Web Serials: It remains to be seen how important Evanescence will be

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Web Serials: It remains to be seen how important Evanescence will be

«‹›2 »

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

That prac guide update.

The Callow knights!! I loved seeing the interlude perspectives on the battle from the other generals. The Winter army (?!) flank to the Callow knights - Ranker's reaction was gold.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2017 05:24

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 9, 2024 20:23

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Prac guide update with the bonus interlude for the start of the month. Interesting - I really like the classic interview before death that the villains do. Malicia is quite the competent long-term planner - a very different type of evil to Black's type. The casual revelation of her hooks into the Legion was pretty interesting as well.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 06:10

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Prac Guide update.

The imitation of Prometheus - twice! - was great. That payoff of the Thief was great. As was Apprentice's Transition - and very well suited given his stated ambitions to break apart the levers behind reality.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 07:20

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

lurksion posted:

Ah yes Black doing Black things. Good fun.

I'm going to laugh when the protagonist had to become a literal babykiller is going to be completely true and sound really strange out of context given the new info on where Akua's going to be.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2018 06:42

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Epilogue Prac Guide.

Ahahahaha. I really enjoyed the payoff to the fae in Cat's scene, which really does appear straight out of legend, the Thief being sent to Procer (ahahaha, Malicia really screwed the pooch there and doesn't seem to have realized with Black's comment that he expects Cat to challenge her and he doesn't know which one will win and that it's not clear who he'd support), and the Bard getting figuratively owned by the Hierarch. Glad something's not going her way.

That very last part though, is all this foreshadowing about Dread Empress Triumphant - may she never return - going to pay off?! That would be the cherry topping on this giant clusterfuck of plans. Amazing.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2018 06:53

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Ytlaya posted:

So I'm gonna go ahead and read this Practical Guide to Evil story since I hear it's one of the better web serials.

Does it have cool fight scenes/action sequences? I'm not ashamed to admit that it's a big plus if a series has cool/interesting action, though it's obviously not super important.

Yep. Although more of the sneaky plan type rather than power spam (at least for the main character).

# ¿ May 22, 2018 05:32

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Milky Moor posted:

Given what the story illustrates about the Endbringers, is anyone actually vital to fighting them? Except Scion, of course.

Foil. Someone who can network the tinkers. And someone who can force the tinkers to network.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2018 08:51

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Ytlaya posted:

To be honest, I feel kind of bad for Lone Swordsman. I feel like he was actually experiencing real character growth but was then the victim of Wandering Bard's manipulation, who pushed him over the edge.

Very few people like the Wandering Bard. And the ones who do are the ones who don't know better.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2018 00:34

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

SerSpook posted:

Frankly, I love that Catherine's grand plan is to just backstab everyone as often as possible, including the Dead King.

It worked in the war games at the legion officer academy! This is just ... a bit higher stakes and a bit greater factions.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2018 09:35

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Sampatrick posted:

What's the best xianxia web novel that's been translated/is written in English? I'm assuming there's some good stuff out there somewhere even if I have no idea where it would be.

Forge of Destiny!

quote:

The carriage was impossibly fast, Ling Qi thought as she stared out of the tiny window at a landscape that was little more than a green and brown blur. She knew she should be excited, maybe awed, she was witnessing the power of an Immortal after all. It wasn�t something a girl like her could have ever expected to see. Instead she simply felt numb. Absently she brushed a strand of her unruly black hair out of her eyes. She had let it get too long again, hanging down below her ears as it was, it had slipped her mind in the last couple of months.

She was being taken to the Wall, the impassable mountains that formed the southern border. She was going to a Sect. She apparently had the talent to become an Immortal herself, or at least to walk that path. It was apparently why she sometimes heard voices no one else could hear, why she could feel things when she ventured out to the outskirts of the city where the wards against the spirit beasts were porous and weak. She had always assumed she was just a bit crazy really.

Tomboyish, inelegant, crazy Ling Qi, who ran away rather than play doll for her Mother. It had grated, when she was younger, listening to her mother�s complaints about her lack of care for her appearance, hearing the frustration in the woman�s voice when she talked with other women. Her daughter was too tall, too thick of limb, her skin too dark, her features too long and lacking refinement.

