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TWI Nonpatreon: Jesus, I'm worried pirateaba is going to die of whatever it is that kills those Chinese World of Warcraft players. Anyway, goddamn, this is going to be a huge huge mess, in a good way. So many plot points are coming to a head now, or are at minimum being pushed forward into a new phase. I think there's enough seeds that I have an idea how things will turn out, but it's gonna be a hell of a ride getting there.
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Jan 26, 2019 19:22
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Ah yes clusterfucks are amusing. Some pruning of the character list has been due.
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Jan 26, 2019 19:52
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The Shortest Path posted:That's a pretty good banner ad for NAH. Thank you, friend. Some serial authors were wondering if it was worth it to advertise on SA, so, that's my market research.
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Jan 26, 2019 23:49
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New MoL: Plots all the way down. My vague and unfounded speculation for this chapter: Veyers is hanging around because Silverlake has already killed Red Robe. And we will never find out who he really was.
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Jan 28, 2019 03:31
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tonberrytoby posted:New MoL: Plots all the way down. I'd be okay with that- structurally, red robe hasn't really mattered since he stopped being the primary motivator of Zorian's plans around 25-30, the main things which kept him interesting were the facts that his identity was secret and his plans unknown. I dunno about the Zach death pact thing, though; maybe it's because they haven't really come up until recently, but it feels like we've gotten several "Angels did it" asspulls in a row to explain stuff that could've been grounded in aspects of the story that've been built up for years. Edit to think: Two things occur in retrospect. Thing A) I know this isn't where the author wants to go with the final showdown, but if Zach is doomed no matter what, and the only reason they didn't involve the army was for fear of getting murdered by their own guys afterwards, couldn't Zach just go talk to them alone and be like "Hey, me and only me got stuck in a time loop; incoming cosmic horror thingie, someone might wanna get on that"? Thing B) QL is 800+ years old and has a divine thingie that's functionally identical to Zach's, in addition to a weirdly specific knowledge of what a primordial getting loose would probably look like, right? I wonder if he was a prior loop guy, and liched himself to get out of the "Keep loop secret or die trying" clause. Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 03:37
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PracGuide Anaxares is powerful! I guess that’s to be expected with a ruler’s Name, but mostly we’ve just seen his visions as the only power he has exercised. But the ability to influence an entire city, and even the Goddesses of Night to a certain extent, with his domain is definitely top tier Named power. This domain goes a long way to explain why all of the Free Cities people listen to him, as well.
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Jan 28, 2019 13:11
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wow... I really did not see that coming in the new MoL. I'm now even more lost on how things will turn out. The author sure is skilled at introducing more and more variables to an already complicated situation. Probably it will only get even worse and more confusing once they finally meet Red Robe.
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Jan 28, 2019 14:20
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Zach 
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Jan 28, 2019 14:31
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MoL Actually, reading it again, isn't this big reveal actually a complete non-issue? Silverlake says, and I quote, "Never mind people who literally originate from the time loop like me and you... even people you tell about the time loop must either die or have their memory erased, or he will not survive this month." End quote. Bolding mine. Luckily for the heroes, isn't Zorian a scary proficient mind mage? Couldn't he just modify his own memories to omit the existence of the time loop and, boom, problem solved? Silverlake says she tried to edit her own memories and it didn't work because of the magical supercurse but Zorian isn't laboring under that restriction. I don't see any reason why he couldn't just edit "time loop" to "long realistic dream" or something in his own memories and sidestep the whole issue.
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Jan 29, 2019 09:52
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sunken fleet posted:MoL Or for that matter, do the spider matriarch thing of putting all his memories in a rock for a few days? So murder silverlike/RR, brain dump himself and alanic, zach goes "Hi angelic choir, you guys sure aren't dicks or anything, btw look at how good I did at obeying the letter of the law while violating its spirit," then they lift his brand and he pokes Zorian with the memory rock.
