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PetraCore posted:Like obviously parahumans get drawn into conflict in general because of Shard influence and some level of that is honestly actually necessary to avoid some really unhinged stuff that comes from an unsatisfied Shard, but I wish normal humans were an element too in more stuff than like, whoops, we could have taken down Jack Slash the entire time with normal humans and containment foam. The Jack Slash situation makes more sense just because he surrounded himself by people who could wreck normal humans. So he kinda covered all bases there to the extent that it's at least plausible that he'd be a difficult problem to solve. Also (and honestly this is probably the main reason), Cauldron was working behind the scenes trying to prevent powerful parahumans, like some of the S9, from being killed.
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Jan 9, 2020 18:58
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Ytlaya posted:The Jack Slash situation makes more sense just because he surrounded himself by people who could wreck normal humans. So he kinda covered all bases there to the extent that it's at least plausible that he'd be a difficult problem to solve. It's great, you can blame mostly everything wrong in the setting that isn't a literal alien mating instinct on them! EDIT: I think you can make the argument that it would be more ethical to just have let Scion eventually punch the Earth but minimize suffering in the meantime than it was to maximize suffering to get an edge over Scion and irreversibly gently caress a lot of stuff and people in the meantime. PetraCore fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jan 9, 2020 |
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Jan 9, 2020 22:10
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The funny thing about cauldron is that humanity's great advantage over the entities is that the entities are super dumb and have zero creativity. But instead of really analyzing the problem and trying to figure out creative solutions, they just tried to get as much raw power as they could.
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Jan 10, 2020 00:08
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Wittgen posted:The funny thing about cauldron is that humanity's great advantage over the entities is that the entities are super dumb and have zero creativity. But instead of really analyzing the problem and trying to figure out creative solutions, they just tried to get as much raw power as they could.
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Jan 10, 2020 02:28
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Like to be more specific the methods Cauldron uses to fight Scion are actually similar to the methods the entities are using to fight the... heat death of the universe, iirc? The ultimate goal is self-preservation and preservation of the species. To accomplish this, experiment on people and manufacture conflict in order to consolidate power and try to find a perfect sort of power that can defeat a seemingly undefeatable foe. Any action taken to do this is justified, because if you fail, your entire species dies. 12 year old contessa: so how do i beat an unbeatable foe her shard: have you considered crimes against humanity?
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Jan 10, 2020 02:34
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On the topic of Ward, one thing I like is the dynamic between Victoria and Tattletale. I like how it's developed over the course of the series and ended up with them being pretty close friends in a kind of awkward way. They're probably a pretty good influence on each other. In general I really like the Ward characters. Probably the biggest thing that has kept me reading it. PetraCore posted:EDIT: I think you can make the argument that it would be more ethical to just have let Scion eventually punch the Earth but minimize suffering in the meantime than it was to maximize suffering to get an edge over Scion and irreversibly gently caress a lot of stuff and people in the meantime. I think Scion would have killed Literally Everyone if he wasn't defeated, though. (Speaking of Scion, was it ever explained why he apparently never touched Earth Aleph and why Earth Aleph doesn't seem to have any role in the current multi-verse situation?) PetraCore posted:Yeah like the funny thing about Contessa relying entirely on her power to figure out what to do is that her power has the inherent weaknesses of entity cognition, and also because she was 12 her idea to fill in the gaps left by Eden was 'maybe we need an army?' Like it's not like Wildbow is trying to portray them as the Good Guys (tm), they're solidly 'desperate people with a lot of power hosed up super bad, maybe helped some in one area', but it's also one of those things where once the crisis Cauldron was created to solve was past a bunch of things become clear in hindsight. My favorite Contessa fact is that her whole look, with the suit and hat or whatever, was chosen by her power to make her optimally intimidating.
