Shining Force Central

While there's nothing in the game itself to either support or contradict this point of her character, I've never seen Yeesha as a wanderer by nature. Castle Cypress is her home, and she's in the habit of doing whatever she's good at to make it a better place. She's just not the sort to change her profession and lifestyle on a whim. And to summarize the main thrust of the scene under discussion, while you and Varmo might see cleaning as an undignified task, Yeesha does not.

Anyway Marine, I've derailed this thread on this topic long enough, so if you want to continue this discussion, I'll be happy to take it up with you over PM through either FF dot net or SFC.

Moving on: chapter 5 of "Shadow of the Future" is up! At long last, Natasha confronts Mayfair about her marriage. Plus, one or two characters we haven't seen in a while pop in.

Also, I belatedly realized that in chapter 4 I had Duke Herrig and his wife claiming that they have no children, when their daughter Peppe has already been mentioned a couple times. Don't know how I managed to make an oversight of that magnitude, but it's fixed now.

EDIT: And... One month without any posts here! Ah well, for anyone who's checking here, chapter 6 of "Shadow of the Future" is up. It's the reunion of Dawn, Jane, Vyra, and Natasha - very fun to write, and came more naturally than I expected. Enjoy!

Bump. Weeeee

Well, good news is I am still working on this fic of mine, but I've had computer issues like mad, soooo... it's slow-going, but it's going.

It's more than a little eerie to me to find that just around the same time I was planning to announce my return to actively working "The Granserian Way" Martin had reached his hiatus.

But the truth will out. I have uploaded a new chapter of "The Granserian Way." I am prepared to actually be an active author in prosecuting the end of this fic now, although we all know that the number of delays that have already happened are ridiculous. I would just caution anybody who plans to return to reading the story that this chapter, unfortunately, is more in the nature of gathering together some disparate plot threads than advancing the plot a lot. The following chapter will do the same for the other half of the story. By Chapter 17, however, we should be approaching the plot-heavy chapters at full throttle.

All of that said, I hope that my surprise reappearnce heralds some activity from anyone else who is still active or ever had any ambitions of being so. Yes, that means Noma, Snipes and Rose at the least.

I've been very preoccupied with my SF2 hack stuff for a long while, among other things I have going on outside of SF related things. That said, I try to go on at least once a week and knock out a few pages of my Oddeye fic.

Goddammit, you've hit my sore point. Incoming angry rant.

Martin, you're not seriously going to try and have Iom and his worshipers be the good guys are you? The cliche of horrible evil being done for a greater good according to some grand plan is not only intellectually dishonest*, but tired and old. Iom and his ilk are not sympathetic, they are not misunderstood, they are not secretly working for the communal good. They are monsters. And you've even portrayed them as monsters, but increasingly, I get the sense from what I've read that the sheer creepiness of Iom and how brainwashed anyone he contacts gets isn't a function of that. I'm starting to think you're leading the audience to believe, that even you believe, the evil god of blood isn't all that bad. I'm getting the sense that Deanna's son is going to pop out, go all blood crazy, kill a ton of people and then everyone unites against him and then Iom's going to be all like SEE IF I DIDN'T KILL A BUNCH OF YOUR DUDES YOU WOULDN'T HAVE STOPPED KILLING DUDES! Or the standard gambit where it's "either they'll unify against me or they'll unify when I've conquered them" routine. Ugh.

I was taking all of this with a grain of salt before, but now supposedly 'fixed' May still is loyal to Iom, Deanna's willing to TRUST her despite the hilarious obviousness of what's going on, and the sheer fact Iom-worship is still prevalent... ay-yi-yi. I'm asking you straight. What is the deal with Iom. Put it in spoilers or PM it if you have to.

