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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:dungeon defense is quite good. the op isn't exactly a comprehensive list, and even then i think some of the stuff on there is unreadably bad even with my very, very low standards. But even the worst stuff in the new OP is better than everything in the old OP. You can tell the what the worst stuff in this OP is by looking for my name; I just listed everything I was reading that hadn't been mentioned by other people, and my standards are pretty low because of my long commute.
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Oct 6, 2016 20:53
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:oh right, that op recommended poo poo like shield hero. That OP recommended poo poo like shield hero and that wasn't nearly the worst of it.
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Oct 6, 2016 21:23
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If I were going to cut any of my recommendations I'd probably cut the Demon Girl one, but not because there's anything objectionable in it, just that it might be premature to put it in the OP. Of the rest of them I think Sevens is the most objectionable because it's just way too much of a harem and it completely dominates the series, at least up to the point where I dropped it.FriggenJ posted:There's nothing overtly bad. Aside from maybe Overlord, but that has enough of a following that it probably gets a pass. I think Overlord is probably one of the better ones, but it does have pretty graphic deaths at the tail end of volume seven that could really put a lot of people off. The series is pretty dark at times but the end of volume seven is substantially more graphic than the rest of the ten (now eleven) novels. People should know what they're getting into, so a small warning wouldn't be out of place. For that matter Dungeon Defense also touches on things that could make people really uncomfortable. Honestly Meng Hao's weird (and pretty recent?) habit of spanking women skeeves me out more than Overlord did though. What was in Overlord was gruesome and I didn't enjoy it, but it wasn't shown in any kind of favorable light and I didn't feel like the author wanted me to "enjoy" it either, where the spanking is part of how Meng Hao is showing how awesome he is and is really demeaning. Then there's the rest of the web serials that aren't mentioned in this thread, of any language or origin, which seem to be in an arms race over just how abhorrent they can be.
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Oct 7, 2016 11:23
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I'm not reading it but isn't there some javascript kicking around that translates the translation into English?
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Oct 7, 2016 17:52
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darkgray posted:In the meantime, Tondemo Skill also managed to kick Shield Hero out of the top ten. Hard to see what makes it good from the 1.5 chapters I read, but it's getting a paper release soon, at least. I read a few more chapters than that and it seems to be just another formulaic other world WN. I can't see why it's popular when there are a thousand others exactly like it. I doubt it gets any better; not even novelupdates, with its famously terrible taste, can give it a decent score.
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Oct 31, 2016 05:36
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I let myself fall really behind on ISSTH. The tipping point was when Meng Hao was gloating to the sea gods or whatever about how much trouble they'd be in if he died because of his clan and all the forces supporting him. Hasn't he killed tons of people during or immediately after identical speeches?
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Nov 13, 2016 23:22
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Started reading Mitou Shoukan://Blood-Sign. Trip report: it's bad don't read it.
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Nov 22, 2016 10:51
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Huh, didn't realize there were translations past the volume 4 side stories (if you're mixing volumes and arcs, volumes 2 and 3 are arc 2, and volume 5 is arc 3). Guess I have more reading to do, since I found nice epubs to read but only up to volume 4. Welp.
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Nov 29, 2016 12:56
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Ytlaya posted:On the off-chance someone else has read through the end of Arc 2 of MGRP (so end of Arc 2/Volume 3 spoilers)I feel like there may have been a bit of a plot hole in the scene where Pechika turns the ground into vegetable soup and pulls Melville inside. I feel like I remember Pechika's power requiring her to spend 5 minutes creating food, and I seriously doubt that Melville was holding her hostage in front of Clantail for a whole 5 minutes. I've read it, it's only volume 5+ that I didn't realize were also translated, and yeah that doesn't make much sense. Five minutes is too long for a standoff, and I'd assume Melville knew Pechika's power. Hell, by that time Pechika had mostly gotten over Nokko's influence and she's pretty bloodthirsty herself, so she could have just turned Melville into soup.
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Nov 30, 2016 00:05
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I read both volumes of cradle while traveling. Good enough that I'll continue the series when more come out, though the new character they introduce in the second one is a couple notches too flighty to fit in with everyone else.
