60 KiB
[RT] Worth the Candle, ch 121-122 (Maddie/Raven)
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Author: u/cthulhuraejepsen Fruit flies like a banana*
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URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249/chapters/37423916
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Score: 169
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Created: 2018-09-19T02:05:40
Post:
Comments:
u/IamJackFox [+60] (39 minutes later)
This was remarkably hard to read.
Not in a bad way, to be clear-- these chapters were well-written, and defined more than one new character remarkably quickly. But that first chapter just... hurt to read, really. I felt ashamed on Joon's behalf just going through it, to the point that I had to skim some parts just to keep going.
The mark of good writing is that it can make you feel something, I guess.
u/akaltyn [+10] (12 hours later)
Good writing makes you feel awful but you don't want to stop
u/sparkc [+60] (20 minutes later)
Chapter 121 reminded me of some of Wildbow's interludes in how one emotional gut punch of a chapter can leave you with this really strong connection to someone who was previously an unremarkable background character. The whole chapter was great but I thought the conversation via Messenger, where we see Joon's shitty headspace lead him on a series of poor decisions, was especially well done. I think Joon (the post-earth version in particular) is often judged too harshly but if he had of hit enter on that message..
“It’s mean and unfair to you, but I’d be a senior dating a freshman, and with everything else that’s happened I’d probably have to accept that I’d actually hit rock bottom. If I keep my distance then at least I can say, ‘well, I didn’t date Maddie’. Even if no one would ever give me credit for that, I would be able to hold onto it. And the shitty thing is, I don’t even like you that much.”
..it would have been difficult to forgive him for it.
Reimer made a comment about no one talking about “the two elephants in the room”
This guy...if AW ever needs to bump up that patreon number just set a 'Reimer on Aerb' omake as a stretch goal and watch the money roll in.
She was horribly mismatched in terms of aesthetics, which was the sign of a high level character.
[heh] (https://youtu.be/xq1tN9jZI80)
<Amaryllis has some questions for Raven,> Bethel said into my head. <She is quite insistent. Are you building rapport?> “Bethel can speak into our minds, so long as we’re touching her,” I said to Raven, by way of explaining why I’d gone silent. <I’m not sure. Another few seconds, a minute at most.>
Is this Joon trying to trigger Raven's companion status? If so, then it feels a little odd that it wasn't resolved by chapters end.
<You and Amaryllis think alike,> replied Bethel.
<Two peas in a pod, you and Amaryllis,> said Bethel.
I dont want to jump to any strong conclusions on the basis of two small remarks but...All Aboard ship Joonaryllis!
u/akaltyn [+19] (12 hours later)
I think part of why both EE and WB are so effetive in this is the focus on really mundane (in the literal sense) emotional issues. If there's a chapter from the perspective of someone slaughtering a dozen people it oddly has less impact, because so few readers know, or are, mass murderers, but with something like this so much more focused on personal relationships, and the particular kinds of harm people can do through them, it resonates much more because of the familiarity. A lot more people can subconsciously see themselves in that position
u/I_Probably_Think [+3] (3 days later)
EE and WB...?
u/vimefer [+5] (5 days later)
ErraticErrata and WertiBloke, I'd guess.
u/historymaking101 [+4] (11 days later)
WildBow.
u/I_Probably_Think [+2] (6 days later)
Thanks for the clarification! I guess I still don't really understand the context, though I recognize the usernames...
u/MuonManLaserJab [+12] (2 hours later)
[heh] (https://youtu.be/xq1tN9jZI80)
That's one of his best ones.
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u/MuonManLaserJab [+5] (2 hours later)
Bad bot
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u/PHalfpipe [+16] (6 hours later)
The future has arrived, and it sucks.
u/MuonManLaserJab [+1] (16 days later)
Good bot.
u/akaltyn [+12] (12 hours later)
Is this Joon trying to trigger Raven's companion status? If so, then it feels a little odd that it wasn't resolved by chapters end.
Grak didn't become a companion until the second or third time they met iirc. Plus the DM seems to be giving them less information via the game layer as time goes on, so it's still possible.
u/PathologicalFire [+15] (15 hours later)
It took several chapters (and months, from Joon's perspective) for Bethel's status as a companion to trigger. I think Grak was one during that first meeting (though he'd met alone with Fenn beforehand), but there is precedent.
u/I_Probably_Think [+2] (3 days later)
I dont want to jump to any strong conclusions on the basis of two small remarks but...All Aboard ship Joonaryllis!
I thought that too, but
<Amaryllis didn’t like that,> said Bethel.
u/FatFingerHelperBot [+5] (20 minutes later)
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users. I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!
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u/vanillafog [+53] (59 minutes later)
I'm so excited to see Fel Seed. This development has been foreshadowed since the very third chapter, and we're finally getting the payoff for all that setup. Of course, that excitement will probably change to horror once we find out what makes it worse than first few
hundredthousand hells...Edit: Whoops, first few thousand hells, it's even worse than I thought. Also, Fel Seed was first mentioned in the third chapter.
u/akaltyn [+32] (12 hours later)
Not sure if they're going to go straight to fell seed. Given that it has been consistently described as the most dangerous thing on aerb, and they have a million quests for other exclusion zones, gods, etc it would seem like the Game is very strongly hinting that its meant as a final quest type thing, and if they try it now it'll result in a short and sudden total party kill.
u/PresentCompanyExcl [+20] The Culture (a day later)
If anyone forgot what Fel Seed is
I shook my head. “He was built to consume the world. If he were in the process of doing that, or if he were killed, that would make sense, but … he’s still alive, doing his … work?”
Chapter 19
“If these things could be done by a single person, or even a small group, they would have been,” said Amaryllis. “Do you think the international community is so negligent that they would let Fel Seed sit on his throne in the City of a Thousand Brides if there were any option to do otherwise? It’s flatly impossible to kill him, by any means, not even in theory.”
Quest Accepted: Gone to Seed - There is a place on Aerb considered worse than the first four thousand hells. Fel Seed sits on a throne of living flesh, unable to spread beyond his domain, but with a rule of horror within it. You know his weakness.
