|
So I had a stupid and fun idea for MoL that totally won't be correct. My actual theory about RR's identity is that he's Fortov, simply because that's the most narratively fulfilling reveal I can think of that isn't counterindicated by a huge wealth of evidence. (It's still not a great theory, but I genuinely can't see any other reason why Fortov would come up as often as he does, yet never get any real depth like the rest of Zorian's family/friends.) Narrative arguments aside, two of the big things that made me think of Fortov were the thing where he pushes Ibery into the bushes, and the train. The bushes seem like an obvious chekhov's gun, simply because of how frequently the early story drew attention to it and mentioned how strange it was that nothing Zorian ever did could prevent it, and that bit around chapter... 23, I think? 24? Anyway, right before the end of book 1 he's on a train, and two girls who usually don't get off do so, which he notes as being weird since it's the beginning of the loop and he hasn't changed anything yet. I thought that was supposed to be a subtle nudge that RR was either on the train, or in the town they stopped at, and Fortov was in that train. Anyway, there is someone else who was directly involved in both of those events: Ibery (spelling?), the library girl who keeps getting chucked into the bushes. Her narrative and Fortov's never lined up (he said she was a sex-crazed aggressive jerk, she was always consistently nice while onscreen), she was a girl who was existing within 50km of Zach (meaning he probably told her about the time loop to impress her), and most importantly, it was her compartment that the two annoying girls (who I think are the same ones that talked to Zorian when he got off the train recently?) were sitting in. I don't think it's any likelier than Fortov, and really I don't think anyone makes good sense with the information we have (maybe the matriarch was red robe all along, the guy Zorian fought was her wearing Benisek like a suit, and she soul-killed her entire colony to hide the fact that she exited the gate!), but it would be a really funny case of hiding in plain sight- she's been established to have minor weirdnesses surrounding her, Zorian never really interacted with her after he had his telepathy but before RR left, and something about the dumb bushes incident being brought up so many times would make it hilarious if it were the key to solving the mystery this whole time.
|
![]() |
|
![]()
|
# ? Jun 12, 2024 10:40 |
|
Having Veyers just randomly show up in the most recent chapter seems like it pushes him away from the "mastermind" end of the scale and more towards the "soul-killed victim" side - so he doesn't seem like a very likely candidate for Red Robe to me anymore. Since he seems to be out it's really hard to say who it could be. Fortov seems like a solid guess, because of his position in the narrative like you said, but any foreshadowing wrt him seems tenuous at best to me. I just hope that whoever it gets revealed to be was actually set up in the story at some point and the reveal doesn't end up reading like a huge rear end pull.
|
![]() |
|
sunken fleet posted:I just hope that whoever it gets revealed to be was actually set up in the story at some point and the reveal doesn't end up reading like a huge rear end pull. Yeaaah, that's what worries me. Like, nothing in MoL leads me to worry about the author screwing it up, but endings are super-hard to land and at this point in the story, I just can't see anyone who would be a fully satisfying reveal. (spoilered since 93/94 inform some of my thinking) Like, structurally the most obvious candidate would be Zach, but there are so many reasons that doesn't work based on what we currently know that I can't see a path to it that isn't frustrating/asspull-y. Likewise for Zorian/Someone's Simulacrum. A lot of side characters are either excluded because of RR's relatively low level of skill (Xvim and the other teachers), spider senses (most of Zorian's classmates), or secondary considerations like not having a good reason to be either associated with the cult or in a position to grab one of their fancy robes right when the loop starts. Still others would actually work decently well on a factual basis (Sudomir, for one), but already received so much narrative focus and/or had their character arc satisfyingly/definitively concluded that making them RR would be weird and cheap. So if we assume that Z vs. Z isn't going to be the big final showdown, who's left? Veyers and his lawyer friend have been screaming red herring for dozens of chapters, Fortov fits for structural reasons like we've said but is otherwise a super weak guess (I'm mainly making it because he's basically the only major side character who has come up a lot in the story, yet never actually done anything on-camera or had a relationship upgrade like the rest of Z's friends/family). Some random guy we don't know or barely know doesn't make sense, since if it were a rando there wouldn't be a point in concealing his identity all this time. So yeah- like, I'm reasonably sure I trust the author to have something fun up his sleeve, but I genuinely can't see any outcome coming from the information we have right now that isn't at least a bit frustrating or asspull-y. It also probably doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Like, RR hasn't been a big part of the story since he probably left the loop in chapter 26, the much bigger threat is probably Silverlake, who has information on Zorian's identity and is clever and specialized enough that I'm betting she could just turn invisble, bamf into the cosmic horror pit, and get the barrier down before anyone realized what was up. But his identity was such a fun mystery early on that I'm really interested to see what's up with it.
