shadowy-dumbo-octopus replied to your link “Relentless - Harper Voyager”
Is this the final book in the series? Please tell me that there won't be more. Please. I'm so tired. Please tell me this isn't another "Hero" and that this WILL definitely be the last one.
[[ No one knows for certain except maybe Bob and HarperCollins, and I doubt that they’d disclose that information even if they knew it. My guess, however, is that there’s going to be more books as long as people will keep paying for it (and they will keep paying for it) or until Bob dies, after which it’s likely that Geno will continue the line, of he doesn’t already (I address this more in the last section of my Boundless review & analysis). Furthermore, while “Hero” was intended to be the conclusion to the series, for WotC was canning the entire novel line, the entire game changes after Bob went to an external publisher. :\ ]]
scratchedagain replied to your link “Relentless - Harper Voyager”
'the most beloved characters in all of fantasy' is a BOLD claim.
scratchedagain replied to your link “Relentless - Harper Voyager”
*one of
[[ I mean, if one defines “most beloved” as “most mocked”, then that statement would be true. <_< >_> In all seriousness, Bob/HC certainly aren’t helping his reputation as being fantasy’s whipping boy by making a claim like that. ]]
Are the fight scenes any less ridiculous or should I expect my eyes to be glazing over for several pages at a go, per usual?
[[ I’ve read the ARC of Timeless. Ask me anything!
The fight scenes are better. They’re shorter, more concise as well as being punchier in general. I’m afraid that I can’t give you a percentage value of how much better they are, because truthfully, my eyes sort of glaze over at Bob’s fight scenes too, especially ones involving drow wielding blades. They’re just so similar between all the books and after 30+ books, it takes conscious effort to not perform what’s become a somewhat ingrained response.
I guess the fact that my eyes glazed over some during the fight scenes in Timeless indicates that they aren’t like, a revolutionary change better, but I can actually remember that they happened. Heck, for some, I can even remember certain details. However, I would say that there isn’t anything new or original happening in those fight scenes, and Bob’s strategy for changing things up seems to focus on introducing a greater variety of involved weapons rather than fine-tuning the usage of the existent weapons.
The analogy I would use here is that Bob’s fight scenes are like “new mechanics” in World of Warcraft raids. An experienced veteran raider (who I suppose needs to be at least decent enough to recognize patterns) can’t be surprised anymore because, despite the fancy never before seen ground effects, with all of its wide array of colors and being emitted by the latest state-of-the-art 3D models, fundamentally, it’s just all rehashes and re-combinations of existent mechanics. Except with Bob, those “ground effects” are far from things that we’ve never seen, there isn’t all the colors of the rainbow, and the models are anything but state-of-the-art. It’s like if they redid the Onyxia raid again. Again. Again again again. >_>
In the same sense that those “new” mechanics in WoW do have a learning curve, albeit a small one, that’s sort of like how Bob’s combat scenes are like in Timeless. Don’t get me wrong, those new raids were still fun (before I’d gotten completely burnt out done with WoW), and there is some entertainment value in the combat scenes in Timeless, so at least that’s something. ]]
As the series went on, I kept struggling to give him the benefit of the doubt; I wanted to think that maybe he didn’t have much choice in plot or characters, that some things had been mandated to him. Then the last trilogy happened, and even with the benefit of the doubt, it was more than enough to make me draw a line and hop over to the side of headcanon, alternate interpretation, and general denial of Word of Canon.
When I heard of the new trilogy, I was cautiously hopeful and willing to give the benefit of the doubt again. This made me take that benefit back and turn to skepticism. I’ll still read it, but I’m thinking I’ll get it from the library, help their circulation stats, that way at least some good comes out of it.))
[[ That was exactly my experience too. While it’s true that WotC had dictated that certain authors write certain things and certain ways, by and large Bob’s been exempt from much of that. He did have to kill off his characters with the Spellplague time leap, but he brought them back and picked up pretty much where he left off with zero issues. WotC really isn’t the reason for his decisions.
