Twig 1.6 said: He had a strong build, with a prominent barrel chest, and the clothing had a way of making his legs look far too small while his upper body was made to look larger. His hair was the same way, wavy hair across a head that was already very triangular, with a prominent upper brow and pointed chin. Click to expand... Click to shrink...

Taking Root. Bit more obvious the name connection.Okay, let's go. Twig. Third Wildbow webnovel.Starting out saying 'we'. Clear signal we're dealing with a team, rather than a lone individual who nobody likes. Contrast with Worm, Pact.Four people, facing a monster. Hm. Faster to a fight scene than the prior two. Wildbow recognizing his strengths/interests?Monster is blind. Interesting aesthetic it has. [Later note: I thought we were getting to see the basics of a weirdo ecosystem. I'm much less enthused, looking back on it and knowing it's a one-off thing. I'd note it later, except it didn't occur to me until just now when I was assembling this update]Introduced to team leader. They are... sigh... a strong likeable handsome talented (probably white) male named Gordon. Great, now I have Commissioner Gordon in my head. Not thrilled at this stereotype of leaders. Part of what I liked about Worm was that Taylor didn't fit this archetype. Maybe he'll turn out better, later -I like Jake of Animorphs, and he's an example, but he's also tied with Cassie as my least favorite counting David- but I'm not happy.Introduced to two girls. Lillian is a hoodie-wearing scaredy-cat (?), hunched over, clutching a bag.Helen is the Simurgh.Lillian is horrified at seeing kittens get eaten. sighOur protagonist... is a pervert and Lillian knows it. Goodie.We're in a city, old, rotting, random. Trees deliberately made to grow into buildings. Early hints this is a world where biological mad science rules.Lillian is the new girl. Of course the scaredy-cat is. sighProtagonist getting called 'Sy'. Probably a nickname/shortening. Adrenaline junky who enjoys hearing Lillian be horrified.Reference to it being dangerous to be near the ground. Monsters, probably.Meet Jamie, fifth member of the group. He's supposed to be lookout. He's failing. Long-haired glasses-wearing bookworm. I like that he keeps his hair long because he never likes how it looks short. Unusual reason, and a sensible one. But do we have to have a glasses-wearing bookworm?Speaking of: meet a nameless black kid giving unsolicited advice to our protagonist's group. Go away kid. Quit making me hyper-aware that all our protagonist's buddies (plus the protagonist) are white but we'll never be told such because Wildbow. Nice to know your name is Thomas.Cryptic conversation that may or may not make sense down the line. The Academy is still a relevant force, not a crumbling building of irrelevancy as I thought earlier. Turns out our protagonists sell people out to the Academy. Snitches, all of them.I have yet to have a reason to like anyone other than Helen, and her only because I'm pretty sure she's autistic or something and I'm biased.Recruiting Thomas. Dang. Now we're two-thirds male unless Protag is female. (Pleasepleasepleaseplease)Dollar coins. What is with you, Wildbow?Multiple references to 'stitched'. Guessing Frankensteinian zombies.Jamie reveals Protag lied to Thomas. goodieProtag looking up Lillian's skirt to irritate her. If you're a girl, protag, I will forgive you for at least being something mildly interesting. So far I just want to push you off a building.The monster was made, artificial. Studying notes about it. Creator shows up, is Blasto. (Pheromone-based loyalty) Blasto finds Gordon and Lillian, knife goes for Gordon's throat. She promptly tells him about everyone.Lillian is oldest at thirteen. Group has been working together for years, her aside. Scientist is incredulous at them being children: they're not normal. They planned this, knew the monster was good at smell ahead of time.Claim they came because the monster ate a hobo. Calling Blasto 'snake charmer'.Academy apparently doesn't let you in unless you do successful mad science, forbids experiments. Blasto is giving me a "Those FOOLS at the university!" vibe. Gordon using big words like 'dehumanize'. Lillian claims to be a student at Academy, just her.Fight start!Oh god a reiteration of Gordon being blah blah hero likeable etc.Protag is named Sylvester. Crap. Male, almost certainly.Blasto is cold-heartedly murdered by our team, letting his monster eat him. Lillian is team medic with a weak stomach, and I'm skeptical of this combination if she's a Mad Scientist.Helen finally speaks, making a mean post-death remark. Her voice is 'cute'.End 1.1.