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Overlady: Attack of the Minions (Thread II)

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Meneldur said:
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.
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Good grief, man, did you not read the narration? The foul spiteful monster offered her new stepdaughter a honeycomb! While the girl was still grieving her mother! What possible excuse could she have for such a wicked, sinful act other than being cruelly patronising and condescending to a young woman's pain?

Honestly. Trying to make a good impression on the younger members of her new family by comforting them with age-appropriate treats? It's a wonder the earth didn't split open beneath her to let the Abyss swallow such horrifying Evil whole.
 
Aleph said:
Good grief, man, did you not read the narration? The foul spiteful monster offered her new stepdaughter a honeycomb! While the girl was still grieving her mother! What possible excuse could she have for such a wicked, sinful act other than being cruelly patronising and condescending to a young woman's pain?
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...I admit I was kinda lost there.
 
Patch said:
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.
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In three books, Harry had destroyed one Horcrux. That only brings him 1/8 of the way to killing Voldemort. Louise is four times as efficient.

Additionally, Harry had met an elderly, semi-adversarial mentor (as has Louise), recruited two Trusted Lieutenants (Louise has three), and made four or five other useful contacts (as has Louise). Altogether, I think Louise is slightly ahead on supporting accomplishments as well. Significantly ahead if we count vanquished minibosses.
 
EarthScorpion said:
And with that said and done, Overlady is formally going on hiatus. Over the past year, I've found myself spread thin between more and more projects - some of them public, some of them happening behind the scenes. As it stands, the separation between chapters has really been getting unacceptable.

So I've been progressing my various things to natural "end of arc" points, and putting them on hiatus so I can clear the table. Trust me when I say that Overlady is not being abandoned - it's been on one long hiatus before when I nearly burned out after keeping up weekly updates for months, and it resumed then.

It is my hope that when it resumes, I'll have cleared out enough of the other things that I'm working on that we can push solidly through the next few arcs, possibly all the way to the conclusion. And to that end, I'll also have built up a buffer before it resumes, so at the very least you'll have a few weeks of consistent releases before it winds back up at the usual "it's done when it's done" standard.

So thank you all, and await the return of:

The Dark and Evil Sinister Deeds of the Malevolent Supreme Lady of Darkness and Evil under whose Malignant Grasp all of Halkeginia was Darkly and Evilly Crushed by Darkness and Evil
or,
Overlady​
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Out of curiosity which projects will not be going on hiatus and will be your focus?
 
EarthScorpion said:
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.
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Thanks for listening, even if you don't agree with me. I do love your story; your action scenes are tight and your characterizations are brilliant. I also know authors are always looking for criticism from experience, and wanted to give you thoughtful critique about the biggest weaknesses of this very strong story because I am hoping it will help you write it.
 
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My main complain is that relationship wise there has been no progress at all, both for Louise and the heroes. Yes we had a romantic confession on the heroes side... and that's it.

Louise finally admits to herseft that she likes a girl. And then said girl seems headed right into the Bad Ending Louise was warmed by her future self, aka only caring about the Undead she controls and having an unhealthy relationship with a reanimated copse that would not think on it's own and just do whatever the Necromancer wants...

And Louise gets heartbroken and chickens out, ensuring that at least for the Princess... that part of the bad future will happen.

So not only we get a dose of status quo is god but also "The future refused to change."

Yes I love the series but this seems like a pretty depressing point to go on hiatus. I don't mind if Louise doesn't end in a relationship with anyone but the fact she is gonna let the princess self destruct just to not break her heart more than it already is...

Quite troubling.

Also is funny how this story started before
That canon confirms that the Founder was evil. That put together how void familiars work and how every Void magus but Louise is a villain confirms that yes, the Void is evil. Spells of the Void destruct or banish and slave humans beings. Too bad the author of Familiar of Zero died - -
 
ChaoticSky said:
Given that your taking a break to get your ducks in order, I have a question (and I ask this out of curiosity) about one of your other fics; Do you have any plans for a sequel/continuation of Green Sun Illuminates the Void? Or have you decided to let it lay and focus on other works?
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So, the reason AGSITV hasn't had a continuation - and the reason The Fearful Void basically died - was because my Louises were getting blurred together in my head when I was writing them. That's a problem, because they were meant to be divergent people. Hence, because Overlady was the one getting waaaaaaaaay more attention from fans, that's the one that got to continue.
 
Pinklestia said:
Also is funny how this story started before
That canon confirms that the Founder was evil. That put together how void familiars work and how every Void magus but Louise is a villain confirms that yes, the Void is evil. Spells of the Void destruct or banish and slave humans beings. Too bad the author of Familiar of Zero died - -
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Three things, Tiffania isn't evil, the author left notes and the story is actually finished, and that notion of the familiar runes enslave human familiars has been disproven multiple times by the fact they only get rid of homesickness.
 
EarthScorpion said:
So, the reason AGSITV hasn't had a continuation - and the reason The Fearful Void basically died - was because my Louises were getting blurred together in my head when I was writing them. That's a problem, because they were meant to be divergent people. Hence, because Overlady was the one getting waaaaaaaaay more attention from fans, that's the one that got to continue.
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Damn. Well, I can't complain too much, because Overlady is consistently a blast to read.
 
