4 hours ago, Manchu said:

We now have another obvious villain to hate, for those who need one.

Fixed that for you.

Gaze, ye Samurai, upon something truly unfortunate: A crown prince so incredibly awful that people who liked Doji Satsume find him insufferable!

31 minutes ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

At the surprising young age of 5, Sotorii is the youngest samurai to have completed their gempukku... apparently.

Did they say his age somewhere and I completely missed it? Things are a little different in the new fiction so he may be older.

Overall I enjoyed this story. He's the kind of brat that makes you want to keep reading so you can finally see them die.

Seems a bit cheap to make him so overwhelmingly unlikable.

Is this Sumiko's first encounter with Sotorii? It seems like she is appraising him for the first time. That seems unlikely, however, as the primary duty of the Ruby Champion in the new continuity seems to be protecting the royal family. And yet she has little insight into dealing with him. And she doesn't wonder much about his relationship to Doji Satsume. We know very well that Satsume was a harsh, demanding perfectionist. And it seems like Sotorii had some respect for him. Given that Sumiko also respected him, would she really chalk Sotorii's flaws up to Satsume flattering the boy?

Sotorii is portrayed unrelentingly irritating - but Agasha Sumiko seems a bit dense herself. Sorry to say, this is the first fiction I find disappointing. Maybe the author was issued a very strict brief?

I don't think Sumiko is being dense. She's being very, very cautious. Even with her own thoughts.

It seems likely, based on his behavior here, that Satorii attached himself to the Emerald Champion but ignored the Ruby Champion, a individual of lesser rank. He's only now associating with her because the Emerald Champion has been dead and only just replaced.

1 hour ago, TechnoGolem said:

Did they say his age somewhere and I completely missed it? Things are a little different in the new fiction so he may be older.

Overall I enjoyed this story. He's the kind of brat that makes you want to keep reading so you can finally see them die.

No, he's almost certainly older than that since they do state he completed his gempukku. It was a joke in that despite being an "adult" and a samurai he acts with about the maturity of a 5 year old.*

*I know 5 year olds who act more mature.

6 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Fixed that for you.

Gaze, ye Samurai, upon something truly unfortunate: A crown prince so incredibly awful that people who liked Doji Satsume find him insufferable!

Now what we really need is a fiction in which Sotorii and Yoshi interact, and let the hate meters explode.

Jokes aside I think it would be interesting, partly because it seems to me that Yoshi is the character most analogous to Satsume, partly because seeing someone as stuck up as Yoshi deal with such a brat could be hilarious.

7 hours ago, Manchu said:

Sorry to say, this is the first fiction I find disappointing. Maybe the author was issued a very strict brief?

"Wildcats and Dragon Teeth" it's the first fiction of the new lore that I didn't like. I've found a lot of the actions/reactions unbelievable and very un-japanese: Sumiko in her role cannot be so scared of the prince, giving him a lesson may not make him friendly but I cannot see that causing such a big issue; at the same time, an imperial prince should have been trained in courtesy and etiquette and would try to respect both, at least as a facade.

I blame a lot of it to the need to describe characters in a very strong and extreme way, due to limited space and "window" we get on their actions. In a few pages, we must get an idea of the character that has to stick in our minds, as who knows when we will see again Sumiko and the prince.

Generally, I'm noticing more and more the difficulty in progressing such a complex narrative tapestry with the bi-weekly fictions. The only reason why the story seems to be progressing smoothly is due to the "six packs in six weeks", that gave us a lot of details and progress in a very short time. Imagine the same fictions in a 6 months-span, with the bi-weekly narrating a parallel story to not spoil them...

Not sure how it was with the CCG, maybe I'm just impatient to see where all the stories are going...

2 hours ago, franzvong said:

Not sure how it was with the CCG, maybe I'm just impatient to see where all the stories are going...

Don't know if you noticed the bad news, but the end of this story's article says the L5R fiction is taking a break, and they don't say for how long. So all we have left for an unspecified period of time is the insert fiction in pack 6, which I suspect will be a follow up to this one with Sumiko's meeting with the Kitsuki.