-----------Mad Science world, bio slant.Protagonists who seem to be horrible and unlikeable.Eeeeeh. I liked Worm and Pact's beginnings more.Still not treating Sy's injuries as particularly serious even though they're Xenomorph acid blood.Jamie takes Gordon's word as truth.Sy is trying to dodge explaining why he fell 'deliberately'. I recall no such thing, am baffled.Analytical approach to the monster's behavior.Finally see this isn't a dead city, but occupied. Drat. I found the idea of our brats surviving in some post-apocalyptic wasteland interesting. This, not so much.Cars exist, but are the exception. Mostly it's horse-drawn carriages. Most of the horses are 'stitched/voltaic' horses. We get an infodump confirming that they're Frankenstein-types, as opposed to any kind of natural introduction to the concept. Stitched don't do so well in rain, which is a problem since the city is always raining for some reason. Stitched horses just need electricity, which is implied to be cheaper than horse feed. Skeptical.Radham Academy. Not the only Academy in the world.We meet a woman with an unusually creepy thing. Helen greets her as Mrs Thetford. Mrs Thetford is shocked by how rough Helen looks, Helen promptly claims Sy pushed her. Sy complains to himself that 'of course she makes up a lie that makes me look bad'. Sy, I'm pretty sure she just told a truth that doesn't apply this very instant, going by your behavior so far. Stop being a jerk if you don't want people believing lies painting you as a jerk.Finally get confirmation Sy is male. Dammit.Sy implying everything Helen does is an act. Yeah, she's the Simurgh 2.0. Shock.Oddly, Helen asks Sy if he's upset she blamed him. In spite of his internal whining earlier, he says 'no' and claims he's used to taking the blame. Why are you lying to Helen, Sy? What's the point?Our team lives in an orphanage. Disappointing.Claim that brain+nervous system=sufficient for a Stitched. That's... rather generous.We meet Mrs Earles, briefly. She runs the orphanage, doesn't fit to modern stereotypes for such. More Ye Olde British Orphan Nanny. Which is consistent with how everything has been vaguely Britain-back-when-carriages-were-still-a-thing.Then we meet Mr Hayle. References to the idea that Mad Science makes plastic surgery sufficiently practical nobody's age can be pinned down. Dude seems to be a doctor. He's Mission Leader. He's also how Lillian is in the Academy -so long as she's on this team, her tuition is waved, and he indicates that if any doors are closed to her to let him know. Favoritism, in exchange for this work.Shady territory here. All-around. Lot blunter than Worm was, where Taylor started out wanting to be a hero.Sy stealing a box of matches for unclear reasons.Glowfish in a bowl for carriage interior lighting. Very much Bio-world.Hayle is interrogating Sy. It's this weird open discussion of subterfuge and so on.Coach gets stopped. Sy apparently arranged this, after Hayle's papers. Still have no idea what's going on and still have nothing about Sy I like. Would have lost interest already if this were a book in a bookstore, author anonymous.Hayle catches Sy in the act. Takes it rather well. Reveals these 'orphans' are creations. Okay, some things make a bit more sense, like their age+aptitude.Helen is 'project Galatea'. Not a name I know. [Please don't tell me, either. I could look it up. I'm choosing not to]Jamie is 'project Caterpillar'. Suggests he's supposed to become something more down the line.Gordon is 'project Gryphon'. Probably as in nobility etc etc etc. Ugh.Sylvester is 'project Wyvern'. Ambiguous. Wyvern gets used for so many different things, it could mean just about anything. Unhelpful.No such for Lillian.Sy drops his end-chapter bomb: he's looking for 'expiration dates'. Whatever. Not much of a bomb. People die. It's called old age. If there is one on you, Sy, what do you expect to do with that knowledge?