|
![]() |
|
I think we’ll get a solid hint on who red robe is in the next chapter based on how and with who Veyers interacts. (Because he isn’t imo) But what if Veyers is best friends with Zach?
|
![]() |
|
Re: the most recent Ward chapter - drat, sucks to be Parian
|
![]() |
|
Ytlaya posted:Re: the most recent Ward chapter - drat, sucks to be literally anyone
|
![]() |
|
(Ward spoilers still) One kind of dumb thing is that the whole Silent Hill theme to Nursery's power was kind of over the top to the point of just being goofy. I feel like Lord of Loss is kind of poorly matched up here, given he's against two people who have the ability to completely negate durability/defense (with Foil's power and Rain's blades*). The thing from a chapter or two ago with Rain suddenly venting all his feelings to Chastity was hilarious and extremely accurate teenager boy behavior. * Speaking of Rain's blades, they're actually really good. It's basically similar to Faultline's power, except with range and the ability to affect organic matter (and the need to apply some force to cause the break, though that's not exactly hard). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Jan 12, 2019 |
![]() |
|
the thing about rains power is he doesnt want to insanely brutally murder everyone he fights and hes kind of a dumb guy so it takes him a bit to figure out how to use it
|
![]() |
|
A big flaming stink posted:the wandering inn had an update. Yeah. But maybe we are really reaching the finale of this arc? Important things happened and Rags's character arc should have for now be over.
|
![]() |
|
Two new PracGuide chapters my dudes
|
![]() |
|
Practical Guide: Everything is falling to pieces, and then Cat arrives. I bet this goes great. /s
|
![]() |
|
PracGuide: I know Malicia isn't the one obsessed with narrative, but you'd really think that decades of working with the black knight would've taught her better than to go "Boy, I sure am glad that Cat only has one army, if she had two we'd be really screwed".
|
![]() |
|
Wandering Inn Patreon chapter: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
![]() |
|
TWI Nonpatreon: I'm happy to see that the plot threads are coming together, at least insofar as the Goblin Lord is concerned. It's gonna be so sweet when Tyrion's plan blows up in his face and he's faced with an allied army of goblins and drakes because he didn't account for Erin. At least I hope that's what's going to happen because I don't think my heart could take goblins being persecuted even more ![]() Also, I bet the illusionist guy is a red herring and is actually on the level rather than an enemy agent, since Typhenous is already Tyrion's inside man. Or I guess he could be the thief Wistram is sending to collect the door. Edit: or not, his name anagrams to something Veltras Argue fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jan 15, 2019 |
![]() |
|
Omi no Kami posted:PracGuide: I know Malicia isn't the one obsessed with narrative, but you'd really think that decades of working with the black knight would've taught her better than to go "Boy, I sure am glad that Cat only has one army, if she had two we'd be really screwed". I just like when we get an outside perspective of how crazy Cat is every once in a while. Fairy brain Cat being an unreliable narrator reminds me a lot of the debate over Taylor as narrator in Worm. I guess the difference is that Cat loses her fairy brain and comes to terms with the fact that she was making crazy decisions and that in retrospect not all of her actions were really appropriate at the time
|
![]() |
|
One thing I didn't appreciate until I put pracguide down for a while and re-read it to get back up to speed is how nebulous the smart villains' behavior is. Like, Cat in books 3 and 4 acts like a cartoon villain, some of the stuff that she casually says and does would come off as genuinely horrifying to your average bystander- in particular I'm thinking of that goofy camping trip with Archer and Heiress where they used bowie knives to win at go fish, semi-seriously discussed and then dared Archer to eat Cat's regenerating fingers to cut down on chores, then went from cards to heavy petting to murder in about 15 seconds. What I realized my second readthrough is that it's actually somewhat unclear how much of that is them very explicitly hamming it up to better control their names. Like, none of cat's core group are particularly unbalanced when it comes to serious stuff, and I genuinely like the image of boring, straight-laced pragmatists who discover that acting like crazy people is actually the best possible way to keep from becoming the mask.
