In which a righteous hero arises to strike down the horrible trolls but backs out when I actually put him up to it.
Review Reply
Dec 19
My, my, if I didn’t know better I’d say I’m reading another troll review from a Farla disciple. Trolls the both of you, writing reviews that are practically copied and pasted for each story you read.
A review is to give an evaluation of the story at hand both pros and cons, not to blather on about how the story isn’t posted in the right section or to nitpick about capitalization rules.
Despite this being somewhat of a troll review, I appreciate your review and your concern about my capitalization of Pokémon names, but it won’t be necessary. I am aware of the opinion that you and Farla hold on Pokémon names. While it doesn’t make terribly much sense overall grammatically or in real world application, I tend to capitalize the names of Pokémon simply because the company labels the names of their Pokémon in capital letters.
Any Pokémon game will show you this fact if you’ve ever played one, all sentences capitalize the name of a Pokémon. It might not make much sense, but if the canon and the franchise does it in their games I’ll do so in my writing.
No, this story doesn’t necessarily belong in the anime category. Endeavor is a composite world that won’t be strictly based on the anime. It takes themes from the games, manga, and anime. Although this story is not anywhere near the level of Traveler by The Straight Elf, that is the only comparison I can think of for it.
Endeavor’s world takes from multiple genres, plain and simple.
Thank you for your review, and for your time. God bless.
Dec 19
[A review is to give an evaluation of the story at hand both pros and cons, not to blather on about how the story isn’t posted in the right section or to nitpick about capitalization rules.]
Both of those things are cons, so I’d say my review is quite valid by that definition.
If you have opinions on capitalization, take it to the thread: https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-Thread
Dec 20
Not really, read the dictionary definition of an internet troll. You and Farla truly fit that definition well with your pedantic monologues about how everyone on this site doesn’t know how to write.
Good, there’s a thread–perhaps you should go take your opinions over there.
I’m assuming you have someone else to troll so I’m going to take up any more of your time.
Dec 20
: // en . wikipedia . org/wiki/Internet_troll
“In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory,[1] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion,[3] often for the troll’s amusement.”
I don’t see how this applies! I never intend to upset people.
Dec 20
Still not buying it…
A troll goes about provoking hoping for a reply. While you may not be intentionally trolling it sure looks like it when you go from story to story giving out your opinion about Pokemon name capitalization and labeling a story under a certain category in a snarky and condescending manner.
Perhaps I should make a thread on how to review properly and hand out constructive criticism properly, you two sure stink at it. Might I suggest you learn from Vital Info who is brutally honest, but also gives the writer actual advice on how to improve rather than a copy and pasted message about capitalization.
Dec 21
Yes, please do!
1h ago
So how’s this coming along? Please send me a link when you’re finished!
50m ago
Give me time, we’re not all trolls that have all the time in the world. Plus you should know links don’t work on fanfiction very well.
You can feel honored that when I do create it I’m dedicating it to you and Farla—the two biggest trolls on the site.
7m ago
Of course, if I do create a review thread that would just be feeding the trolls…
secs ago
Nooo, you must not lose hope! The trolls will surely be turned to stone by the blinding radiance of the One True Guide!
(Also, links to other parts of FFN are actually the one thing FFN does not mangle. If you make a thread here, you should be able to link to it without problems.)
6m ago
I don’t know anything about a One True Guide, although you do seem to place Farla and her opinions in that category. I’m sure you have some sort of statue dedicated in her honor or in her likeness somewhere next to your computer that you pray to for guidance when you write troll reviews. Do tell, what is it like to blindly follow the opinions of another?
As for links to other things on fanfiction, that link that does not work that you sent me. Just like with your reviews, you are dead wrong again.
Not that your link even matters, because it’s a thread likely created by you or Farla (whom I’m starting to think is just a second account you’ve created to troll with). You don’t go to Donald Trump for an opinion about Donald Trump or go to Obama for an opinion about Obama, any person with a bit of common sense would go to an unbiased source.
Oh and about your warning about posting this conversation, go ahead. Post it in its entirety, provided you don’t completely change my words you’ll look awfully silly.
secs ago
What, you mean this link? https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-Thread
Copy and paste it into the address bar, it works fine! It’s only the Wikipedia link that got chopped up.