*The trope, applied as much in real life as it is in fiction unfortunately, allows people to justify increasing terrible actions with "it'll be OK in the end." It's dishonest because this sort of story encourages lazy thinking when it comes to the most critical sort of thought, thought regarded deep ethical matters. In much the same way we now have West Point cadets arguing for implementation of war crimes*1, these sorts of stories give people the notion that it's OK to take the more terrible, easy way out to a given dilemma rather than struggle through it.


*1 A real thing noted in Lt. Col Grossman's book "On Killing". Several relatively recent cadets argued that torture and implementation of atrocity were justified in the effects on breaking enemy morale and thus ending the war faster. One of the bastards used "24" as an example.

Yeah I know, it's fanfiction. But I'm seeing this shit pop up everything in modern media. It's making me VERY ANGRY INSIDE.

I'll stop here because it's 5 AM. Still, that angry rant was cathartic. I should yell at the world more often.

Well the next chapter has just been uploaded once again. It took me a little longer than I wanted to put it up, mostly because I was really sick last week or it would have been up a week ago, but you have it at last. I reworked the chapter somewhat, and though it's a little lengthy, I think that most readers will be pleased to find that it has a lot of things happening in it. It was certainly refreshing to me to rework things in such a way as to have such an eventful chapter. Hopefully there will be fewer of these small hitches going forward.

As for Noma and Rose, it's good to hear that the two of you are still working on your stuff from time to time. You gotta keep everyone from relying on just me!

As a minor note at TUM: I've never gotten the sense that Martin is going on an all out Iom is the greater good kick. Not a bit of it. He's spent a fair bit of time showing us that Iom worshippers, even if they make poor decisions in that much, are still at least people, by and large. But the unrelentingly evil depictions of Woldol and the negative attention given to actors like Warderer and Leifo not to mention Iom itself, from Deanna's mouth no less, has me convinced that he's not actually trying to rehabilitate Iom of all things. I think you might be conflating some of your irritations with Nick's statesmanship onto the current fallout of the Iom situation.

Demonic Weasel wrote:Well the next chapter has just been uploaded once again. It took me a little longer than I wanted to put it up, mostly because I was really sick last week or it would have been up a week ago, but you have it at last. I reworked the chapter somewhat, and though it's a little lengthy, I think that most readers will be pleased to find that it has a lot of things happening in it. It was certainly refreshing to me to rework things in such a way as to have such an eventful chapter. Hopefully there will be fewer of these small hitches going forward.

As for Noma and Rose, it's good to hear that the two of you are still working on your stuff from time to time. You gotta keep everyone from relying on just me!

As a minor note at TUM: I've never gotten the sense that Martin is going on an all out Iom is the greater good kick. Not a bit of it. He's spent a fair bit of time showing us that Iom worshippers, even if they make poor decisions in that much, are still at least people, by and large. But the unrelentingly evil depictions of Woldol and the negative attention given to actors like Warderer and Leifo not to mention Iom itself, from Deanna's mouth no less, has me convinced that he's not actually trying to rehabilitate Iom of all things. I think you might be conflating some of your irritations with Nick's statesmanship onto the current fallout of the Iom situation.

I think you're right I might be transferring a bit, but I think it's more my irritation at the current trend of anti-heroism than Nick's statesmanship.

But even saying that, I don't know. That's the vibe I'm getting. I'm hoping I'm wrong.

@DW: You said you uploaded the new chapter of Granserian Way, correct? To ff.net? Not sure if you've noticed, but it hasn't shown up yet. >.>

Just thought I'd point this out.

Anyway... still grinding away at mine... slowly. I don't want to post anything up until I've really made something out of this thing. (and I'm not feeling like I have. Well, not that much, anyway. *shrugs*)

Hmm. Well I was going to put up Chapter 17 today, but I'll hold off for a day or two to look into this matter at ff.net. This problem with updates playing hide-and-seek is getting a little old.

I'll put up the next chapter sometime in the middle of the week, most likely, as soon as I'm sure that the last one is there.

And Rose! You just gotta keep working. I'm telling you, eventually it pulls together.