|
![]() |
|
Omi no Kami posted:One thing I didn't appreciate until I put pracguide down for a while and re-read it to get back up to speed is how nebulous the smart villains' behavior is. Like, Cat in books 3 and 4 acts like a cartoon villain, some of the stuff that she casually says and does would come off as genuinely horrifying to your average bystander- in particular I'm thinking of that goofy camping trip with Archer and Heiress where they used bowie knives to win at go fish, semi-seriously discussed and then dared Archer to eat Cat's regenerating fingers to cut down on chores, then went from cards to heavy petting to murder in about 15 seconds. I mean, when Black accepted Cat as his Squire he told her to try not to die and stabbed her near her heart. Later on Masego told Cat that Black only needed to finger poke her to make her a claimant and Black was just hamming it up. I am 100 percent willing to believe that all of the Woe/Calamities engage in that sort of nonsense in their spare time.
|
![]() |
|
Argue posted:TWI Nonpatreon: It's actually somewhat obvious in retrospect, but Veltras 100% is the one who sabotaged the peace talks between Laken and Rags. It let him "save" Laken from death and made him in debt to him to use the siege equipment.
|
![]() |
|
A big flaming stink posted:It's actually somewhat obvious in retrospect, but Veltras 100% is the one who sabotaged the peace talks between Laken and Rags. It let him "save" Laken from death and made him in debt to him to use the siege equipment. Yea, we're starting to reveal some of the actual villains I think. The goblins are still up in the air where their arc is actually going, and Magnolia seems to be mostly on the side of good. Veltras though is shaping up to be a proper rear end in a top hat. I am a little sad to see Laken turn out to be so terrible, I liked his character when he was first revealed by since then every decision he makes has me liking him less and less.
|
![]() |
|
The recent extra chapters about Grey Pilgrim in PracGuide have been interesting. I feel like it's getting at a couple of general themes with his character; one is him sort of one-sidedly acting based on what he considers to be "minimizing suffering" regardless of what the recipient actually desires, and the other is a sort of personal hypocrisy where he obviously derives some sort of enjoyment from this perception of himself as "a wise benevolent figure." The former seems to likely be the more "malevolent" side of the Choir of Mercy (I think that's his Choir).
|
![]() |
|
A big flaming stink posted:It's actually somewhat obvious in retrospect, but Veltras 100% is the one who sabotaged the peace talks between Laken and Rags. It let him "save" Laken from death and made him in debt to him to use the siege equipment. I thought it was pretty obvious from the get-go, although he did make sure to swear against a truth spell that he wasn't responsible. Of course someone like him could easily have a way of circumventing such a spell. Cinara posted:Yea, we're starting to reveal some of the actual villains I think. The goblins are still up in the air where their arc is actually going, and Magnolia seems to be mostly on the side of good. Veltras though is shaping up to be a proper rear end in a top hat. I am a little sad to see Laken turn out to be so terrible, I liked his character when he was first revealed by since then every decision he makes has me liking him less and less. The Goblin Lord probably isn't quite done with conflicts yet because of his master's interest in Liscor, but I hope Erin gets to help Rags establish some kind of protected Goblin village there. Laken's development sucks but I can accept it if it gets played up as his class affecting him, which feels like where it's going. I seem to recall Flos bemoaning that he didn't like war, but he was the king of destruction, so what else could he do.