[whom I’m starting to think is just a second account you’ve created to troll with]
Oh my sweet summer child, you really think Farla has the time to manage an army of sockpuppets when she can’t even do reviews more than one month out of the year? But you’re right, that’s definitely more likely than the absurd notion that there are real human beings who agree with her.
1h ago
Just as I anticipated, a worthless link to a worthless thread. Thank you for wasting my time…again, last time I checked the canon uses capitalized names for Pokémon.
R-a-t-t-a-t-a, not r-a-t-t-a-t-a.
Traveler, a top five Pokémon story on this site that is far better than the rubbish you and Farla write, used lowercase before opting to use uppercase. An author can choose the method they are most comfortable with.
Child? I’m going to ignore that childish and rather condescending insult that you threw out once you realized you were losing your argument. I reached several conclusions in the above reply. You either are silly enough to follow an obnoxious and rather pedantic troll and look up to her as a role model, or you are a sockpuppet account. It appears you are the former and not the latter…
Absurd notion, hardly. Being the history buff that I am, people throughout history have followed and agreed with some of the most disgraceful groups and figures imaginable. There were even people who believed the earth was flat or was carried on the back of a creature. There are people who are foolish enough to agree with Al Gore.
Poor decision making and foolishness is the bane of mankind. Man’s original sin was that they chose to eat from the only tree that they were instructed not to eat from. That said, I can believe that there is someone that would agree with Farla, I simply choose not to and exercise my right to do so. I also choose not to go from story to story posting copy and pasted reviews that are of no use to anyone.
Putting Endeavor in the anime section and rewriting the species names of Pokémon mentioned in my story does not improve my story one iota. A true literary critic gives a true assessment of a story. My, can you imagine how useless it would have been if Roger Ebert simply stuck to shallow criticisms about how the vocabulary of the actors of a movie was infantile or how the actors didn’t annunciate a word properly rather than give a big picture review?
Tragically, I was blocked after this.
Truely a gem. He really deserved the spotlight, mostly because he suggested that you were a troll and keep replying anyway, like he doesn’t really think you’re a troll and just wanted to offend you, somehow.
It is a choice to capitalize pokemon’s name, but people also have the choice to call BS when they see it. What strikes me is that you put the capitalization thread twice and his defense is the “I’m doing it like in the game,” which is exactly what the post adresses against. Like he didn’t even read the thing.
I think not even if Tajiri and Masuda themselves said that capitalize pokemon names is wrong will get them to reconsider changing a letter in their fics.
Weird bug: both yours and the author’s comments are on green background.
That’s a funny example to use. At the time people believed it, it was actually a perfectly valid hypothesis since it fit the observable data (that is to say, if you go somewhere high and look around, it’s easy to conclude that Earth is indeed flat).
It was wrong, of course, and is now often used as a go-to example of outdated beliefs, but disproving it was not a trivial task, it required education in natural philosophy, collaboration of people across long distances and relatively complex equipment for the time.
Using the belief of ancient people that Earth is flat as an example of people being guilable simply exposes your own misunderstanding of how accumulation of knowledge works.
Yeah, the formatting got screwed up on this one somehow, and since he blocked me I can’t go back to copy it again.
Edit: Fixed!
So I just skimmed this guy’s story, and I have to say, I’m not sure “that’s the way it’s done in canon” is a viable argument when you’re writing about a thirteen year old, ooc Ash who gets an alolan vulpix as his starter and then kicks Gary’s ass before running off on an adventure. Why are canon spellings so important to these people, but canon characters and plots can just be rewritten on a whim without any real rhyme or reason?
Because it’s not really about canon or consistency or any kind of defined principle, it’s about ego. A lot of fanfic writers (along with some published ones as well) have a hard time separating criticism of their work from criticism of themselves. You write, “You have various mistakes here,” they read, “You, personally, suck.”
So then they reach for any argument they can think of that looks like it could be used to dismiss the criticism, to dodge the perceived personal attack, even if those arguments don’t make sense together.
In this case, for example, you can see the author calling Mini-Farla a troll yet still attempting to provide reasons for capitalization, a move that would be counterproductive when dealing with trolls.