The impression I get is that Bob’s tired of Drizzt and all of these characters that he fundamentally doesn’t own (WotC has the IP rights to them), and that he’d really rather work on his own world, the DemonWars stuff. I’ve grown less and less fond of Bob over the years, but I genuinely want him to be able to focus on his own franchise, and not because it means that he’ll stop messing with the FR stuff. I really think that Bob would be a lot happier if he gets to do his own thing, but Drizzt is an undeniable cash cow and a visibility generator, so he’s not going to stop milking it either.
What bothers me about the trend with the recent Drizzt books is that, technically, Bob isn’t the Word of Canon, not fully anyway. WotC is, heck, Ed Greenwood is. Sure, Bob’s writing these characters, but the microsphere that they live in doesn’t jive with the world at large, which does not belong to him. I first branched out to learn about the rest of the Realms because I wanted to be as true as possible to the character that I love, and I fell in love with the world as a whole. Even though Artemis isn’t much concerned with his world, he is as shaped by it as any of us are by our surroundings whether we want them to or not. So, when Bob’s corner of the Realms becomes more and more isolated from the truer and bigger world, I can’t help but feel that his word is questionable as far as canonicity is concerned. I still care a lot about canon, and I want to continue to adhere to it, but when FR canon is going one way and Bob canon is going another, I feel like no matter what way I go, it’ll be wrong. :C ]]
scratchedagain
It looks like the bit about his hair not growing back was more focused on him trying to explain what he was talking about in that moment, rather than the idea that it wouldn't grow back. Which is the only positive thing I have to say about the whole excerpt. =/
[[ I do hope this is what that passage is all about. I’m not sure about the specifics of healing in 5e (or if it even matters because Bob has a history of picking and choosing when to adhere to D&D rules and when not), but I’d assumed that this was how Jarlaxle lost his hair for good because of an incident in another FR book I’d read. I can’t remember which one it is anymore, but it was set in the 3/3.5 era, and the scenario involves a girl who had her thumbs cut off. She’s healed pretty much immediately, but all that happens is that the healing expedited the natural course of her body’s regeneration. Her thumbs don’t grow back from the healing magic, but she’s granted a favor from the gods and gets her thumbs back that way.
In other FR books, I think even in some of the Drizzt ones, I recall reading about magical healing sealing a wound into a scar, which I’d always thought to be kind of weird since it’s magical, so why isn’t it imperfect? However, that did form my impression that normal magical healing just means expedited biological healing. Following that train of thought, if Jarlaxle’s head were left to heal without magical intervention, he shouldn’t be able to ever grow hair on his head again. If it was just that his hair had been burnt off, I see no reason why it wouldn’t be able to regrow, however, we’re told that his scalp is burnt so badly that it looks caramelized in some places, which sounds like the follicles would be mostly destroyed and that the skin would be too damaged to ever regrow hair. But I’m really not certain, because it can be argued that Jarlaxle’s scalp skin is still there, unlike the girl whose thumbs are cut off, and that the magic could restore that skin to its undamaged state. However, that’s directly at odds with magical healing leaving scars, because if magical healing does indeed restore things to what they were, why would there be scars? Hence my pessimistic interpretation on how Jarlaxle gains his iconic look. :\ ]]
[[ Thanks everyone for the likes, comments, and reblogs on my Valentine’s Day art! <3 Sorry in advance for the long response post! This was the best I could think of to not spam everyone’s dashes. >_> I super appreciate you guys taking the time to look at my art and comment. :D <3
P.S. does anyone know why Tumblr is labeling my image as a “panorama”? Is it a new format thingy, or is it because my preview image is so wide?