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Dec 24, 2016 22:12
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Silver2195 posted:
I think Markuth is a more than a few steps beyond gold at all. He was beyond Cradle's power scale and Cradle is shown to at least contain underlords and, presumably, overlords. He asks if anyone else in the valley is gold ranked and accepts the gold badge only because it's above the rank of everyone else present. I'd have to double check but I believe Suriel mentions him having outgrown Cradle as a planet/world. The reason she intervened was because he was crawling his way back from a "stronger" world to set up a fiefdom where no one can challenge him.
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Dec 25, 2016 04:17
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I originally dropped Ze Tian Ji/Way of Choices back when he beat the demon assassin. I had picked it up at the same time as a bunch of other trash xianxia/wuxia novels so I was dropping them left and right. I came back, now I'm caught up, and it is really, really good. I'm worried it's going to run into the same problem ISSTH had, where it's way better when people aren't fighting but it's going to turn into constant asspull battles, but we'll see. So far it's been very good at showing that Changsheng is a genius but even at his best it's only enough to be roughly on par with the other geniuses in his generation.
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Apr 2, 2017 08:37
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Overlord has its own thread and the LNs were discussed in it, at least last time there was anything to discuss. I think the next novel is due out soon and the fan translating it is really fast. If you're reading it there's a graphic and rather mean-spirited section near the end of the seventh novel but it really doesn't amount to much. It's not creepy or skeevy like, say Mushoku Tensei, it just let's its very evil cast go a few steps too far on screen.
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May 5, 2017 03:07
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I couldn't get into Worm but not because of the content, just because there's no downtime, at all, once it gets going. I found it mentally exhausting to read. I have one WN that I've been reading for a while that hasn't been mentioned in this thread, Akuyaku Reijo Ni Koi Wo Shite. I think it's held up pretty well so far. A man gets reincarnated as a slums child and ends up serving as the butler to a pair of noble siblings. It's a game world, but it's not a game he was familiar with so he doesn't realize it until later, and those noble children end up being the designated petty villains that get taken out by the protagonist before dealing with the demon lord. It doesn't have levels or stats and actually does something with the idea of being a character in a game with a pre-determined plot. I find it changes things up enough to avoid getting stale and there are some significant events with real consequences.
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Jun 12, 2017 09:39
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It felt a bit rough at the beginning but after Ryoka's big fuckup I think it found what it wanted to be and improved a lot. Speaking of Ryoka, my biggest complaint with the series is that Ryoka reads like someone's min-maxed special snowflake D&D character with charisma as their dump stat, while everyone else at the metaphorical table is really getting into their roles. Desuwa fucked around with this message at 11:06 on Jun 17, 2017 |
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Jun 17, 2017 08:02
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The Sandman posted:She reads as somebody with Asperger's. Not the Internet kind, the DSM-V kind. Plus the other mental issues that usually come with it. Yes, I didn't want to get too specific but it's like someone being told that they're invited to a roleplay heavy D&D campaign set in an explicitly video game world with a level system just for fun, and then spending the next week min-maxing their character for that. I don't particularly like reading about the perfect little snowflake who can do everything on her own (except make friends, how tragic) working through her anger issues in another world. Especially when it feels like she took them, along with "dislikes shoes," as character flaws so she could max out her base stats and general knowledge. Sure, the DM is punishing her for it, but I'd rather just have more Rags or Toren chapters.