|
![]() |
|
Argue posted:(Unspoilered) I seem to recall Flos bemoaning that he didn't like war, but he was the king of destruction, so what else could he do. I think it was more that his Skills work only in war. Like when he is conquering everything works at peak efficiency, people do not jaywalk and babies are healthy.
|
![]() |
|
Good fight scene in the recent Ward, though I could have done without the exploding urine fetuses or whatever the gently caress was going on there. Using Rain's power to reproduce the conditions of her trigger event was a kind of clever application of Victoria's "cape geek" side. It was also nice to see Rain going balls out in exploiting his blades against a target he could use them against without killing them. I feel like Rain could do a real number on Dragon's mechs (or pretty much any mechanical enemy). Speaking of Rain's emotional power, I'm a bit surprised it hasn't been more directly useful against enemies, since it actually seems pretty powerful. Victoria has extra resistance to it due to her own emotion powers, and it was even able to make her feel all doubtful and unsure; I imagine it could be really successful at making enemies hesitate to do things. edit: I didn't understand Chastity's power much, though. It was described as instantly rendering someone so "defeated" that they can't even move, but can give her a backlash if she no longer has the "upper hand." What does that even mean? Is it connected to her own psychological state? Like, if she feels like she's winning she can auto-win with a touch? I feel like wildbow has been getting a bit too esoteric with some of these powers. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Jan 20, 2019 |
![]() |
|
Ytlaya posted:edit: I didn't understand Chastity's power much, though. It was described as instantly rendering someone so "defeated" that they can't even move, but can give her a backlash if she no longer has the "upper hand." What does that even mean? Is it connected to her own psychological state? Like, if she feels like she's winning she can auto-win with a touch? I feel like wildbow has been getting a bit too esoteric with some of these powers. Maybe it's because I've started skimming to power through poorly-written or excessively abstract sections, but it's gotten to the point where I genuinely can't remember 80% of the cast, what their powers are, or who they work for. I guess it's something the target audience enjoys, which is fine, but it feels like Ward is approaching game of thrones levels of named characters, which at least for me personally is being compounded by the seemingly aimless storytelling structure. Like, we have, what- 5-10 hero teams working as part of Victoria's Junior Fascist Starter Kit, whoever the main branch of government is, cauldron, nazis, time-travel nazis, extra-dimensional fundamentalists, incest dictators, mad biology scientist, mad robot scientist, undersiders, heartbreakers, and a bunch of random mercenary groups to boot? It feels like I need to be literally taking notes at this point to remember who's who. There's a lot of great potential scattered around, but it feels like writing from the hip has been hurting Ward way more than it did Pact/Twig.
|
![]() |
|
Twig was in every way superior to everything else Wildbow has written. The fact that Ward has been such a step back in quality is incredibly disappointing.
|
![]() |
|
I actually like some aspects of Ward more in ways that are hard to articulate...it's like the basic structure is a bit more interesting than Twig's was, even if Twig was more "polished" feeling. Twig gave me a sort of fatigue when reading it similar to Worm, even if it was overall much better than Worm, while Ward doesn't give me that same fatigue.
|
![]() |
|
Ytlaya posted:I actually like some aspects of Ward more in ways that are hard to articulate...it's like the basic structure is a bit more interesting than Twig's was, even if Twig was more "polished" feeling. Twig gave me a sort of fatigue when reading it similar to Worm, even if it was overall much better than Worm, while Ward doesn't give me that same fatigue. The fatigue you're talking about is emotional impact, a thing Ward somehow lacks.
|
![]() |
|
Sampatrick posted:The fatigue you're talking about is emotional impact, a thing Ward somehow lacks. I don't think you're reading the same story everyone else is.
|
![]() |
|
The Shortest Path posted:I don't think you're reading the same story everyone else is. I'm honestly just poo poo talking but I actually think that in spite of the emotional peaks from Ward, it on balance lacks punchiness. You get one crazy reveal every couple months or w/e but the rest of the arc is lacking imo.
|
![]() |
|
Sampatrick posted:I'm honestly just poo poo talking but I actually think that in spite of the emotional peaks from Ward, it on balance lacks punchiness. You get one crazy reveal every couple months or w/e but the rest of the arc is lacking imo.
