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Insurrectionist posted:The idea did strike me reading other comments but I agree that while possible, there's not too much indication that Vivienne is transitioning into a new role nor - given she had Hakram's help on the civic side of things and still hosed up bad - that she's doing particularly well as a ruler. Which would make it not just callous of Cat to basically thrust the job on her regardless of her wishes, but also pretty drat risky. I mean it's possible we missed something about that in the conversation that was skipped over, but if that's Cat's intentions it must have been one since before that convo. (PracGuide) Cat does briefly go over the other big things Vivienne did as Regent and specifically says that they were all pretty good. Mostly though this is just exhibit #500 of why PGtE should not be written in first person.
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Mar 20, 2019 21:22
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It's gotta suck to have wicked thief invisible powers and the ability to steal the sun and poo poo and then lose that power and become a depressed insecure sadsack doing politics all the time. While I get the rationale behind it, Cat making Vivienne run Callow for a year seriously hosed her over on a personal level. There's probably a deeper reason than just stealing stuff for a while that Above chose her to be the single person representing the metaphysical concept of "a thief," and it probably isn't that she's secretly actually better suited to being Queen-Regent. edit: Put another way, we've never been given any reason to believe that Above/Below ever assign someone a Name who isn't perfectly suited to it. The only possible exception might be Cat herself, and transitional names like Squire are a bit of an exception. Just like Cat mentioned Archer using a bow feeling fundamentally "right" and natural, the same is also very likely true for Thief, and I don't really agree with the various comments that seem to think she'll just end up with some other Name. I hope that the story does something with Vivienne as a character, because she's always been the most interesting and unusual member of the Woe, IMO. She's the only one that seems to be coming from a fundamentally different from from the other members, and I feel like Hakram was correct in his feeling that she brings an important perspective to things. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 01:54
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I just finished Epilogue and really enjoyed it. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21374/epilogue quote:In the war-torn land of Cyraveil, four heroes strove to overthrow an empire. By cold steel and elemental sorcery, they brought peace to a warring land on the brink of destruction. As the flames died, the realm needed strong leadership, and who better than the champions who had saved the kingdom? But when the people sought out their saviors... they vanished. It's basically a response to and deconstruction of the Narnia stories, and really goes into how horrific the whole situation is , with the main characters forced back into their old lives as teenage students after spending years surviving a war-torn fantasy world. Ghetto Prince fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 04:42
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Ghetto Prince posted:I just finished Epilogue and really enjoyed it.
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Mar 21, 2019 13:49
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Boy this is depressing and is not going to end well for anyone. I'm sort of surprised that I've never read a story that does exactly this before since it seems like a pretty obvious concept, but I guess most writers don't want to write depressing "your isekai doesn't have a happy ending" stories...
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Mar 21, 2019 17:36
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I'm reading it and am getting a sense of dread. Not in a horror way, just in a "this is gonna be sad" way. Maybe I should check out that Japanese one someone mentioned in the other thread, which has the same premise but they use their other-world powers to become superheroes back home.
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Mar 21, 2019 17:54
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If you like the isekai survivor therapy circle enough to want a novella, check out Every heart a doorway by Seanan McGuire.
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Mar 21, 2019 19:53
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Well it ends badly, but not in the way you might expect! Each and every one of them is a loving rear end in a top hat that just loves "doing what's best" for another person, especially if it involves never asking said person what they actually want. In a bizarre way, Jen actually pissed me off the most at the end, just because she knew plain as day that she was making her decisions out of nothing but outright selfishness. that said i can't really fault her for her decisions because she got the rawest deal out of the three of them. I can't wait for Matt to descend into being an outright tyrant. Dude is a loving control freak no matter how much he claims to hate being in control. I was really impressed with the author's ability to write the characters' thought processes to be so self-assured that what they were doing was the right thing, even when their rationalizations were plain as day. A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 20:37
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Anias posted:If you like the isekai survivor therapy circle enough to want a novella, check out Every heart a doorway by Seanan McGuire. If it's anywhere as effective as Epilogue I don't think I could handle reading anything longer. I ended up binging the second half because I needed resolution. Something about the story just really hosed me up. A big flaming stink posted:Well it ends badly, but not in the way you might expect! Each and every one of them is a loving rear end in a top hat that just loves "doing what's best" for another person, especially if it involves never asking said person what they actually want. In a bizarre way, Jen actually pissed me off the most at the end, just because she knew plain as day that she was making her decisions out of nothing but outright selfishness. All three of them are completely hosed up and broken people. They're utter assholes, but you understand why they're assholes so they're sympathetic anyway. The dissonance between who they each think they are, who the other two think they are, and who the story shows them to be is great. I don't think Jen actually got a rawer deal: ultimately none of the three were going to be able to meaningfully live on Earth. The story was most explicit about why Jen would never be able to go back to her old life, but it also regularly hit on the idea that Matt's belief that he'd be able to was ridiculous, and obviously Carl couldn't even try.