Ch. 43.
u/kaukamieli [+11] (10 hours later)
I know it has been mentioned a lot of times, but I can't remember at all what Fel Seed is all about.
u/None [+27] (11 hours later)
That's because we don't actually know yet, iirc. It's been a spaghetti incident so far.
u/abcd_z [+5] (2 days later)
I'm pretty sure you mean noodle incident.
u/t3tsubo [+25] (11 hours later)
It was a campaign Joon ran after Arthur died that turned out very very badly because he made the BBEG overpowered and he was in a dark place.
I think it's implied that it destroyed his friendships and [begin pet theory] led to him committing suicide, which is how he ended up on Aerb.
u/thepublicinternet [+5] (20 hours later)
Wasn't he interrupted in class for the first (mind wiped) meeting with Mr. Dice Guy? Didn't that conversation specifically involve a section where Joon was assured his family wouldn't be abandoned just so he could go to Aerb?
u/kaukamieli [+12] (20 hours later)
Conspiracy hat on.
Maybeee diceguy talked with Joon after suicide and Joon wanted him to wipe some memories and tell him sweet lies after making sure there was no way to go back to earth?
edit: I'll just leave the hat on. Bwahaha.
u/UPBOAT_FORTRESS_2 [+4] (a day later)
...Five seconds ago, I had been passing notes in fifth period English.
...
“I can see why you’d think that,” he replied. “But no, not quite. I’m here to make you an offer, which you can refuse. If you do refuse it, you’ll be returned to fifth period English, and this will all present as a vivid but quickly-fading dream that you’ll probably forget about in a week or two. If you want to leave, at any time, just snap your fingers.”Chapter 79
He could just be lying, sure
u/kaukamieli [+4] (a day later)
The guy is supposedly all-powerful. Would be a piece of cake to fake anything, so anything he shows can't be used as ultimate proof of anything and could be trickery.
u/UPBOAT_FORTRESS_2 [+3] (a day later)
Mr Dice Guy has root access to Joon's brain, and by extension the narrative we're reading. It'd be a piece of cake to fake anything, but the space of possible fakery is literally infinite, and we have no way of telling "truth" (game layer? magic? companions?) from "fake"
If he wants to put something into words, we might as well accept the message and be grateful for its clarity.
u/UPBOAT_FORTRESS_2 [+4] (a day later)
His last memory is being in class. His first conversation with Mr Dice Guy also occurred in the timespan between passing notes and waking up on the plane
u/vimefer [+1] (5 days later)
...or so was it presented in the memories presented by MrDiceGuy. Which could have been edited for consistency with the current narrative.
u/elysian_field_day [+1] (23 hours later)
that is my pet theory too. maybe some take on the simulation hypothesis as a background, and/or transhuman meta-joon decided to play some D&D after dropping out of their Old Earth Sim run in the early game.
u/LazarusRises [+4] (15 hours later)
What do we know concretely about Fel Seed? I think I remember something about a throne of screaming flesh...
u/Law_Student [+3] (a day later)
I also recall from the quest description that Jun is the only one who knows Fel Seed's weakness. Meaning he has a weakness.
u/FormerlySarsaparilla [+40] (13 hours later)
I know I begged for an end to the Amaryllis-centric arcs and more of a focus on Joon since it felt like the story was kind of idling for a while there. But man, it is hard to read through chapter after chapter of super-accurate portrayal of a depressed teenager who made tons of shitty decisions and is now haunted by a game world that seems designed to put each one of them back in his face.
Other than the negative overall emotional angle lately, my one real complaint re: characterization is that I don't really feel like Joon's early story character matches the character he is now portrayed as having, before coming to Aerb. Time and again we get flashes of a guy who was withdrawn, selfish, suicidally depressed, kind of a user and a mastermind. His natural reaction to trauma was to be a big piece of shit to everyone. That doesn't really jibe with my memories of the early chapters of this story, where he was a much more generic video game self-insert protag. I'm not saying the two can't be reconciled, or that I would have enjoyed reading 100 chapters of Thomas Covenant, Jr. But I do feel like his emotional growth in this story started from a place that was much better than the one being described in the recent flashbacks. I don't know that the guy who'd sleep with an emotionally handicapped 15 year old, knowing it was wrong, is the kind of person who becomes the more mature, "Trying" Joon who we have seen recently. Especially not in the span of what... a year and a half? Of constant emotional trauma?
I really want a reason to root for Joon. I've spent most of my life struggling with depression, and god knows I've made stupid, stupid relationship mistakes. Originally I was on his side because his loyalty to his friend was kind of redeeming, and I appreciated the creativity and insight of his world building, and boy it'd be nice to think that we can grow beyond our past self. But then it turned out that his friend was kind of a misogynist shit heel and Joon had never noticed, and the relationship and subsequent shittyness to Tiff was revealed, and then the whole Fenn relationship fuck up happened, and more and more the game seems to be turning into "Eternal Fantasy Past-Sin Punishment Land" where every time he experiences a moment of growth we're introduced to some still uncoped-with awful thing that he'd done. It's retroactively making him very difficult to cheer for. I'm kind of expecting him to overcome this Raven/Maddie stuff only to learn in the next chapter that he committed securities fraud, or something.
u/Sparkwitch [+36] (14 hours later)
In my mind, the (cheap) answer is stats. He's upping his mental and social a bit and those matter, in much the same way that upping his physical stats has changed his appearance and made him more capable in those spheres.
Also, the first fourteen chapters or so (book one, the "tutorial") he was literally falling from life-or-death crisis to life-or-death crisis. Depression is an affliction that saps time and energy for its dark purposes, so it's genuinely hard to just be depressed when you don't have either. Once he survives the early trials and things slow down enough to allow time for reflection (a few dozen chapters later) he really does start asking questions and sounding more like the conflicted, immature young man he is.
But, again, by that point: stats.
u/FormerlySarsaparilla [+10] (15 hours later)
Stats is actually a really interesting answer that I hadn't considered. Does that cheapen any character growth if it comes due to external modifications to his thought process? If the story ends in some kind of victory for Joon, earned due to his growth, a-la literary tradition, is it really earned if it came because he put 100 points into "Wisdom" or whatever? Hmm.