|
![]() |
|
Ward is a weird situation where I understand what people mean when they talk about the plot sort of meandering, but for some reason it doesn't bother me and I find myself still being plenty interested on a chapter to chapter basis. I like the cast, and I guess I have enough trust in the author that I don't have the "stuff is being made up as it goes along" feeling I get from a lot of web novels/serials. Also, Twig had a kind of episodic arc structure for a while, so it's not like it had some clear overall plot progression in a way that Ward doesn't. In the same way as Twig's early-mid arcs just helped develop its setting and characters, Ward seems to be doing the same thing, with arcs developing its main cast and revealing the various players and issues in the post-Gold Morning multiverse. Anyways, all of this aside, the Victoria vs Lord of Loss fight from recenter chapters was pretty kick-rear end. It's been interesting seeing how he writes fights with Victoria's very "direct' power-set. Sampatrick posted:The fatigue you're talking about is emotional impact, a thing Ward somehow lacks. No, in this case I'm talking about the constant never-ending feeling of "tension" that Twig (and Worm) seemed to have.
|
![]() |
|
I tend to be a hypercritical jerk and I don't think I'm the audience for Ward, so this is totally YMMV, but for me there have always been a few core things dragging it down. Frustration: This is unfair, since I think every story should be judged on its own merits, but Ward feels like a regression in a lot of ways; it has all of the problems WB's prior works did, and invents a bunch of new ones to boot. If you showed me everything he's written, I would probably guess that he wrote Worm, then Ward, then Pact and Twig. Editing: Too much dense, awkward prose. A lot of chapters feel like they could shrink 30-50% with a single editing pass. Writing: There are entire sections where I genuinely cannot tell what is happening, what the scene looks like, who is there or what they're doing. Well-written fiction should not require multiple passes with notes and references to tell what's going on. Structure: Serials are borderline-impossible to streamline like novels, but they still need to follow basic storytelling principals and abstain from wasting the reader's time. I couldn't tell you what Ward's story is; instead of "A happens, therefore B happens" there are hundreds of thousands of words worth of "A happens, then B happens, then C happens". Bloat: For every fantastic chapter or genuinely fascinating idea, there are multiple middling chapters full of aimless meandering before the next threat falls into someone's lap. Genre: It feels like Ward is simultaneously trying to be a slow, heavy character-driven drama about broken people and a fast-paced superhero story, and fails at being either. This is even more YMMV than everything else I've said, but I think the superhero stuff is to the story's net detriment; the character drama and mental illness stuff is a lot of fun, and I wish the whole story had been about burned-out former heroes learning to live a life without the superhero part; Victoria and Damsels being catty roommates between their lovely jobs, failed attempts to live a social life, and disastrous therapy sessions sounds fun to me. "A bunch of people punch a bunch of other people," less so.
|
![]() |
|
Omi no Kami posted:and I don't think I'm the audience for Ward I think you underestimate the degree to which this is the case, given that parts of your last post on it read like a pitch to me. Not a great pitch, that's for sure, but closer to a pitch than a criticism. At times, you're just listing plot elements of the story and taking it for granted that they're bad things because the genre itself doesn't appeal to you. That's cemented in the last paragraph of this post: Omi no Kami posted:Genre: It feels like Ward is simultaneously trying to be a slow, heavy character-driven drama about broken people and a fast-paced superhero story, and fails at being either. This is even more YMMV than everything else I've said, but I think the superhero stuff is to the story's net detriment; the character drama and mental illness stuff is a lot of fun, and I wish the whole story had been about burned-out former heroes learning to live a life without the superhero part; Victoria and Damsels being catty roommates between their lovely jobs, failed attempts to live a social life, and disastrous therapy sessions sounds fun to me. "A bunch of people punch a bunch of other people," less so. 21 Muns fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Jan 21, 2019 |
![]() |
|
21 Muns posted:I think you underestimate the degree to which this is the case, given that parts of your last post on it read like a pitch to me. Not a great pitch, that's for sure, but closer to a pitch than a criticism. That totally might be true, I just figure that if the vast majority of chapters prompt me to go "Eh, x and y were interesting but here's a whole laundry list of things I wish had been done differently" then I'm probably reading more as an editor than as a fan, and that's going to seriously effect how I view and discuss it. Like, case in point Twig has a lot of the same problems that WB's other works do, and if I sat down and actually tried to edit it I could probably shorten it by 20-40% and streamline a lot of meandering and awkward storytelling, which are the same things I most frequently criticize with Ward... but I had so much fun reading Twig that it wasn't nearly as noticeable, mainly because I really liked most of that story.