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Jun 18, 2017 23:11
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blastron posted:The English-language Web Serial Megathread in TBB just got restarted so that the OP could actually be updated, which is an excellent reminder that I should do some tidying of my own. If anyone has any new recommendations or doesn't think something on that list is still worth keeping up there, let me know. Of my recommendations "death flags show no signs of ending" could be removed, at least as far as my opinion goes. I stopped reading it and no one discusses it. One to add would be Akuyaku Reijo Ni Koi Wo Shite. Maybe someone else who has read it can do a better job selling it than I can. A man gets reincarnated as a slums child and ends up serving as the butler to a pair of noble siblings. It's a game world, but it's not a game he was familiar with so he doesn't realize it until later, and those noble children end up being the designated petty villains that get taken out by the protagonist before dealing with the demon lord. It doesn't have levels or stats and actually does something with the idea of being a character in a game with a pre-determined plot. I find it changes things up enough to avoid getting stale and there are some significant events with real consequences that you rarely see in the genre. Desuwa fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Aug 25, 2017 |
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Aug 25, 2017 17:52
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I dug around too but only found two worth a read that weren't also completely dead. Paths of Civilization follows a civilization around, with one or two turns per ruler before the next one takes over. Pretty straightforward, more willful rulers or past decisions can force decisions on the players, and there are plenty of things going constantly wrong. Katreus posted:Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest (No SV, You Are the Waifu) sounds like it should be terrible but is actually quite an interesting take on the genre. The main character is Anna Sanchez, a girl who wants to make friends and hates being late. This one is the weirdest mashup of Muv-Luv and Knight Run (and generic high school battle harem) that I didn't know I wanted before reading it. I don't know that I'd recommend it to other people who don't like either of those, but it scratched a very particular itch I had right after rereading Alternative.
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Sep 30, 2017 08:30
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Didn't really feel like very much happened in this one, and I certainly don't think this arc deserved two volumes. With the stinger at the end of 11 I was hoping for something decent, but it wasn't even alluded to; at least the volume could have ended with that. I don't know if it's worse than volume 7 but I didn't think it was very good, and the translator's  creative interpretations are getting out of hand, not even counting his fetish fanfiction.
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Oct 10, 2017 10:24
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I was reading death flags for a good while but I dropped it once it started to feel aimless. It was fun for the first couple of arcs, and at least it didn't actively do anything to make me drop it.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:04
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If you haven't given it a read the one I'd recommend is http://www.novelupdates.com/series/akuyaku-reijo-ni-koi-wo-shite/ I've posted about it a few times in the thread and it is generally well liked. Doesn't seem to generate much discussion though.
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Oct 26, 2017 01:49
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Duke's Daughter has come up a few times in this thread and I finally got around to reading it. It's not bad but it has the Xianxia problem of everyone on the protagonist's side being virtuous and competent where everyone against her is corrupt and incompetent. I think I'll stick with it, it's certainly better than most of the crap and it avoids the worst problem of the MC being an amoral rapist in favour of the much preferable problem of her being unbelievably kind and compassionate.
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Dec 22, 2017 04:31
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I like the web novels that go on long tangents about how PVPers are terrible people. Several novels I've read have mentioned, early on, how players who initiate combat with other players without consent are treated as outcasts. One of them was detailing his super unique territory claiming mechanic and then had an aside about how all invasions were done with the consent of both kingdoms. I'm not sure why players would consent to their kingdoms being invaded by much larger, more powerful kingdoms, but it had to have happened for one nation to take over the entire playable world.
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Jan 16, 2018 00:18
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I don't avoid stories with overpowered protagonists but it is a big warning flag. You can write a good story with an overpowered protagonist, even one so powerful that he's explicitly unbeatable (i.e. one punch man, arguably kumo desu ga). These web novels are clearly written with only the barest planning ahead and no overarching plot, no underlying themes, and no writing experience to back it up. The author had a singular neat idea and wrote a few chapters inside the framework of a stock plot and a stock setting. Syosetsu is the Steam Greenlight of literature and we're reading the asset flips. I read two new quests recently, one of which is on topic that I'll cautiously recommend: History's Most Mediocre Cultivator: A cultivator with mediocre talents who really can't keep up with his peers. He's only just reached the sect so there's not much to go off of, but it's a nice enough little prologue so far. Usually I wouldn't bring up anything this early into its run, but there's nothing offensive or bad and it's on topic. The Fire That Burns: a magical girl quest that I started out enjoying - the protagonist has a clear goal (protect her sister) and a strong personality, which are good to have. But as I read through it I couldn't really get a read on the main character, she flies off the handle at the smallest things and can be so irrational she's uncontrollable. It's less the thread choosing what she does and more the thread vaguely pointing her in a direction and hoping the author isn't going to have her jump off a cliff out of spite because they didn't agree with the thread's decision. I don't think I'd recommend it but I did read enough to catch up, and haven't decided if I'm going to keep following it or not. I also read Vermillion recently, which is about players of an ultra-realistic MMO getting stuck in it, but is more like a fantasy survival story. What was translated of it was okay but not exceptional; the high score on NU seems to be from people conflating "gritty" with good, and it's far too early to tell either way. The translation is so glacially slow (one fourth to one half of a chapter every two weeks, and these are not long chapters) that it's just not worth the mental load of following.