I kind of want to write a story to explore that now.
u/Sparkwitch [+3] (17 hours later)
As a jumping-off point I recommend looking at current philosophical conversations regarding prescription psychoactive drugs for hyperactivity and depression. If that's too dry, go look at similar non-prescription conversations from the 1950s and 60s.
Yeah, we can force open the doors of perception... but at what cost. The RPG-layer is more reliable and keeps things neatly segregated and quantified, but a lot of the same moral hazards and existential questions of self are in play.
u/WalterTFD [+2] (15 hours later)
I do think stats play a large role, but I think the narrative framework is also a big help. I know plenty of depressed folks who are good at playing video games. Something about the whole thing being designed around you seems to work with that mindset. Aerb may well fit with Juniper's depression perfectly.
u/Gr_Cheese [+20] (15 hours later)
I'm a fan of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, not because I think it's explicitly accurate but because I believe there is a priority to what a person is. And my pet theory is that you can't really express yourself as the same person on each level.
Self-Actualization (Last, Top) "I am what I can be and I am content with what I am"
Self-Expression / Self-Reflection Loop "What I want to be vs. What I can be"
Survival (First, Bottom) "I won't have the luxury of expressing myself if I'm a corpse!"
When we met Joon, he was being dropped from a plane into Zombie-land. That's the base of the pyramid, a person whose goal is survival. He wasn't selfless, he didn't save the woman who dropped near him. He wasn't virtuous, he killed his enemies. He wasn't evil, he cooperated and acted fairly towards people who were not openly hostile. At his core, Joon is not an objectively bad person.
Then, as Joon gains companions and makes a home for himself, we move up the pyramid and start to see Joon express his ideal self, at least up until the Masters incident. He was rational, logical, ruthless but not too ruthless, moral, and as good of a friend as he thought he could be. There was no self-reflection beyond Joon remarking on himself being shitty in his old world; he was a broken person and oblivious about it. Then when Fenn broke up with him, he found out that his ideal self doesn't mesh with the greater world, and his self-image cracks to better match who he actually is.
So we end up here, at chapter 118 ~ 121, with Joon reflecting on who he is. Turns out the foreshadowing was right, he was a pretty shitty person. But that doesn't mean that he can't be more. He has to reconcile that with himself, not ignore it.
So tl;dr I'm not rooting for Joon either, he's a shitty dude. I'm rooting for who he could be. A person can be something greater than they are. Or not. Because at the tippy-top of that pyramid is self-transcendence, but you have to reach for it.
u/FormerlySarsaparilla [+10] (15 hours later)
The problem I'm having from a narrative standpoint is that each time I go "Yeah, grow up a bit! Good on you" it turns out that oh wait here's this other stupid thing he did that he's been compartmentalizing this whole time.
If this weren't serial fiction and I was the publisher, I'd say "Go back and move some of this earlier in the story so the reader doesn't get so blindsided by hurdles that the protagonist knew about." Obviously that's not possible here. But without knowing the full scope of the story, the character's arc becomes very frustrating.
u/Gr_Cheese [+19] (15 hours later)
I would agree with you if these revelations about Joon's character were unrelated to each other.
But this revelation about Joon's 'relationship' solidly falls into "Shit I did because I couldn't cope with Arthur's death", along with beating up that kid and everything else we've read about so far, which Joon very explicitly glossed over or ignored until he was confronted with it. Everything we've seen with Joon's character development in these past few chapters has been heavily foreshadowed since the first arc's end.
And since Joon's primary main objective in the first arc was survival, I'm ok with his character development and pace.
I expect more of these sorts of chapters when Joon inevitably meets other player-based characters (Reimer, Arthur, maybe another Tiff if we're doubling up.) Not that I want it, just that I expect it.
u/akaltyn [+35] (12 hours later)
Probably obvious, but nice parallels between Joon's self justifications in the Maddie chapter (in a bad place, etc) and the ones he suspects that Arthur would give to Bethel.
Also, its interesting that Raven apparently didn't know who they were when she arrived, but was working in her own capacity for the Library. Could lead to awkward/interesting conversations when they tell her what happened with her father, and the fight with the others. Unless of course, that was another layer of ruse, or some sort of test of how much they knew and their abilities.
Also, Random thought that occurred to me when rereading the early parts of the book recently: Does Solace count as Amarylis's daughter for the purposes of the various inherited entads? If so is she now next in line if Amarylsis dies? Thats a pretty big deal politically for Anglecyn, especially as she's an immortal druid.
u/WarningInsanityBelow [+10] (a day later)
Solace probably doesn't count since changing the family tree part of the soul is excluded and the DM probably wouldn't allow someone to get around an exclusion my recreating the same effect in a more round about way.
Thats a pretty big deal politically for Anglecyn, especially as she's an immortal druid.
I wouldn't be surprised if Anglecyn already has a way to deal with this, otherwise someone would have thought to kidnap a royal bastard and keep them in stasis for a few centuries (entads with this effect were mentioned to exist, they are necessary for the creation of revision mages) in order to steal a sizeable chunk of Anglecyn's entads.
In a previous thread someone wondered whether Amaryllis is Dahlia who has been repeatedly wound back to a very young age. This seems plausible since it both explains why Anglecyn still has the primary claim to Uther's entads, Amaryllis looks like Dahlia and the Anglecyn princes still show a strong family resemblance after 500 years (They keep marrying Dahlia to 'refresh' their lines inheritance status to avoid losing magic to bastards)
u/jaspercb [+30] Gravitas Free Zone (15 minutes later)
Well, we should have seen the Bethel-Raven conflict coming. Excited to see how existentially horrifying the adventure to Fel Seed is.
u/akaltyn [+23] (12 hours later)
we should have seen the Bethel-Raven conflict coming.
I think both in and out of universe people have been ignoring her issues a lot since the time chamber and birth. They have pretty much assumed that she's all better now after centuries of killing and torturing people.