She couldn�t say she regretted leaving. It wasn�t as if Mother had tried very hard to find her in the four years since she had run off. Ling Qi blew the stubborn strand of hair out of her eyes again and turned her thoughts away from the past. It was pointless now, she had hated it when her mother had tried to force her into the mold of what she wanted, so she left. She was free, even if it meant she was often hungry or cold. Even if it meant she had been hurt or frightened on occasion. She might be ugly, she might be poor, but she was herself, did as she wanted, and to her that was all that mattered.

Ling Qi, street thief, is just starting out in the Argent Sect and entering the world of cultivators. As she makes friends and goes on adventures (not necessarily in that order), she finds out who she wants to be. I really like Ling Qi's character arc, the setting is fun, and the side characters are very fleshed out.

Katreus fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jul 9, 2018

# ¿ Jul 9, 2018 01:56

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

The whole point of PGTE is Cat's story: to determine just how much power she wants or needs in order to accomplish her goals and whether the things she's done or sacrificed has been worth it. This is the main story.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2018 08:21

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

violent sex idiot posted:

so who are the claimants to black knight do you think? or is he claimant to something else? squire? is malicia dead?

Claimant to Dread Emperor, perhaps? Malicia's struggling so she doesn't have a strong hold on the name at the moment.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2018 09:08

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Worm starts off pretty slow too iirc, and its title has no apparent relation to the story. I dunno, right away, that seems to get into the meat of things with a hook most people can understand and conveys an antagonistic relationship between teenagers. It does make it seem like the start to a young adult novel.

I don't think it's terrible given what the editor had to work with. Short, simple, evocative. Provides temp hook to start with until you can get.to the I have superpowers pivot hook / arc.

Katreus fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Mar 26, 2019

# ¿ Mar 26, 2019 23:05

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Milkfred E. Moore posted:

It's not terrible, that's the thing. By the looks of it, the editor made a bunch of suggestions that were to, essentially, massage the first arcs of Worm into more of a YA story -- which it essentially is. If you were going to sell Worm, to a publisher or to a market, it'd be as a YA trilogy of maybe 300k words total (but probably less).

Right. But that's the whole point of getting an editor for publishing through like an established publishing house, right? If you do want to do that, worm would have to be edited and shortened extensively.

If he just wanted to self publish, just choose a chapter to stop at, make the chapters from start to that point a PDF or word doc and put it on the Amazon thing, call it a day.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2019 23:28

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

To tie it back to what the original.discussion was, the point is that the editor made a good faith try based on what wildbow apparently said he wanted, i.e. publish through an established publishing house, rather than self-publication. And the editor probably didn't deserve the mockery wildbow and his subreddit or whatever made of him when as far as we can tell, his suggestions is similar to what most people agree should be done if indeed you actually do want to do the purported.goal.

Obviously, that is a different issue from whether such goal is necessary or even desirable.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2019 22:16

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Ytlaya posted:

On the topic of "CYOA/quest"-style serials, do you have any that you recommend? I think that the basic format of a CYOA story with stats and dice rolls happening behind the scenes is super cool, but it seems like it requires a lot of skill and effort on the part of the writer and most other quests I tried to read weren't very good.

Now You Feel Like Number None (Bleach) has already been recced - great fights and great romance in an area of Bleach not often explored. Otherwise, I'm a big fan of Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest (original), which despite its horrendous name, is a fantastic take on the battle academy and mecha genre from the perspective of a traumatized child soldier, Panopticon (Old World of Darkness) for old spies, conspiracies, and disruptive phone calls, and To Be A Master (Pokemon / Your Name) for probably the best system (and correspondingly, great fights) I've seen for Pokemon battles, interesting musings on Pokemon mythology, and great duo protagonists.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2019 06:57

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

I've seen the author (or someone claiming to be the author) of that series posting in r/progressionfantasy before so he seems to be aware of online novels... He wrote a pretty lovely recommendation for Forge of Destiny there too.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2019 07:48

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

The League heroes turned out so much fun. A fitting send-off!