|
![]() |
|
My reaction to Twig is kind of weird in that I sort of "objectively" rank it highly, but in practice found that I had to force myself to keep reading in a way I'm not having to with Ward. I'm not entirely sure why this is, and my best guess is the "fatigue" thing I mentioned. As for Ward sort of meandering, I simultaneously agree and disagree with this. If I just listed events on paper, I can definitely understand how it would appear to be just sort of wandering from point to point, but while actually reading it I've perceived the last while as "things building up in the background and the protagonist's group reacting to it." I don't think the protagonist's perspective being a fairly ignorant and reactive one is necessarily a bad thing. We don't actually know the plans and intentions of all the big players, and I think that's basically okay. The one part that I would say is weakest is the period sort of between the Fallen part and the Goddess part. I actually can't remember very well what happened during that period (there were some individual good parts like the Kenzie stuff, but they don't slot well into the overarching plot), which doesn't speak well to its plotting/writing. But everything from the Goddess part onward has been very clear and understandable to me. edit: The Tristan/Byron interlude stuff was also really good; they're probably the characters I'm most interested in.
|
![]() |
|
For me Wildbow's works are a kind of guilty pleasure, one i can enjoy despite, or thanks to, some big flaws. I think i forced myself to finish worm, but really enjoyed twig and paced myself hard near the end so it could last a little longer. Ward has been a "best of", all the shattering events and world-building from worm, the characters and intimate moments from twig. I also don't care too much about fetus bombs but the lord of the loss fight is one of my favourites in all the works. Colt's chapter is also one where almost everything i like about wildbow's works is present, including the random meanderings into almost every type of character thought's. Bonus points for undersiders humiliation. Kefahuchi_son!!! fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Jan 21, 2019 |
![]() |
|
Speaking of Colt, is she a parahuman? Or just some soldier working with Love Lost's group?
|
![]() |
|
she was the kid from hollow point, fifty chapters ago, and she just triggered in that interlude
|
![]() |
|
Ytlaya posted:The genuinely competent web serials are so rare that they really stand out when they exist. The only regular Xianxia I can compare it to is Will Eternal, and...well Will Eternal doesn't look very good in comparison. I still enjoyed it, and it could be pretty funny at times, but the writing and characters in Will both felt flat, partially I'm sure that's it being a translated work, but just in terms of plotting and character development a lot of characters feel kind of like cardboard cut-outs. Was gonna say that the female characters were just shallow eye candy, but honestly I'm not sure if they're any shallower than the male characters. IIRC both genders tended to be pretty stereotypical in personality. It really overdoes the whole "side characters hideously underestimate protag -> protagonist reveals astonishing levels of power in fight -> 'oh my god, I can't believe Protag is so powerful! Unbelievable!!'" thing too. FoD does that to a certain extent, but not to the point that it comes across as cartoonish, and it feels like the protagonist in Forge actually earns her power because the author is showing as much as telling. In Will Eternal it's just like, "and then Protagonist concentrated like SUPER hard for, uh, seve-- no, seventy days straight and became ultra super MEGA powerful!!!! Egad!!1" Cicero fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Jan 22, 2019 |
![]() |
|
![]()
|
# ? Jun 12, 2024 10:40 |
|
So something strange happened at TWI with the entire chapter being scrapped. I know that there are Patrons here, was it like this even on Saturday or did Pirateaba changed their mind over time?
|
![]() |