Pinklestia said:
My main complain is that relationship wise there has been no progress at all, both for Louise and the heroes. Yes we had a romantic confession on the heroes side... and that's it.

Louise finally admits to herseft that she likes a girl. And then said girl seems headed right into the Bad Ending Louise was warmed by her future self, aka only caring about the Undead she controls and having an unhealthy relationship with a reanimated copse that would not think on it's own and just do whatever the Necromancer wants...

And Louise gets heartbroken and chickens out, ensuring that at least for the Princess... that part of the bad future will happen.

So not only we get a dose of status quo is god but also "The future refused to change."

Yes I love the series but this seems like a pretty depressing point to go on hiatus. I don't mind if Louise doesn't end in a relationship with anyone but the fact she is gonna let the princess self destruct just to not break her heart more than it already is...

Quite troubling.
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Yeah, I second this too.

Didn't want to harp on it before because when giving someone a recommendation or opinion, don't list out 5 things, 3 of which will be discarded. Focus on one thing that cannot be denied, and emphasize that one thing. Before, I chose to throw out my thoughts on the romance since the author addressed at least the hero side of it, and chose to make the one thing be the plot pacing and status quo is god nature of the story from arc to arc, examining the story as a whole; I agree with you that the romance aspects of the story are an example of this issue, even with the author's justification of the hero's romantic pacing. Likewise, I agree with your thoughts about the romantic pursuits of the villains Louise and Henrietta as well.

Furthermore, Guiche's and Montmorency's romantic confession didn't even count because the heroes didn't remember it, since the confession was under the influence of a mind-altering potion. Or they did remember it and are steadfastly denying it, which is even worse. We were denied even the progression promised by a romantic confession in the hero's romantic endeavors.

God though, I love watching Louise loot and burn stuff in each of her operations, sometimes even in that order!

Still waiting on Maxie to show off his legendary skills as a Cassanova. This story will not be complete until Maxie has shown us how a minion can romance with the best of them.
 
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EarthScorpion said:
So, the reason AGSITV hasn't had a continuation - and the reason The Fearful Void basically died - was because my Louises were getting blurred together in my head when I was writing them. That's a problem, because they were meant to be divergent people. Hence, because Overlady was the one getting waaaaaaaaay more attention from fans, that's the one that got to continue.
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Ah. Fair!

Sad, I rather liked AGSITV and I would go so far as to say it was more 'awesome' than Overlord (and given what it crossed with, it had aught to be), but I'm willing to admit that Overlord is more amusing and certainly no slouch either when it comes to grand undertakings. Been long enough since I read Green Sun that I cannot fairly say which I find more narratively robust, but what you said to Patch about power fantasies rings true. One can only restrain an Exalt for so long before mere mortals become little more than destructible scenery... So maybe it wouldn't have worked out as well as Overlord in the long term... especially with a Infernal. Devil Tiger jumps right off the deepend of that particular scale.

Either way, i hope your Hiatus is relaxing and thoughtful. *Waves supportive pompoms and waits for more Evil Louise.*
 
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Pinklestia said:
My main complain is that relationship wise there has been no progress at all, both for Louise and the heroes. Yes we had a romantic confession on the heroes side... and that's it.

Louise finally admits to herseft that she likes a girl. And then said girl seems headed right into the Bad Ending Louise was warmed by her future self, aka only caring about the Undead she controls and having an unhealthy relationship with a reanimated copse that would not think on it's own and just do whatever the Necromancer wants...
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I really have no complaints about the pacing of the romance in this story myself, for a couple of reasons.

One is that Louise has technically had a romance (of sorts) that was progressing just fine given that she was dating an evil Emperor. We knew that she felt more strongly about Henrietta, but she didn't and it was eminently believable given her nature and personality both from this story and the original source material. Seeing that more superficial relationship progress was amusing to read about, provided some tension about whether the audiences preferred love interest would win out, and also provided her with a bit more experience in the matters of the heart (or loins anyway) to contrast with Henrietta later.

Second, given the nature of a story like this it is extremely unlikely that the main protagonist and her primary love interest are likely to get together before the point where we're nearing the end. We are maybe half way through the story, so the timing is appropriate to start work on resolving the conflicts inherent in the relationship-- and there are many. The point where Louise and Henrietta confess their love to each other, should it happen, should not in any way shape or form be a single chapter after Louise has finally realized her feelings. It's going to be the climax of a long standing sub-plot and climaxes, almost by definition, happen towards the end of a story.

We've crested a wave with the epiphany that Louise had, it's time for a dip into a trough so we can begin building up again. So long as those dips don't significantly exceed the peaks, I'll be happy. (I'm looking at you, Clannad After Story...)

Finally... we have half the story remaining-- Louise has plenty of time to build up her courage and avert the bad end she saw for Henrietta. And if all else fails, she can always share, though that might make Gnarl go apoplectic-- I'm pretty sure that he'll have Views about members of Louise's harem having relationships other than her.

