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Plorkyeran posted:It's just sorta pointless? If you aren't interested in the thing that a story is trying to do, then it doesn't matter how good or bad it is at doing that thing. How is sharing your thoughts on a series pointless? Isn't that the whole point of a discussion thread? You can't expect people to have read every web serial and it's pretty useful to hear from people who have read them so you know whether it's worth your time. Only allowing positive reviews is pretty lovely imo, if everyone went by that metric some lovely fanfiction would probably be considered the best literature of all time
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Oct 13, 2019 05:30
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idk how saying "HWFWM is a power fantasy story and you shouldn't read it if that's not what you're looking for" isn't discussing a web serial or is saying that only positive reviews are allowed. It's not even a positive comment on the story!
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Oct 13, 2019 07:32
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tbh i pretty much just like it because its not some kind of anime inspired harem fantasy and it doesn't consist entirely of describing a dude going 'ha ha, i bet nobody has ever thought of power leveling before' and 9000 stat blocks. which seems to be pretty much all of web novels on royal road, besides the good outliers like worth the candle or wandering inn or what have you
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Oct 13, 2019 07:45
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Overly snarky main characters is also very common writing flaw that a lot of media suffers from. Its removes any narrative tension when the character is always cracking jokes regardless of the situation. Also Royal Road really needs a litRPG tag, so I can tell right away if something is probably going to be garbage.
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Oct 13, 2019 07:47
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I liked the part where he got hit in the face with a shovel repeatedly.
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Oct 13, 2019 08:43
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Avulsion posted:I liked the part where he got hit in the face with a shovel repeatedly. Perhaps the same could be said of all protagonists.
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Oct 13, 2019 09:09
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Clearly you folks have not read the chapter where the protagonist murders a team of adventurers pretty brutally. Like the dude suffocates some person by putting their face in the mud and seems to enjoy it. Mind you this was a simulation but even the other characters call him out on it. He goes on to justify it by...well I stopped reading at that point because gently caress that poo poo. Enjoy your joyful murder fantasy I guess but don't act indignant when other people call it out for what it is.
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Oct 13, 2019 14:34
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yeah he should have just chatted with them over tea in the murder simulator
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Oct 13, 2019 14:57
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Suffocating the dude in mud was hosed up, the rest of it was fine. It was psychological warfare, in the murder simulator, and it worked.
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Oct 13, 2019 15:26
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shirunei posted:Clearly you folks have not read the chapter where the protagonist murders a team of adventurers pretty brutally. Like the dude suffocates some person by putting their face in the mud and seems to enjoy it. Mind you this was a simulation but even the other characters call him out on it. He goes on to justify it by...well I stopped reading at that point because gently caress that poo poo. Enjoy your joyful murder fantasy I guess but don't act indignant when other people call it out for what it is. Well, in that sequence he was specifically asked to go Full Batman Arkham Game Predator Mode on them in a VR combat simulator to, hopefully, save their lives later on when they're in the field. I didn't mind most of it - hurting people in people-hurting training is part of the course and most people who do, say, boxing or MMA and genuinely enjoy beating the crap out of their opponents are still fine, law-abiding citizens who are often friends outside the ring with the people they've brutalized - but the suffocation bit was problematic, given the nature of simulation. That said, the story has been sending mixed signals about this so far, but given the title of the story*, I am cautiously optimistic that the portrayal is not necessarily endorsement and the effect has been intentional by the author. After all, the guy who calls him out on it after some rather lame excuses actually gets the last word. * "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster . . . when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
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Oct 13, 2019 15:30
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The entire thing in the murder simulator was hosed up. The imagery the simulation presented was as real as life, and he did some astoundingly awful stuff, such as using someone’s corpse as a shield while taunting her sister about how she couldn’t save her. It doesn’t matter that he was asked to do it, he willingly performed some serious emotional torture without showing any remorse before, during, or after the fact. Jason is not a good person, no matter how much good he does. All of his good deeds are done from a position of power and don’t require him to sacrifice anything (except for the potential payment that he refuses because it doesn’t align with his otherworldly viewpoint). In fact, when he’s doing good that he’s not forced into by circumstance, he reads as someone who gets off on doing good, who flaunts his morality to those who don’t share it and who exults in the praise of those he helps. Even clearing out all the low-level quests feels less like he wants to do good and more like he wants to murder monsters and be recognized for it. He doesn’t do a lot of explicit “evil” outside of the murder simulator, but he’s a pretty unrepentant jerk to people he doesn’t like and merely flippant and self-absorbed when talking to people he does. While he’s described as being nice to background characters, we’re almost always told about his deeds, rather than shown, which rather lessens the impact. Humphrey is literally the only person in the entire series who has called him out for being a scumbag and that’s being played off as him being unreasonable and needing to grow out of his unrealistic ideas of what a hero is. “He who fights with monsters” is the start of a Nietzsche quote that continues with “might take care lest he thereby become a monster” and I’m pretty sure Jason is 90% of the way there already. He probably didn’t start off that way, although he was probably somewhere north of zero on that scale, but at this point he’s definitely not a normal, well-adjusted human being from our Earth.