Even if we ignore her rather traumatic history, she's still a fundamentally non-human (or whatever the correct term on aerb would be) intelligence, with very different desires and goals. Like how she was more concerned with acting like "A House" than with Fenn's death.
u/Croktopus [+6] (a day later)
Even if we ignore her rather traumatic history, she's still a fundamentally non-human (or whatever the correct term on aerb would be) intelligence
i think the concept of another being having a totally different way of thinking is more common on Aerb than Earth. That's actually a pretty common theme in WtC, with the stuff about elves and dwarves and Grak's college buddies, etc. her being an alien intelligence is just kinda like...yeah, everyone's different, yaknow?
I will say that I think Mary has shown a particular lack of understanding for her alien-ness, though.
u/Bowbreaker [+4] Solitary Locust (a day later)
Yeah, but Bethel is the most alien mind that we actually met in person.
u/JusticeBeak [+3] (20 hours later)
non-human (or whatever the correct term on aerb would be)
Inorganic?
u/UPBOAT_FORTRESS_2 [+3] (2 days later)
she's still a fundamentally non-human (or whatever the correct term on aerb would be) intelligence
I think the simplest and most accurate description would be "entad intelligence", although "non-human" is still probably the most useful for us human readers (for all that it sounds prejudicial). Entads are hardly alone in having "alien" cultures and thought patterns among all the species on Aerb
u/zonules_of_zinn [+2] (a day later)
she's still a fundamentally non-human (or whatever the correct term on aerb would be) intelligence
she's an artificial intelligence.
u/russxbox [+26] (an hour later)
Oof. The first chapter was a bit of a gut punch thanks to personal experiences. I felt embarrassed for Joon by way of my constant, low-level background embarrassment for my past self.
The second chapter felt fairly short, but that could just be my insatiable desire for more of this story. It's starting to feel like our heroes won't actually go to the Library, just get the full picture secondhand from Raven. Which is unfortunate because magic libraries are my absolute favorite part of the fantasy genre and I was deeply excited for CRJ/AW's take on the trope.
u/Makin- [+11] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (8 hours later)
You probably already read it but in case you haven't, you will enjoy this.
Also yeah, I doubt we'll make it to the library unless Raven dies or something, it seems every reason to go there is nullified by having the librarian answer any question.
u/akaltyn [+7] (12 hours later)
it seems every reason to go there is nullified by having the librarian answer any question.
Not necessarily, if the contents of the library change in response to their actions then they can use it in real time to check the're on the correct path. Which I don't think Raven can do remotely.
u/PresentCompanyExcl [+3] The Culture (a day later)
But Raven said that she visited them to save time on research, so research is a limiting factor even with library magic.
So if Joon is looking for information, he could send a message, wait, clarify, try to explain an earth concept, etc... or just go to the library and help while grinding library magic.
u/abcd_z [+3] (2 days later)
You probably already read it but in case you haven't, you will enjoy this.
Ugh. I was following along just fine, >!and then the penultimate chapter literally became a choose-your-own-adventure thing with multiple possible endings, none of which are guaranteed to have actually happened within the context of the story.!< I'm not a fan.
u/xamueljones [+5] My arch-enemy is entropy (22 hours later)
Remember that Juniper has a skill called Library Magic. You are guaranteed to see a magical library of some sort in the story sooner or later.
u/AurelianoTampa [+6] (10 hours later)
Oof. The first chapter was a bit of a gut punch thanks to personal experiences. I felt embarrassed for Joon by way of my constant, low-level background embarrassment for my past self.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who had that reaction!
u/matematikaadit [+24] (4 hours later)
As speculated before, the probability Joon actually died on earth is very high now. Probably from suicide. If that was not the case before, this two chapters might be key pieces.
u/akaltyn [+11] (12 hours later)
I'd be more surprised at this point if he didn't attempt suicide tbh. We know he's thought about it, and after Maddie he seems to be in an even worse place emotionally than before, with all his friends abandoning him.
u/Inked_Cellist [+16] (52 seconds later)
LET ME FEAST UPON TYPOS (or just point them out here and I will fix them, either way is cool)
u/major_fox_pass [+4] (6 minutes later)
121:
I don’t think there’s any way to justify it withot sounding like a creep
u/Inked_Cellist [+3] (37 minutes later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/adgnatum [+3] (an hour later)
which made my physically cringe
me
u/Inked_Cellist [+1] (a day later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/Kerbal_NASA [+3] (an hour later)
ch. 121
and then you just wanted to see how much worse you could make, didn’t you,
make -> make it
Also not really a typo but I was a little thrown off by a sentence and thought it could be changed slightly:
I closed my eyes and let out a shuddering breath, and didn’t open them again until Reimer and Tom came in the door together.
Could be:
I let out a shuddering breath, closed my eyes, and didn’t open them again until Reimer and Tom came in the door together.
Not a big deal though.
u/saitselkis [+2] (2 hours later)
Or ", and" to ". I"
u/Inked_Cellist [+2] (a day later)
Fixed the first one and left the second since it's a style change. Thanks!
u/JanusTheDoorman [+2] (2 hours later)
Maybe not a typo, but 122:
Aerb had a lot in the way of quickly made buildings...
Seems like this should be a reference to Miunun specifically rather than Aerb generally since the next sentence implies the architecture is due to Amaryllis' urban planning.
u/MuonManLaserJab [+5] (3 hours later)
Nah, the tattoo and steel mages are both Aerb-wide effects on architecture.
u/Inked_Cellist [+2] (a day later)
Not a typo (AW explained to me why, but it was faster than I could type)
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+2] Mouse Army (6 hours later)
122 >Tell me that paths you looked down, in pursuit of him.
should be the paths.
u/Inked_Cellist [+1] (a day later)
Fixed, thanks!
u/redstonerodent [+2] High Council of Gallifrey (13 hours later)
122:
Amaryllis hadn’t put on her armor frighteningly fast
Should be "taken off," I think
u/Inked_Cellist [+1] (a day later)
You are correct, thanks!
u/HereticalRants [+2] (17 hours later)
122
Once we’re up and running, the Advisor intends to return to a more traditionally advisory role.
this seems awkward to me but I'm not certain it wasn't intentional
u/Inked_Cellist [+2] (a day later)
I think it's fine - I read "a more traditional advisory role" and "a more traditionally advisory role" as slightly separate meanings, so I'm going to assume it was intentional. Thanks though!
u/DraggonZ [+17] (6 hours later)
Fel Seed vs. "actual cannibal", that's what I want to read...
u/Makin- [+19] homestuck ratfic, you can do it (9 hours later)
"Hey Fel Seed/Arthur/Uther, remember that one campaign we played with the teleporting axe murderer? What was it called again?"
u/Nimelennar [+8] (12 hours later)
That'd be too obvious. He couldn't reasonably expect Arthur to be think Joon forgot the name of a game he DMed. Especially one who Arthur himself summoned by saying the name thrice.