The bottom line here is that some people really dislike admitting they make mistakes and would say anything that makes it look (or makes them feel) like they don’t.
Apropos of nothing, SAO Abridged Episode 11 (Season Finale) is out.
I saw it. It was good.
I have also been informed that “I don’t remember” was the canon answer, which amazes me.
You mean re: Kayaba’s original plan for trapping 10,000 people? Yeah. A lot about the original SAO’s conclusion was… pathetic and half-assed.
I mean, the author did eventually expand on Kayaba’s character and all, painting him as a guy who just always wanted to live in a fantasy world, but didn’t want to populate it with just NPC’s. If he’d done that from the beginning, it honestly would have been batshit but understandable, to me. Normal desires taken to crazy extremes have always been good villain motivations, to me.
That almost works, but the problem is the attrition rate. Of course you kill anybody who’s actually disconnected from the game, that’s just hostage 101, but removing people for dying when nobody new will enter means losing the NPCs you worked so hard to trap!
And if you do want permadeath because you don’t want people screwing around, well, there’s no actual way to communicate with the outside. It’d have been easy to tell everyone they’ll die twice if they screw up and then just let them wake up. (I can see readers being annoyed that the characters work so hard when a quick death would’ve solved it…maybe layer the games so that death moves you to a second sim where you’re still trapped.)
I think this still works, despite the objection, honestly. If Kayaba wanted to spend an eternity in his fantasy world, then yes, he’s absolutely going the wrong way, but he gave himself a time limit in the form of the 100-floor scenario in a way that ultimately served him well.
This scenario both gives the existing 10,000 players the drive to take his world seriously AND prunes out the ones he doesn’t care about. Remember, Kayaba is still an ubermensch douchebag. He doesn’t actually care about all 10,000 people. He cares about the tiny fraction of them that are 1337 MMO players. He gets both the big society of plebs to fuel his ego and the hardened badasses to be his comrades. I think the plan was pretty satisfactory from that perspective.
I’ve read a fic where dead players were trapped in stasis precisely because Kayaba needed more liquid hostages. That is to say, that way he could quickly kill a bunch of people who were already dead in the game when he felt that the feds or whoever were closing in on him, with a promise of escalation. Like, he killed ten people, then a hundred, and promised to kill a thousand next time, though he didn’t have that many dead players at the moment.
Remember, Kayaba is still an ubermensch douchebag. He doesn’t actually care about all 10,000 people. He cares about the tiny fraction of them that are 1337 MMO players. He gets both the big society of plebs to fuel his ego and the hardened badasses to be his comrades. I think the plan was pretty satisfactory from that perspective.
But he loses the plebs to lord it over so rapidly.
If the real goal is just for an ultimate battle with ever more L337 players, then sure.
BUT. Personally, what I’d do is make it so you were still trapped in my awesome sim that I poured my heart into, but as actual NPCs now who can’t fight. So instead of the pressure being to survive the game or die, it’s if they can get to the end without everyone getting NPCized and then trapped forever. This would also make it more likely that more of my 1337 buddies than just fucked up Kirito would be convinced that actually my awesome sim I love so much is in fact, super awesome, and maybe after beating the final boss they decide that actually they’ll pass on being free and instead could they play another hundred levels for the new game + battles and we play MMOs forever while all the plebs look on and wish they’d spent all day playing MMOs to git gud instead of having an actual life.
It’s not that hard to make the NPCizing nearly awful enough to be a living death – they’d probably be locked to one city and, given he’s a sadistic asshole, maybe trapped perpetually in a single building to stand behind a counter or something and only get to talk to whatever actual player deigns to visit.
Personally, what I’d do is make it so you were still trapped in my awesome sim that I poured my heart into, but as actual NPCs now who can’t fight.
I see that, and it’s actually a really cool idea. They’d be like living trophies to him, in a way. Every time he walked into a shop to get his equipment prepared, he’d fondly remember the Sheeptaur the Sheep King raid, and how this chump died after getting hit by an incredibly obvious attack for the third time.