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Jan 10, 2020 07:12
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scion did gently caress with earth aleph just not as much, and earth aleph is isolationist due to being the first alternate earth contacted from bet and it not going well
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Jan 10, 2020 07:14
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violent sex idiot posted:scion did gently caress with earth aleph just not as much, and earth aleph is isolationist due to being the first alternate earth contacted from bet and it not going well Ytlaya posted:My favorite Contessa fact is that her whole look, with the suit and hat or whatever, was chosen by her power to make her optimally intimidating. Contessa is a tragicomic character and I'm pretty sure the comedy is unintentional. PetraCore fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Jan 10, 2020 |
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Jan 10, 2020 07:16
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Ghetto Prince posted:The last web serials I really enjoyed were Epilogue and Into the Mire, I think because they’re smaller stories that were doing something new and interesting, with a smaller cast and a single plot that the author was building up to. Hey, thank you! I am really glad you enjoyed Mire. I definitely think the smaller cast and close zoom focus worked well for it. I’m hoping that as I broaden up the world’s scope in Book 2 it doesn’t lose that sense of closeness to the characters. It’s always going to be a character-focused story, even if I know that sacrifices some potential popularity with the RRL-type webfic crowd. I’m happy with the niche it’s carved out. 
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Jan 10, 2020 11:52
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Anomalous Blowout posted:Hey, thank you! I am really glad you enjoyed Mire. I definitely think the smaller cast and close zoom focus worked well for it. I’m hoping that as I broaden up the world’s scope in Book 2 it doesn’t lose that sense of closeness to the characters. It’s always going to be a character-focused story, even if I know that sacrifices some potential popularity with the RRL-type webfic crowd. I’m happy with the niche it’s carved out. Its one of the best serials out there imo. It sadly doesnt get enough appreciation. Probably because its such a slow burn? Correction: incredibly slow burn in both good ways and bad. Affi fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jan 10, 2020 |
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Jan 10, 2020 12:26
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Personally I am looking forward to Katalepsis tomorrow and seeing more of Heather being relentlessly thirsty toward a person eating seven foot tall monster.
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Jan 10, 2020 12:34
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Patrat posted:Personally I am looking forward to Katalepsis tomorrow and seeing more of Heather being relentlessly thirsty toward a person eating seven foot tall monster. I'm pretty sure that Raine is only seven feet tall in Heather's dreams... But yeah- Trash Fire Wizards and Cool Swamp Bros are the two main serials I'm still following, and both are rad as heck.
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Jan 10, 2020 15:42
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I guess I should actually read into the mire, huh.
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Jan 10, 2020 18:01
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violent sex idiot posted:scion did gently caress with earth aleph just not as much, and earth aleph is isolationist due to being the first alternate earth contacted from bet and it not going well But how is it staying isolated during current events? Don't these things exist across all dimensions or whatever?
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Jan 10, 2020 22:02
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Omi no Kami posted:I'm pretty sure that Raine is only seven feet tall in Heather's dreams... Oooh, there is a seven foot tall person who in the latest updated makes Heather feel all quivery for probably the wrong reasons. Patrat fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Jan 10, 2020 |
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Jan 10, 2020 22:24
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Ytlaya posted:But how is it staying isolated during current events? Don't these things exist across all dimensions or whatever? My impression is the other Titans could get to Aleph but have no real reason to.
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Jan 10, 2020 22:27
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Patrat posted:Oooh, there is a seven foot tall person who in the latest updated makes Heather feel all quivery for probably the wrong reasons. Yeah, I know you were talking about Heather's sexy zombie lady adventures, but I thought it was funny to hear 'seven-foot tall lady who eats people' and assume it was a description of Raine.
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Jan 11, 2020 04:19
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Omi no Kami posted:Yeah, I know you were talking about Heather's sexy zombie lady adventures, but I thought it was funny to hear 'seven-foot tall lady who eats people' and assume it was a description of Raine. Well Katalepsis turned out even thirstier than I thought. So I feel Raine now has serious competition, Zheng seems to be hitting Heather's danger lust buttons hard. The description of her tongue.
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Jan 11, 2020 12:43
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Patrat posted:Well Katalepsis turned out even thirstier than I thought. So I feel Raine now has serious competition, Zheng seems to be hitting Heather's danger lust buttons hard. The description of her tongue. For some reason whenever I imagine slice-of-life scenes, I assume that Heather is just sitting on the couch reading So You're Dating A Sociopath. I'm morbidly curious to see how introducing Raine to her mum will end up going, though I'm assuming Raine does good parent.
