BadRoad
a thousand miles
Father Sea?
Overlady: Attack of the Minions (Thread II)
- Thread starter EarthScorpion
- Start date
- Fantasy
Salty
Shadow Cabal Assumptor Supreme
- Location
- Sun, Moon, Talia
- Pronouns
- I/Me
Gallia?
Also, can't help but wonder which projects you're focusing on while Overlady is on hiatus? Is it time for more Killer Monkey Dad?
- Location
- in the trash
To quote Gnarl: "Evil always wins, because Good is dumb."
Poor Monmon, though. We need Tabitha to murder him gruesomely. Or maybe Louise.
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Something about this update has gotten me thinking, specifically this bit about the void heirs :
On a less speculative note, I'm pretty sure that if Louise does become the Prime Evil it will actually cause Karin's brain to crash. Possibly irreparably.
What is curious about this is that I think there are two reasonable hypotheses as to what the Prime Evil is. The first is that one of the void heirs shall assume the role after some relic gathering and/or highlander shit. The second is that their actions shall raise either the First Overlord or Brimir himself, who was hinted to have been the Second in Louise's time travel segment. Both seem rather valid, and the latter particularly due to events in the first Overlord game, to me as both also lead into the filling of the Abyssal Throne. If it is a void heir that becomes the Prime Evil, it seems fairly reasonable that Louise is the one who will ascend as she's already got a Tower, the Gauntlet, Gnarl + the Minions, one of Brimir's prayer books, one of the gems for the Gauntlet, and is about to enter in the running for the Helm. If Louise does become the Prime Evil, then I think it would be not so unreasonable that Jessica would have a prime position to take the throne if Louise does not take it herself. However if the Prime Evil is someone who is currently some form of dead/banished, then they might end up taking the throne. As Jessica did mention back when Louise was preparing to rescue Henriette that some of the rulers of the Abyss weren't' originally demons.
On a less speculative note, I'm pretty sure that if Louise does become the Prime Evil it will actually cause Karin's brain to crash. Possibly irreparably.
- Location
- Wellesley MA
Aw... Louise has barely finished half her hit list and hasn't taken over a single town yet!
Though that's more a pacing issue than anything. She's pretty much exactly where she was 4 arcs / 2 years ago.
The individual arcs are good, but by the end of them she hasn't actually accomplished much. If I understand correctly, she still can't make minions and overrun the landscape which she's been working on since back in arc 3, and she barely controls Amsterdam after all that fuss, and not even publicly. 2 in-story years and she's still the B-list villain with no claims to territory in a decrepit tower that she was at the beginning. As much as the action in individual arcs are exciting, self-contained stories, I feel incredibly cheated by the utter lack of visible progress Louise is making in her world-domination plans; why is there so little overall progression in the overarching plot after 450000 words?
EDIT: I also feel the relationships with this story have some pacing issues too. It is alright for Louise, Montmorency, and Guiche to be a bit shy, but this display of not even admitting their problems and feelings in any plot-altering way 200000 words after their relationship is indicated is just plain painful to watch.
Seriously, you're an incredibly good writer. Any of these arcs would make a good story on it's own. Why are you keeping to overarching storyline so static when the individual arcs are so dynamic?
Though that's more a pacing issue than anything. She's pretty much exactly where she was 4 arcs / 2 years ago.
The individual arcs are good, but by the end of them she hasn't actually accomplished much. If I understand correctly, she still can't make minions and overrun the landscape which she's been working on since back in arc 3, and she barely controls Amsterdam after all that fuss, and not even publicly. 2 in-story years and she's still the B-list villain with no claims to territory in a decrepit tower that she was at the beginning. As much as the action in individual arcs are exciting, self-contained stories, I feel incredibly cheated by the utter lack of visible progress Louise is making in her world-domination plans; why is there so little overall progression in the overarching plot after 450000 words?
EDIT: I also feel the relationships with this story have some pacing issues too. It is alright for Louise, Montmorency, and Guiche to be a bit shy, but this display of not even admitting their problems and feelings in any plot-altering way 200000 words after their relationship is indicated is just plain painful to watch.
Seriously, you're an incredibly good writer. Any of these arcs would make a good story on it's own. Why are you keeping to overarching storyline so static when the individual arcs are so dynamic?
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- Location
- Nebraska
Well Louise isn't really trying to take over the world....yet and she does have more territory like those towers she claimed from the necromancer, the pirates, and the undead monks of Good.
- Location
- Voidbetweenstars
Also doesn't help that if she has a visible location for Good people to target (Her mother) before a way to deal with said people (including her mother) it will be taken down so fast our heads will spin.
- Location
- Wellesley MA
So she has 4 dilapidated towers that nobody knows about instead of one :/
I get that Louise doesn't really want to take over the world, but this story feels really static at the overhead level. At half a million words in, Louise is still killing her list of nobles from her dilapidated tower using her limited band of minions. There hasn't been any real shifts in the context of her action or motivations since she defined them back in arc 2 or 3. I mean, there are changes, but they've been coming about very slowly and are minor in their impact to the plotline (e.g. new girl joins the harem of evil, one less noble on the list, etc.). Even the issue with the bad future Louise saw doesn't sway her from the fact that come hell or high water, she and her band of 30 minions (because she can't even raise an army yet which would also change the context of the war she's fighting from small battlefield skirmishes to a nation-spanning war) are going to get to the bottom of a list of nobles that betrayed her country, no matter what; the individual arcs have yet to alter the course of the plot since the beginning of the story, and I feel that is a massive waste of potential.
That actually sounds like really cool idea, and would make the plot more dynamic; if her hideout was found out and she was forced to change the nature of her operations on the fly to survive. If she and the minions were forced to abandon the tower and become nomadic, or if she decisively was able to beat back the army at her doorstep and started a war with Tristain; either option would help progress the overarching story. I would definitely look forward to that kind of change of direction in the story.
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The important thing regarding conquest as far as Louise's interests in it go is that Louise is a Valliere, and thus a royalist who is interested in stability over everything else.
Plus she can end up in charge of her country just by stepping over two more smoldering corpses of regents, kicking out the queen, putting Henriette on the throne and then putting a ring on Henriette. So it's not like she needs to really go a traditional route for conquest to start with.
Also I'm pretty sure that ES is setting things up for Louise to begin to pick up a lot more momentum. As the threat of the Abyss might just end up being the true conflict of the fic.
Plus she can end up in charge of her country just by stepping over two more smoldering corpses of regents, kicking out the queen, putting Henriette on the throne and then putting a ring on Henriette. So it's not like she needs to really go a traditional route for conquest to start with.
Also I'm pretty sure that ES is setting things up for Louise to begin to pick up a lot more momentum. As the threat of the Abyss might just end up being the true conflict of the fic.
- Location
- Germany
"What good is power if you are not willing to use it?"
I'm pretty sure this was said by some villain, but in this case it kinda works.
- Location
- Germany
That advice is there because only Blitzhart can survive being Blitzhart, everyone else might end as a cautionary tale at best, plain dead on the average, in ethernal agony on a bad dice-roll.
good point, a relationship goes after all two-ways, if you notice that there is no progress at all either try to be blunt about it or abandon the courtship.
Okay, so firstly, any complaint about the real-time length it takes to get things done is going out the window. There's only one person who gets to bitch at me for how long it takes work to get done, and that's my boss.
Now, as for the lack of progress in her world domination plans, there are two major problems there. One, she doesn't have world domination plans. And two, she doesn't have world domination plans. I realise that this is the same problem repeated twice, but it's such an issue that I felt it bore repeating. Louise's plans aren't about world domination. They've never been about domination of Tristain either, except as a byproduct of getting rid of the Council and putting Henrietta back on the throne. And crushing the Council (and Wardes doubly so) are always the main focus and her plans are basically fuzzy beyond that point.
As for the rest, Overlady is not a power fantasy. Overlady has never been a power fantasy. There are plenty of Overlord fics that are power fantasies, but this one is not. Yes, Louise doesn't have a working minion hive, because bluntly it's more interesting if she has to husband her limited supplies of minions (who get to have names and personalities) than have a endless swarm of replacements. It forces her to be clever, and solve problems with a chisel, not a sledgehammer. That means she gets setbacks - but she is progressing. She's taken down half the Council and she's put her ally onto the Council in just two years. She doesn't want to swarm the landscape with minons because that entails... well, swarming the landscape with minions.
For Monmon and Guiche... what, precisely, do you want? Guiche confessed to her in the last interlude we saw of them before these ones, and now both of them are moping about arranged marriages getting between them. Their relationship has been progressing steadily over the course of the interludes, when they're getting one chapter every once in a while. They were sixteen at the start, and Monmon was refusing to do anything until they were married. Then her family's financial situation got in the way of her plans to wait and save until she could afford to marry for love.
And I can't believe I have to say this, but the reason Louise hasn't rebuilt the tower and instead has been expanding it into an underground complex hidden below the surface is because towers are a phallic symbol while dungeons are a yonic symbol. It's a joke about sex, and the difference between boys and girls. Louise hasn't rebuilt the tower because she's not a man who's compensating for inferiority in the trouser region. That's all it's ever been.
(And her underground lair in itself is actually not very dilapidated at all and is actually quite pleasant, if it wasn't for the fact that she's a small woman and it was made for people much taller than her)
- Location
- in the trash
I would joke that if Blitzhart somehow became the Overlord he would end up reconstructing the Tower of Babel (so he can get to where all those pretty angels are), but he clearly doesn't need to compensate for anything in the trouser department.
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Or so he claims. Just because he's planted a lot of seeds is no proof that he has a large... tower.
- Location
- in the trash
Or so he claims. Just because he's planted a lot of seeds is no proof that he has a large... tower.
Hundreds of eyewitnesses will swear up and down as to the size and girth of the mighty weapon of the Von Zerbsts. Hundreds.
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Or so he claims. Just because he's planted a lot of seeds is no proof that he has a large... tower.
I mean, it's certainly funnier if he's actually all technique and no built. Of course they swore up and down on the size and girth, they got pleased.
I mean, one gave you sympathy, the other turned you into laughingstock. As unfair as it is.
- Location
- Wellesley MA
While you did an admirable job refuting my individual points, you missed my core point, so I'll repeat it.
I feel the primary flaw with this story is that the overarching plotline advances too slowly, strictly in regards to the amount of progress achieved in any given arc.
While Louise's individual plots are a treat to read, in regards to the overarching story it feels like she has barely moved from where she started. She's still doing all the same stuff she has from the beginning, pretty much in the same way she's done it since the beginning, with all the same goals since the beginning.
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
....
Have you read the story?
No seriously have you read the story?
Shes removed 50% of her targets, recruited multiple Lieutenants, and begun actively working as a major player. Not to mention actively overthrowing two fallen angel Dark Gods (even if she accidentally caused the ascension of ones)
Using the same methods?
Lousie of the beginning of the story was a one trick pony. 'Throw the quirky Miniboss Minions at it, while I pout and throw hordes.'
Lousie currently of the story is actively manipulating things politically, has set up multiple covert operations both against her direct opponents and the Abyss itself, and is actively an independent magically threat in her own rights, able to blackmail Evil itself.
- Location
- The Holiest of Cities
This is a fascinating view on Montmorency. We're used to seeing her as the most mercenary of the band of heroes, the least 'heroic', as it were. But she's actually a good (and Good) person. She's only mercenary because she has to be, and even then, only in a good cause. I am actually very impressed by this, because while I knew she was obviously very easily able to restrain herself, here it's made clear why she's like that in the bluntest way possible.
While I'm not one to disparage Monmon's ability to detect evil and of course the time honored tradition of wicked stepmothers, I have to wonder - we've seen no proof of this wickedness so far. Might Monmon's descriptor's here be emotional rather than rational? admittedly, she's very rarely irrational, but we all have our failings.
I really wonder why Etienne wants revenge, and why he was working with Marzipan. What has the de Montmorency family done? Might it have to do with the Spirits?
- Location
- Wellesley MA
yeah, my point is that after 3 Harry Potter books of words, she's only gotten rid of 2 of her initial targets and recruited a handful of lieutenants. Slaying a god was impressive, but it was a side effect of a completely different goal and mostly achieved by her sister.
Well, it's not like she had to rid everyone.... I mean, sure, getting rid of everyone and then either reanimate their remains or getting loyal replacements is fine, from certain point of view, the problem is that ensure either the remains worked properly or that your installed,
loyal people can remain loyal after indefinite amount of time....
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Please don't be like that. I want this thread to be a criticism friendly zone. I might not agree with the criticism or believe it misses what I'm trying to do, but I beg for it. Even when I think the criticism is wrong, it's still a flag for me to consider what they're saying.
I certainly don't want to drive criticism away with "you try doing it", which is honestly facile. It's hard enough to get criticism as it is.
Okay. I apologize for that.
- Location
- Germany
they might be shocked by his bluff-skills and heroic aura
or feel intimidated by the guy who just brutalised a Demon
given that Etienne wants Revenge and has it aimed at the whole Family, I think he arranged for a real wicked stepmother/Golddigger
as for why. maybe he is a surviver/decendent of the Galian side of the family that wants to "share his clan's pain with the traitor who left his people behind to die" or something.
Given the standarts for motives in Overlord, and how Overlady developed from there, it might be something utterly stupid, crazy or deluded (or all of the above)
as for Marzipan, they might be "distant Allies" or "useful contacts" for each other, no close reationship but aknowledgement of competence (if the Louise-like Marzipan did think so then Etienne might be extreme dangerous)
Indeed they do. They all saw how mighty his sword is. His actual sword that is. The one for killing people with, that is made of steel, not a part of his body and not made of flesh. No innuendos. They were all talking about his literal sword yet everyone just assumes it was euphemisms. Though to be fair in some cases it might have been intentional on their part, lying by omission so that he wouldn't get mad at them.