I read a few chapters of ROTDK yesterday and, though riddled with typos it still seems to hold up pretty well even though i wrote in years ago now. Actually made me consider continuing it...

Noma89 - I do remember the middle two thirds of "Resurrection of the Devil King" being very good. It's more unpredictable than most fanfic epics, and you bruilt up the relationships between the party members quite nicely. That said, at this point I'd much rather see more of "The Legacy of Oddeye"...

TheUnknownMarine wrote:Goddammit, you've hit my sore point. Incoming angry rant.

Martin, you're not seriously going to try and have Iom and his worshipers be the good guys are you? The cliche of horrible evil being done for a greater good according to some grand plan is not only intellectually dishonest*, but tired and old. Iom and his ilk are not sympathetic, they are not misunderstood, they are not secretly working for the communal good. They are monsters. And you've even portrayed them as monsters, but increasingly, I get the sense from what I've read that the sheer creepiness of Iom and how brainwashed anyone he contacts gets isn't a function of that. I'm starting to think you're leading the audience to believe, that even you believe, the evil god of blood isn't all that bad. I'm getting the sense that Deanna's son is going to pop out, go all blood crazy, kill a ton of people and then everyone unites against him and then Iom's going to be all like SEE IF I DIDN'T KILL A BUNCH OF YOUR DUDES YOU WOULDN'T HAVE STOPPED KILLING DUDES! Or the standard gambit where it's "either they'll unify against me or they'll unify when I've conquered them" routine. Ugh.

I was taking all of this with a grain of salt before, but now supposedly 'fixed' May still is loyal to Iom, Deanna's willing to TRUST her despite the hilarious obviousness of what's going on, and the sheer fact Iom-worship is still prevalent... ay-yi-yi. I'm asking you straight. What is the deal with Iom. Put it in spoilers or PM it if you have to.

*The trope, applied as much in real life as it is in fiction unfortunately, allows people to justify increasing terrible actions with "it'll be OK in the end." It's dishonest because this sort of story encourages lazy thinking when it comes to the most critical sort of thought, thought regarded deep ethical matters. In much the same way we now have West Point cadets arguing for implementation of war crimes*1, these sorts of stories give people the notion that it's OK to take the more terrible, easy way out to a given dilemma rather than struggle through it.

This is awesome. I never really thought anyone would get this anxious about the outcome of Brehen's prophecy.

Anyway, I won't spoil things for you, Marine, but I will say that personally, I certainly share your feelings about the notion that the ends justify the means. (Of course, the characters in my fics may not feel the same way... Honestly, I don't think there's a single one who I agree with on every ethical question. Natasha comes close, but there are a few points I think I'd argue on even with her.)

Iom, in my interpretation, is neither wholly good nor wholly evil. Camelot probably intended him to be wholly evil, but his actions in the games certainly aren't inconsistent with a more neutral character, and I find that a more interesting route to go with a god. The notion of having a god whose actions aren't always "good" according to the moral absolute frightens me; as a Christian, I'm accustomed to a god who always does right. I don't envy Deanna his position.

With regard to the elements from "Shadow of the Future" you refer to: (1)May is loyal to a fault, and remember, Iom revived her. (2)It might seem hilariously obvious to you, but remember, Deanna is convinced Brehen's prophecy is a load of bull. So he has absolutely no hint as to what May is talking about. (3)The prevalence of Iom-worship is no indication of my attitude on its rightness or wrongness. I'm appalled at what some of the major religions extant today teach.

On a side note, cool to hear that you've read On Combat & On Killing. Two editors I respect very much recommended that one for writers, and I'm planning on giving it a read myself whenever I get to the bottom of my current reading pile.

A short excerpt from chapter 4 of Legacy of Oddeye.

Spoiler

“Let’s just get started with this whole soul business while they’re doing busy work and before Geshp finishes brooding over how I’ve wronged him long enough to ruin everything.” Creed ran his wrinkled hand through his hair as he sent his thought to the spirit.

