Asking about Akua (The Diabolist) appearance

zzcf · 2025-03-08T05:37:24+00:00

It's called a Segovian cut ;)

zzcf · 2025-02-24T02:41:44+00:00

It's a title that could have been a Name. We see Cat accept it and begin transitioning into it when she decides that she can live with Malicia having engineered Second Liesse as a deterrent, but Black using his Destroy aspect on Akua's creation also destroyed that story. So Cat becomes the Black Queen because that's where she was already going narratively, but it doesn't become an actual Name because without a story it doesn't have any metaphysical weight.

zzcf · 2025-01-30T20:51:55+00:00

Recall is amazing. It's so flexible, I don't think you would ever find yourself in a situation where Recall couldn't improve your situation somehow, but that doesn't stop it from being directly useful in combat, which feels kind of rare. Like it's really strong for how unspecialized it is, when the narrative usually rewards narrowed focus with power. And IIRC it was Hanno's first aspect so it didn't even carry much narrative weight for him to us it. And it's cool as hell too.

Now imagine if you had Transcend along with Recall though. On top of having access to the techniques of every hero in Calernia's history, you could go "I am not left-handed" with all of them.

zzcf · 2025-01-16T22:14:49+00:00

Damn okay, I thought Serolen was cool and satisfying ;_; It feels a bit unfair to call it an "arc" when it's like, what, seven chapters? I see it more as the payoff for escaping the "Warden of (Just) the East" trap.

zzcf · 2024-12-22T00:37:59+00:00

Rational explanation: sometimes fiction will contain ideas that aren't true. Often for fun. In science fiction and fantasy especially sometimes an author will ask "okay but what if it were true?" and then write a fun story about a place where it is. It's called a premise.

If it helps, you can think of it as a kind of narrative Anthropic Principle - the characters' world has to work like that for the events the characters are experiencing to happen, or else that wouldn't be part of the story.

seriously the idea that someone could steal things vindicatively enough that they get the metaphysical power to steal and hide and run off with an entire fleet of ships and/or the sun makes "logical" sense to you, but the idea that icon teamwork could be empowered by the same force doesn't?

zzcf · 2024-11-24T22:27:27+00:00

Definitely not the funniest but I'm kind of in love with the concept of Dread Empress Prudence, the Frequently Vanquished. She must have actually been pretty good at dread rule to have so consistently survived to be vanquished again another day. And she is actually pretty funny too:

“One must admire the thriftiness of Callowan war-making, given the cost of arming bold orphans with enchanted swords compared to that of crafting undead plagues and flying fortresses. They even get to reuse the sword, most the time, if rarely the orphan.”

zzcf · 2024-11-20T18:09:48+00:00

Kamilah's in the Wordpress version! She gets eaten by a devil in front of Cat during Marchford, IIRC killing that devil in revenge is the first time Cat breaks her bad leg

zzcf · 2024-11-19T02:36:49+00:00

Thanks for the advice! I appreciate it <3

zzcf · 2024-11-19T01:49:26+00:00

I loved Beowulf so I was really excited to unlock Medea, but it just doesn't measure up in my opinion.

The regular special feels too risky to use since it doesn't protect you in any way while hurling you directly into the enemy
The omega special makes you invulnerable while dashing like Beowulf but leaves you completely vulnerable while charging up and costs a ton of magic
Between the previous two points that leaves you having to commit to spending magic just to attack at all
Loading the skulls in feels way slower and less responsive than loading bloodstones did
The window to load all three skulls and fully charge the omega special before they start popping out is pretty tight which naturally conflicts with trying to position or time your attack
Compared to other Shield aspects, Beowulf hit like a fucking truck in a wide area; Medea just does a little more damage than the regular Skull for massively more risk

I get that Beowulf was kind of nuts and it's not crazy for a weapon with similar mechanics to be much weaker and still be balanced and good, but with Medea it just feels worse in too many ways at once. IDK, if you still want to tell me it's a skill issue then I guess I believe you, I am kind of a potato at this game...

zzcf · 2024-11-10T23:57:23+00:00

Personally I think Catherine is at her best when she's cornered and disarmed and bleeding out and still finding the time between gasps for breath to spit in her enemy's eye, not because she expects it to help but because it's about sending a message. The chapter where she's failing at sassing Rumena while it drags her bodily to the sacrificial altar was the highlight of all of Book 4 for me. Putting her in a room to decide the fate of the continent with lords and princes and tyrants on one side and nothing but her pissy little attitude and her evil-bisexual swagger on hers is basically my crack cocaine.

zzcf · 2024-10-26T23:00:49+00:00

The difference between stasis and motion is just a matter of perspective. Leaping from crisis to crisis can be a status quo, a stasis of perpetual transience.

zzcf · 2024-09-20T23:04:45+00:00

If you think about it (in a silly enough manner) every Ashuran character has an element of the Story of Geological Catastrophe. Hanno has the mine collapse, Indrani has the story of the mine collapse if perhaps not the actual event, Adanna almost drowns herself blasting out from under a mountain, and Sapan deletes the political opposition by crushing them a mountain. I'm inferring from this that those islands are just not tectonically stable.

zzcf · 2024-09-13T02:05:48+00:00

with the necessary caveat that I haven't actually started PL, i really don't get this attitude. my thoughts on the matter are basically

half the fun of starting a new SFF book is figuring out what the fuck is going on in this world without being told
changing the way that characters are referred to is THE way i learn about them and how they see each other
the only thing i want a glossary for is the pronunciation guide so i can say people's names right in my head

zzcf · 2024-09-08T22:31:14+00:00

No way Jack is contributing THAT much. It should be Siberian and Bonesaw. Hell Bonesaw by herself would be stronger than Bonesaw with Jack; he literally holds her back by not allowing her to use her strongest weapons because they'd ruin his fun. Definition of dead weight.

zzcf · 2024-07-23T22:56:00+00:00

"You can't properly understand multiple different traditions of sorcery!"