# ¿ Oct 18, 2019 05:45

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Tbh, that's a strange idea to me that there's less social interaction... I think TOD def. Made an effort to involve more of our friends in events and activities together. Plus, a lot of spirit shenanigans, which I always love, and social maneuvering as Ling Qi realizes she needs to do that. Tbh, she did like zero in FOD quest since she tried to mostly stay out of it. Unless the argument is more it's the wrong people or not the people you want to hang out with? To me, the arcs seem more focused on character arcs with some really cool payoffs on certain beginnings in FOD.

Katreus fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Nov 19, 2019

# ¿ Nov 19, 2019 18:50

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Omi no Kami posted:

Speaking of quests, someone in the Threads of Destiny thingie recently mentioned that apparently write-ins stopped being an option in response to something involving Shenhua in the original Forge thread. I took a look, but I honestly can't figure out what happened- the only time I can remember her even being on-screen in a major capacity was after the tournament, when the entire interaction was basically "Nice job finding a minion, now I'ma go back to our province and get back to being a Kill la Kill ripoff." And that really didn't merit much of a choice or detailed discussion.

It's the choice as to what to say to Shenhua about why Ling Qi became a retainer. Beginning of tournament.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2019 02:07

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Oo Koo posted:

"Conflicting Loyalties" or something, don't remember the name exactly, is a quest about Mathilde Weber going from smug fledgling journeyman wizard to a smug secret agent Gandalf in the Warhammer Fantasy world. Lots of intrigue, hijinks, magical bullshit, assassinating enemy generals and wildly improbable victories against undead, skaven and orcs.

"Battle Action Highschool Harem Anime Side Character Quest" or however you write the overly long name is deceptive in that the titular harem anime gimmick never amounts to anything. And instead it's a heartwarming story of a PTSD posthuman child supersoldier reintegrating into society after being discovered doomguying her way through the interdimensional alien invaders in the postapocalyptic ruins of Canada. Biggest problem with it is that it basically has no schedule and instead updates about once or twice a year with novel length updates.

I'll second both of these. But it's Divided Loyalties. Also To Play With Magic is fun too.

Recently, I've gotten addicted to the Cannon Fodder's Record, which is a take on a trend in Chinese webnovels called quick transmigration. Quick transmigration reminds me of jump chains because it's all about jumping into various universes but it has the otome villain twist.

That is, Ning Su's job is to be a "task taker." She's given tasks by souls who despair after some horrible event has happened to them, and her job is to enter into the soul / host at a point in time to (usually) prevent that tragedy and solve the soul's tasks. Then she exits, having left the world (hopefully) a better place for the soul in question (or at least, having completed the quests) and is "paid," which is usually some form of soul power and sometimes, merit or blessing if the task giver is super happy. The soul in question resumes life from when the task taker leaves.

The types of hosts she jumps into are usually some "cannon fodder" that exists to basically be kicked aside for the Male Lead and Female Lead to get together, and the arcs are basically a bunch of different types of settings and stereotypical Chinese story lines.

I will warn that although it's not graphically described nor does it linger on the suffering, but uh, apparently at least some Chinese story lines go full bore into some crazy excessive punishments. I didn't find it hard to push through but apparently, in reviews, people say that the first arc is hard to read so people should skip ahead to the second arc to see if it clicks.

Katreus fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Feb 25, 2020

# ¿ Feb 25, 2020 16:06

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

No, Wu was the guy who called her out on the hunting trip. He's a viscount scion to the Luo count Scion.

Wang is the celestial peaks weeaboo who called Ling Qi out at Cais party for being too harsh on the sword boy Liang He that she dueled. Hes a count Scion. His family was raised up by Duchess Cai.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2020 22:01

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Re: Cat. Yes, basically. It's the same gambit Black did against the White Knight iirc in the Vale battle.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2020 20:25

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

QueenOfTheEvening posted:

I mean the web serial discord, either way both of the links are expired. Discord invites expire after 24 hours by default.

https://discord.gg/jVBX79

# ¿ Jun 30, 2020 19:31

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Ytlaya posted:

This actually brings something to mind that I hope the author addresses - nearly every single other non-production cultivator peer in the series is a direct fighting type. It'd be good if Ling Qi had to face off against someone with a similar skill-set (or the "disruption"-focused one Sun Liling mentioned that is apparently strong against cultivators like her). Ling Qi's fights are generally less interesting to read than fights between other characters, because all she does is flit around laying down her arts and freeze someone once they've been worn down (now with the help of Zhengui making walls to further obstruct people). She only ever loses to people who are capable of just directly overpowering her. It's effective and makes sense for her, but not interesting to read.

