ups more personally than Avei. Avei trusts the system she’s built to give her leaders she can trust. Vesk wants a story out of everyone, so of course he’s going to personally dig deep.
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Sep 22, 2018 17:54
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Plus, I just got to the bit where Darling and his buddies visit the exposition cave, and he explicitly theorizes that for the new pantheon, keeping their followers disengaged can be a big advantage since it may minimize the believers' capacity to effect their deity. Edit: Almost caught up. Fun read, but probably won't stick with it once I'm current. Some random thoughts: The espionage and political maneuvering bits are easily my favorite parts; I could've read an entire story that was just Darling and Prin running around doing sleazy spy stuff. Trissiny didn't get hit by the worf effect so much as she got mauled. It feels like a big confrontation isn't complete without her failing to hulk out and murder everything in her path. Speaking of which, I quickly got tired of seeing her make a genuine attempt to resolve something peacefully, only for everyone around her to go "There goes triss, charging off half-cocked and trying to solve her problems with violence". By the midpoint of the story I was rooting for her to actually turn into the hyper-violent thug everyone accused her of being, so she'd at least get some satisfaction out of it. On the topic of hyper-violent thugs, the bit where she joined the thieves guild is probably my least favorite section of the story to date. For an organization that claims to punish corruption and encourage tricksters, cleverness, and lateral thinking, boy oh boy do they love handing out vicious beatings to keep everyone in line. The sci-fi vision quest stuff felt weird and out of place; I get that it was necessary exposition, but all the setting needed to be was D&D in the old west. 11 or 12 arcs in, it still feels like the students are completely irrelevant; the closest they've ever come to advancing the story has been whenever Triss trips over what Darling or Prin are up to. Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 01:39
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Plorkyeran posted:One of Wildbow's strengths as a writer is that he's actually really good at horror, and while Worm isn't a horror story per se it often evokes the genre. PracGuide has none of that; even horrible atrocities have a somewhat comedic tone rather than horror. Speaking of which, the Saturday Ward interlude is a thing. It's another Byron-Tristan one. Everything is fine.
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Sep 24, 2018 01:44
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