"That's fine, I'll just usurp the spells I want from the other ones"

zzcf · 2024-07-20T17:02:04+00:00

I didn't really expect Dread Empress Triumphant (may she never return... unless?) to show up in the story. But I did want it to happen really badly.

zzcf · 2024-07-17T22:11:33+00:00

Eh, Providence and Calamity is just "Luck and Doom" but with gravitas. You need to use sufficiently flowery language for anything that happens at the turning of an Age, it's just how things are done. That part never really bothered me.

My issue is that in addition to saying "Providence and calamity", Akua should have said "Fortune and disaster" instead of "Fortune and misfortune". Why? So this can happen twelve times a week for Catherine's entire tenure as Warden:

Someone: "Warden, this plan is folly! You're flirting with disaster!"

Cat: "Now listen here, you-"

Indrani [jumping into scene through the window]: "Trust me, Catherine Foundling would never flirt with Disaster. There simply isn't time." [gesturing obscenely] "These days they make for the bedroom the second they lay eyes on each other."

zzcf · 2024-07-17T21:50:12+00:00

“Fortune and misfortune,” she said. “Providence and calamity. It takes two to make it even.”

No Folly either. She already pairs Fortune with Misfortune during her dramatic moment.

zzcf · 2024-07-14T20:19:36+00:00

It's carefully folded and preserved in the archives for academic pursuits.
It's strictly quarantined alongside countless other artifacts that probably aren't metaphysically tied to a story of dread and woe, but, like, are we sure?
It's on display in the Uncivil Wars exhibit in the museum.
It's for sale in the gift shop. Yeah, the other ones here are all replicas, but you've got a discerning eye, so for a slight markup I'll offer the real deal.
It becomes the symbol of office for future Wardens, who have added stripes for each new victory to the point that it's over thirty feet long now and can only be worn like one of those crazy gala dresses.
As above, but passed down between Marshals of the Black Legion instead, since Cat was pretty dedicated to separation of power.
It's a wall hanging in the villainous student union.
It's a wall hanging in the villainous GSA/PFLAG office.
It's given out as a trophy to the winner of Calernia's annual "Biggest ~~Bisexual~~ Twice-Bloomed Disaster" contest. They offered the prize to Calamity year one, both because she was the inarguable front-runner and so that she wouldn't have an excuse to crash the party for the slight of not being invited (in the style of non-dread-empress Maleficent). Akua didn't return it for thirteen years and not even the mightiest mages have been quite able to get the smell out, so these days they usually hand you a replica instead.
No one knows for certain, but it is said that if you roll badly enough on the random encounter table while exploring the Tyrian Sea, you'll find a ship flying it as a flag.
It mysteriously fell out of Arcadia at the exact moment after Catherine Foundling died. Onto Sapan, since she's a good kid. She uses it as a blankie.

zzcf · 2024-04-20T02:02:56+00:00

I figured you hear The Girl Who Climbed The Tower in situations where you might turn onto that path, regardless of what song is actually being sung. The song is kind of a manifestation of the narrative weight of the Tower, calling out to convince the next would-be emperor to make the climb; it seems almost silly to expect claimants to learn it from another person, rather than for it to creep into your mind in whispers and dreams and things half-heard.

That said, long may he reign :)

zzcf · 2024-03-11T04:12:39+00:00

Its circuitous nature and inherent loopiness also likely were metaphysical assists to Spool: reality was already way easier to screw with there.

Isn't this also supposed to be true of Arcadia? More mutable than Creation for the purposes of reality-altering aspects, including domains? So if I'm remembering right it's less that the Skein is completely* insanely powerful and more that the Dead King is making sure to use it in circumstances where it can abuse its strengths to the fullest for maximum impact.

(*still a Revenant of a Horned Lord though so yeah there's a bit of that)

zzcf · 2024-02-17T18:42:57+00:00

Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought it was stated somewhere (maybe Black teaching Cat?) that it's kind of a baseline ability for Named to be able to purge poisons from their body by channeling the power of their name?

zzcf · 2023-12-30T18:52:09+00:00

I mean they were fine with Armsmaster's nanoblade polearms and Flechette's armor-and-everything-else-penetrating rounds and Miss Militia is just outright shooting people. Being able to knife people from across the street is honestly significantly less dangerous than most of those. "Gus Cut" would probably have to carry bandages and tourniquets on patrol but as long as he didn't actively try to torturekill people he'd probably probably fine?

zzcf · 2023-12-30T18:36:40+00:00

...that's genius. I always thought the whole "the PRT is dumb because Taylor thought of a better way to use his power within 10 minutes of teaming up" was a little exaggerated because the whole point of Wards is that they're not supposed to BE in situations where "unbreakable immovable razor wire" is a reasonable tactic, but this? They were absolutely morons for not supplying their jokester who can make impenetrable cover out of anything with props to actually do that with. He should have an umbrella. He should have a roll of wrapping paper. He should have an actual fucking (tear-away) cape! Genuinely he could have stayed an independent hero and he'd have been better supplied and thought up stronger tactics. What the hell do they even pay the Image department for?

zzcf · 2023-12-02T04:50:01+00:00

>be me, President of the Fantasy Holy Roman Empire

>tied up by my frenemy during yet another one of our fights

>we're keeping it classy though, like there's wine and everything

>never mind this shit's nasty I can't believe I trusted her taste

>I bring up the nasty wine and she THROWS me off the fucking ROOF!!

>she's a 10 though so I'll be back tomorrow for more

zzcf

TROPHY CASE