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Oct 13, 2019 16:07
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Yeah, the story is definitely saying something about how messed up this world's value systems are. The experienced adventurers thought nothing of murdering a bunch of servants after questioning them. The danger room was previously used to make a 17 year old experience watching a child die over and over just to make him more decisive in combat. Jason has criticized the world's morality and value systems multiple times, and he has gotten push back. People in the world have criticized his actions and not been OK with it. It's really not as simplistic as some of you are saying.
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Oct 13, 2019 16:13
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blastron posted:The entire thing in the murder simulator was hosed up. The imagery the simulation presented was as real as life, and he did some astoundingly awful stuff, such as using someone’s corpse as a shield while taunting her sister about how she couldn’t save her. It doesn’t matter that he was asked to do it, he willingly performed some serious emotional torture without showing any remorse before, during, or after the fact. She's not actually dead. She's right outside, watching it. It's kayfabe. And giving them some experience with this kind of emotional pressure in the field is precisely what he was asked to do, because it's not always going to be goombas running at them in an open field in straight lines. The problem is he got kinda weird about it in the end, but he also got called on it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Oct 13, 2019 16:31
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also like two chapters later most of the people he fought are like drat that was scary. good training
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Oct 13, 2019 16:39
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If you think using someone's corpse as a shield in a video game is really hosed up, I have things to tell you about a game called "Grand Theft Auto" Also re:"well when he healed people it didn't hurt him to do so", that's true of most of the good things people do IRL. Helping out at a soup kitchen doesn't hurt you, just takes effort and time, same as when Jason jumped off his comfortable boat ride to spend several days hiking around, healing poor people.
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Oct 13, 2019 16:50
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blastron posted:He doesn’t do a lot of explicit “evil” outside of the murder simulator, but he’s a pretty unrepentant jerk to people he doesn’t like and merely flippant and self-absorbed when talking to people he does. While he’s described as being nice to background characters, we’re almost always told about his deeds, rather than shown, which rather lessens the impact. Humphrey is literally the only person in the entire series who has called him out for being a scumbag and that’s being played off as him being unreasonable and needing to grow out of his unrealistic ideas of what a hero is. quote:“You’re good with words, Jason. Anything I say, you’ll have an answer for.”
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Oct 13, 2019 16:55
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I wish to submit a +1 for ongoing goon webserial Katalepsis, just binged / caught up with it.
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Oct 14, 2019 04:16
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Pracguide: a chapter that is (in large part) from the perspective of Kairos Himself 
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Oct 14, 2019 06:21
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Pracguide: a chapter that is (in large part) from the perspective of Kairos Himself It's amazing. I wonder what the WotW's wish to be complete is all about, presumably it has something to do with the Gigantes? Is she wanting to become one in truth or something? I'd actually would have been interested in Akua's wish, it would have been interesting as a marker of how much/how little she's changed/ing? Hanno has a portion of the chapter too, and him casually bringing up Cat calling the Choir of Endurance bottom-feeders in front of Cordelia is great. He's starting to grow on me!
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Oct 14, 2019 06:40
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devildragon777 posted:It's amazing. I wonder what the WotW's wish to be complete is all about, presumably it has something to do with the Gigantes? Is she wanting to become one in truth or something? I'd actually would have been interested in Akua's wish, it would have been interesting as a marker of how much/how little she's changed/ing? Hanno's whole role in the story has been kind of surprising to me. PracGuide is pretty good at having characters other than the protagonist grow and change over time.
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Oct 14, 2019 07:15
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Pracguide: a chapter that is (in large part) from the perspective of Kairos Himself I cannot WAIT for the next couple of chapters! Kairos is going to go out in a blaze of glory, possible successful, possibly failed, but it will be amazing.
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Oct 14, 2019 07:28
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Cicero posted:Are we reading the same story? While it's true that the story is saying that Humphrey is naive about some things, the way it gives him the last word in the chapter is very clearly saying He Still Has A Point. To bring this lovely conversation back, it's addressed further in today's chapter.