d-lishtastytheatre reblogged your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to…” and added:
YYYYEWEEAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! me friend mAKE THAT GOOD ART
:DDDDDD Dude you have no idea how much you being around all of these years have helped me keep making Jartemis stuff. xD
maverlok replied to your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to…”
Holy shit, that came out fantastic???? What were you saying about not being able to color well? LIES
I’m still not where I want to be, but I think I did better here than I’ve ever done previously. I’m pretty pleased with how Jarlaxle came out overall, I wanted to make him appropriately black-skinned but there was a big risk losing him in the darkness. I think though that painting him with all the colors of the (Underdark) wind prevented that. xD I feel like I didn’t do as good of a job on Artemis, I worry that reads as too purple because of his shading, not to mention as pale-skinned instead of brown-skinned. :\ But the upside of all of this is that I think I’ve managed to conquer my hurdle of feeling like my stuff looks better if I don’t color them. :D
ladyzwei replied to your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to...”
Incredible. Absolutely incredible. This is stunning, beyond stunning. All the stunning. All of everything. Holy crap this is perfect. Thank you, your awesomeness for this blessing of divine art.
I definitely don’t deserve this much praise. xD But thank you nonetheless, I’m really glad that you like it. :D I hope to one day be able to make something to deserve this level of accolade.
flow-motion replied to your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to...”
Woah woah woah this is hot!! I love how artemis is holding his hand like he wants to stop jarlaxle from touching him waaah
I’m SO GLAD that you commented on that! :D While composing this piece, I wanted to show the interplay between the mental and physical top and bottom roles of these two in this intimate setting. Normally, the one receiving the “service” would be the physical top, and what’d often happen is that the top would grab onto the bottom’s head or some other body part to control his motions. However, Artemis isn’t doing that, because he’s not both the physical and the mental top. Even though Jarlaxle is technically acting the role of the physical bottom, he’s the mental top. Artemis wouldn’t be readily comfortable with being the physical bottom because of all of his insecurity and vulnerability issues, and that’s just fine with Jarlaxle, because they both know who has the reins in the situation. ;P But, Artemis wouldn’t be able to just lay back and take it, he can’t let Jarlaxle completely have his way because that’d destroy the illusion of his power too much, and so Jarlaxle’s wrist is a good point of resistance (as well as an anchor xD), but hardly detracts from Jarlaxle steering the wheel. ;)
scratchedagain replied to your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to...”
This is super hot and incredibly well done! And those rings! So pretty and holy crap, the details! Fantastic!
I loved doing the details, probably the most out of anything. xD I felt some remorse after doing them because I had to blur them (for the background) or they’d be too small to see normally (in the full image). I know it’s probably narcissistic of me to include the blown-up versions but at least some good came of it. >_>
baenre-jarlaxle reblogged your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to…” and added:
My my my someone saw into one of my dreams ~
((Such beautiful work!!! You’re an amazing artist, my friend! Gorgeous!!!)
Hello friend! I know that we haven’t interacted before this but I really appreciate that you like my work! <3 Thank you so much! :D Feel free to message me, I’ve been pretty out of the RP scene but I’m trying to shake off the cobwebs and get back into it. I’m sorry that the FR RP scene has been pretty dead, if you want to do something, let’s talk. ;D
jarlaxlebaenre reblogged your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to…” and added:
{ Beautiful work! I see the same sort of attention to detail in this as I do in your writing, as well as the exceptional portrayal of the relationship/chemistry between these two. :-D
Although, given the amount of warning you gave, I was really expecting something less tame. ;-P This is indeed NSFW but I thought it’d be a lot more explicit; genitalia is visible but it’s not even a full dick. Oh noes, the humanity of seeing a partial dick! Alas, we’re traumatized for life! However shall we recover from this deep and awful scar? ;-P }
Hey, some of us aren’t physically configured such that we have the option to see a full dick whenever we want, multiple times a day. I’M JUST BEING CONSIDERATE OF THOSE OF US, OK? :P
... although, I guess with the existence of the internet, my argument doesn’t really stand. >:| WELL I’M JUST BEING CONSIDERATE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO DON’T HAVE THE INTERNET TO BE ABLE TO SEE FULL DICks whenever they want and thus they wouldn’t be able to see my pic either and... =_= oh, go eat a partial dick. ;P
neverwinterforgottenhero replied to your panorama “[[ A little something for Valentine’s Day! ;D Thanks a bunch to...”