“Geshp. Charming name. Odd pronunciation, it seems. G-eshp? Jeshp? Jesup? Odd.” Evil Spirit chuckled.

“Are you paying any attention?”

“Don’t fuss.” Evil Spirit laughed deeply, which sounded odd through waves of thought. “Now, there is someone who would come in use quickly. He rivals you closely in intellect. He may have some quirks, but even your preconceived notion of him doesn’t change the fact that he could be an enormous asset here.”

“And how the hell would he be of any help?” Creed had now taken on the role of the distant and disinterested.

“Creed. You’re a very, very smart devil. Probably the smartest I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve encountered…well…only you, but still…”

“The point?” Creed spoke aloud, still rubbing his hands over his brow.

“The point is that you are either becoming soft, or you were never a tough enough devil to begin with. You’re supposed to be cunning creatures, yes? Geshp seems quite cunning, despite his flaws. You need to learn to manipulate, Creed, not just order others around like pups. Pull some strings, and everything will fall into place for you.”

Creed tapped an index finger against his lower lip, and began to pace again. “I’ve been in the orb, I know what it can do,” Evil Spirit added. “It doesn’t matter in the least that he will take the opportunity if you offer it to him to take credit for everything you do once you involve him in the entire thing, the idea is to beat him to the punch.”

Creed’s eyes widened slightly, and he stopped walking. “You’re really sort of devious, aren’t you?”

“The word, you’re looking for, my friend, is evil.” Evil Spirit laughed heartily.

I'm curious as to what his more neutral actions were in the games? It's been a while since I've played, but it seemed to me to be the standard take over the world scenario for him.

Noma wrote:A short excerpt from chapter 4 of Legacy of Oddeye.

The opening sentence is quite a mouthful, and I'd see about breaking it up somehow. Otherwise, very good. The dynamic between Creed and Evil Spirit continues to be entertaining.

TheUnknownMarine wrote:I'm curious as to what his more neutral actions were in the games? It's been a while since I've played, but it seemed to me to be the standard take over the world scenario for him.

You're talking about Evil Spirit? I don't remember the game giving any hint as to his personal goals in life.

Martin III wrote:

Noma wrote:A short excerpt from chapter 4 of Legacy of Oddeye.

The opening sentence is quite a mouthful, and I'd see about breaking it up somehow. Otherwise, very good. The dynamic between Creed and Evil Spirit continues to be entertaining.

TheUnknownMarine wrote:I'm curious as to what his more neutral actions were in the games? It's been a while since I've played, but it seemed to me to be the standard take over the world scenario for him.

You're talking about Evil Spirit? I don't remember the game giving any hint as to his personal goals in life.

Thanks for the tip, and you're right. I'll see about breaking it up. There's another sentence in there that's a bit wordy also, so I'll have to reword some things there too.

And I think TUM was referring to what you said about Iom being more neutral than evil.

Well, I managed to get Maximus Aurellius back in the game! Since he's not on these boards anymore, I'll provide the link to his latest.

Ah. I recall him. Was he banned or something? It's kinda been ages since I've posted in this thread. :s

That said... not much progress made on this thing of mine. Still plugging away whenever motivation hits.

...And I wonder if DW realizes his "new" chapters in Granserian Way still haven't shown up on ff.net. I've kept an eye on the site every so often, and yeah. Nothing. :s

Any of you still write? I have to confess I gave up on fanfiction to take my other creative endeavors more seriously. Thinking about doing something experimental for the f*ck of it though since I've been feeling sentimental about shining force lately.

I haven't given up on it or anything, but yeah... it's been a while since I touched my shining fic. (or anything I've been writing on.) I have no idea about the others. As you can see, this section of sfc has been rather... dead. =\

And hey, if you want to write something for the series, go for it. I'm sure we'll all read and comment on it once you share it. c: