(no subject)

[sideways]

 Current media round-up:

• Finished the four seasons of Killjoys that exist! (And keep typing Killyjoys.) Season 3 won me back over where season 2 had wobbled a little, and then season 4 was ridiculous but ridiculous in ways I couldn't help but thrive upon. Looking forward to the grand finale next year.

• Read the first Murderbot book and started on the second. It has a lot of elements I like, but the echoes of Raksura ring very strongly and I'm struggling not to constantly draw comparisons. Obviously there are plenty of writers who just write the same book over and over and I've found many of them enjoyable nonetheless, but. Hm.

• ...got bored with Skyrim again. LOOK, if every second quest wasn't twenty minutes of dungeon-diving that'd be one thing, but it is and it's not my favourite kind of RPG anyway and meh.

• Instead, I've turned to my favourite kind of RPG company and picked up Tyranny, since the whole package was on sale for cheaper than base-game Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire. (One day, my love...) It's very PoE in its mechanics with an unusual plot - your character is an enforcer for an evil conquering overlord! - so I'm enjoying myself already.

Comments

[anneapocalypse]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets bored in Skyrim. I feel like I shouldn't... but I do.

[sideways]

People rack up thousands of hours in that thing! Thousands!! Meanwhile I just find it hard to summon the will to slay three dozen draugr for a quest ending that'll be... ehh, decent-ish. I'm insufficiently motivated by loot and level ups for anything longer than about ten hours, I need NARRATIVE.

Have you given any of Obsidian's other titles a try? O:

[anneapocalypse]

I'm a huge fan of Fallout New Vegas. The Fallout series as a whole is just way more my genre than Elder Scrolls. It takes more to get me invested in a game like Skyrim.

[sideways]

Heh, yeah, I know about the FNV love affair. (It's Silt! Forgot that possibly wasn't known.)

[anneapocalypse]

OH HI! I did not realize it was you! 😁

[sideways]

I am a woman of possibly too many names.

[hokuton_punch]

I have not read Raksura (although I am told I really should), but I do adore Murderbot. And ART. ART is the best bored spaceship.

[sideways]

If fantasy is your thing then yes, it's good fun. I really liked having protagonists that weren't human and didn't have a human social structure (something I often enjoy about CJ Cherryh too). And ART is growing on me very fast.

[syntheid]

Yeah I had a similar thought reading Murderbot. I mean it didn't really bother me but I was definitely kinda like okay Martha Wells has A Type, hah.

We need to get you Dark Matter somehow. Though also at some point I'll actually watch Killjoys too.

[sideways]

A good type, I will concede. And yes! It sounds like it's a bit less ridiculous than Killjoys. Alas, it's another one I need to buy directly, I think, because Aussie Netflix is lame.

[cloudwrack]

Aah, I need to watch more Killjoys (I just - stopped after the first season, despite enjoying it). I'll brace for a potentially wobbly S2.

I'm surprised there are so many echoes of Raksura in Murderbot - they seem so different at first glance (I'm about halfway through the former; haven't picked up the latter yet). Do you think they're intentional, or is it just an "author's favourite theme/trope" thing?

I was a hundreds-of-hours person back when Skyrim first came out, but will admit the dungeons do wear a bit thin after the first few bajillion identical ones. Nowadays, I just use it as a Sims-esque farming-and-building simulator (with bonus dragons).

Glad Tyranny is fun! What's the combat like? The plot seems very RTMI, but I got put off Pillars of Eternity when everyone started complaining about the difficulty level - RPGs without a low-effort fight setting are Not For Me these days.

[sideways]

Season 2 of Killjoys still had a lot of things I liked - there was one particular episode that had me in absolute stitches - but the latter half of the reason felt a little... rushed, maybe? And there were a couple of larger scale things that happened that I didn't love so much. Still, it's the season that started making me very fond of D'avin and his character arc has been one of the sweetest overall.

Murderbot has a fairly different worldbuild (though still quite clannish now that I think about it...), but the similarities are undeniable on the level of the protagonists being socially-stunted, isolated, combat-capable individuals secretly longing for a place to belong, the humans are a lot like the Arbora, and there's even a bit of a Stone-analogue in the second book, though a much less grumpy one. My slightly harsh opinion is that although I really enjoyed Raksura I didn't think it was well-written on a technical level; I liked the anthropology and the character moments and the willingness to go outside the usual boxes, but the writing style and the plots themselves were fairly simplistic. So in that sense, I think it's just the result of Wells' 'limitations' as a writer, but at least she's limited to an area that's underexplored by most other writers!

Heh, someone I knew likes to play a character who starts off incapable of combat and is only allowed to earn money through menial chores like chopping wood, collecting herbs and selling potions, etc. I don't have that much patience but I admire the dedication.

Tyranny's combat is...kicking my butt a little, which is unexpected since I did fine with PoE once I worked out the mechanics. Either I'm doing something wrong or - well, I guess I'm doing something wrong. I'm on normal mode currently so I can drop a level, but it does seem a bit rough for this early in the game. (What's RTMI?)

[cloudwrack]

/replying 1000 years later, sorry

That's good to hear! I wanted to like D'avin, but found him the least interesting character by far in S1 - here's hoping S2 will win me over.

Having now read the free Murderbot short story, I can definitely see those similarities. The drive to rescue people despite being somewhat disaffected fits, too... but it's one of my favourite character types, so I can't complain. Agreed on the technical merit of Raksura - I've fallen in love with this series and can't put it down, but the prose is more of an occasionally-repetitive vehicle for the story than anything else. The worldbuilding (and the sheer amount of fun involved) is what stands out to me as exceptional.

RTMI = relevant to my interests (a fandom community I was in used that phrase constantly, so it's worked its way into my vocab). Oof - if it's that difficult early on, it might not be for me. We'll see how brave I'm feeling when the next Steam sale rolls around!

[sideways]

The nice thing about proper blog platforms: being able to carry on conversations pretty much whenever...

Have you ever watched Person of Interest? It's kind of like how Reese became increasingly endearing as he grew out of the stoic manpain schtick.

Agreed, huge fan of the repressed, untrusting loner finding the family they so badly need. And both series have shameless heart, which I think counts for a lot. AND I was knocked so far sideways when I realised my wistful "aw, Moon and Chime would be cute" was not doomed by Moon's obvious future partnership with Jade. (She's not even subtle about Chime's heart-eyes for Moon! I just didn't think it would actually eventuate!)

I ended up switching the difficulty level down to storymode and that's been WAY easier. Like, battles are 90% a spectator sport now. So that's helped.

[cloudwrack]

I've seen three seasons of POI (one day, I will sit down to make some headway with the remaining two) and Reese's character growth from No Fun Man to Some Fun Man was one of the things I especially liked. That is encouraging!

SO much heart. Raksura is just... the opposite of those fantasy worlds you sometimes come across that feel like they were a chore to create. The internet told me Moon/Chime would happen, but I was still thrilled when she went there (unambiguously!) So many narrative choices in these books just fill me with glee.

Storymode sounds like a very useful setting. I won't lie, knowing it exists has increased my desire to play this already awesome-sounding game by 200%.

[sideways]

Season 4 is def worth the watch, it has one of the best episodes of the entire dang show in it ovo

Raksura feels like proof that you should just write what interests YOU the most, because someone out there will probably like it too. I've read a number of other contemporary novels with technically better writing, but it felt like the author was breathing down my neck wanting me to enjoy it the way they wanted me to; Raksura was just fun.

Ooh, obligatory question: how would you envisage your 'Raksona'? Aeriat/Arbora, caste, colouration, name?

[cloudwrack]

Yes! As someone who is often unsure whether anyone else will pick up what they’re putting down, Raksura is very encouraging to me. :D I’m coming up on the end of the series despite not having much time to sit down this month (as my consistently late comments show) and juggling other books at the same time, so she’s definitely doing everything right re: readability. I’m so sad it’s almost over.

If I were really and truly trying to base a character off myself, they’d be an Arbora, buuuut - I think I have to go with Aeriat. Flight! Wings! There’s no deeper reason. After a bit of idle doodling, I think I want them to be a red-scaled warrior named Rowan (I was torn on picking a real-world plant for the name, but if Briar and Bramble are allowed...)

[sideways]

Some potential good news there: for the steep cost of $1 per month on Patreon you can get access to aaaaaall the short drabbles Martha Wells has written over there. Some are more interesting than others, but there are a lot of nice snippets about Raksuran life.

Aww, Rowan is very cute, and I'm a firm believer in following winged dreams.

[cloudwrack]

Belated thank-you for the heads-up! I finished Harbours of the Sun a little while ago and have made a start on Murderbot - it’s helping a bit with the series withdrawal (I now see what you mean re: similarities), buuut I still want more Raksura. :( (Especially Consolation & co.! They’re trying so hard not to eat people and I’m very proud of them!)

[sideways]

Kethel was in the latest one! It's a sign, I say!

How did you like Harbours of the Sun? I found less questions were answered than I was expecting for THE FINAL NOVEL, but it was a good run overall.

[cloudwrack]

Yeah, that's pretty much how I felt. I was expecting (or maybe just hoping for) a lot more on the Fell-Raksura connection and the forerunners/foundation builders, but still had a great time with what we did get. Not sure how I feel about that rather abrupt ending, but I'm glad it didn't just wind down after they destroyed the weapon - Moon's adventure as a captive in the city was fun, although I wanted to see even more politicking. And more of everything else!

(On the one hand, I wouldn't want to see Raksura become one of those series that drags on forever and runs its plot/setting/characters into the ground, but on the other - I genuinely don't think I'd ever get bored.)