That said, reminiscing with him and leading him down a list of actor names that he feels nostalgic about might work.
u/Law_Student [+7] (a day later)
Perhaps that's Fel Seed's one weakness. Still, it sounded like Uther probably isn't Fel Seed because Uther went into the Fel Seed exclusion zone, implying it was already there.
u/Hermaan [+4] (6 days later)
But Raven was looking for him for a long time and that was the last hint she got. Maybe it could be read as "went into the area now known as the Fel Seed exclusion zone"?
u/AurelianoTampa [+18] (10 hours later)
I wonder what would happen if someone in the hells summoned Actual Cannibal. Would he go to the hells and wreck every soul and demon he could encounter? Or is he purely a living plane creature?
u/PresentCompanyExcl [+3] The Culture (a day later)
Maybe she can kill demons in a pattern, so that when the leader views it on a map it spells out the name. Sadly that would be dangerous since it may be written then seen through infernoscopes etc and it's not the best outcome for the hells.
u/PanickedApricott [+6] (3 days later)
They might read it and say it but as soon as they do vallery is dead.
u/JanusTheDoorman [+33] (2 hours later)
I think Firefly was the last time any piece of fiction had characters that genuinely felt like real people shaped by their prior experiences to me.
Weirdly, that means it's almost hard for me to connect the Joon of the current day with the flashback around Maddie since Joon today is the de facto moral center of the group and driven almost compulsively to try and support the other group members through their emotional difficulties. It also means it genuinely hurts to uncover this part of his backstory.
I think it's somewhat easier to swallow the idea that Joon was left terribly wounded and vulnerable after Arthur's death, and that he lashed out and pushed away everyone else who wasn't as strongly affected by it. When we find out that he turned to taking advantage of another, younger, perhaps more vulnerable person to try and buoy himself, and that he probably left her worse off for having been with him... that's just a gut punch.
Also, I'm super apprehensive about Fel Seed since my hype levels have built up to the point where we're looking at Lovecraftian levels of "the party is fucked", and yet somehow I get the feeling it's gonna be somehow worse than that.
u/zonules_of_zinn [+27] (2 hours later)
I think Joon is pretty far from the moral center. He consistently forgets to treat the other characters as meaningful individuals, and then remembers to build rapport and support them in order to increase their Loyalty. He acknowledges and owns up to his flaws in this vein, which is important. But it sounds like he was doing that with the underage Maddie as well.
u/JanusTheDoorman [+22] (3 hours later)
Yeah, no, he's not a great moral center, but he's the only one that causes the others to stop and consider the morality of their plans or actions. Maybe it's more that he instinctively feels offended or upset when the "NPCs" dare to act in a way he finds objectionable, and uses his leverage as a proto-God to force them to justify themselves to him, but he does also allow himself to be held accountable to them (though also to a lesser degree, now that I'm reflecting on it).
Actually, going through them one by one, Amaryllis basically just puts up with Joon on the premise that he'll be a useful proto-God shortly, Grak hovers between contempt and pity of Joon's immaturity, Solace has basically zero regard for Joon's viewpoint, and even Valencia only cares about Joon's opinion in a very utilitarian, "please don't hate me and abandon me" way. Bethal... well, Bethal is Bethal.
Fenn is the only one who tried to respond to Joon's viewpoint and only in the natural way people do in a relationship.
Maybe moral center wasn't the right word, as much as it is that Joon's moral compass seems most aligned with my own, so he's the only one I really give moral credence to, wheras when the others have an opinion on the morality of a situation, I reflexively mark that as "not-my-values" so it doesn't register as moral information.
u/Green0Photon [+29] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (an hour later)
Yeah, Arthur is definitely Fel Seed.
It's interesting that the quest says, "you know his weakness."
It's definitely Arthur with the City of a Thousand Brides thing. And the whole theme of lashing out even knowing that it's not rational.
Exciting! I wonder what the deal is with the throne of living flesh (brides? Bonesaw-esque?) and that Fel Seed is worse than the top 4000 hells (that's worse than almost half of hell).
Also cool seeing more expansion on characters from Joon's Earth life that were mentioned but I forgot about.
u/zonules_of_zinn [+33] (2 hours later)
full text of the quest, for reference:
“If these things could be done by a single person, or even a small group, they would have been,” said Amaryllis. “Do you think the international community is so negligent that they would let Fel Seed sit on his throne in the City of a Thousand Brides if there were any option to do otherwise? It’s flatly impossible to kill him, by any means, not even in theory.”
Quest Accepted: Gone to Seed - There is a place on Aerb considered worse than the first four thousand hells. Fel Seed sits on a throne of living flesh, unable to spread beyond his domain, but with a rule of horror within it. You know his weakness.
more fel seed quotes, as i come across them:
“It’s a long story,” I replied. And not that pleasant of one. “Is he -- was he killed?”
“Nope,” said Fenn. “Still sitting on his throne in the City of a Thousand Brides. Not sure if that particular part of your brain survived your stroke, but he’s not someone we talk about in polite company.”
I shook my head. “He was built to consume the world. If he were in the process of doing that, or if he were killed, that would make sense, but … he’s still alive, doing his … work?”
And at the same time, some of the exclusion zones must have logically been instigated by people who weren’t, for lack of a better term, player characters. Doris Finch didn’t fit into the same mold that Uther and I did, nor did Fel Seed, or Manifest.
But there had to be limits, didn’t there? If you could use illusion magic to make an illusion of a bullet moving a tenth the speed of light two inches from someone’s head … well, there would be no need for any other magic at all, would there? That might give it good reason to be hit by the exclusionary principle, but no other excluded magic was that degenerate or extreme, not even the one around Fel Seed.
u/Green0Photon [+18] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (3 hours later)
Quest Accepted: Gone to Seed - There is a place on Aerb considered worse than the first four thousand hells. Fel Seed sits on a throne of living flesh, unable to spread beyond his domain, but with a rule of horror within it. You know his weakness.