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Jan 29, 2019 10:58
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Omi no Kami posted:Or for that matter, do the spider matriarch thing of putting all his memories in a rock for a few days? So murder silverlike/RR, brain dump himself and alanic, zach goes "Hi angelic choir, you guys sure aren't dicks or anything, btw look at how good I did at obeying the letter of the law while violating its spirit," then they lift his brand and he pokes Zorian with the memory rock. I read this as "and he pokes Zorian with the memory cock"
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Jan 29, 2019 21:09
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Ytlaya posted:I read this as "and he pokes Zorian with the memory cock" Hey, they have been buds for an awfully long time, and I'm sure Zach would be up for trying anything once. 
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Jan 29, 2019 21:25
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New Worth the Candle is out.
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Jan 30, 2019 13:00
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I'm enjoying WtC, but the pacing feels really weird. Like, it's simultaneously really urgent ('The world is gonna end in like five ways within three years unless you slay the best friend monster lurking in the puberty exclusion zone') and super laid-back (yeah, we have like 50 quests left, so we should probably get on that).
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Jan 31, 2019 00:07
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Forge of Destiny (page 14ish) Man, I was enjoying this, and now they've taken the "enslave yourself to me forever thx" deal. Wonderful. Literally every other option was less lovely!
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Jan 31, 2019 04:39
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Nettle Soup posted:Forge of Destiny (page 14ish) Man, I was enjoying this, and now they've taken the "enslave yourself to me forever thx" deal. Wonderful. Literally every other option was less lovely!
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Jan 31, 2019 10:58
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That's not really how that has played out tbh.
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Jan 31, 2019 17:56
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Nettle Soup posted:Forge of Destiny (page 14ish) Man, I was enjoying this, and now they've taken the "enslave yourself to me forever thx" deal. Wonderful. Literally every other option was less lovely! I don't mind it much. (these aren't spoilers for you/Cicero)Apprenticing with Jiao would have basically been the most "cliche" option, so I don't mind going with something less typical, and Ling Qi is still going to be in the Sect for the next long while. It also gets Ling Qi involved in politics, as opposed to just being hyper-focused on cultivation. It's also very normal (because it's beneficial) for someone in Ling Qi's position to become the vassal of someone else, so it wasn't so much a question of whether she would do that, but who she would do it with. All this being said, I always preferred the become engaged to the Golden Fields guy (or otherwise become involved with that region) option, even if it wasn't the most rational one.
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Jan 31, 2019 20:39
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I've always found this line of argument bizarre. Ling Qi is now bound to the Cai sure, and sure, this means there are now constraints on her behaviour that there weren't before. But she also has much greater power and access to resources than before, increasing her agency commensurably. Like, Ling Qi was never going to be able to escape the power structures of the society she lives in. The more her personal power increases, the more the hegemony will attempt to enmesh her in its power structures and place limits on her actions. At best, she could leave the empire- and become subject to whatever social structures exist out there- or attempt to overthrow it- which is probably best attempt from a position next to the throne anyway, and is less likely to transform the system than Ling Qi's relationship with it. There's no disappearing into the jianghu here.
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Jan 31, 2019 22:10
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Autonomous Monster posted:I've always found this line of argument bizarre. Ling Qi is now bound to the Cai sure, and sure, this means there are now constraints on her behaviour that there weren't before. But she also has much greater power and access to resources than before, increasing her agency commensurably. Like, Ling Qi was never going to be able to escape the power structures of the society she lives in. The more her personal power increases, the more the hegemony will attempt to enmesh her in its power structures and place limits on her actions. At best, she could leave the empire- and become subject to whatever social structures exist out there- or attempt to overthrow it- which is probably best attempt from a position next to the throne anyway, and is less likely to transform the system than Ling Qi's relationship with it. There's no disappearing into the jianghu here. Yeah, exactly; part of what I like so much about FoD is that the author actually treats decisions realistically within the setting he's constructed. Ling Qi is lucky, but I don't get the impression that reality itself revolves around giving her a good story, if that makes sense. While I'm sure yrsillar would have provided Ling Qi with many boons and opportunities regardless of the path readers chose, the nature of those opportunities would be different. A good example of this is that joining with Cai has already given her the opportunity to learn a lot about noble social norms, with this being most starkly contrasted with Shen Hu (who also comes from a commoner background and is shown to be far less savvy than Ling Qi has become due to her work with Cai). Another example is Ling Qi's social connections weakening when she doesn't spend time with characters; everyone isn't just magically attached to her by virtue of her being the protagonist. Also, the nature of cultivation is such that Ling Qi can't actually do anything major by herself for a REALLY long time, and (as you mentioned) this decision provides her tools for accelerating her rise. By the time she's capable of making a big impact by herself, she would have had opportunities to separate from Cai (if she wanted). (Still wish she had gone the Golden Fields route though, because I find that area and the people involved with it interesting.)