She does fight a disruptor-type ... It's Cai Renxiang. Cai Renxiang is theorized to be a dual disruptor / blaster type.

Xuan Shi is obviously a tank / support. Meizhen is some sort of tank / controller combo. Most people are guessing that part of why the ducals are insane is that they can manage to hit top tier in two or more categories whereas even as talented as Ji Rong and Ling Qi are, they're top tier in one.

Lu Feng is probably a disruptor type. Controller wise, Han Jian might be the closest in a different sort of way (buffs vs. Ling Qi's debuffs) or perhaps, Bian Ya or Ruan Shen.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2020 01:27

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Plorkyeran posted:

Royal Road's gamification system is weird. Occasionally I load a page and it tells me that I leveled up and I have no idea what that's supposed to mean or if the levels do anything. I'm guessing that it's trying to do something like stack overflow's system where contributing gets you points and then you unlock new exciting powers like getting to be an unpaid moderator? If so it would probably work better if they actually displayed your level and linked to a page that explains what it does. Is it just a totally pointless thing that exists only because RR readers really like gaining levels?

[Account Name] => My Profile => Reputation

Shows both your current level and your reputation level, as well as what points you received for your comments.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2020 04:16

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Cicero posted:

Is the Forge of Destiny on RoyalRoad just Forge, or does it include Threads too? If it includes Threads, is it caught up at all with the forum version?

RR is Forge. It hasn't finished Forge yet.

Ytlaya posted:

Those are all her allies who she only ever fights in training, though (with the exception of Lu Feng if I'm remembering him right; I think Ling Qi fought him at some point, though I think she was higher cultivation at the time and it may have been part of a group fight or something? don't remember). Her actual real enemies (and even tournament/rank duel opponents) haven't included such people.

I mean, she's fought Shen Hu, Ji Rong, and Sun Liling in tournament before. She's fought other controllers and disruptors; we just don't have their names. Like the bard Cloud Nomad is a controller. The shishigui assassin was a disruptor.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2020 19:22

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

I'll second Interdimensional Garbage Merchant. There was a kerfluffle over the title being inaccurate, so I'll note that book one is getting to becoming a merchant. Book 1 just finished and Book 2 will be starting on Friday.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2020 17:41

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Ytlaya posted:

Catching up on many months of Threads of Destiny (I waited longer than usual this time; I think I have literally like 6 months worth to read).

I'm bummed out about Shen Hu dying. I liked him. I don't think we ever found out what his second spirit was. It was nice to have another relatively prominent commoner character other than Ji Rong (I'm also curious to see what happens with him, since he seems to have matured a lot).

Check the sidestories in the thread. There is one called Summer's End.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2021 04:15

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

DACK FAYDEN posted:

eh I think Mother of Learning is good even if it doesn't stick the ending - it's rare for something to get me to bother hanging around to find out whether the ending is good

also Beware of Chicken is great and lighthearted so far so if it doesn't take a nosedive I will stick up to defend it in seventeen years when it's done

MOL was fictionpress, and Beware of Chicken is a spacebattles story.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2021 17:14

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

asur posted:

Is Threads of Destiny a prequel story to Forge of Destiny? The blurbs from the author in Forge make it seem like a wiki and a series of short stories and I haven't looked at it because of that.

Are you thinking of Tales of Destiny?

Threads is the sequel to Forge. Tales is a bunch of short stories and some informational posts.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2021 22:10

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Rob Filter posted:

I've never heard the quest terminology before - are those similar to the CYOA adventure forum things where a thread collaboratively inserts actions into the story that the author is writing?

Yes, basically the same.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2021 03:07

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

I'll recommend one of my favorite, complete short quests, Wellspring Saga, featuring 3 days in the life of an urban druid in the midst of a one-woman war on drugs and the biggest triad group in the city.

And although not complete, I enjoyed Lucci Quest, a One Piece quest featuring the eponymous Lucci that decided to take a walkabout rather than go on a long-term, no-kill infiltration mission to track down an archaic super weapon's schematics.