--------Clunky exposition. Nothing interesting happening. A non-bomb being treated as a bomb. Helen becoming less interesting, when she was the only person I liked.Still don't care about anyone or have any interest in how the world works or how people live in it. In fact, we've gone from me kind of liking one person to liking no one.Suddenly we're hearing that 'Radham' and 'the Academy' are two different buildings. What??We've timeskipped a week. Apparently Mad Science is slow to heal Xenomorph acid blood wounds.Not much of a secret that the kids are artificial? Students apparently get to know Sy is 'project Wyvern' if they work on him, which they do in place of, I dunno, adult staff.'Stone' used as a measure of weight. Yeah, we're in Fantasy Ye Olde Englande.Sy smashes a syringe. He cared so much about this he lifted his cot up to drop it in the syringe. Spite? Insufficient context. Barely care.Oh, he's using part of it to remove the door's hinges. Because Wildbow couldn't just run Bonesaw Quest instead of making up a whole new setting populated exclusively by tinkers. Fine. Okay.Sy very aware of a 30-something woman's curves. Goddammit, isn't he supposed to be under thirteen? And artificial?Sy claiming he's rarely honest. Seems true so far.Sy's crew is investigating into children turning into parental assassins. I'm suddenly realizing I'm actually reading a detective story.I don't like detective stories.Still unclear why Sy and his crew are obedient little orphan things. Rather an important question.There were supposed to be six artificial humans. Two weren't viable. They were meant to somehow form a whole. This seems to be a thing with Wildbow, people who are part of something greater and/or are missing pieces of themselves.Sy is cynical and resents the idea of people being nice to him for their own reasons. That's nice. And you're being an obnoxious jerk over this because?... seriously, Sy, what does it net you? Why do it? I get the nettling, gloating, etc. What's the point of THIS though?Sy again defining a women's physicality in a way that suggests a focus on sexual traits. AaaaarghFinally learn Sy's hair is black. Of course it is, what else was I expecting from the 'dark' member of the team?Arrive at school, team is split up;Jamie: under a tree with a book. Because neeeeerd.Helen: with the girls.Commissioner Gordon: broing it up.Lillian: hanging with... an ugly girl and an ugly boy? Hm. That's the first sign she's had of being something other than a stereotype.Turns out the killers they're investigating have sussed them out. Five attempts on their lives. That's a lot in a week.End 1.3.-----------------In which the plot doesn't so much move as look longingly in the direction of progress, and then decide that would be effort so here's some characterization.Unfortunately, I dislike everyone we've encountered so far except Helen, who I remain neutral on since the story did away with why I initially kind of liked her.R&D for the brain is considered a dead end? Why? If Stitched are centered around brain+nervous system, this seems strange.Helen is a perfect actress. It looks like it might be less acting and more... becoming the role? Unclear. Sy finds her scarier than the monster from the beginning for some reason. Odd, for someone who has repeatedly indicated he prefers when people lie to him.Sy is cynical, mistrusts positive appearances. I'd find this interesting, except this is Wildbow so I already know it's less a personality trait and more being in tune with the fundamental nature of a Wildbow world.More with trees intertwined with buildings. How? Why?Helen and Sy synergizing.Again with the prison social thing. Lung in Worm, now Sy.Jamie and Sy having some dynamic with mutual pushing for... some reason. Reminds me uncomfortably of Nine politics.A brief, contextless textbook thing hinting at how Mad Science works.'Practically designed' you Sy? Are you guys artificial or not?Helen commenting most poisonings are women ergo the three boys must have a female cohort. No. Bad logic. Stereotypes aren't truths you can count on to make inferences.End 1.4.----------------I liked the moment with Helen and Sy synergizing.Still bored and disinterested. Pact had gotten me thinking it was going somewhere by now, and Worm was already at the Lung fight. Twig has done nothing to make me want to keep reading.Yes, this is detective crap. Case of the Bad Seeds. Ugh.Something about being "lost". Suggestions it's dehumanizing somehow. Makes me think of Girl Genius's Other, the wasps, etc.Sy is a rebel, hates being made to conform. I should like him for this alone, but I keep hoping the story will kill him off and we'll follow Helen instead. Commissioner Gordon is the only guy I'd hate to follow more, and he's had hints that his Golden Boy behavior is deliberate, not entirely truthful. I might like him after seeing what's in his skin for a bit.Talking about how they're all a team, strengths covering weaknesses. Okay, and Sy fits in... how?...Sy hasn't eaten in more than a week. What?Yeah, more cracks in Commissioner Gordon's facade. I like him. A little. Exactly illustrating my point.Actress or model? Wait, does this world have television? What?oh god i thought i was done with heads in female chests and so on now that i finished familiar of zero come onGun references that make me think of modern weaponry, as opposed to flintlocks. Odd.I want to find it funny how Sy is paranoidly wondering if the girl expressing interest in him is actually trying to poison him or the like... but I don't. Not even sure why. [In retrospect, probably because of my prior comment on Sy just being basically aware he's in a story by Wildbow means it's not funny, it's smart, and not in any way I can respect]End 1.5.---------------Plot's finally moving. Only took five chapters.Still bored.What? His hair is the same way?... What? What does that? Same way as what, in what way???Whatever the case, the dude has a British accent, and this is worth commentary. So. What? We're NOT in Fantasy Britain??I'm getting tired of Sy constantly saying "X Y and Z are hints to the nature of the enemy" and never, you know, talking about possibilities that have been eliminated by the information he's gathered or that fit to it particularly well. If they're hints, why aren't you talking like you've learned anything?Helen unflinchingly pouring another girl's puke on her arm. Ew. Okay, Helen is increasingly stacking up as odd/interesting. Lillian tries to comfort her with the trite "it's not your fault" and before my Urge To Throttle can kick in Helen has pre-empted me by saying she knows, it'd be her fault if she'd had an idea and ignored it.Okay, Twig. You've got me liking Helen again, and for reasons other than my own biases. That's good. Took five chapters too long, but that's better than Pact only starting to work (sorta) in the last third.getting analysis of the enemy. Also, Commissioner Gordon talking like people might be afraid to fight the group. Are we a secretive group few know about or not?I ought to like Sy's pragmatic approach to punishment. I don't. I now find him the least likable character in the story, and he's the viewpoint character. Pact again, but more so. (Blake is the dullest character in Pact by far and I'd rather have been watching Rose 100% of the time... but he was merely boring, not someone I wanted run over by a bus)Still genuinely unsure if 'Sly' being used to refer to Sy is deliberate or a spelling error. Nobody builds on it or acknowledges it. It just happens randomly.Gordon is a sexist idiot. Why?Meta-pattern note: in Worm, it took eons for Taylor to realize letting the enemy have the initiative is bad. She never really succeeded in doing anything with this realization. (She turned herself into the PRT? But this was a stupid plan with no narrative foundation and no real payoff unless you count Alexandria dying, so... I stand by my claim) In Pact, Blake figured it out sooner, and made more of an effort to try to seize the initiative, but it never really worked. In Department 64, Director Seneca was always reacting and a day late and a dollar short. Sy is already, in/before arc 1, aware of the issue and wanting to deal with it. Will this finally be the Wildbow work where protagonists are allowed to actually seize initiative?I doubt it, but here's hoping.So wait British Accent Guy is local? So we ARE in Fantasy Britain, but foreigners are so common it's worth COMMENTARY when a British accent crops up?Sy starting in on things without the audience having the slightest clue why is going to be a recurring thing, isn't it? Can we throw him under a bus already? Now he's