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Mar 21, 2019 21:23
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(Epilogue spoilers, also CW) I mean, objectively speaking getting tortured and most likely sexually assaulted to the point that she can't stand to be touched or in crowds is a way bigger trauma than being a spymaster or leading a bloody rebellion. And she is the only one who didn't try to impose her will on the people around her. Carl didn't deserve the things that happened to him on Earth but it's pretty easy to read between the lines that he had no problem being the Hard Man that makes Hard Choices, and in fact reveled in it. But Matt, loving Matt. luv to lead a revolution but not give a gently caress about the ideals behind the revolution or actually care about the dispossessed whose cause he was 'championing'. i honestly feel like he only wants to go back because he can't possibly conceive of a future where he isn't his little sister's 'protector'. He's gonna take it real well when Jen wants to just gently caress off and go live with the sylves in the forest. I'm sure he'll come up with absolutely lovely rhetoric to justify leading a pogrom to 'rescue' his sister from them. I think if I had one complaint about the characterization it would be Sara's. for being an ongoing victim of domestic abuse she was way too emotionally mature and a perfect source of acceptance and support. Like don't get me wrong I can buy her uncritically accepting Jen's story and comforting her, but not only recognizing how all three of the main characters systemically lost their support structures, but also being able to communicate that like a social worker is a bit too much for me to buy coming from a 17-year old girl. But I can see why the author needed a character to voice those concerns and let's be honest children that have the emotional intelligence of someone decades older is kind of a mainstay of all fantasy writing. That's kind of an interesting note, is there any fantasy writing that actually writes children that act like children being thrust into life-altering situations? A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Mar 21, 2019 |
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Mar 21, 2019 21:41
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A big flaming stink posted:(Epilogue spoilers, also CW) I'm sort of disregarding that because... well, the story did too. It wasn't actually a factor in any of the choices she made or why she had trouble adjusting, and it could have been cut entirely without changing anything. It's one of the weakest parts of the story and definitely felt like "I need something bad to have happened to a female character. I know, she got raped!" when the story didn't even really need something bad to have happened to her. Not being an awesome magic elf any more was her relevant problem, and things like being uncomfortable with Matt touching her didn't go anywhere. Sara kinda needed to be two characters but that would have bloated the story up a lot. Maybe it would have worked better if she was shown as being really good at "managing" her father?
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Mar 21, 2019 22:06
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Plorkyeran posted:It wasn't actually a factor in any of the choices she made or why she had trouble adjusting, and it could have been cut entirely without changing anything. honestly, not to pick on you but i can't disagree more with this. the whole reason for her visceral discomfort was explicitly spelled out as originating from the trauma she suffered. Her not being able to sleep for more than an hour, her outright disassociation when she assaulted the football guy and the father, her complete and utter emotional repression except around matt and sara all have origins in her trauma. Like the story comes out and says it, what she went through has forced her entire identity into that of a survivor, and that's why i can't really muster any real recrimination for when she tossed Carl under the bus with full knowledge of what she was doing. poo poo sucks girl, do what you have to do.
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Mar 21, 2019 22:20
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 That all came off as just "yeah she fought in a war and killed people and has ptsd from that" to me and any further reason seems redundant.