Katreus fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Dec 2, 2021

# ¿ Dec 2, 2021 03:52

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Been reading Millennial Mage recently. I'm really enjoying the MC, although her antics are best appreciated from a distance since she has a terminal inability to not poke things and has a warped sense of risk analysis. She's basically a representation of the bird meme: "The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math." She's also a giant weirdo who meets other giant weirdos. The women tend to banter well with her; the men so far appear more stoic.

While this is not a modern setting like the word millennial would suggest, I greatly appreciate that this girl faces similar issues as a millennial though, i.e. she's got student debt, and a lot of her internal calculations revolves around the likelihood of making money.

quote:

Freshly graduated from the human magic academy, Tala is on her own in the world. In need of work to pay off her massive debts, Tala's best path seems to be magical indenture: venturing into the wilds and fighting monsters. It's too bad that the Academy didn't teach her any practical skills to speak of. Will her unusual approach to magic make up for the deficit?

One day, she might choose to join the Mages forwarding the cause of humanity and defending them from external threats, but to start, enjoying her newfound freedom, growing stronger, and finding new and exciting ways to make money is more than enough.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2021 06:23

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

In case anyone is interested, EE did a Reddit AMA on PGTE and the questions and answers were collected here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BOdiwYai__8j2dnk-rX2qn4aTNLINwzx5rYBJoEeOrg/edit

# ¿ Mar 6, 2022 04:16

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

nrook posted:

What's actually happening on the cultivation front in Forge of Destiny in the Threads? I'm caught up on Royal Road (Ling Qi is watching the sect tournament). Lots of stuff has happened in the story, of course, but I kind of lost track of the power progression. She's at, uh, level 3 cultivation and level 3 body physique, or whatever they're called, right? "Green" and "bronze", I think? But I think this was true even at the end of Forge. How much progress has she made in both categories? Is there even a fourth level of body strength?

To be honest, I don't really care that much about the answer, but it's weird reading a story with these kinds of power levels and not really knowing how the protagonist matches up with other major characters.

She is a 4th stage (threshold) of both green soul and bronze physique realms as of the sect tournament. (Actually, she hit full 4th stage in month 12 of her Inner Sect year). She was at the 1st stage of green and bronze at the end of Forge. So she has made 3 stage advances in both spiritual and physical cultivation over Threads so far.

There are 8 stages for third realm (separate tracks for both spirit and body). The stage names are: Early / Appraisal / Foundation / Threshold / Framing / Formation / Fortification / Completion.

As to other characters, CRX was at the 4th stage in month 11 and should be the same for BM. It is unclear whether CRX and BM advanced to 5th stage in the 2 months between the end of the ice lady expedition and the sect tournament. I would verge on probably since BM has previously thought in her sidestory that she was about to hit 5th stage soon.

Katreus fucked around with this message at 00:31 on May 19, 2022

# ¿ May 19, 2022 00:27

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Nick Buntline posted:

IIRC Gu Yanmei (Xiulan's older sister) is the first ranked disciple and a fourth realm; Zhou's niece is also fourth realm but I don't recall if she's technically a disciple or just military and stays in the area due to it being on the border etc.

Gu Yanmei was a 4th realm while the first ranked inner sect disciple, but in her case, she was being held back a bit because she's a high noble and the Sect is very reluctant to promote someone for higher resources when they can run off back home. (It was the same reason why the Sect was dragging on promoting Lin Hai from core sect to elder status until it became too embarrassing to have an indigo core sect disciple. At that point, the Sect just had to suck it up and promote him. Same with Gu Yanmei's situation.) In any case, it's very rare to have any fourth realm inner sect member, and they'd be promoted at the soonest possible opportunity if it did happen. Generally, they would even promote high greens.

Liao Zhu is rank 2 and high green.

Guan Zhou is core sect disciple.

# ¿ May 23, 2022 22:16

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

There's not enough discussion here usually for Threads so I stopped posting about it. For actual update discussions, the discord works fine.