irritating me on meta-narrative levels, in addition to a personal level.Disappointed the only semi-developed students seem to be intertwined into this murder plot. It's... lazy.End 1.6---------I'm still bewildered by the setting, and it's moving away from "it's an overwhelming thing to learn a new setting" to "Wildbow? Hello? Are you sure your setting makes sense?"My negative first impression of Sy is not proving to be Beginning Awkwardness.But at least I like Helen again? That's something.I don't think Wildbow understands how lighting works. It's easier to see something coming your way, backlit, than something coming your way when the light source is behind you and dim, not the other way around.Also, Mary having a gun is bothering me. Exactly how accessible are guns in this city? It's not like guns connect to the biotech, and the world seems a bit primitive aside from the Mad Science.I'm trying to figure out the room Mary and Sy are in and failing. Sy is apparently next to the furnace, closer than Mary, even though a minute ago she was between him and the furnace and he was closer to the door than her? What non-Euclidean horror is this?Oh,we get an explicit explanation of why Sy "deliberately took a fall". It was so he'd get in the coach, to swipe the files. This... is a crappy plan from where I stand and the fact that it's like four chapters later that I have any idea what was going on there is sloppy.Sy claiming each of the kids is meant to turn into something monstrous eventually. Unfortunately I suspect he's being metaphorical. And probably lying, because Sy.Shit. I just realized, with Sy talking to someone and them indulging him for no actual reason.Sy is Jack Slash.Given Jack Slash is a giant Mary Sue of the worst, most blatant sort, this is ominous regarding the shape of the rest of the story.Seriously Mary. Shoot Sy. Stop standing around, letting him monologue and threatening to shoot him while never actually do it. Don't let The Curse Of Jack Slash get to you Mary! Shoot him! Make the story move on to someone actually worth reading about!Of course she doesn't.I am now mistrustful of the story's very structure. This is not a good thing for the first arc to cause. Or any arc, really.Helen: "Mission status?"Sy: "Personal concern!"Helen: "Okay, personal concern."Sy: "Fine, thanks-"Helen: "Mission status?"Sy: "..."Yeah, warming up to Helen.End 1.7.--------Bad chapter. Not happy. Not happy realizing Sy is the Revenge of Jack Slash, Mary Sue Extraordinaire, in particular, but Helen is literally the only non-bad thing.Sy continues to be Jack Slash, minus the extendo knives, charm, and competency at non-social things. So minus the good parts.Lillian explaining some Mad Science is making me abruptly hyper-aware that so far the Mad Science hasn't been that important to the story being told. You'd think it is, but so far? Not really. Sy and friends could be brainwashed regular kids, and Mary... could be a brainwashed regular kid. It's been flavor, more than substance. Disappointing.Reference to an Indian Empire that tried to produce a slave race caste.Commissioner Gordon's periodic snipes are usually pretty great.Typewriters. Definitely a world before computers.Sy gives a metaphor about human predictability. The metaphor is I Am Jack Slash. (Okay not, but I'm not letting this go and frankly it's more accurate than the metaphor he does use)Drain pen. Fill syringe with blood. Pen signature in blood. Wait, where's the step where he fills the pen with blood?Guy wandering around, coin for bodies. Unclear whether he sells bodes or buys them. I think it's the latter, in which case... what? Apparently he does both, with buying bodies being the default. Seriously, why? Just... collect from morgues. This is baffling.Sy finds Mary. His Jack Slash-ness is working on her. Dammit.End 1.8.---------No Helen. Did not enjoy. Did not care. Find world baffling, more as time goes on rather than less as should happen.Also Sy is Jack Slash 2.0 and that automatically makes things less good.---------------Two-thirds of the way through the first arc, by chapter count, and so far I'm bored, irritated, don't trust the story, and have exactly one character I actually want to see more of, whom is most certainly not getting the most screentime or even all that much of it.Ominous.