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Mar 21, 2019 22:52
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I'm not sure how much pity I really have for Carl. The story seemed to make it pretty clear that his actions in the fantasy world revealed him to be an extremely awful person. He only ever joined the rebellion because he found out his friend's sister was being tortured*, and was apparently cool with committing plenty of war crimes and torture before that. While it was definitely a rationalization, when Matt thinks about how the experience made Carl into a worse person he wasn't really wrong. And earlier accounts from Carl's perspective strongly give the impression he has little remorse for what he did when allied with the Empire. The other characters seem to feel like they have some sort of obligation to Carl as a friend, but I'm not so sure I agree with them seemingly being okay with his hosed up actions simply because he joined the right side later in the war. This isn't to say that Matt isn't also a hosed up guy. On a personal level that guy is deeply unsettling, but I don't think it's ever implied that he actually did anything particularly unethical given the circumstances. And I'm kinda confused about why anyone would think poorly of Jen in this situation. Her parallel world experience was basically "being happy with elf family, and then getting involved in a war where she experienced PTSD-inducing trauma. * Early I thought it was some sort of sexual assault/rape, but later it's strongly implied, if not outright stated, that it was more of a "she was tortured and forced to fight and kill her fellow prisoners" situation, with the latter part being the most impactful thing. edit: One thing I was always a bit unsure about is what Blake's circumstances in the fantasy world were. Throughout the story the experiences of the other characters in the world are basically made clear. They split up at one point, where Jen ended up with the elves, Carl ended up with thieves/criminals and later joining the Empire, and I guess Matt joined the rebellion somehow. What's Blake's deal? Was he with Carl for most of their experience? Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Mar 22, 2019 |
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Mar 22, 2019 02:57
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PGtE Looks like I’m right re: Vivienne, except for thinking that she would get the Name Queen versus just becoming the Queen. And all of you folks crying about Cat forcing her to lose the Name Thief are wrong, she just out matured out of the mindset that sent her down that path.
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Mar 22, 2019 06:41
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Just finished Epilogue; really liked it! They're all pretty broken people but I don't think I can blame Matt for anything he did. What did Jen expect to do, back up his alibi to the police and have them all detained? Besides, the police witnessing the ritual at the end, together with the letter Jen left her mom, might be good enough to give them second thoughts about Carl. Here's a minor quibble which is insignificant on its own, but it bugs me because writers keep making this mistake: I feel like the author is definitely not bilingual because I'm fairly sure nobody code switches the way Jen keeps doing; you don't accidentally slip into your native language without realizing it, as if you were a racist cartoon character from the 80s. Even if you come from a culture that frequently code switches in daily conversation, it's still very hard to accidentally speak in the wrong language because you forgot yourself or aren't used to the other one. Anyway, the author seems to have an ongoing serial that's much longer; anyone checked it out? Is it any good?
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Mar 22, 2019 14:47
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Argue posted:you don't accidentally slip into your native language without realizing it, as if you were a racist cartoon character from the 80s. When my grandmother gets excited she swaps back to French without noticing and just assumes everyone involved can still understand her. I don't think it would happen in this context, because Jen clearly was very proficient in English and then later very proficient in Etorian, but I can say with certainty that stuff can happen with people who much prefer their native language to their secondary language, even if they're fluent enough to hold any type of conversation in both. Jade Mage fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Mar 22, 2019 |
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Mar 22, 2019 15:48
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Well that'll teach me to be very me-centric; sorry. In my defense we're all bilingual here and it doesn't line up with the experiences of anyone I know since I've also talked to them about it
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Mar 22, 2019 16:01
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Argue posted:Well that'll teach me to be very me-centric; sorry. Oh yeah, french Canada is notoriously bad with mixing language, it might just be a local tic
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Mar 22, 2019 16:02
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pirateaba put a poll up on patreon that says we're going to have arcs for every single alternate character PoV for the start of volume 6. That includes Flos (BOOOOO) but in the lead to go to first is Geneva! (YAAAAAYYY) e: in second is the trans skelenton 
A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Mar 22, 2019 |
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Mar 22, 2019 16:09
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A big flaming stink posted:we're gonna go through every single alternate character PoV for the start of volume 6 
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Mar 22, 2019 16:11
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A big flaming stink posted:pirateaba put a poll up on patreon that says we're going to have arcs for every single alternate character PoV for the start of volume 6. That includes Flos (BOOOOO) but in the lead to go to first is Geneva! (YAAAAAYYY) Split personality Toren is best Toren. I'd like to see more of almost everyone except Flos.
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Mar 22, 2019 17:12
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On the topic of bilingualism - my experience is that single words/concepts come out accidently in the "wrong" language, but never entire sentences/lines of thought.