Gosh so many details! Love the rings that's beautiful, the whole scene is quite erotic ;) That's awesome dear!
Thank you so much! :D Part of me died a little when I saw your message because I was all like, “Oh god I’ve polluted the eyes of Rith-mun who makes pure art of pretty elves with more pr0n again lightning strike me down nao.” xD ]]
scratchedagain replied to your photo “idlechampions: We would like to officially welcome Drizzt Do'Urden,…”
Let’s hope they get around to adding Artemis eventually!
[[ I have mixed feelings about this. xD Yes, I’d absolutely love for Artemis to make it into the game, if they implement him well. It would be especially cool if, as per the suggestion of another player during one of Idle Champion’s streams, Artemis and Jarlaxle buffed each other from both being in the formation at the same time, like what’s been done with Drizzt and the Companions of the Hall. Although, more likely would be that Jarlaxle would be buffed by members of Bregan D’aerthe being in the formation at the same time, but hey, one could hope that there’s some in-game mechanic that offers synergy between Artemis and Jarlaxle. XD
The thing I’m worried about of course is that they’d get Artemis all wrong and make him look like a white person, which is how he appears in far too much fanart and pretty much all non-Lockwood official art. I’ve been pretty pleased with what Codename Entertainment has done with racial representation (fantastical and human ethnicities) in the game so far, but it’s hard to get a feel for how thoroughly they know their source material. For instance, the two dark-skinned human champions so far, Hitch and Nayeli, hail from Durpar and Daggerford respectively, although Nayeli mentions living in Calimshan in one of the campaigns. I couldn’t find any information about Nayeli’s specific birthplace and I don’t know if it’s ever discussed in the Force Grey podcasts since I don’t listen to them, but it’s conceivable that she’s a Calishite native who found her way up the Sword Coast to Daggerford where she served her role at Duke Maldwyn ‘s side. In any case, Nayeli’s skin and hair color are spot-on for one of Calishite ethnicity, and while I could accept something a bit lighter in skin tone as also Calishite, from Nayeli’s appearance it’s clear that she’s a brown person and not a white one, which should be true of Artemis as well. ]]
sunshinedoomguide replied to your photo “idlechampions: We would like to officially welcome Drizzt Do'Urden,…”
((It was probably inevitable, and it'll be nice to have a different option for that slot. Granted, I've never used the character already in that slot...))
[[ I agree that it was inevitable, I was actually really surprised at launch that the nod to the Drizzt books that Idle Champions included was Jarlaxle and not Drizzt. XD I haven’t done any number-crunching myself, but the consensus thus far out there seems to be that, barring special weekend buffs and other conditions, that Makos far outstrips Drizzt in strength, because of Makos’ Dark Blessing ability. This will likely change as more Companions of the Hall are released and of course is also dependent on those hypothetical champions’ strengths. If they’ve got an awesome buff like Bruenor has, the game might very well become Idle Champions of The Legend of Drizzt. ;P
As it stands currently however, Drizzt is a pure DPSer while Makos is a buffer, and like pretty much all pure DPSers so far, they fall really short in utility compared to buffers. I haven’t gotten Drizzt yet so I don’t speak from personal experience, but from what I’ve read, Drizzt is indeed pretty lackluster at this point in the game, although his ultimate in which Guenhywvar mirrors each of his attacks is pretty overpowered.
I totally recommend that you give Makos a try though! He doesn’t fit into all formations and I personally go with Tyril over him when I can only have one or the other. But still, in formations where both Makos and Tyril can fit, along with the “core” buffers like Nayeli, Bruenor, Celeste, Asharra and Calliope, Makos’ utility is pretty awesome! :D ]]
scratchedagain replied to your photo “idlechampions: Introducing our next Champion: Jarlaxle! Find out who...”
