Comment on Gold Lotus Gambit

  1. nightblackbird on Chapter 7 Wed 11 Nov 2020 01:30PM UTC

    Love the bookshop, especially with the reference to the knowledge seekers and them having their own access routes and all. :-)

    I didn't mind the monologue - on the contrary, I totally lapped up that bit of "condensed" world-buildung. I'm very excited about the Kingsman concept in this, including benders and non-benders alike as well as spiritual leaders and experts where the connection to the spirit world is concerned. Love the "holistic" approach. I guess it's wait and see whether society's turning away from the Avatar and their powers is the right development or not. ;-) Interesting and somewhat logical course of history for the verse you're building, though! More egalitarian and democratic, too, which is good - I guess the feudal system of the original Avatar verse had to develop even further after Aang established the first republic ever among the nations...

    Very engaging and "playful" verse so far - thanks again for posting and continuing!

    Uhm, just one thing: I guess it wasn't intentional that the first chunk of this chapter is a repeat of the last chapter? Just a copy-and-paste accident, I'm sure... X-)

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    1. Dagonet (AgentDagonet) on Chapter 7 Wed 11 Nov 2020 04:11PM UTC

      Thank you for pointing that out! Yeah, I was really exhausted after work yesterday, but wanted to be sure I posted the chapter cos I was excited to do so. It should be fixed, now!

      I'm so glad that the world I'm building is making sense thus far, especially as you've watched the source material so recently. I'm even MORE glad that it's engaging.

      My thought is, once you start unifying the world, and especially after an event like Harmonic Convergence, it's going to keep going. There will always be places that are more individualised, but for the majority the connection will be there. Like the internet making knowledge so easy to access, and thus friendships being able to span further than before, it simply IS now.

      I also wanted to build from the idea of disheartened people, like how Red Lotus formed, because there are always levels of disenchantment, and what you do with that can vary greatly. Just because someone was violent doesnt mean the system they were frustrated with was the correct one to continue on. And Desna struck me as the kind of no-nonsense, unafraid to make the harder but more logical choice, person of the probable next gen of White Lotus people.

      The next update may take a bit to post- more worldbuilding and having to design the Kingsman infrastructure in this world is a little more difficult than I'd thought it would be. ^^;;

      I also really want to thank you for commenting, because let me tell you the absolute joy it brings. I grinned at my phone for 10 minutes straight after your first one, and I really just want to say thank you. :)

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      1. nightblackbird on Chapter 7 Wed 11 Nov 2020 07:57PM UTC

        Quite agree about the development of the Avatar verse society and the "villains" motives. What I always found fascinating and really contributing to the good storytelling when watching both Avatar series was how well thought through and "reasonable" the villains and their motivations were. There always were quite good arguments for their thought processes and goals, although their actions and use of violence weren't the way to go. Just like Valentine is portrayed in TSS, really. Good storytelling isn't just black and white, which I appreciate in both of the original verses of this cross-over as well in your own writing.

        Oh, you're very welcome - glad to have provided some form of boost!! :-)

        (Though my enthusiasm to leave comments on here is quite fickle currently, as real life often leaves me emotionally exhausted nowadays, which makes it hard to connect/engage, even "just" online. I know every one of you busy, talented, generous authors on here deserves heaps of accolades, really! I'll keep trying my best... X-) )

        PS: Never apologise for your own pace of updating - I'm willing to go back to favourite, well-written fics even after years of discontinuation, as I've seen other loyal readers do on here. We are thankful for every word you lot put out for us to delight in! Thanks for the warning, though, and all my best for the process of wrestling these two verses into submission! :-)

        Last Edited Wed 11 Nov 2020 08:04PM UTC

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        1. Dagonet (AgentDagonet) on Chapter 7 Wed 11 Nov 2020 09:44PM UTC

          I LOVE well written villains- and those are, I believe, the ones that you can see so easily their point. You know they have a valid point, but their desperate want for instant results pushes them toward actions that undo whatever 'good' they're hoping to accomplish in the long run. Like Valentine, and Zaheer, and Poppy, and Kuvira, and just so many others. Like, Ozai was just fucked in the head, and Sozin before him, but so many antagonists are /so close/ to being right. So close. I LOVE that. I love nuance, and the shades of grey that life is actually made of, and exploring those barriers- how permeable they can be, where one begins and the other ends, and how you can bounce between them in a lifetime. In a moment.