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Jan 31, 2019 22:58
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It doesn't really bother me in the short term, it's the sense of this is permanent for the life of the character that makes me a bit sad.
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Jan 31, 2019 23:25
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The Cai interactions are often times amusing and genuinely fun to read. And Ling Qi was always going to have to make a decision like that, the only question was when and to who.
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Feb 1, 2019 01:40
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SerSpook posted:The Cai interactions are often times amusing and genuinely fun to read. And Ling Qi was always going to have to make a decision like that, the only question was when and to who. Though the amusing can flip over to creepy sometimes when Ling Qi realizes that Cai might be purposely doing various "endearing" things because she's aware of the positive reaction Ling Qi has to it 
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Feb 1, 2019 04:25
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Meanwhile in PracGuide: Cat is 'playing', and I use the term 'playing' in the loosest of ways, chess. She is still genuinely awful at it.
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Feb 1, 2019 16:01
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Cat is playing AutoChess while Tyrant is playing normal chess
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Feb 1, 2019 16:18
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Cat blatantly cheating Tyrant in chess is one of my favorite moments of the whole story. I love how she co-opts his metaphor to create a couple of her own, in the most Cat spitting in the eye of gods and angels way possible.
Tom Clancy is Dead fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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Feb 1, 2019 17:49
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so is this chapter of prac guide implying that the bard is trying to maneuver someone into replacing her? anaraxes, cat, and/or black even
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Feb 1, 2019 19:08
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Part of me thinks it's implying something like that and part of me think it's implying that Bard wants to reset the continent because people are too aware of the storybook nature of reality but idk. Another part of me thinks that Bard figured out that something like the Accords was going to be made that would create peace between nations and that seems antithetical to her purpose, so maybe that's what is causing her to be so active.
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Feb 1, 2019 19:19
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I think it’s interesting that Cat is now calling Black “my father”, no longer referring to him as “the closing thing I have to a father” or anything like that.
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Feb 1, 2019 20:07
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Catching up on ward arc 11, what the gently caress, nursery? 
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Feb 2, 2019 15:14
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i'm a little mad we only got one-ish Anaxares chapter but his Magical Democracy Field still owns
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Feb 2, 2019 23:06
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If Anaxares is Robespierre, then who is Napoleon?
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Feb 2, 2019 23:27
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I've lost my ability to care about Ward. Things are just so unrelentingly grim, I just can't bring myself to care about what happens to any of the characters. At least in the good parts of Worm there was a sense of progression, that the protagonists were making some sort of impact even if it came with costs, but in the last couple arcs of Ward every victory is not only ludicrously hard-fought, but ultimately meaningless. The main characters aren't making things better, they're just occasionally preventing things from getting worse, which I'm sure is a deliberate theme, but it's a theme that's making me not want to keep reading.