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Oct 14, 2019 23:16
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From HWFWM 82:quote:“I’ve kind of shown him up a couple of times,” Jason said. “He’s just so witless and malevolent that I don’t feel bad about using him. It’s very satisfying. But an entitled guy like that, you make him feel even a little powerless and he’ll take it out on the people he has power over. How many members of the Mercer household staff were raked over the coals because I couldn’t help getting a few jabs in? What did those offsiders of his have to put up with after Thadwick made them refuse a contract?”
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Oct 14, 2019 23:53
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Cicero posted:From HWFWM 82: That also might be true, but the fact that he even stopped to actually consider this and weigh the consequences is a step forward for the character. Megazver fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Oct 15, 2019 |
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Oct 15, 2019 00:06
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uh, pretty interesting that he chose the surname "Mercer" for his entitled rich dude 
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Oct 15, 2019 00:28
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navyjack posted:I cannot WAIT for the next couple of chapters! Kairos is going to go out in a blaze of glory, possible successful, possibly failed, but it will be amazing. And really, the glory is just about as important as the objective. I am, of course, rooting for the story's protagonist: Anaxares of Bellerophon.
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Oct 15, 2019 00:29
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Megazver posted:That also might be true, but the fact that he even stopped to actually consider this and weigh the consequences is a step forward for the character. It's also at the core of why I think the story is interesting. Underneath the goofy fun of the power fantasy stuff, there is this push and pull about morality. The world is brutal and aristocratic and bad in many ways. Jason's criticisms of the world have problems that are explored. Jason's embrace of power and violence to gain some semblance of control has problems that are explored. It's nothing super deep, but it makes for a pleasant little read every day.
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Oct 15, 2019 01:28
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GreyjoyBastard posted:And really, the glory is just about as important as the objective. Rootin’ for a Foreign Oligarch? That’s
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Oct 15, 2019 01:30
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Yeah I’m glad to see some actual introspection resulting in character development. I was kind of hoping that losing the party healer due to Jason’s assholery would have immediate consequences, but this is good too.
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Oct 15, 2019 08:32
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TWI has returned from its brief hiatus, with a chapter about its objectively best character.
Cicero fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Oct 15, 2019 |
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Oct 15, 2019 22:29
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also featured in TWI patreon chapter: RENT CONTROL
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Oct 15, 2019 22:53
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Cicero posted:TWI has return from its brief hiatus, with a chapter about its objectively best character. I missed them a lot tbh.
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Oct 15, 2019 23:51
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Wow the other election chapters were kind of boring in my opinion but this one owns. I even forgot that despite Lism and Krishia loving hating each other, they're both basically street vendors so they arent actually bougioise like the real merchants so they really only disagree on like, two things TWI really is the first anti capitalist web novel lol
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Oct 16, 2019 00:42
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Pracguide: We've reached peak Hierarch and it loving rules. 
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Oct 16, 2019 06:57
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The Skeep posted:Pracguide: We've reached peak Hierarch and it loving rules. I know.  Thrones Are An Unforgiveable Abomination Unto The People, To Be Met With Scorn And Thrown Rocks
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Oct 16, 2019 07:24
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Larry Parrish posted:I missed them a lot tbh.
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Oct 16, 2019 07:24
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May They All Choke On Ashes And Also Snakes The weight of an entire nation that, due to their nature, could never produce a name, now have one. One who is a true believer that nothing can place itself above The People. 7c Nickel fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Oct 16, 2019 |
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Oct 16, 2019 07:41
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Bizarre but weirdly compelling pitch in the comments: Kairos spoke words that at that moment were definitely a lie ("I win", when Anaxares was getting throttled by a second Choir), forcing Mercy to turn its attention to fulfilling the geas the Pilgrim laid upon Kairos. But this freed Anaxares to finish his verdict, which means Kairos won, which means Mercy broke The Rules. I kinda hope this is the play, now.
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Oct 16, 2019 08:46
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The entire Choir of Judgement, right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wiz0UsBPac
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Oct 16, 2019 09:42
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Hanno missteped here I think. Throughout his entire career he dealt with canny operators that basically abused the narrative structure to get what they want, like Black, Cat, DK and Tyrant. So him thinking that Anaxares wasn't speaking with 100 genuine conviction was a mistake. Also Black is conspicuously absent, guess he relearned that old villian lesson about knowing how to pick his battles. SITB fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Oct 16, 2019 |
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Oct 16, 2019 12:45
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