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Mar 22, 2019 17:35
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Argue posted:Just finished Epilogue; really liked it! They're all pretty broken people but I don't think I can blame Matt for anything he did. What did Jen expect to do, back up his alibi to the police and have them all detained? Besides, the police witnessing the ritual at the end, together with the letter Jen left her mom, might be good enough to give them second thoughts about Carl. I think that it's not so much his decision, and more the way he made it. Matt is very unsettling in the same way nearly all his actions are manipulative, even if his motives aren't malicious. This isn't entirely his fault, since he was basically forced into a position where he had to be this way constantly. But it was likely very disturbing to Jen to see Matt so (seemingly) easily make the decision to condemn Carl to a hellish (for him) fate in the way he did.
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Mar 22, 2019 17:44
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A big flaming stink posted:
Unbelievable: a 17 year old girl being the voice of reason. lol ok buddy
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Mar 22, 2019 18:00
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Mate one of those is a conceit of the premise, the other is just unrealistic characterization. And hell, it's not even unusual like I said. Children are almost always characterized as miniature adults
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Mar 22, 2019 19:00
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this thing that always happens is a conceit but this other thing that always happens noooo me no likey
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Mar 22, 2019 19:55
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Lone Goat posted:this thing that always happens is a conceit but this other thing that always happens noooo me no likey I haven’t read the story you’re fighting about, but “you think characterization is less believable than the fantasy elements in this fantasy story? Lololol.” is an incredibly disingenuous and bad faith argument.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:02
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Silynt posted:I haven’t read the story you’re fighting about, but “you think characterization is less believable than the fantasy elements in this fantasy story? Lololol.” is an incredibly disingenuous and bad faith argument. This but also in today's world, it's totally possible for a 17 year old interested in abuse/psychology to just go research it on the internet
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Mar 22, 2019 20:16
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Also the voices of the three protagonists are really fucky and robotic too, so it's not like she's an outlier.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:24
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People handle grief in different ways, so I'm not sure why someone saying "the abused girl is too darn smart and calm" shouldn't be pointed out as being tacky and ignorant as hell, especially given the rest of the plot where mundane people reach incredible heights. It's a made up story with fake people, they're allowed to be impressive.
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Mar 22, 2019 21:03
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Carl's abilities are definitely the most jarring part of the story for me. Jen can't even remember English and somehow Carl is still hackerman after 7 years spent without electricity? At least the rest of them get super abilities based on what they'd done in Cyraveil. Pretty sure I couldn't code for poo poo after 7 years in the woods, let alone remember the ins and outs of SQL injection on random 2010 era message boards. And it's all so pointless, he could just as easily have gone insane after the guy invited him over to mock him about how it was all bullshit and he was an idiot for believing in it. Instead we're treated to pages and pages of some 18 year old turned medieval warlord running a hacking operation out of a Starbucks. Just weird. Also no treatment of how gross it is that 25 year old Matt has returned to bag his high school crush who's still 17. I thought the premise was neat and the treatment of the kids as returning soldiers was interesting, but the execution was kind of lame. We abandoned the guy back in the real world that we already kind of abandoned in the fantasy world and head off to our happily ever after while he rots in jail/an asylum. Fortunately he's actually a bad guy since he was involved in torturing Jen's friend to death so no need for the reader to feel conflicted here.