          (honestly, I think everyone's enthusiasm for commenting is fickle. There are so many things in the world that demand our attention and our energy and often we just want to consume and not have to think about putting things into words. Thoughts are difficult to thread together, some days- I'm lucky if I manage to write a cohesive sentence, sometimes, let alone a comment on a story I'm enjoying. Sometimes, tbh, I'm lucky to have the energy to leave even a <3- but that's what kudos are great for. Sorry, rambling at you.)

          PS- Unfortunately I apologise for everything, but I DO want you to know that t shouldn't be TOO LONG of a delay. Maybe a few days- I may slow down to weekly updates, for example, if I'm having a particularly difficult time, but I'm going to try and warn if I can! I am also a person who will kudos/favourite/bookmark well-written stories even if they're never finished, so I'm glad to know there are others like me :)

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          1. nightblackbird on Chapter 7 Wed 11 Nov 2020 09:57PM UTC

            No, no, please, ramble on, I'm guilty of it myself often enough! X-)

            Cohesive sentences, I get you. I've not written fanfic myself in over a decade, I'm just too much of a perfectionist and have put up too high a standard for my own writing, which I feel is rather convoluted most of the time. Although I have notes for an incubus! Harry Hartwin fic I still add to now and then and which I've still set my heart on finishing (and posting) some day... :-\

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            1. Dagonet (AgentDagonet) on Chapter 7 Wed 11 Nov 2020 10:15PM UTC

              Before Kingsman I hadn't written fic in just about a decade for literally the same reason. I'm perfectionistic, and if I don't feel like the characters are /themselves/ then I won't post. Fuck, often I won't even finish and I'll delete the work entirely. (I've had the same book sitting in my drafts for 13 years because I keep starting-stopping-deleting-starting in a cycle I can't seem to shake.) And, to top the decade off between fic writing, the only fic I had previously done were 3 Twilight stories in my rebound-from-hp-ending phase (and only one was ever completed), and the other was for the Warriors cat books which was also never finished. They still sit, abandoned, on a distant ffnet page I can't bring myself to delete them from. (Aaaaand I won't delete the account entirely cos I have years of favourited stories in my bookmarks and some authors I follow exclusively write there ^^;;)

              But my point in telling that not-quite-story is that I believe in you. If you want to tell that story, you'll get to it one day when you feel ready. I'll say that the Kingsman fandom has by and large been the most supportive space I've ever been in, and the only one I've felt comfortable creating in, and when you feel ready to let that story into we will embrace it with open arms and enthusiasm :) <3

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              1. nightblackbird on Chapter 7 Wed 11 Nov 2020 10:47PM UTC

                That's so very sweet and encouraging, thank you!! And believe me, I'd never doubt this fandom, it has heart and stamina and so many hugely talented people writing for it that I fell in love with it and this space from the start! As I said, I've not given up hope yet... :-)

                Bless you for sharing that with me and for never stopping honing your writing skills and finding that will and courage to post! <3

                (I started on ffnet too, mostly for reading the HP fanfics. One passable HP verse short story of mine is still on there, from when I first dipped my toe into writing fanfic myself. I think our tastes overlap quite a bit, I loved the Warrior Cats books too, for example, and have always favoured the fantasy, fairy tale, myths and legends, supernatural, magical genres. :-) )

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                1. Dagonet (AgentDagonet) on Chapter 7 Wed 11 Nov 2020 11:05PM UTC

                  It'll happen when it's ready, and there's no real timeline for that <3

                  I just keep reading, or writing, or just dreaming. Being creative is something I don't really know how NOT to do it, but playing with characters that didn't pop out of my own head is something I've only started to feel comfortable with in this fandom. Hopefully, I'll feel comfortable in other spaces, too, eventually!

                  (I started off reading in fansite forums, then on livejournal, neopets forums and did briefly to a couple myspace roleplays, and then jumped to ffnet I haven't looked back since. Endless fic sites. Maybe not always creating, but the reading never stopped. I became ravenous for HP fic, at one point, for example, and went through the entire ffnet archive as it stood at the time before needing to find other sites. Which I did, and then those started getting closed down but now somehow there are fb groups dedicated to those old sites so I can still find copies of those stories? The internet is wild.

                  OOooh, now I wanna know what other books you've read, cos that does align with my genre taste and I'm always looking for new things to read. ^^ )

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                  1. nightblackbird on Chapter 7 Thu 12 Nov 2020 02:02AM UTC

                    OK, you want to talk books? You'll br getting books!! ^^

                    As a typical German kid, I grew up with the brothers Grimm's fairy tales, but I only got their symbolism and hidden meanings later on when I had some formal education under my belt from going to grammar school and university (where I studied English and German literature and linguistics). For that genre xi can recommend Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber', in which she re-imagines and re-writes a bunch of fairy tales with a bit more... ah, balance where gender bias and outcome is concerned.

                    I went on to devour mostly fantasy books in my teenage years, which remains my favourite genre. I still love everything by Tamora Pierce, especially the Tortall and the Magic Circle series. The Song of the Lioness quartet is still close to my heart.

                    Marion Zimmer Bradley's 'Mists of Avalon' was equally formative - the Arthurian legend re-told from a female (and supposedly villainess's) perspective? Yes, please! Her early work about the fall of Atlantis, 'Web of Light/Web of Darkness', is also one I read and re-read constantly in my teenage years, followed by her Darkover series, which is more science-fantasy than science fiction (which I also like, but I miss the fantasy element in pure, classical science fiction literature). Her re-imagination of the story of ancient Troy, 'Firebrand', and the re-telling of Mozart's opera 'Magic Flute', called 'Night's Daughter', are among my favourites from that era, too.

                    I don't have to mention 'The Lord of the Rings' (which I first read when I was 15, I think) and affiliate Tolkien works, do I? ;-)

                    During that time, I also loved to read Michael Ende, whose 'Neverending Story' was made into a movie, but I highly recommend reading the novel!

                    Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is still one of the most inventive, funny, philosophical, cheeky, rich piece of fantasy literature ever written, with a ton of references and allusions to history, science, religion etc. woven into it. I aas so vedy sad when we lost him and his brilliant mind that worked a little bit different from everybody else's (except maybe Douglas Adams's, whose works I also adore). And I'm still such a sucker for every bit of intertextuality, hidden references, symbolism and satire I come across, either in literature or well-made TV or film (storytelling in all its forms, I guess).

                    Vampires, werewolves, fairies, a bit of horror? Sure, bring it! I don't know if you've read Barbara Hambly's 'Those Who Hunt the Night' (and the sequel 'Travelling With the Dead'), but that's still among the top three of my list of vampire novels. And written for adults to boot (even though yes, I also read the Twilight series and got reasonably entertained by it). Read the Hambly novel(s) and you'll know why Ysidro, the Spanish nobleman from Tudor times looking for a human companion to solve a series of murders threatening his own kind, is hands down my favourite vampire character ever created! (You'll find traces of Harry in him: a bit of arrogance and absolute trust in his own abilities, a hidden sense of humour, tenacity, loyalty, sense of style and a bit hung up on manners). :-)

                    When it comes to fairies, I absolutely adore the verse Melissa Marr created in her four part 'Wicked Lovely' series, stories set in the different fairy courts and showcasing the "real" side to fairies, how cruel and uncompromising they can be, very much in line with the original Irish/Celtic/British fairy myths and legends. Her style of writing is exactly what I love to read and her storytelling is much better than other fantasy stuff written for young adults (which is often too clichéd where romance/developing relationships are concerned and characters aren't much better developed than basic stereotypes).

                    I did enjoy Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter Chronicles, though. At least she's inventive, fast-paced and playful and fleshes out her characters nicely.

                    I also don't have to mention the Harry Potter franchise, do I? I guess that's what we were all weaned on (despite already having been 21 when the first book was published, yikes!).

                    Magic realism, a dash of philosophy, history and modern topics like preserving nature and how societies (could) work mixed together? Always. Beginning with Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' (again, read, then watch, although the TV adaptation is really good!) to basically everything by Gabriel García Marqués. Also native American works and stories, their trickster myths, the "post-colonial" view on things, e.g. nicely mashed in 'Green Grass, Running Water' by Thomas King.

                    I also have been known for enjoying some Umberto Eco once, 'The Name of the Rose' and 'Foucault's Pendulum', although you need a bit of stamina and an interest in history, language, philosophy etc. for both, they aren't at all easy on the brain. X-)
                    (No comparison to the book, but I love Sean Connery, who's also dearly missed, in 'The Name of the Rose' movie, it's so atmospheric and suspenseful.)

                    So, that's a basic overview and run-down of my literary education/background. Would love a word if you tackled one (or more) of the these! :-)

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                    1. nightblackbird on Chapter 7 Thu 12 Nov 2020 03:41AM UTC

                      How could I forget dragons?! - The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey.

                      And angels: 'Archangel' (and the rest of the Samaria series) by Sharon Shinn - love that first book to death, though!

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