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Feb 4, 2018 08:41
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The dragon girl and Harmony were both really straight plays of typical xianxia character archetypes. I didn't find them sympathetic at all and I don't think they were supposed to be.
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Jun 15, 2018 21:17
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Oh is that what happened to release that witch? Well, I guess that's that it then. I certainly don't care about it enough to pay monthly for years until it's done.
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Aug 21, 2018 01:25
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:gently caress qidian. https://www.reddit.com/r/QidianUnderground/ I knew something like this would exist somewhere but I didn't want to go looking for it so I could spend less time reading trash. Now you've taken away that excuse. You monster.
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Aug 21, 2018 07:43
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I read this and didn't really like it. She gets a skill called gear craft but then, to echo an Amazon review, it involves neither gears nor craft and she just gets handed all kinds of advantages without even having to so much as lift a finger. The anti gravity spinning gear would have been neat if she had the idea but instead it just happened on its own without her intervention. She was just pulled along for the ride.
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Oct 10, 2018 18:13
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I've been slowly reading through Shini Yasui Kōshaku Reijō to Nana-ri no Kikōshi and now I've caught up. It seems like a fairly safe recommendation. It's technically another otome game villainess death flags story, but it's more of a monster mystery/detective style game. She's not the love rival, she's the unsympathetic spoiled rich girl who dies first in every route to show the player that the story is getting serious. The death flags have all been a bit more involved than the usual and it's not enough for her to just avoid being a lovely person.
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Nov 1, 2018 17:41
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I think the straightest that the plot of reincarnated/summoned heroes going on a quest to defeat the demon king has been played in a "modern" web or light novel is in Konosuba.
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Jan 14, 2019 06:37
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Algid posted:Isn't Drifters about fighting the orc hordes of Dark Lord Jesus? I think that alone makes it a less straight take than a bunch of goddess-sent reincarnators up against a regular demon king. Not that I've gone past the anime but it seems to be more a story about introducing technology.
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Jan 16, 2019 22:49
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Underlord was a good read. I wasn't happy with Mercy before, but her revelation sold me on her. I was also really worried about Dross because I feel like I've seen that kind of character/powerup enough, but Underlord also assuaged my fears there.
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Mar 2, 2019 22:57
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I read through Chrysalis recently. It was mentioned in the English web serial thread but I think it's another one that fits this thread more. Reincarnation as an ant where the rest of the colony plays a major part in the story. For a monster reincarnation story it has had a relatively slow power progression and an MC who isn't solely focused on improving just himself non-stop, which I think are definite positives. It's posted on webnovel daily and mirrored to royalroad with an inconsistent schedule, but RR was just recently caught up. The snake report was also mentioned but it falls off a cliff midway through book one (when goblins show up) and hasn't recovered, so I stopped reading it after I caught up. It feels like the author simply let the character get too powerful and had no idea how to write around it, so got into a holding pattern of repetitive attempts at humour then tried to reset everything in book two. It did not work. LLSix posted:I think Eithan is less concerned about keeping the cycling technique secret than him having pure madra secret. Although wasn't there one line where Eithan said the "Heaven and Earth Purification Wheel" technique was worth killing for? Seems weird since other breathing techniques have their own advantages. Better regen speed or faster cultivation or weird esoteric things like Lindon's core-splitting technique. Underlord epilogue spoilers: significant hints were dropped that Eithan was closely related to the deceased Monarch but it avoided any concrete details. We already have Mercy as the direct heir of a living Monarch, so I'd expect Eithan has a slightly more complicated backstory just to be different, but we can probably assume he had favoured treatment and access to the good techniques. It matches up with his personality; he's really used to getting his way, spends resources with reckless abandon, and rarely takes things as seriously as the rest of the cast.