That said, I think he’s delusional enough to want to make his fantasy world super-duper-real, and super-duper-real means permadeath. He’s absolutely that guy. IIRC the canon number of people who actually attended raids capped out at around 50, and they were down to like 30 active raiders on floor 75. That’s such a minuscule portion of the original population! The other 9,970 are second-class citizens or less to him. I really don’t think he’d be too chaffed to lose half or more, especially since a sizable population (~4000 IIRC) didn’t even try to become raiders and just inhabited the lower levels after they were cleared (which I would say is completely in line with his intentions).
And that is why Lizzie really never leaves her shop except for that escort mission.
She did perish with her guild.
That is indeed canon.
A lot of jokes in SAO Abridged are actually based on poking fun at canon’s inanity, which is why I said that you should know SAO to fully appreciate this version.
For example, the quick joke about Heathcliff promising Asuna as a trophy to Kirito? Actually happened: that was what the duel was all about in canon, whether Asuna would go with Kirito and away from her guild or whether she would stay and Kirito would be forced to join.
Other such moments are plenty throughout the series.
Aww, they cut out SKULLFUCKER PRIME fight. That was the only genuinely good thing in SAO before the third arc.
Otherwise, nice. More on emotional side than on comedic side, but this Kirito actually earned that, so I don’t object. Asuka’s death is also better since now it ties into earlier scene instead of just being a generic sacrifice, and it isn’t dragged as much.
Overall, good job and a good finale.
Now we wait for their take on tentacle rape.
0
I’m just… so glad that they 1. Skipped Actual Episode 11, which was dumb filler, and 2. Combined Episodes 12-13 for a double-length episode. 30 minutes!
SKULLFUCKER PRIME is an acceptable loss, imo, because really, that fight was just there to kill more people and pad the despair before Kirito noticed that Kayaba’s HP never went below 50%. Since that’s not how Kayaba is outed in Abridged, the fight becomes unnecessary, and the way it was ‘resolved’ was truly hilarious.
Actually, everyone knew that his HP never go below 50%. He has some fancy nickname based on it even. Kirito recognizes Heathcliff as Kayaba because Kayaba was “watching other people with contempt” in that scene or something to that effect, and only then puts together stuff about HP and his haxx defense technique.
But yeah, SKULLFUCKER PRIME was not necessary narratively. Still the only actually goo, well-choreographed fight in the series.
Yes, Heathcliff had that legend attached to him, but the reason Kirito became suspicious of that legend because of their duel, which canon!Kirito was about to win, Heathcliff used GM powers to prevent his loss (the duel was until someone drops below 50%, a non-fatal duel). It was that in addition to Heathcliff looking at people funny with his health just above 50% that gave canon!Kiri the inkling he needed.
Obviously, neither of those things happened this time.
So wait, how did Asuna and Kirito not actually die? Is there a canon explanation for how they’re still around even after shattery death?
IIRC the whole brain-microwave thing isn’t instant, and since Kirito technically cleared the game in his last few seconds, the death condition was removed.
It’s a little wonkier in SAO:A, of course, since Kayaba doesn’t have control over it, but in the original, he spared them in his last moments.
Asuna couldn’t die because Kayaba disabled the death switch on her on Kirito’s request due to the whole “don’t let her commit suicide” thing, which was also dead serious in canon.
Kirito finished Kayaba off moments before his own death has registered, and afterwards Kayaba spared him.
Really? I had no idea he full-on disabled the death switch for her only. Do not remember that at all. I only thought he promised to watch over her after Kirito’s death, maybe locking her up in a city so she becomes immortal.
I think it might have been from the novel, don’t remember if it came up in the anime.
Locking her in the city actually wasn’t guaranteed to work given duels to the death are a thing and there is an exploit to activate one on someone’s sleeping.
I looked it up (because this is obviously critical to our lives) and indeed Kayaba just promises to lock her location to her home city. I do see the merit in your objection, but the author apparently didn’t.
Hm. Could have sworn I’ve seen it somewhere. Someone’s headcanon, maybe?
Eh, whatever, I guess LOVE protects you from death in SAO, similar to how it breaks system-induced paralysis.
I take it there is also no canon explanation for how Asuna was able to break the paralysis.