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Mar 22, 2019 21:31
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So I just read the recent Ward chapter and how about that ending. I can't imagine that Brandish is actually going to be dead, since I don't see how Victoria would ever recover from the Wretch killing her mother. It's possible this might somehow serve as an impetus for Victoria becoming able to control the Wretch.Lone Goat posted:Believable: elves, magic, portals to other worlds. If one is going to complain about Sara being abnormally mature, it's hard to not also comment on this random group of teens apparently all having the talent to ascend into positions of leadership and power within several years of being transported to a fantasy world (and unlike isekai stuff they weren't chosen by a god or giving special powers). Matt being cool with dating his 17 year old crush as a mental 25 year old doesn't bother me as much because Matt is a deeply hosed up person and "dating a child in the interest of returning to normalcy" seems to fit his character, lol. Like, Carl might be the most morally bad of the characters, but Matt is definitely the most disturbing. Regarding Carl, I feel like it really needs to be emphasized that it's all but stated that he convinced the Empire to start razing civilian towns to the ground and poo poo. He said that his success was partly due to introducing such modern war concepts. He is a Very Bad Person. Matt may also be a hosed up dude, but at least he ended up fighting against the Empire without needing the motive of "I need to betray the Empire to save my friend" like Carl. I don't think that Matt ever actually does anything particularly wrong, outside of sending them back to Earth without asking the others to begin with (which was ironically possibly his most humanizing action, where he was basically buckling under the pressure and returned to Earth to escape from it). It's mostly just that he can't bring himself to honestly express his feelings to others, so no one around him can ever know whether he's trying to manipulate them. I think that's why Jen realized she'd never be able truly be close with him again and wasn't eager to let him be near Sara in the car ride. It's unsettling that someone as close to you as Matt was to Carl might be willing to (seemingly) emotionlessly throw you under the bus, even if it's technically the right call. What happened with Blake was basically another example of this. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 22, 2019 22:18
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(Epilogue) Developing an exceptionally mature and perceptive emotional sense of others is very common in abused children. Getting the poo poo beaten out of you because you (perceive that you) failed to perfectly read a situation is an excellent motivator. Kid is 17 so she literally has a decade+ experience at the emotional perception and soothing. I didn’t find her behavior out of the norm at all. Matt and Carl were much more “hmmmmmm” to me
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Mar 22, 2019 22:27
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I'm reading The Last Science, the ongoing serial of the author of Epilogue; seems okay so far but I'm only a few chapters in so it's too early for me to see where it's going or if it's going anywhere. I do like the setup, though; rather than the main character stumbling onto a fully developed magical underworld like in Harry Potter or The Magicians, he's one of the first people in the world to discover magic is real, and finds a magical community in its infancy. So rather than being about an entire hidden magical city, it seems to be about how one is built from the ground up, with nobody in the world having more than 6 months experience in the practice. For instance, (this is largely speculation as I'm only 4 chapters in) I'm guessing that the university where they're holding their meetings is going to end up becoming a Hogwarts, and also there are already some hints of the beginnings of the magical community otherizing nonmagical people; both pretty common tropes in the "it turns out magic is real" genre. In some ways it's coming across as a reverse uplift, where rather than uplifting a medieval fantasy town with science, they bring a dying American town back to life as they learn more about how this all works. Edit: I'm a ways in now and that description is a bit off from what it's actually dealing with now, but I'm liking it anyway! Argue fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 07:28
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That one sounds pretty cool, thanks.
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Mar 23, 2019 13:42
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TWI Patreon: Huh! That's neat, vampires have a compromised immune system. If I had to take a guess, I'd say that vampires are unable to produce...antibodies? T-cells? naturally and need to consume human blood to maintain a healthy immune system, and without them, their supernatural tenacity is eventually overcome by disease. That's an interesting take on vampires, honestly. Though I wondered briefly if Himilt had a goiter, lol.
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Mar 24, 2019 00:31
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A big flaming stink posted:Well it ends badly, but not in the way you might expect! Each and every one of them is a loving rear end in a top hat that just loves "doing what's best" for another person, especially if it involves never asking said person what they actually want. In a bizarre way, Jen actually pissed me off the most at the end, just because she knew plain as day that she was making her decisions out of nothing but outright selfishness. I'm on board with the Jen hate but I think she lies to herself just like the other characters. Like how she thought of herself as heroically rescuing her friend from an evil father... by attempting to murder him and then manipulating a vastly less experienced and knowledgeable person to run away with her to the land of war, torture and racist elves. Also I have a random question about Ward. I haven't read any of it yet but every once in a while I browse the parahumans reddit and I keep seeing references to Tattletale being a talking decapitated head . Is this an actual thing that happens in the story or a meme/joke? Please someone explain it 
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Mar 24, 2019 23:30
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Lot 49 posted:
fully real, a bad guy tinker with a cutting power and using data from another dudes power that lets him throw his extremities around built a whip that cuts people to bits and leaves them alive and able to feel all of the bits and all of the pain of the bits and used it to cripple a shitload of people because hes awful. he cut the better part of tattletale to kidnap and basically torture information out of her
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Mar 24, 2019 23:39
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violent sex idiot posted:fully real, a bad guy tinker with a cutting power and using data from another dudes power that lets him throw his extremities around built a whip that cuts people to bits and leaves them alive and able to feel all of the bits and all of the pain of the bits and used it to cripple a shitload of people because hes awful. he cut the better part of tattletale to kidnap and basically torture information out of her 
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Mar 25, 2019 00:09
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