The way they colored his nose makes it look like he's been drinking, which is honestly really funny to me.
[[ I agree, and I’m honestly not sure why that particular artistic decision was made. I can see Jarlaxle getting a little buzzed accidentally, but it seems like he’d have to make a conscious decision to be totally smashed, and it strikes me that he wouldn’t much fancy being anywhere on the unattractive spectrum in any state. XD In my opinion, the way his nose is depicted in this art is pretty unflattering. >_> ]]
sunshinedoomguide replied to your photo “idlechampions: Introducing our next Champion: Jarlaxle! Find out who...”
I mean...who else would have a hat so magnificent it can be seen in a silhouette?
[[ I was thinking that too, but was afraid to be certain because it seemed so unlikely that there would be a Forgotten Realms drow character featured both before and without Drizzt. :OOOO I mean, the novelty of that move is shocking to me, even though I do quite approve of the choice, but I doubt it’ll remain that way for too long. While it’s certainly the case that another LoD character, Bruenor, was revealed before Jarlaxle (and also without the inclusion of Drizzt), dwarves are pretty under-represented and since they wanted a popular dwarf character, Bruenor does make the most sense to be picked (I mean, he has his own character art and character creation example in the 5th edition Player’s Handbook after all).
Your reply does remind me of the existence of a not very well-known halfling named Hamil Alderheart (whose Wiki page is sorely lacking) from the Blades of the Moonsea trilogy. I can’t remember the specifics of his attire but I do recall wondering at the time how much Jarlaxle’s design influenced Hamil’s conception. Hamil is a dandy and a charmer, with mannerisms similar to the drow mercenary leader, but the fact that I can’t specifically recall a distinct wide-brimmed hat with a feather in his attire suggests that he didn’t have a hat so fabulous. I suppose if he did, it would be infringing on Jarlaxle’s design too much, as that hat is a very recognizable trait even across different franchises. xD ]]
scratchedagain replied to your post: Are the fight scenes any less ridiculous or should...
That’s honestly more positive than I was expecting! My resolve against buying this book is wavering and I’m not sure how I feel about that. :P
[[ If the monetary expenditure wouldn’t be a noticeable hit to you, I would endorse buying the book eventually. Hardbacks are expensive and unnecessary, and $15 for an e-book is rather silly. It is true that how successful Timeless is will affect whether HarperCollins takes on contracts with other Forgotten Realms authors, but one can only guess at how much effect that will have. So, it couldn’t hurt to support Timeless in the interest of supporting the potential of FR novels from other authors, but at the same time, I’m not sure how much help it would be either.
Looking at this from a different perspective, if you’d sworn off giving Bob money because you disapproved of his increasingly lazy and sloppy writing, not to mention the increasingly problematic messages that he was espousing and lauding in the context of his stories, you wouldn’t be supporting that in this book, at least, not to the extent that you would’ve for some of the previous ones. That said, I’m not sure that Timeless is enough to absolve Bob of what he’s already done, so it’s really a personal call on your part.
My hope is that by the end of the trilogy, it would’ve absolved the past issues and set the pace for a brighter future, but it’s still too early to tell. I’m still afraid to see what he’ll do to Artemis. That aspect, Timeless has not made me hopeful about.
As far as the current state of the setting goes, the Drizzt books have always trailed a bit behind. The true current Realms year is vague, since WotC wants the 5th edition modules to not have to be ran in a specific order, but by reckoning of the dates and events in the other novels, i.e. Death Masks, the current year should be around 1489 DR. This is certainly more in line with the upcoming D&D adventures, as Waterdeep: Dragon Heist really feels like the sort of thing that happens after the major crises backdrop in the unnamed trilogy resolves itself. This introduces a strange sort of dichotomy, in which one feels like one is reading about the present, yet at the same time not. ]]