If you consider handwaves as explanations, then yes. I don’t even remember it; it’s that dumb, but basically, the VRMMO system is like the Matrix. Some rules can be bent. Others can be broken.
Yeah, there was something about willpower, and it ties with Stoned Kirito how Kirito is a good player because he treats the world of SAO as real and objects to slaughter of NPCs to save people and such.
Actually that’s totally reasonable – it’s established very early, in the Christmas episode, that there’s a revive-player item in the game that works if used within ten seconds, which means that there’s at least ten seconds lag between a loss and brainmurder.
It’s a little wonkier in SAO:A, of course, since Kayaba doesn’t have control over it, but in the original, he spared them in his last moments.
I thought it worked – he probably figured out how to fix the glitch almost immediately after he found out, he just never did so because he’d committed to pretending he meant to do it and waiting until he had a better plan, at which point, presumably, he’d have shoved the patch through.
due to the whole “don’t let her commit suicide” thing, which was also dead serious in canon.
I’d also like to say I think that’d have been incredibly clever if only the setup had been so she could shank the guy.
“I want to have a noble duel between us menz! Also, please set this other person to be unkillable first. It’s just because she’d be so sad she’d kill herself if I lost, which is so likely because you’re so awesome and unbeatable and definitely have nothing to worry about from any of us.”
“I would never – never – never not kill myself over your death, honey. Oh sadistic asshole who rules our world, pretty please don’t make me totally unkillable, that would absolutely suck.”
Bwahaha, that would indeed have been a glorious twist. But she’d still have been paralyzed, since that happened first.
Although, she did break the paralysis, so it still actually works! She throws herself in front of the blade, doesn’t die due to the immortal tag, and while everyone is standing there stunned, she shanks him to death.
Didn’t Kirito already break paralysis to save her that previous time? So they’d both know paralysis was either bugged or designed to be breakable if you shoved hard enough.
She used a crystal on him before laying the smackdown on Kuradeel Canon!Kirito literally just laid there until her life was in danger.
@Farla, alas, no, Kayaba intentionally left him the only one who could move because he was really into Kirito’s 1337 skillz or something.
And, in the web novel (and possibly but probably not also the light novel, I can’t recall), it wasn’t Kirito who killed Kuradeel. Asuna handled that all by herself. I’m pretty sure it was even more of a straight up willful execution than Kirito’s killing him in self-defence.
Kirito protecting her from him (both here and in the previous scene when he fights the duel with Kuradeel) is one of my personal favourites to point to when I’m explaining exactly how Reki Kawahara doesn’t understand basic MMO concepts like “levels” and “level gaps”. There is literally no reason Asuna couldn’t have fought that duel and literally no reason she wouldn’t have won it. She’s higher levelled than Kuradeel is! Why is he her bodyguard in the first place? At absolute best he’d be a force multiplier to protect her from getting ganged up on, trapped by a status effect, or something like that, which is commonly known in MMO circles as “a party”.
It was a thing in the web novel but was changed for the light novel.
Personally, I’m mostly indifferent to “it’s not like a MMO” arguments since I don’t play MMOs, so I don’t have a visceral reaction for when their conventions are violated. For me, it’s like objecting that there shouldn’t be any sound in space when you watch Star Wars. True, but who cares?
Now, what I do care about is Kirito siphoning agency from everyone around him. He’s a mesovore, which is the real problem here.
The issue with Asuna and Kuradeel is not that by arbitrary rules of MMO she should be stronger than him but that she’s presented a proactive, confident person skilled in combat, except in situations when it would actually count.
She isn’t allowed to resolve her conflicts on screen, when Kirito is around, and must instead be turned into an object of protection existing for the validation of presumed audience.
It wouldn’t be any different if there were an in-universe reason for her to be weak. Because, well, ultimately she isn’t a real person, everything about her is deliberately designed by the author, and what we see before us is the consequence of those decisions.
And in Asuna’s case, it’s clear to see that creating a suitable waifu was higher on author’s priority list than writing a consistent compelling character.
Yeah, I looked it up since this morning, and it was web novel only. I also found out that Asuna was about seven levels higher than Kuradeel only two weeks after his death, and those two weeks comprised her honeymoon with Kirito, so yeah, she could’ve totally taken him.