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Feb 3, 2019 00:48
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Random rear end in a top hat posted:I've lost my ability to care about Ward. Things are just so unrelentingly grim, I just can't bring myself to care about what happens to any of the characters. At least in the good parts of Worm there was a sense of progression, that the protagonists were making some sort of impact even if it came with costs, but in the last couple arcs of Ward every victory is not only ludicrously hard-fought, but ultimately meaningless. The main characters aren't making things better, they're just occasionally preventing things from getting worse, which I'm sure is a deliberate theme, but it's a theme that's making me not want to keep reading. I find this to be the same across all his works. Everything is always bad forever and it just escalated from worst to worstest to worstestest forever. I’ve generally actually found ward to be a little refreshing in that while the world may be getting worse, at least our protagonist is getting better. Compare to Taylor - bullied horribly to supervillain to unnecessarily enslaving all the worlds superheroes. To Blake - literally his whole arc is downhill starting as a person and slowly disintegrating into not a person and I guess he actually gets a happy ending but man it’s only a happy ending because things have gone so to poo poo that a weird half life in magical wasteland with a monster and ghost kid forever is happy. To Sylvester - vast majority of NA ends up destroyed, starts a new branch of the thing that’s bad about the world, is going insane while he’s kind of winning the war (but, I mentioned everyone in North America dies right?). All that said, I still enjoy them. I’ve just had a very different experience with Ward.
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Feb 3, 2019 03:58
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Caught up with PracGuide. Kairos is a cool dude and I want to see him clown on Grey Pilgrim (this isn't a spoiler about anything that is actually happening, I just want to see those two characters interact). edit: One thing that confused me some is Catherine being curious how the drow would do against heroes. Wouldn't the higher-ranked drow, in a straight-up fight that isn't occurring at dawn, utterly crush pretty much any hero aside from the Saint? Catherine, even before gaining much greater mastery over Winter, was capable of defeating multiple heroes by herself, and the stronger Sigil leaders were capable of beating her at her peak. Is she maybe referring to narrative stuff? I remember part of the reason she had trouble is that she was also Evil aligned, so she had nothing really helping her against the drow in that respect. And unlike Catherine, the drow presumably wouldn't be genre-savvy, so heroes would have all their innate advantages against them. It's still an absolutely massive power gap, though. builds character posted:I find this to be the same across all his works. Everything is always bad forever and it just escalated from worst to worstest to worstestest forever. I’ve generally actually found ward to be a little refreshing in that while the world may be getting worse, at least our protagonist is getting better. I agree with finding the Ward situation a bit refreshing in the sense that it feels like, even if the situation is bad, Victoria is basically starting from zero and has nowhere to go but up as a person (the same can kinda be said for a lot of Team Breakthrough, who have mostly already experienced their "rock bottom" situations). It's also nice having a protagonist who is outright heroic in her motivations, even if she has some problematic aspects to her personal ideology. I can sorta understand why people don't enjoy it, but I've been enjoying it the most of wildbow's series. I think I mentioned before how I might rank Twig higher "objectively" speaking (though that's a judgement that could change depending upon how Ward ends up in the long run), but for whatever reason I find myself more compelled to read Ward. Twig felt darker and more depressing to me than Ward, because it felt like the personal situation of the characters kept getting more and more bleak (whereas in Ward it's more the setting that is becoming worse, but not so much the personal situations of the characters). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 08:10 on Feb 3, 2019 |
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Feb 3, 2019 08:05
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Is there an updated list of recommendations somewhere? Do you guys use anything else like discord or wikis?
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Feb 3, 2019 09:07
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How can you possibly say that Twig, the setting that features a literal biological apocalypse, has a less bleak setting than Ward? My opinion on Ward is probably skewed because I can't really handle how we're getting so deep into the story and I just don't see the point of it all. Like, what's the story? I'm also like an arc behind so take that with a grain of salt.
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Feb 4, 2019 07:15
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There isn't a story, Ward is Wildbow's attempt at a slice of life.
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Feb 4, 2019 07:23
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What does slice of life even mean? As far as I can tell, it's just a story without a plot which is just bad writing.
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Feb 4, 2019 07:45
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We could just stop talking about ward because it’s not good and start talking about the good serials like uh iron teeth maybe that is consistently funny or mother of learning which is awesome or maybe even worth the candle?
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Feb 4, 2019 09:25
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