NineSwords

<Secrets of the Silent Witch, Vol. 5> - Nero finally got his time to shine and be super cool. Before he ruins it again by opening his mouth. But before that he was awesome. The overarcing plot also picks up some more steam.

I don't think the new teacher was necessary if she's just repeating the same "esteem" joke as the OG. I would have liked a different personality from a new character, especially since the esteem running gag is running a bit thin for me already.

Something I've been thinking about the entire week since finishing Expedition 33 (the video game). I have something of an obsession with the antagonist's motivations. It's what triggers me the most when reading/watching/playing something, and the villain is just evil for no other reason than to be something for the hero to fight against.

To me, the motivations of the antagonist are more important than why the hero steps up to fight against them. After all, in almost every story, it's the big baddy that dictates the actions of the hero and starts the plot to begin with. Just look at how many main characters in this space are just bank self-inserts without any personality and the story works regardless.

For me, a perfect villain is someone who has a clear and understandable motivation for their actions. Someone who follows their own path and isn't just there to push the plot in this or that direction. Someone who is written to act with their own knowledge base in mind and who isn't somehow omniscient. That's what I consider the minimum for a good villain.

A great villain would be someone who I can say is not wrong, just coming to the wrong conclusions or taking the wrong steps to reach their goal. And a perfect villain would be someone who flips me and brings me completely over to their side. I haven't seen any such "perfect villain" in a light novel, but I haven't lost hope yet. The antagonist of Expedition 33 was the example of a perfect villain that made me think about this topic for the last week and Prince Nuada from Hellboy 2 was another one I could come up with.

[META] This was the last Midweek Discussion topic I had prepared. If someone has some more ideas, please send me a DM. Otherwise I might just let them rest and then loop around from the beginning after a while. Or use whatever I can think of at that given day.

I always call it the best film I never watch again. and then I let people know that this is based on the real life of the author and intended as an apology to his little sister. Just to really rub it in.

Right? Now we only need @I2jgwh0hYtxrCZQ@lemmy.sdf.org to pick it up as the resident Average Abilities fanatic.

I think I'll maybe continue Imperial Reincarnation or get back into Bakarina. I'm a few volumes back on that one.

Fun thing about watching the anime first is that you read all the text now in their voices.

<A Livid Lady’s Guide to Getting Even: How I Crushed My Homeland with My Mighty Grimoires Volume 6> - A very forgettable volume. Not much of a real consequence happens. Entertaining enough, though.

<The Tiny Witch from the Deep Woods: Volume 1> - Based on the synopsis and the cover, I expected something comfy. The novel comes in 2 parts, and in part 1, there is jealousy, bullying, harassment, and ultimately, the outright murder of MC's mother. She then gets sold off by her last family member to a different country as a political hostage and to potentially become a concubine. Very not comfy. And the cruelty is utterly unnecessary. The setup for part two of the novel could have worked perfectly without the trauma-porn. At least the second (and larger) part is entertaining and well worth a read.

<Cooking with Wild Game: Volume 28> - Two Weddings and a Birthday. Another very heartwarming volume. The characters seem to get impatient with the main ship as well and push it a bit. There wasn't much alone time between them though, so we don't get any progression on that front.

Was looking at Kavita the other day for organising manga and noticed they had a Light Novel library type.

I'm running Kavita in parallel for my tiny Manga collection and I'm not really happy with it compared to Calibre-Web. The web-reader is better for mangas (that's why I'm using it) but everything else is worse in comparison.

iPad mini + Kybook3

what's the difference between Kybook and the default Books app?

Calibre-Web selfhosted for my collection and from there I download them on my iPad with the default Books app.

So Hannelore wielding what I assume is Leidenschaft's Spear, Rasantark, Kenntrips and (going by the green cape) Ortwin? Rozemyne in the background in sepia color.

Also, can someone do something about the ex-prince. He just so annoying.

Yes, Sigiswald is another aspect that has been warped into caricature territory.