Patch said:
Thanks for listening, even if you don't agree with me. I do love your story; your action scenes are tight and your characterizations are brilliant. I also know authors are always looking for criticism from experience, and wanted to give you thoughtful critique about the biggest weaknesses of this very strong story because I am hoping it will help you write it.
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The overall complaints about the pacing for me are another area that I can't really agree with-- not because of what Louise has done (though the points brought up about that which demonstrate how much she has done are fair) or the goals that were focused on and measured against (which is more than pertinent), but because I feel like if you're looking at character growth, it is the characterization that you mentioned as a strong point that really demonstrates progress. Louise has actually progressed significantly in the time we've been with her when you look at how she handles herself and responds to events and other people while remaining recognizably Louise.

That is mostly a feeling on my behalf, admittedly, or at least I don't have examples that really spring to mind, but at least for me, the story has been progressing at the right pace and in the right areas. I am always leery about assigning arbitrary amounts of "must have done X" to a certain word count. The amount of time (in words, years, or any other measure) that it takes to reach any given goal in a story will and should vary significantly from author to author simply due to style. So long as I am enjoying the journey, the length is exactly right. :)
 
I actually convinced myself that the priest guy was just some ordinary thief who either didn't understand the damage he was doing or didn't care.
 
EarthScorpion said:
The lights were still on in the little house attached to the estate that was given to the abbé. It was much warmer in there than the main estate, and all the furnishings were in much better condition. If one were to pay very close attention to certain aspects of the walls and floorboards, any number of cunningly hidden caches of coins might be found.
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Honestly, if there's one advantage to having an Eleanore in the party, it's that she would have applied her usual problem solving techniques to the task of searching the abbe's residence, and then publicly humiliated and exposed him in front of everyone.
 
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Arcus said:
Honestly, if there's one advantage to having an Eleanore in the party, it's that she would have applied her usual methods of searching to the abbe's residence, and then publicly humiliated and exposed him in from of everyone.
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That's a pretty good advantage, actually. Sadly, it was not to be.
 
Winged One said:
I actually convinced myself that the priest guy was just some ordinary thief who either didn't understand the damage he was doing or didn't care.
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And in a medieval society stealing from the lord is enough crime to get killed. Shows how much even the most sane heroes delude themselves. Sure him being a priest would be a problem, but locking him out until they figure if he is just a thief or something worse is quite posible.
 
EarthScorpion said:
So, the reason AGSITV hasn't had a continuation - and the reason The Fearful Void basically died - was because my Louises were getting blurred together in my head when I was writing them. That's a problem, because they were meant to be divergent people. Hence, because Overlady was the one getting waaaaaaaaay more attention from fans, that's the one that got to continue.
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So, with this on hiatus, does that mean there's a chance of more of The Fearful Void?
 
EarthScorpion said:
So, the reason AGSITV hasn't had a continuation - and the reason The Fearful Void basically died - was because my Louises were getting blurred together in my head when I was writing them. That's a problem, because they were meant to be divergent people. Hence, because Overlady was the one getting waaaaaaaaay more attention from fans, that's the one that got to continue.
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Ah, survival of the one who generates the most ratings.
 
Pinklestia said:
Louise finally admits to herseft that she likes a girl. And then said girl seems headed right into the Bad Ending Louise was warmed by her future self, aka only caring about the Undead she controls and having an unhealthy relationship with a reanimated copse that would not think on it's own and just do whatever the Necromancer wants...

And Louise gets heartbroken and chickens out, ensuring that at least for the Princess... that part of the bad future will happen.

So not only we get a dose of status quo is god but also "The future refused to change."
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Yeah I'm thinking that it's currently far too early to be overly concerned with Henriette. Until she shows signs that she's going to pull something akin to what Catt tried to pull recently, I see no reason to believe that Louise isn't going to avert the part of the bad future that involved Henriette becoming a lich queen. Louise is looking like she's in a great position to try promote Henriette from henchess to mistress after a rousing round of razing Albion and getting some more fancy Overlord artifacts.
Balthanon said:
Finally... we have half the story remaining-- Louise has plenty of time to build up her courage and avert the bad end she saw for Henrietta. And if all else fails, she can always share, though that might make Gnarl go apoplectic-- I'm pretty sure that he'll have Views about members of Louise's harem having relationships other than her.
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I don't think Louise has it in her to share. I doubt her blood would stand for it in the slightest. To say nothing of the weirdness that is likely to happen if Henriette does get her hands on Wale's corpse, which i have my doubts about. Speaking of Gnarl though, I'm fairly certain that he's likely to intervene in some manner. It's impossible that he isn't aware of Louise's feelings towards Henriette and Gnarl would undoubtedly prefer Louise upgrade Henriette from lieutenant to mistress as Lee doesn't seem like a stable enough of a match, or of particularly potent bloodline for breeding purposes unless I've missed something. To say nothing of the military and political values of such a union being dubious as Louise operates on an entirely different continent 99% of the time and Gnarl's opinions on dragons are very high.
 
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