I’m mostly indifferent to “it’s not like an MMO” arguments
I’m no MMO player either. The most I’ve ever done is a few weeks with free-to-play Korean MMOs during summer breaks of high school. But I’m not asking for 100% accuracy and attention to detail. This is a basic critical research failure. It doesn’t even play like what I imagine most people believe MMOs are like. And, from what you see in SAO and nothing else, answer this: Ignoring the death game aspect, could you see yourself playing SAO for any length of time based on its merits as a video game, for any reason other than it being the first full immersion VR game ever?
SAO is, at its heart, a wish fulfilment fantasy of a man who is a terrible MMO player by his own admission and I can totally emphasize with that. But SAO’s execution is like a guy who always wanted to be on the basketball team writing a manga about people kicking basketballs into baskets.
I’m not expecting the same research that went into The Martian to go into Star Wars. Star Wars is about the fall of an order of psychic space-samurai during a war between genetically modified clones and hordes of combat-robots and the resulting empire of cosmo-nazis lead by an astrowizard and his psychic space-samurai enforcer. It’s not trying to have the realistic astrophysics of The Martian. But SAO does claim to be set in an MMO.
Kirito siphoning agency from everyone around him
While I can’t disagree with you on this, I make a distinction between, for example, Kirito protecting Asuna versus the dragon tamer girl. Both are problematic on the cultural level (the dragon tamer girl’s entire character kind of is, honestly, but that’s another point), but protecting Asuna doesn’t even make sense within the context of the narrative or the setting (so even if someone finds “it makes sense in the story” a valid excuse to write something problematic, that wouldn’t apply here). One is sexist but the other is both sexist and bad writing. I see no reason why both your critcism and my criticism of that scene can’t both be valid. SAO is bad on many levels.
Well, I agree on Asuna’s case being more blatant than others. Not only was she obviously designed to be a part of wish-fulfillment fantasy, she was made inconsistent in the name of this goal, and that is a valid point to make.
My point here is that even if there were an in-universe reason for why Asuna must be protected, that would still be highly problematic in the context of the show’s general treatment of women.
I get your point about world-building and not being MMO enough. While I’m generally more indulgent when it comes to world-building logic, I can see why it would bother other people. I just saw quite a few people defending deeply flawed works with “well, it makes sense in that world” argument, so I kinda have a knee-jerk reaction to appeals to in-universe logic by now.
The bottom line here is that yes, SAO fails both on feminism and internal consistency fronts.
SAO fails on both on feminism and internal consistency fronts.
Exactly. I really hope you didn’t misunderstand and think I thought my problem with the scene was the only problem with it. When I review things, I tend to put a heavy focus on the internal consistency of the piece, so that’s the angle I looked at it from (especially since it was in reply to a comment about how wonky the mechanics of SAO are). However, that doesn’t mean I use it to justify what might be happening in the internally consistent narrative. Like I said, just because its internally consistent doesn’t mean it’s not sexist, and in this case it’s not even internally consistent but definitely sexist.
As a bit of background: I don’t come from any kind of litcrit background, I don’t really read fanfiction unless its specifically suggested to me, and I’m nowhere near qualified to look at things through a feminist lens with any authority. What I do is run RPGs. I can’t even remember the last time I played in one.
So I tend to be very harsh on shoddy worldbuilding. I love doing tons of research, most of which I’ll never get to use, to present a world that makes as much sense as possible. If at all possible, I would create enough material that someone else could run a game in the location without needing my input. I’ve abandoned countless projects because I couldn’t create a satisfactory level of internal consistency.
But even when I make a setting based on a specific historical time period, unless I am playing in literally that historical time period (with people who understand that we’re going to be playing that sort of game), the treatment of women is one of the places where I take the most liberty to change things for the better, even when I’ve really got to stretch the historical basis to do so. And I like settings where no one cares if your female PC is a knight, but I also like settings where your female PC can fight to become a knight despite all the other knights telling her she can’t. It really depends on what sort of party I have at the time. I know some women don’t want to deal with that kind of crap in thier games, but I’ve also met some women who explictly want to so long at it means they get to completely dismantle it.