“Fuck,” I said.
“Were you deliberately tempting fate?” asked Fenn.
Amaryllis shrugged, and I saw a slight smile that disappeared almost at once. “It can be done then?”
“The game seems to think so,” I said. “It also thinks I know his weakness, which, uh, might be a problem, because I really don’t. Let’s not do that one.”
- Chapter 43
This also mentions Fel Seed's weakness, or in actuality, how Juniper doesn't know it, but the game thinks he does.
u/zonules_of_zinn [+8] (4 hours later)
i wonder if it'll be a helpful clue, or something that only makes sense to Juniper in hindsight.
u/PanickedApricott [+2] (3 days later)
I wonder if juniper can pull up his notes about fel seed from the house.
u/zonules_of_zinn [+16] (2 hours later)
i'm imagining that fel seed is the throne of living flesh. if it's impossible to kill, even in theory, maybe some sort of grey goo/qdot self-reassembling flesh mountain. it's hard to imagine anything impossible to kill that is an actual physical entity, rather than a process that will inevitably reinforce or reconstitute itself.
any idea what his weakness is?
u/Green0Photon [+19] Student in Cyoria, Minmay, and Ranvar (2 hours later)
I was thinking it's probably Arthur because it works narratively well. The old missing hero is actually the BBEG trope.
That said, the other point of this story is a new rational take on fantasy tabletop/rpg world building. In this case, it would make a lot of sense for Fel Seed to be the throne of flesh.
The weakness could be something with Arthur, especially considering that this is the game that happened right after he died, so there could be a lot of symbolism that's attached to him. I wouldn't be surprised if an Arthur got stuck in Fel Seed/the phenomena of Fel Seed in a similar way that Joon's players did during the original game, in a fit of dramatic irony.
The Fel Seed mentions in the story did reference a king of the place. There's a good possibility that it might actually be both: grey goo and Uther suborning each other, creating a new monstrosity pushing the worst bits of Arthur into the world. (Maybe a bit like Angra Mainyu in Fate.)
u/MuonManLaserJab [+12] (4 hours later)
But "a big regenerating pile of flesh" and grey goo don't seem to be impossible to destroy "even in theory". Grey goo is made of normal matter than can be e.g. heated up until it breaks down, and "a big regenerating pile of flesh" sounds like it should be possible to beat with all the many magics and entads of Aerb, even if it sounds like a massive DPS check.
u/zonules_of_zinn [+8] (4 hours later)
yeah, i was thinking that the reconsolidating fleshy process would have to be something that continued to work even if all the physical matter were broken down, destroyed, transported out of the exclusion zone, etc. somehow...with magic! (edit: actually, we have people being recompiled from soul-source after corruption so the magic for reconstituting things is partway there.)
got any other ideas for what sort of flesh-proximate entity Amaryllis might consider impossible to kill (in theory)?
maybe a hydra-type, kill one body and two more manifest.
it could be just a little facetious, in that it's not technically alive. but to me she seemed to use the word "kill" as in "destroy."
u/MuonManLaserJab [+4] (4 hours later)
I don't really have any good guesses. "Flesh pile but also with bullshit resistances", or something along those lines. Maybe a very very general sort of "all attacks backfire on the attacker" sort of effect.
u/zonules_of_zinn [+5] (4 hours later)
hmm...maybe his soul just gets immediately bounced from the hells every time people send him there? but there would have to be some reason why people couldn't extract and contain/destroy his soul like they can others'.
maybe the soul/seed can't be contained. instead it jumps from vessel to vessel.
still seems like firebombing the entire exclusion zone would solve the problem.
u/narfanator [+3] (15 hours later)
...Alive enough that you could Cannibal it?
u/PathologicalFire [+2] (15 hours later)
There's absolutely no way that turns out well. For anyone involved.
u/Argenteus_CG [+3] (20 hours later)
I mean, whatever happens, Aerb is almost certainly rid of at least one of two massive threats. Sure, it'd end poorly for Joon and his party, but it'd probably be a net gain. And it's almost certainly also a preferable alternative to being captured by Fel Seed, so while it'd be a horrible first plan, it's at the very least useful as a backup.
Come to think of it, if Fel Seed is worse than the first few thousand hells, I bet his victims would deliberately invoke the Cannibal if they knew his name (... assuming they're still in a state where they're capable of speech at all, which is probably NOT a good bet), as much to guarantee their own end as anything else.
u/PresentCompanyExcl [+3] The Culture (a day later)
Fenn knows it and all the companions. I know Fenn asked not to be sent to hell, but if any of them eventually end up the they might think of it.
u/Argenteus_CG [+4] (a day later)
... Actually, would the Cannibal's name work in the hells? And if it did, what would happen, given that injury and death are apparently only temporary in the hells?
u/PresentCompanyExcl [+3] The Culture (a day later)
If it was temporary then it would be dangerous to unleash it there. The demons might write it everywhere as a trap for infernoscope users. Although it might even the scales between souls and demons.
u/russxbox [+2] (23 hours later)
Ooh, I like this plan if combined with the "Arthur is Fel Seed" theory.
Speaking or writing the Cannibal's name summons him, but I bet Joon could write a set of descriptors that someone else from Earth could recognize without using the name itself. Send in a disposable minion (not necessarily a sapient one. Heck, an arrow with a letter tied to it would work) with instructions to speak the name the note calls to mind.
Arthur is either tired of being Fel Seed and speaks it willingly, doesn't know about the Cannibal and does so out of curiosity, or is sufficiently confused and does so out of that. Fel Seed dead + Cannibal trapped in a handy, suddenly-empty exclusion zone or Cannibal no longer a threat + Fel Seed remains status quo. Really a win-win scenario and the only reason no one's tried it before is that it relies entirely on Fel Seed having out of context knowledge they shouldn't have.
u/cactus_head [+6] (a day later)
Then the cannibal would kill Joon because the phenomenon is clever enough to follow the chain of information transfer at least that far back. That's why the empire's attempts at weaponising it failed as badly as they did.
u/MuonManLaserJab [+1] (15 hours later)
That's Actually a good point, given his Comedy virtue. That would be a fun endgame scenario.
u/None [+16] (11 hours later)
[deleted]
u/akaltyn [+11] (12 hours later)
that's groundhog day.