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Mar 7, 2019 08:00
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The final fight in Uncrowned really rubbed me the wrong way and it was frustrating to read, especially with how blatant it was foreshadowed. The book would have benefited from tying off at least one more loose end to give it more of a conclusion. Up to this point every book has had its own arc that it brings to completion, but this one doesn't. Also I know it's not going to be the case but I want that final scene to lead to Dross getting taken away. I really don't like how Lindon was completely reliant on Dross for everything this book, and honestly Dross is one of the things about the series I dislike the most. In his notes at the end of Ghostwater he mentioned how characters like Dross are hard to handle but he thought he could manage it, and unfortunately I think he was wrong.
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Sep 27, 2019 08:27
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Fates Parallel is something I was reading over the last couple of days and I have really complicated feelings over it. I have to drop it out of disgust, but it's a shame because the author seems to have realized they've hosed up and tried to correct it going forward (basically by nullifying all the consequences) but the text as written is just not not tolerable. Half the reviews are mentioning the same incident and the author locked comments on one of the worst chapters because they were all talking about dropping the novel. I would have pretty easily recommended it, and I enjoyed most of what came before and after that section, but at the end of the day it's impossible to reconcile that section with the rest of the novel. Since the author doesn't seem to realize the gravity of what they've written - keeping a mind-rapist with no loyalty as part of the main cast of friends going forward, with a minor slap on the wrist - I don't have confidence in the story going forward. Chinese Wuxia/Xianxia usually have MCs who will not forgive the most minor perceived slights, but even the opposite side of the coin - doormat MCs with no self-esteem - tend to have a bottom line. Like "I don't care what happens to me but don't touch my friends/family/lover/etc". Spoilers for about chapter 50 to the end of the second arc: this one managed to have an MC that simply has no bottom line. A new character comes in and mind-rapes both the MC and her best friend/dual-cultivation partner/eventual lover, irreparably crippling both of them (they got better), but then the MC bends over backwards to forgive them and then signs herself (and, by extension, her partner) into slavery for what amounts to a minor favour she could have gotten for free to help the mind-rapist. It neither makes sense from her previous characterization (at least wanting to avoid making trouble for her friends), and her characterization (super naive, generous, and forgiving) already doesn't make sense with her background (street kid who claimed she'd lie, cheat, and steal from the mages). The last arc before the hiatus was a blur of incomprehensible nonsense where, at the time I was actively reading it, I had little idea what was actually happening scene-to-scene. I assumed the author had completely lost control of the story and just didn't know where to go since the last chapter before the break was some kind of soft reset. Even now, before reading the new chapters, I'm pretty disappointed he didn't erase the last arc and restart from the last point where it made any sense.
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Sep 30, 2021 00:44
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I do have complicated feelings about it and I'm not sure if I want to drop it completely but I'm certainly not reading more right now. I don't necessarily disagree with your take but it is far more charitable than I'm willing to be. Admittedly I'm not caught up on it, stalling out after the end of the second arc (and skimming a few chapters in the third), but even with the author trying to course-correct I'm not sure I can have faith in an author who writes something like that second arc and is surprised by how the audience took it. What they've done once they can do again, especially with them trying to brute-force past it. It was especially jarring in a series that was, for a cultivation story, definitely on the softer side, and the main character's crippling, exaggerated naivety is impossible to reconcile with her background.