The ability to easily have both is one of the reasons I like the setting of Exalted despite Exalted’s many, many, many, many problems (which I have a ton of fun fixing). You can stop reading here if you don’t know anything about Exalted.
When I run Exalted, I all but make the Scarlet Empire a de jure matriarchy (admittedly, finding canon sources to back this up isn’t particularly hard) and the only reason the Scarlet Empress might not be the most important canon NPC to play a role in the story is if I’m running a First Age game. If I was from a fanfiction background, there’s probably be a lot more material exploring her character floating around (and all of it ignoring the atrocious Return of the Scarlet Empress module).
Nah, I get you. I’m generally more interested in narrative decisions going into creating a given work, so that’s the aspect I wanted to highlight here, but I’m not disagreeing with you about the issues you rised or accuse you of anything. Just rambling about a topic that interests me.
I’m familiar with Exalted and actually became interested in them through this blog, among other things, as it contains a readthrough of official Exalted novels, with Farla often going into detail about how they’re wrong and miss the point of the setting entirely.
My basic opinion on it is that the founding ideas are great, and there is a lot of cool stuff scattered around, but it is overall deeply flawed, and while it tries to treat women fairly, it often botches the attempts (I mean, it has latex nuns. And I’m not even talking about that other stuff from Infernal handbook, you know the one).
Overall, though, it’s an interesting setting to take apart and rebuild in your image, preserving what’s great about it and fixing the rest.
Just rambling about a topic that interests me.
Same here! I guess that’s what started this whole thing. We did the same thing but with different topics. I’m interested in the narrative decisions as well, though not to the same degree as you, except my focus on anime means that path usually leads to “the author did it to sell better” or “the editor told the author to change it to sell better”, and questioning why that is is more of a matter of the anime industry as a whole than analysing a specific work.
Exalted
I haven’t read those yet, but I probably should! MoEP: Infernals is just about where Exalted went into its full-on downward slide into “we want to kill this so we can make a third edition” which I will not be talking about because the internet does not have enough storage space to contain my hatred for Exalted Third Edition.
The thing I like the most about Exalted is just how easy it is to ignore 100% of all the canon setting locations because there’s just so much room to drop in your own stuff if you want. And, when I run Creation, I use the map that’s blocked out into a grid of 500 square mile and reduce it to 250. And there’s still more than enough space.
Which is why its ridiculous that 3e thought Creation needed to be even more unbelievably huge, because a pair of “neighbouring” city-states “only” 500 miles apart was too cluttered.
The sad thing about Infernals is that they’re actually pretty cool. They have that neat transhumanist horror theme going where they evolve into grand beings beyond human comprehension and are rewarded for thinking and behaving like those beings, which is utterly incompatible with being human. So you end up with people capable of hearing a pin drop a mile away from them, and they haaaaaaaate it and want you to die for dropping the damn pin, you monster.
But on the other hand they also have the capacity to be great, to accomplish great things, to do better than their masters if they can find a balance between humanity and greatness, which, of course, ties into the general themes for Solaroids.
In this case, it also leads to just fun moments. Like, an Infernal can totally usurp some petty tyrant and lead a city to prosperity, so people would say, “Wow, that’s a great thing you did here, but surely it’s not the end? What is your ultimate goal? Are you going to unite the Realm, put an end to bloody wars and corruption and lead us into a Golden Age?”
And they would be like, “Well, actually, I’m farthering the agenda of our Primordial Masters in Hell. I want the world to be like Malfeas in all His holy glory, so He would be able to once more walk among us, for there shall be no difference between our world and Him.”
Conflicting motivations and lesser evils situations are just fun to play with.
And for all of that, their manual is… bad, really bad.
Aside from the obvious problems like latex nuns and that one point I’m not going to talk about, it also kinda undermines what makes Yozi great to begin with. I mean, TED is not just a crown king of douchebags, he’s also someone who perceives victory purely in relative terms and is happy to let everyone win as long as he wins more or lose as long as everyone else loses more. He loves things that are doomed to die and in doing so change the world.
There are layers to the lie that is his existence, and the manual kinda ignores them.
I feel bad about interrupting this, but I think maybe it’s time to get some use out of the miscellaneous discussion post.
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Oh God, Act, you’re with the mafia too?!