17 hours ago, Arkano said:

This had to be done.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like Robin Arryn is a better comparison. Joffery had sheer malice going for him. Sotorii, like Robin, is just an incompetent, overbearing, selfish spoiled brat.

40 minutes ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Don't know if you noticed the bad news, but the end of this story's article says the L5R fiction is taking a break, and they don't say for how long. So all we have left for an unspecified period of time is the insert fiction in pack 6, which I suspect will be a follow up to this one with Sumiko's meeting with the Kitsuki.

Completely missed that. Sad panda.

49 minutes ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

Don't know if you noticed the bad news, but the end of this story's article says the L5R fiction is taking a break, and they don't say for how long. So all we have left for an unspecified period of time is the insert fiction in pack 6, which I suspect will be a follow up to this one with Sumiko's meeting with the Kitsuki.

I wouldn't expect it to be that long, we are after all now into the Christmas season so there should be a lull in releases till after the new year. I'm sure they did accelerate the release of fiction as If they hadn't done the six packs release most of these stories would have been spaced a little further apart with say the story insert at the start of the month the follow up fiction 2 weeks later. They probably need to stockpile a few stories to make up the gap the accelerated release created.

Them taking a fiction break is fine, they covered huge ground up to this point, pushing a story that was supposed to roll out over 6 months into a 6 week venture.

They can have all the time in the world to get back on track, I want quality of story over quantity anyway.

Also note that this story contains nothing that relied upon tournament outcomes- they've probably had this one in the pipe for a while.

I wonder if Akodo Toturi will have the same amount of deference, or if his Duty to Sotorii's father will override any coddling that might occur. It seems to me that Hantei Sotorii has a few good traits, endurance and a wish to succeed. He just needs someone to show him how to apply those traits properly.

If done right, I wonder if Akodo Toturi having a positive influence on the Imperial Heir, making him a stronger self reliant samurai, would undermine Kachiko even further. After all, I think the fruit ninja would have taught Sotorii flashy moves, praising him but ultimately making him weaker.

15 hours ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

No, he's almost certainly older than that since they do state he completed his gempukku. It was a joke in that despite being an "adult" and a samurai he acts with about the maturity of a 5 year old.*

*I know 5 year olds who act more mature.

I've got to stop reading forums when I am half awake. lol Thanks for clearing that up.

On 13/12/2017 at 5:15 PM, Tonbo Karasu said:

Sotorii was always a brat. I hoped it might be less so, since he wouldn't be so spoiled when his father didn't lose wife and second son. Remember, this is the boy who outlawed an entire family because someone sat in a chair.

Not quite.

OldSotorii was a priviliged, overprotected, and insecure kid who was trust in a postion of power after bearing witness to the murder of most of his family and extended circle of friends by his father's, suppsedly, greatest friend and most loyal vassal, and tragically overcompensated for that (also, puberty). Compare for example his meeting with Kamoko and how Hachiman responded to him

But I do feel the made NuSotorii too much of a hate sink. Subtle this was not.

6 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

They probably need to stockpile a few stories to make up the gap the accelerated release created.

6 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Also note that this story contains nothing that relied upon tournament outcomes- they've probably had this one in the pipe for a while.

I think Kinzen (Marie Brennan) said in another post that there’s a lot of fiction already written, or at least planned, even some fiction that will never be published because is the fiction for story choices that weren’t... well, chosen.

She also said that the repercussions of the story choices won’t be clearly visible for some time after the decision is made.

6 minutes ago, Tabris2k said:

I think Kinzen (Marie Brennan) said in another post that there’s a lot of fiction already written, or at least planned, even some fiction that will never be published because is the fiction for story choices that weren’t... well, chosen.

She also said that the repercussions of the story choices won’t be visible for some time after the decision is made.

Indeed. Though, to be clear, I don't have specific intel on when the longer-term repercussions of story choices will or won't appear; I only know that the fictions of mine which got released in September and October were assigned to me in May. So that gives you some sense of the lead time. It's of course possible to get stuff out faster when necessary, but given the number of different people who have to get their eyeballs on the outline/draft/finished text, and the inevitable need for a margin of safety because something will fall behind schedule . . . you're probably looking at three months minimum for anything that isn't a rush job.