Anyway, in addition to Threads, I've been reading errata's new story. It's not quite as grabbing to me as PGTE, partially, I think, because it is very dense and a very in media res beginning. I do like both protagonists, but the regular back and forth definitely seems to have led to people naturally preferring one viewpoint over the other. I'm guilty of that too. I'm quite fond of Angharad, and I'm tolerant of Tristan and his I'm a super special intrigue spymaster shtick. Sort of like a Lelouch POV from the opposite start, which gets just a little grating when there's too much backpatting going on.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2023 02:05

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

Stexils posted:

i dropped forge because it just got boring. i like the worldbuilding and the characters but ling qi herself is less interesting than most of them and it doesnt feel like her supposed flaws and difficulties (low born, bad at interacting and connecting with others) really matter because sixiang is right in her head smoothing over all her social interactions and telling her when shes making any kind of mistake. she just reads as kind of bland.

it might just be the really slow pacing but the story just feels dry with no real emotional highs or lows, even in fights.

You've caught onto a plot point by the way. The co-dependency that Sixiang and her have is a problem, which in Threads recently came to a head in a tribulation.

I can't speak to tone. I am a huge fan of Michelle Sagara's Chronicles of Elantra series, which is similar to Threads, right down to the musings on the power of words or, in Ling Qi's case, more abstractly, the power of communication and the power of creating a movement.

Personally, I love that Ling Qi's goal is to create peace through a diplomatic summit while she has to deal with a very flawed, xenophobic empire. That does lead to a lot more talking than just the normal, straightforward conflict I frequently see in stories. I love that Ling Qi has to talk with a lot of people to get their perspective and goals in order to get them to support her endeavor. I love that Ling Qi has to find a way to work within the constraints of a system and not just throwing a tantrum and leaving. I love that she's engaging with someone like Jiao, a bitter reformer who failed, and laying out her own philosophy - that reform is incremental, that lasting reform is creating a movement, not just relying on a singular "great person," and that ultimately, reform may even fail but that even it did, it would still matter for those temporary years of peace.

And I love that this came about organically because Ling Qi was forced to confront via Cai Renxiang as to whether she was happy to leave the world as it currently is, because Ling Qi was forced to confront via underground reconnaissance and the caldera that "barbarians" are "people" too and that they are not monolithic and have factions as well, and because Ling Qi was forced to confront via liminal the nightmare of conquest.

shades of blue posted:

fwiw forge of destiny lasted a little bit less than two years whereas threads of destiny has been going for over four years now and ling qi is barely halfway through green and while i have no issues with slowing down the pace sometimes... it feels like shes been stuck in place for a very, very long time

I don't really understand this type of line of thinking. R/progressionfantasy does the same thing, which, I guess, makes a bit more sense given their focus. I just don't really think that cultivation in and of itself with respect to advancing through stages (as opposed to cultivation as character development or ideal development) is that interesting. It reminds me of someone complaining about, for example, a protagonist being stuck at the Captain rank in a space navy series when I'd be like, yes, that's the perfect stage for a lot of adventures. The ensign and lieutenant stage are fun enough for initial books, but the captain rank is perfect for having enough authority and power to have some independent action, but not so authoritative and powerful that they're stuck managing a fleet in a static location like an admiral would be.

Similarly, Ling Qi is at the perfect stage. She gets to engage with a bunch of older cultivators at a stage when such interaction actually benefits her because her domain and way can still be changed whereas at the higher realms, everyone would be interpreting through their Way. She's not powerful enough that engaging with her is an endeavor in itself (as it would be for someone like the Heron General) and that she just literally can't move around without causing issues (a la the Duchess), but she is powerful enough to go on adventures by herself or with her friends in the liminal and around the fief.

When she hits cyan, I fully expect that she and the Cai group will be traveling the Empire to see the other provinces, which is also the perfect stage for that.

Ytlaya posted:

I like Tristan because the story does a good job of selling how vulnerable he is - the scheming feels like it's something done out of desperation/necessity (and the only "reward" from it is usually his continued survival), rather than him being some sort of mastermind.

Angharad can get away with not being like that because she's very strong in combat.

I'll agree that he's vulnerable theoretically, but he has not really been placed in a situation where he's actually vulnerable. But I don't really buy that because it's pretty clear that even if it weren't necessary, he'd be like that anyway. He's also surprisingly arrogant in his thoughts, which, granted, is no different than others' arrogance. Tristan is just a curious, nosy guy, and he's rewarded for that.