There's another exclusion zone with perpetually repeating time isn't there? Might be a connection between the two.
u/frostburner [+7] (a day later)
Yes a teen boy is repeating the same month over and over again.
u/TheColourOfHeartache [+5] (2 days later)
A Mother of Learning reference?
u/kaukamieli [+10] (18 hours later)
Wouldn't Raven know that? I mean, she didn't say Fel Seed just somehow appeared when Arthur disappeared or anything. I think it's implied that Fel Seed was a thing before Arthur disappeared there.
He might be a part of it now maybe if it is some all consuming thing somehow, but I doubt it.
u/Golden_Magician [+13] (7 hours later)
I haven't commented in a while, and given how much I've grown to love this story, it's time to rectify this!
I've recently re-read most of the story and pitched it to some of my friends, it's really something else. I immediately loved both the grimdark setting and D&D flashbacks, as well as the incredible shifts in tone, setting and atmosphere. And of course, most of the characters so far have felt real and memorable and I've grown attached to some of them. Especially Fenn.. (Although interestingly I didn't like her and Juniper as a couple too much)
I'll be honest: I actually stopped reading the story for a while around the middle of the Fallahtehr arc. The rampant paranoia and second-guessing was making it a stressful reading experience. After a few months I got back to it and after getting through the essentialism arc, it didn't take long for me to fall back to being in love with the story. I am often appalled at the party's actions and full rationalist murder-hobo mindset, which makes it hard to root for them sometimes, but I guess that's part of the appeal of this setting. There are so many hints of more to come and I have a twisted sense of anticipation to find out about the worse exclusion zones and existential risks that Aerb is facing.
As for today's chapters, I appreciated them for cementing Joon's status as definitely not a gary stu isekai protag! He and Arthur are such interesting characters, although I must say that if I had to choose one to hang out with I'd definitely go for Arthur. Raven wasn't terribly interesting but perhaps that's the point, she has a pretty generic fantasy vibe to her.
Guess that's enough of my disconnected thoughts for now! Thank you so much for writing this and I can't wait for more!
u/Afronerd [+2] (16 hours later)
I would imagine that if actual cannibal were about to destroy the hells that would justify a new exclusion zone. That might be one way to deal with him if he's arbitrarily powerful.
u/Croktopus [+10] (7 hours later)
God, it can't be healthy that I'm mourning Fenn...
u/VilhalmFeidhlim [+8] (3 minutes later)
Pre-emptively calling that this is going to be a GREAT couple chapters.
u/mojojo46 [+9] (22 minutes later)
Arthur = Fel Seed confirmed?
u/nytelios [+36] (an hour later)
Ugh. That was my kneejerk thought as well, but depending on Raven's meaning, the exclusion zone might have predated Uther's last known position. Otherwise, Uther's slow decline into depravity, alienation of lovers, and amicicide uncannily mirrors Joon's real-life deterioration of self and campaign - both culminating in Fel Seed.
I wonder what plot thread Uther saw that led him there. It would be unbelievably sad if he, near the end, became aware that he was living through Aerb's deterioration because Aerb was a parallel, synchronous embodiment of Joon's world and everything was a reflection of Joon suffering from Arthur's death.
u/JonRain [+22] (2 hours later)
Holy shit came here just to say this. Like if he noticed things that he knew Joon hadn't created durin the time he was alive, but he saw the telltale signs of Joon's touch but how dark and twisted it had become. Shit, I wonder if he thought that Juniper was the God of the world. I mean on Earth Juniper as the GM was this all powerful entity who moved things behind the scenes for Arthur to defeat and conquer. I wonder if he thought this was the same scenario.
u/zonules_of_zinn [+12] (2 hours later)
I’m telling you this because Aerb had features that were stolen from my D&D games, and all the stuff I was most scared of came from the post-Arthur era. Fel Seed, Nightsmoke, the borogoves, the mimsies
not sure if we've heard of uther encountering any of these, other than the current reveal about fel seed. certainly possible, and also possible that the DM tossed things at uther in a semi-chronological order, which would make the transition pretty obvious as well.
u/akaltyn [+13] (12 hours later)
depending on Raven's meaning, the exclusion zone might have predated Uther's last known position.
If Fell Seed already existed then Arthur entering the exclusion zone would be the closest thing to suicide he could do in that world, throwing himself against the most dangerous threat possible to test if its possible for him to die in this world/lose the game.
u/Argenteus_CG [+14] (2 hours later)
I'm just not sure I believe it. The story is making it clear that Arthur wasn't a saint, but I don't think he's this ultimate evil whose realm is worse than the first few thousand hells either.
u/Slinkinator [+7] (2 hours later)
Yeah, it seems possibly that he would be corrupted by a great evil, but not be the personification of it.
u/eroticas [+9] (2 hours later)
Have we ever been told what Fel Seed actually is?
u/MuonManLaserJab [+11] (4 hours later)
No, just hints, quoted elsewhere in this thread. "Thousand brides", "throne of living flesh", "impossible to kill him, by any means, not even in theory", etc.
u/Rice_22 [+23] (3 hours later)
Some disgusting land of rape and evil just to be edgy and turn off Juniper's real life friends during his bad phase. "City of a Thousand Brides" is kind of a hint how it works in this world.