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This is spam but I still appreciate the compliment so I’m keeping it.
Thanks for the free advertising!
Oh, and the joke is on you because guess whose story has 433 followers, 374 favorites, and 71 reviews, is included in 5 story communities, and has even gotten praise from an author on fanfiction whose story is top three in Pokémon fanfics (somewhere you aren’t even in your dreams)?
Here’s a hint, it’s not you.
It’s also the story that lost to Sword Art Online in terms of maintaining our interest, though, so… there’s that.
And your point?
My story writing is a hobby at the bottom of the priority list that I occasionally dabble in my spare time, not an occupation. I’ve never really claimed it’s worth reading, people decided it was on their own.
Besides, it takes a special type of loser to create a blog to mock replies to your fanfiction reviews.
Get a job, get a life, get a hobby, write your own story.
Unrelated to anything else, why italics?
Freaking touchscreen must have activated it.
My story writing is a hobby at the bottom of the priority list that I occasionally dabble in my spare time
Then why do you care what some random losers on a tiny blog think about it so long as you like it? Why do you care about what anyone but yourself thinks about it?
I’ve never really claimed it’s worth reading, people decided it was on their own.
And about a dozen people, if that, decided that it wasn’t. So why do you care, if so many other people think its so amazing? Nothing is going to appeal to absolutely everyone.
Get a job, get a life, get a hobby, write your own story.
I can’t speak for whether or not Farla or her brother have jobs or a social life in the real world, but this is their hobby, and they have written their own stories.
top three in Pokémon fanfics (somewhere you aren’t even in your dreams)
I’ve only written one Pokemon fanfiction, entirely as a joke for Farla, and I would be extremely concerned if it somehow was propelled into the top three Pokemon stories on AO3. I was concerned when two dozen people read the tags, saw the summary, and decided to click on it without knowing why it was written. I had hoped that the people on that site would’ve had more discerning taste than that.
But you’re 100% correct. I can’t even dream of being remotely close to that popular a Pokemon fanfiction author (or even that popular a fanfiction author in general). But that speaks more of the content of my dreams than my skills as a Pokemon fanfic author. I’m pretty new to fanfiction, though, to the point I still get the warm fuzzies thinking about when my first story got 300 views. That’s less views than yours has followers. I’m okay with that. It’s really not that great anyway. This is my hobby, and I do it pretty much just for me so I don’t expect it to appeal to anyone else, which means that just the idea that someone likes it enough to leave a comment is more than enough for me.
Speaking of which, feel free to tell me your thoughts on that story or any of the other stories I’ve posted there. It’s only fair you get to voice your opinion of my work if I get to voice my opinion of yours (though I don’t seem to recall voicing an opinion on your work specifically, admittedly, I could certainly be wrong about that). Fair warning, though: Besides that one Pokemon fic, everything else is A Song of Ice and Fire fic, and there’s not much overall.
Not ticked at you or even the mocking of my reply to Elmo.
It’s the idea of going around from story to story with an air of superiorityand demanding that a writer do something their way or be mocked I dislike.
Hatefriend, I don’t even remember your story. That’s not what I was mocking.
I know, you’re mocking me for calling out your bullcrap reviews where you try to force your stupidity on other writers.
It’s your opinion–some people capitalize and some don’t. It’s a one freaking letter difference.
And I’m not one of those authors that think a constructive criticism review is bad. I give them out myself and I appreciate those types of reviews.
One of my story consultants makes your ego and abrasive personality amateurish.
What I don’t appreciate is know-it-all losers like yourself that have all the arrogance of Lucifer himself that think that they are superior to everyone and think by belittling other people that it makes them look better.
Look, I’m not even mad about you poking fun at me. I actually was laughingyour commentary on my reply, but I am tired of your superiority crap on fanfiction.
PS: I have absolutely no idea what my post was in italics. Blame the website or accidentally bumping the italics on the screen of my tablet.
Oh, dear. Must I explain everything, hatefriend?
Thanks for the free advertising!
Yes. Exactly. Christ, you people, we only flat out say that over and over and you still always
1) Announce it like not only did we have no idea, but nobody before you ever thought to say that
2) Tantrum anyway.