Progress Report 2 August 2017 · 4:56am Aug 3rd, 2017
Blog time!
So, looks like I’m still getting crashes, but they’re less frequent lately… knock on wood. At some point I’ll need a rebuild, but I’m going to wait. At least the new monitor is nice.
Been hard to write lately. The most frustrating thing is I’m about to write a scene I’ve been thinking about for AGES, and it’ll never be as cool as it is in my head. Gotta push forward, though.
I met a Patreon goal recently, and I am working on the stuff related to that. It’ll just be a few on that front. :)
Looks like the recent chapter wasn’t extremely well received. I understand the complaints, and I do hear you guys. It was written before this line of complaints was really made plain, and I intended to eventually reveal it was far less random than it seemed. In other words, I am setting something up with it, but it’s a long payoff, and now I feel it wasn’t the right call to go this route. Re-writing it, however, would take a not-insignificant amount of time and effort given the status of my hands. (Facebook needs to hurry up with that damn brain interface.) I have to balance that against writing new stuff, which I’m behind on by a lot, so I let it ride. Wish I didn’t at this point, but it is what it is. But, I do hear you guys, and I’m sorry if you’re all disappointed. I’ll try to move up the release of the next chapter in penance, and if I have time and hand strength, maybe even re-write the ending to this chapter at some point.
Until next blog!
-Cv
Eh, I thought the ending was all right- maybe a bit more of the same, but it made sense how it played out. Don't feel obligated to strain yourself (more).
(And sorry, it is easy for us to forget you've written far ahead, which on balance is a good setup.)
I thought the last chapter was fine, though haven't been able to wade through comments (gotta love travel with spotty infrequent internet access). I figured there might have been more than a few things in there involving a 'long game' so to speak.
Hope things hold up for you there and I wouldn't loose too much sleep over it.
As always looking forward to more.
To me it always sounds like they want to read a different story, and then complain that this is not that story. People trying to force their headcanon into other stories is really annoying.
Either way, I like the story just fine. Keep up the good work.
It was a good chapter. I at least liked it.
Addendum: the bulk of the chapter was also pretty cool, even if it went without saying a bit.
It's me, Stealtheh, and I'd like to say once again that I enjoyed the chapter.
Perhaps it's not in all caps like I said yesterday, but it was still an interesting read. The only thing that I was a bit disappointed about was that it felt like it ended abruptly, but I can tell why I'd feel that way what with all the action-packed chapters that precedes the current one.
Can't have every chapter be all action-y, after all.
Anyway, just dropping by to share my thoughts and support, and hope that things go fine with the homestuffs.
Oh, jeez. People are being asshats in comments again... With some very strongly held opinions that are often just interpretations of characters and how they think they should act. Or about how a story should be written.
The main gripe seems to be how Twilight got ambushed and maybe how confusing that was. But no matter how powerful a character is if they are ambushed it can completely negate that. There's also nothing wrong with how disorientating an experience it was. That was perfectly well written. The only minor point of criticism that I see as valid is that until now I hadn't realized her horn wasn't being protected by the armour. Though in hindsight that should have been obvious as in the show it also isn't when you see unicorn guards.
Anything else I'm just waiting to see how it plays out in the story. As an editor I know that not everything is immediately revealed, or might not be revealed, to readers. People should really learn to chill and let it play out. And if you're concerned they should simply state their concern and ask if this is something that is being handled in the story or something might have been missed. You know, normal dialogue and criticism. I suspect the city will start to make a lot more sense in following chapters.
I thought it was a great chapter! Keep up the good work
4622350
4622675
Eh, to give the short summary of the dissatisfaction as I understand, it's more 'Twilight & the Alicorns are presented as the pinnacle of magical might, Twilight has undergone intensive combat training with the best of the best, and yet every bad guy also has similar badass powers regardless of how important they are.'
Like, if it were Rincewind the Wizard getting constantly cold-cocked, nobody would be surprised. It's Rincewind.
But Twilight is being sold as supposedly much more powerful than that, with the best of the best in magical equipment and yet since the Gryphon arc every foe she fights is able to go toe to toe with her and throw down and potentially steamroll her.
Once or twice when that happens, sure, but do it too much (As at least some readers feel), and it grates.
Hopefully that clarifies.
4623078
Another part of it is that she's supposed to be an unparalleled magical genius with decades of study under Celestia under her belt, but she seems clueless on so many aspects of magic that she often comes off as someone who is new to the field.
4623078
I get that it's dissatisfying to see her lose all the time and not be able to shine with her supposed strength, but she isn't sold as all powerfull. The very fact that she constantly loses shows that she's on a medium power level at best. And the arguments, at least in the last chapter, were all "Twilight should be way stronger, how can she lose against random thugs". And her foes are definitely no random thugs either.
Her intensive combat training only lasted some months iirc. She has nothing on elite fighters that trained their whole lives. Her foes too have access to high end equipment.
If the readers are unhappy with the low amount of situations where Twilight shines, they should say that (like this 4623103 ) and not make up supposed plotholes.
Twilight actually did powerful magic things during the incidents with the water tower and the collapsing building. They were just not fighting things.
4623468
The point wasn't to try swaying anyone here but elaborate on the 'want to read a different story' bit. Ultimately it's 'we see it differently'; I see 'Twilight is painted as a prodigy who should be second to almost nopony, and that ends up not being true', and thus dissatisfying. Hence my point about Rincewind, because to me there's a disconnect between 'What we are told Twilight is' and 'What the story shows she is'. Similarly, when every foe is some alicorn-level badass, it brings the 'What makes alicorns special?' argument into play. Yes, 3 months of training in physical isn't putting her on the same level as Darth Vader, but the 'everyone's a badass' that is occurring of late is the part that I at least dislike. I am 100% fine with her being outmatched from time to time. What I, personally, find dissatisfying is that that seems to be the case in every scenario - that every foe she faces can go hoof to hoof with her and be an even or superior match.
I guess what I'm saying is I feel Twilight is painted as being Rand Al'Thor from Wheel of Time, who could take out entire armies by himself, but in actuality she feels more like a paper tiger Worf or Show-Celestia style where getting outmatched happens far too often to make me be able to accept she's who she's said to be.
The water tower was good. I liked that. The collapsing building? Yes and no - it was fun but it was another example of 'Here is a new thing preventing Twilight from doing what she should be able to do' coming into play at the same time with the miasmic interference.
Anyhoo, I don't really want to leap into another round of this and I doubt CV wants to read it all so if you want to respond feel free to PM me so it doesnt clutter blog comments.
4623933
Not much left to argue i think. You not enjoying Twilight losing against powerful foes all the time is an opinion. You're entitled to have one. I kind of agree actually. I just don't mind too much because i don't see her as much of a fighter.
Before meddling too much with more hardware changes try running
sfc /scannowin a Command Prompt instance that was run as administrator.If you are on Windows 8 or above run
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealthto check and repair that the back up copies of system files the "sfc" command uses to repair the system.Running
findstr /L "[SR]" %windir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log > %userprofile%\Desktop\sfc_results.txtwill copy all lines from the log "sfc" creates than might contain important information to a text file on the desktop. Replace%userprofile%with an actual path if the user account you use is not an administrator as it would place the file on the administrator's desktop. Or I guess just runningnotepad %userprofile%\Desktop\sfc_results.txtto open the created file would also work to avoid needing to find appropriate path names.Hi CV,
I thought the chapter was good!