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Sep 30, 2021 19:29
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To be honest I don't trust that the author had it all planned that way in advance. I think they hosed up far more than they realized and tried to retroactively make it a less terrible series of decisions from the main character. To me it's very telling that the only canniness our super naive and caring main character has shown since the opening chapter was entirely off screen. I think it's also the only time she's done anything entirely off screen without even a mention, but I haven't gone back to double check that. I did skim a bit of arc 3 and I find her just explaining her own character flaw, and explicitly stating how it impacted her decision, to Hayakawa to be clumsy and seemed like it was trying to placate the audience more than anyone else - trying to force the reader to connect the dots. Though I don't have the full context for that conversation either. I also find it really hosed up that the instructors were aware of the whole thing and didn't step in when their cultivation was crippled but then also expect them to live and work with Yue in a world where it's perfectly acceptable to kill for less. They don't care about students dying in large numbers earlier, but now it's slaps on the wrist and everybody lives, because otherwise Yue would have to be at least expelled. It's one thing to be hands off in a cultivation setting and let your disciples sink or swim, but it doesn't mesh well with "making them kiss and make up," and I don't think they can have it both ways. To me the fact that Elder Qin is forcing them to live together feels like the author is just forcing the issue with a sloppy plot device, painting him as more of a hypocrite or sadist than intended. Maybe I am being unfair, but so be it. You're right, I did hit that stumbling block and got pissed, but instead of skimming the rest of arc 2 I was just not in a charitable mood. I am reading for fun and if an author manages to write something so un-fun to read that it entirely breaks my immersion and I stop trusting them as an author, then maybe it just wasn't meant to be. To be clear, it's not that "bad things happened to characters I liked", it's that the bad things happened due to a character who stuck around but never faced proper punishment and it was made worse by the main character making decisions that I don't think were reasonable or understandable from her character (flaws and all). If I wanted read about lovely things happening to good people for no reason, I'd read the news. I will probably wait for arc 3 to be done, skim around a bit, and decide if I'm going to give it another shot. Desuwa fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Oct 2, 2021 |
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Oct 2, 2021 08:29
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I never got the impression that people were rioting just because Jia signed herself away to a noble, and I think it's a strawman to say that's what the reaction was about. To me it was an incredibly contrived and forced scenario backed by inconsistent actions from the characters. The Cai decision was very different and perfectly acceptable where in Fates Parallel Jia signed her life away for a minor temporary favour when she had multiple other more reasonable options, including just waiting. It also meant that Hayakawa was flagrantly taking advantage of her desperate situation, which doesn't paint either of them in a good light. Now she's not just signing herself to a noble, she's signing herself to a noble who has shown they'll take advantage of her at every turn. Sure the author tried to make it less lopsided retroactively, but it didn't work for me for the reasons I've already outlined. If she had pledged herself to Eunae, who she was already close and friendly with, for political protection I imagine it'd have garnered a very different reaction from the readers as a whole. But still, even though I was perfectly fine with it I can see both sides even for FoD readers. It was a very heated vote that, excluding character creation, was going to set the direction of the entire series going forward more than any other vote to that point. Though I'm actually really behind on FoD and am long overdue to catch up, so I wouldn't know if anything bigger comes along later.
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Oct 2, 2021 18:19
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Bremen posted:Eunae had no power (well, no political power, or spiritual power that she's willing to use), and thus couldn't offer meaningful protection. I only brought up Eunae because I don't think it was a black and white "unfettered murderhobo or bust" that the audience didn't like, not that I thought she'd be a good solution to the particular corner the author had written themselves into. I'd have seen it differently if Jia had begged or bargained for a faster decision, then Hayakawa had given her an ultimatum she felt forced into accepting. Though that'd make Hayakawa clearly unfriendly, at least for this arc, and the author seemed to both want Hayakawa to take advantage of Jia while not being an antagonist, and I don't think the two can happen at the same time. And yeah, I do feel the author wanted to write a scene they knew would be unpopular and worked backwards to try to justify it, and I feel they failed. With a few characters (Elder Qin, Hayakawa, and especially Yue) they have them do unforgivable things to the protagonist, but then there's no comeuppance or later catharsis. The author forces them to "kiss and make up" through force majeure or sweeps it entirely under the rug. I am not going to lie; I do not like that, I do not enjoy reading it, and that's really what it comes down to. I'd have different feelings if they were all clear antagonists because then, even if not immediately, I could depend on them eventually getting theirs. I don't actually trust that the author won't write more similar things in the future because they don't seem to realize what they wrote or why people don't like it.