Angharad is just flawed. There are noble-likes who can intrigue. There are even noble-likes who are strong and can intrigue like Tupoc. Angharad is a character that's blinded by her cultural upbringing.

Katreus fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Mar 4, 2023

# ¿ Mar 4, 2023 18:39

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 9, 2024 20:23

Katreus: May 31, 2011; You and I both know this is silly, but this is the biggest women's sporting event in the world. Let's try to make the most of it, shall we?

LLSix posted:

But why?
Last thing I read was the ice witch adventure and at that time Renxiang's mom is right.
You don't get revolutionaries when everything is going well enough, and the Imperial system is bad. The current Empress is somewhere between incompetent and selfish. She abandoned her predecessor's sect system which was slowly but safely centralizing power in Imperial hands. Shifting it away from the great families and at least creating a possibility of future improvements. She also completely failed to do anything about the whole Bai situation. As long as the country is stuck with a might-makes-right feudal system, life will never improve for the average person, and the current Empress apparently can't even administrate that system effectively.

Spoiler from Interlude: Truth

quote:

I DO NOT DECEIVE. MY DAUGHTERS MUST KNOW MY TRUTH. THEY MUST LOOK UPON ME AND KNOW THAT HEAVEN IS WRONG.

You can taste blood in your mouth, coppery and hot, so like that day. The radiance fades, and you are once again in that little room. Mother�s hand rests upon your head, a terrible weight despite the gentleness of her touch.

Mother�s voice tickles your ear, small and human. �Happiness cannot be yours, darling, nor Tienli�s nor any other of my get. Rage is the soul of progress, contentment its bane. You must look upon heaven and see the ugliness that drips from every throne. I can feel your anger, darling, and I have never been more pleased.�

It takes time to blink the spots from your eyes, to swallow the blood, and to hear over Liming�s shrieks of renewed hate. You feel exhausted and hollow.

�I am still doing as you want. You wanted my doubt.�

Your voice sounds dull to your own ears.

�Yes!� The Duchess laughs, her hand patting your head one more time. It is like an iron spike driven into your skull. �You understand, at last, some part of my children�s role. I am pleased indeed. Tell me, Renxiang, you have seen my truth. You have seen my outer self: The Tyrant Progress, the Builder and the Breaker of Thrones.�

These titles reverberate in the air, far more than simple sounds.

�Do you remember, darling, what word it is I bear at my center?�

You are not a child any longer, but the memories of that day are still painful, renewed by the glimpse you were again given at the heart of her power. You see the outer words. Progress. Renewal. Truth. You shudder as you find the last and most true. It is light and fire, rage and yearning. It falls from your lips and the room quakes with the reality of it.

REVOLUTION.

The Duchess stands and looks upon you as you stare ahead, blood trickling down your chin to stain the shift you wear.

�I will continue to break traditions. I will continue to change the world, even as my favor runs dry and the wrath of the people turns against me. Tomorrow, I will make my next step, no doubt angering many across the Empire. I am not sustainable. Something must replace me,� Cai Shenhua said thoughtfully.

You do not answer.

�The thrones of heaven await, Renxiang. I shall look forward to whether it is your hands which topple them.� She laughs, and then, she is gone.

To climb the realms toward ascension is to become less mortal and human and mutable and to become more and inflexible until you can only see and act through the words that are at the center of the Law you wish to impose upon the material world.

shades of blue posted:

the problem is that concurrently with the focus shifting away from 'number go up' (although i dont think it was ever that even when things were happening much faster), everything else happening in the story also started happening much, much slower. the story is at wandering inn levels of glacial slowness. we will hit turn 18 soon. turn 14 started at the end of 2021. i loved forge of destiny and i still like threads of destiny but with the way that yrsillar has decided to write threads it will literally never be finished. ling qi will probably literally never make it to cyan, let alone anything after that. i just dont really understand the appeal of the never ending story with constant little drops of foreshadowing of a greater plot that might eventually be addressed. there is no appeal to me in a story that will last over a decade.

Threads will be finished at the end of the diplomatic summit. The summit is the culmination of Ling Qi's inner sect journey and her departure from the Sect for a goal of her own choice.

Katreus fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Mar 5, 2023

# ¿ Mar 5, 2023 03:39

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Web Serials: It remains to be seen how important Evanescence will be

«‹›2 »