Probably a turned-up-to-eleven/Warhammer 40k version of Sodom and Gomorrah, except it spreads to consume the world.
u/jaghataikhan [+5] Primarch of the White Scars (11 hours later)
Yup my mental starting point is the 40k Dark Eldar city of Commorragh (subtlety isn't that setting's strong suit haha)
u/Bramble-Thorn [+3] (2 days later)
With the "Throne of Flesh," "Created to consume the world," and "considered worse than the first 4,000 Hells," It sounds like some flesh amalgam I have no mouth and I must scream scenario.
u/Eryemil [+7] (11 hours later)
Awesome. I'm picturing Fel Seed as some hardcore hetero Sado/Gore/body horror hentai playground. I've been wanting to read about it since it was first mentioned.
u/Hermaan [+2] (6 days later)
Thanks. Now I imagine it like the Berserk apocalypse.
u/Allian42 [+8] (20 hours later)
How does this kind of thing keeps sneaking up on me? Bethel was, from the start, the biggest loose cannon they had. Her introduction was a horror movie and that part on her history with Arthur was visceral as all hell. She has no morals, no loyalty, no duty and has enough power to transform the party into a smear in a second. But noooo. She is a companion so we good! right?
And I was so looking forward to Raven's reaction to Juniper story, so much potential for new info. The way she was reacting to Juniper's lines tells me she is a lot more unguarded with her emotions than her age would suggest.
On the other hand, damn. That first chapter was only second to the Tiff chapter for me on the raw emotion scale. It's interesting how everyone back then was mad at him for lashing out after Arthur died and just kept assuming that was just his way to deal with it. That he would get better once it was out of his system or something, like Craig said. Yet from the outside it's so clear to me just how close to the edge Juniper was.
Juniper could really use some therapy (of the non-Valencia kind).
u/Radioterrill [+4] (a day later)
As an aside, does anyone else find Bethel reminding them of Janet from The Good Place? I guess the similarities are mainly in their concepts, but this chapter I kept feeling like her avatar was going to suddenly appear whenever Joon called for her
u/I_Probably_Think [+2] (6 days later)
That would explain why I feel like it would be the most fun to play (current) Bethel as a character...
u/Law_Student [+3] (a day later)
Bethel could really use some sort of item that gave her empathy and a conscience. I'm not willing to sacrifice ropey, but maybe there'd be something else at some point.
u/PresentCompanyExcl [+5] The Culture (a day later)
Would she accept it though? She already has her own values and seems to like it that way.
From her perspective: She cares about being a great house and having people live in her and that's all she needs. Why would she accept brainwashing that makes her care about human lives, emotions, fornicating, and that kind of stuff? And would it really be her. She can fake some values when they are important to her guests (e.g. the funeral?) and that has served her just fine for hundreds of years.
u/Allian42 [+5] (a day later)
I think just being around ropey should eventually help.
u/Law_Student [+3] (2 days later)
An insightful thought, you might be right.
u/serge_cell [+6] (a day later)
Googling "Fel Seed" produce some notable results:
Warcraft spell
Felwort Seed
Most interesting is "Fel Seeding":
FEL is free electron laser. FEL seeding is initiating FEL with normal laser in resonance process. Now, why it's relevant? It is speculated that Free Electron Laser could be most destructive weapon of the future space wars. It's tunable nature allow using diffraction focusing system produce continuous X-ray beam, with combat range measured in light days
PS Most nonsensical Fel Seed (WTC) weakness would be to build X-ray laser in Blue Fields exclusion zone (Nuke-pumped would be more easy then really powerful FEL) and shoot into Fel Seed (WTC) city straight through earth curvature.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+10] Mouse Army (a day later)
Aerb is flat though. No curvature.
u/serge_cell [+3] (a day later)
Bummer
u/the_terran [+6] (17 hours later)
I have trouble reconciling Joon from the first chapter with the trainwreck from this chapter. Am I misremembering his state of mind from back then? Wasn't he too well-adjusted given this background info?
u/i6i [+13] (18 hours later)
He went through a suicide attempt, recovered and built the twilight campaign setting in an attempt to try to patch things up after these events. Plus going through the zombie apocalypse with a bunch of weird alien people makes for a fairly decent distraction.
u/serge_cell [+4] (a day later)
I think the reasons mostly Doylist. Just author having some new ideas which he didn't have at the beginning of the book. That's the common thing in very long novels or series.
u/alexanderwales [+9] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
The Joon-as-high-schooler stuff is semi-autobiographical, so that's not the case for this particular one.
u/nytelios [+9] (20 hours later)
The discussion above talks about this.
/u/Sparkwitch had a great justification with the crises and its postponement of his depression (though the stats theory is plausible too). Also, anhedonia was a large part of Joon's depression, mostly because he was stuck in the monotonous debris of his Kansas high school life. Something as dramatic as an isekai relocation into a world literally tailored for him "cures" that, at least in the short term.
I think Joon has always seemed well-adjusted when things were going well, but he's downright dreadful at adjusting when it counts (to trauma and grief). And since that first chapter, we've mostly known Joon the DM-as-player-now dealing with in-game conflicts rather than Joon-the-freshly-grieving coping post-trauma that has started to crop up more.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+9] Mouse Army (6 hours later)
Um, can I pretty please get some trigger warnings before the Feel Seed chapter?
u/Calsem [+8] (2 hours later)
Man I really dislike bethel. Who the heck thinks cutting people's fingers off is okay?????
u/LordGoldenroot [+28] (2 hours later)
Someone who spent the last few centuries killing anyone who enters their perception in sadistic ways.
u/RiOrius [+17] (5 hours later)
I mean, she got better. In a world with magical healing the line for what constitutes an acceptable level of casual violence shifts.
u/PathologicalFire [+3] (15 hours later)
It feels really unreasonable to suggest she 'got better.' I'm fairly certain the only reason she's tolerating the team right now is the possibility of revenge on Uther.
u/RiOrius [+8] (16 hours later)
Sorry, by "she" I meant Raven. The injuries inflicted were healed within minutes of them being inflicted. So yes, cutting people's fingers off in the real world is extreme, but in a fantasy world with that level of healing it's no big deal.
u/zonules_of_zinn [+3] (a day later)
it's pain and psychological torture, which is sort of a deal. though certainly a different realm from causing permanent physical harm.
u/akaltyn [+8] (12 hours later)
In human terms she's someone who was abused as a child, then locked in solitary confinement. So its understandable that she's not super well adjusted.
u/Argenteus_CG [+3] (an hour later)
A short couple of chapters, but good nonetheless.
u/PM_ME_CUTE_FOXES [+2] (a day later)
This was a pretty good set of chapters, thanks Jepsen.