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Oct 2, 2021 19:32
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SerSpook posted:On the Fates Parallel talk--I actually really hate mind control content for the most part. I've not read the story but it might be up my alley. I've got a few questions though. Don't mind spoiling me, I don't care about them. Do use spoiler tags though! My biggest problem with mind controllers in stories is when they invalidate characterization: if any character can be a sleeper double agent against their will and without their knowledge, what even is the point of the story. Fates parallel does not have this problem, but another RR story I've been reading, Calamity Mandate, sort of does. SerSpook posted:1. Like, what goes down with the mind control stuff? What prompted it in the first place? What sort of consequences result from it, for the controller and the controlled? A new character (Yue) comes in, who is significantly stronger than the main characters, and mind controls them with plans to kill them if she can't get what she wants. It does get to the point where Yue can pilot the main character's body around like a meat puppet while the MC is aware the whole time but unable to act. It's well beyond being a short-term combat technique. Then, because the MC and her dual-cultivation partner weren't being obedient enough, Yue severs their connection, permanently crippling both of them as far as anyone but the audience is aware. Permanently crippling them wasn't intentional but it felt more like a toddler breaking their toys rather than feeling real remorse. The "screams worse than the dying" were specifically mentioned, but she still goes ahead with forcing them to do her bidding and later flip-flops between both sides in the conflict with no loyalty or remorse at all. As for consequences? For the controlled they eventually get better, but they're forced to live and work with Yue because one of their masters isn't actually interested in teaching his disciples, so if they don't learn techniques from Yue they aren't learning anything. This is the whole forced "kiss and make up" that I dislike more than anything. Their master could have prevented everything or stepped in at any time, but chose not to because master-disciple bonds - supposedly stronger than all other social bonds - are not stronger than the desire to play political games. I'd almost be fine with it if the controller died, but Yue is given a slap on the wrist (dispersing her spiritual cultivation but not her mental or body cultivation) that, I predict, will turn out to be a blessing because she can re-cultivate the new "better" way going forward. Then, because the MCs are forced to live with her, she eventually becomes part of the main cast of friends (not that I've read all of arc 3, but I have skimmed it enough to confirm this). SerSpook posted:2. What sort of position does mind control as a thing occupy in the narrative? Is it portrayed as something acceptable and understandable in many cases? Always wrong? Somewhere in between? I mean no one seems to care when disciples kill each other, so none of the authority figures bat an eye at it. Not even their master, who was aware the whole time. The instructors probably would have been fine if the controller was killed in retaliation. Unfortunately one of their masters took that off the table, otherwise the author would have no way to force the main characters to get along with their mind-rapist, and the author already had arc 3 planned out, so he needed to force this through. There's another character (Eunae) with a short term mind-control/befuddlement gaze that's really only used as a combat technique. She doesn't like using it, after abusing it as a child, and she doesn't have great control over it, but I'm at least perfectly fine with how that one is portrayed and handled. SerSpook posted:3. How common is mind control content in the story in general? And, as part of number 2 I guess, how is it normally presented? Probably not very much going forward, but the author doesn't seem to appreciate what they wrote so I don't really have faith something similar won't happen. SerSpook posted:Sorry for the questions but I had this down as a thing I might read soon, and if I should just drop it now it'd be good to know. And I'd rather not just run face first into something that'd cause me to just drop it, because I honestly have a really low tolerance for certain types of mind control content. I don't especially care if the protagonist swore to some noble or whatever, so long as the noble wasn't the one that mind controlled her. Which it seems like isn't the case? To be honest I don't think you'll enjoy it but I think you can at least give it a try, some other readers are clearly more charitable to it than I am. At least the noble was not the one doing the mind controlling. e: Another point is that the author seemed surprised by the blow-back to the various events in arc 2, but rather than really addressing them he locked the comments to chill the conversation and told people to trust him. Then the end of arc 2 happened and it would have betrayed my trust even more if I had any left. I can probably get over arc 2 in and of itself but I have little faith in the author going forward. Desuwa fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Oct 3, 2021 |
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Oct 3, 2021 20:42
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