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Jan 11, 2020 12:53
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Patrat posted:Well Katalepsis turned out even thirstier than I thought. So I feel Raine now has serious competition, Zheng seems to be hitting Heather's danger lust buttons hard. The description of her tongue. e: of course someone commented the exact same thing 90s Cringe Rock fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Jan 11, 2020 |
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Jan 11, 2020 17:30
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90s Cringe Rock posted:e: of course someone commented the exact same thing I was incredibly confused for a moment, then laughed.
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Jan 11, 2020 18:48
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It's fanfic, but I've been enjoying But Doctor, I Am Pagliacci recently. I'll just quote the author's synopsis. "Jack Napier, a.k.a. the Joker. After years of madness, he's finally sane. But there's something wrong. Something's not right. According to his psychiatrist, there's no Bat. Nobody in Gotham City has heard of a superhero named Batman. The Justice League doesn't have a guy who dresses like a bat. And that's wrong. That can't be. Because if there's one thing that Jack knows, it's that there can't be a Joker without a Batman."
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Jan 11, 2020 22:44
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90s Cringe Rock posted:I was painfully aware I’d made an unspoken pact with something cruel and violent, which liked me for reasons I didn’t entirely understand yet. And Zheng, too. I am eagerly rooting for them to turn Evelyn's house into an island for (gay, thirsty) misfit toys. Honestly they're like 75% of the way there already.
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Jan 12, 2020 04:27
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New single chapter of Worth the Candle out, starring Valencia and Bethel. It's pretty amusing.
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Jan 13, 2020 13:57
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I like Katalepsis a lot but I cannot empathise with the danger-horny at all. I'm actually kind of bemused by how unrelatable I find it. Like that poo poo starts and Heather is suddenly more alien and off-putting than all the actual alien monsters she's contending with. 
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Jan 13, 2020 16:45
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I think that's (probably) intentional- Heather's kind of a weirdo all told. She even lampshades this herself early on, when she realizes that her girlfriend kinda-sorta being a manipulative sociopath is a huge turn-on.
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Jan 13, 2020 16:53
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I don't really find Heather relatable, but her charactization is consistent enough for her to be understandable and she's solidly in the realm of being entertainingly weird rather than unlikable.
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Jan 13, 2020 20:24
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Omi no Kami posted:I think that's (probably) intentional I was going to reply to this with "do you want an actual answer in spoiler tags?" But then after thinking about it for a bit I realised I sort of can't answer that myself. My intentions are less important than whatever readers get from Heather.
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Jan 13, 2020 20:44
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It's not like she had a particularly healthy upbringing, what with the monsters and the medication and that one thing she suddenly stopped having and the elder god trying to help her out in maths. It would be weirder if she wasn't a bit weird, and being way too into anything you could call "amazonian" without invoking Bezos is pretty normal.
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Jan 13, 2020 21:34
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Hungry posted:I was going to reply to this with "do you want an actual answer in spoiler tags?" But then after thinking about it for a bit I realised I sort of can't answer that myself. My intentions are less important than whatever readers get from Heather. That's totally fair- you'd be amazed at how frequently author intentions and common audience interpretations/misinterpretations diverge in interesting ways. At least for me personally I went through an arc with Katalepsis where I started thinking Evelyn was a jerkass and the others were fine, then I gradually flipped around to Evelyn being the most sympathetic character and everyone else being a bit odd. Now I'm convinced that everyone is a massive broken weirdo (except maybe Twil and Praem), but it's super-fun to read about their weirdo supernatural and relationship horror adventures. 90s Cringe Rock posted:It's not like she had a particularly healthy upbringing, what with the monsters and the medication and that one thing she suddenly stopped having and the elder god trying to help her out in maths. It would be weirder if she wasn't a bit weird, and being way too into anything you could call "amazonian" without invoking Bezos is pretty normal. ...so I'm picturing Raine showing up for date night wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase full of financial crimes and plans to take over the world, and Heather going "...hold on, I think I should've been a little more specific."
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Jan 14, 2020 01:48
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More chapters of Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4 just dropped. I love this stupid serial. It's not super well written, but it's fun, and I'm a sucker for meta-narratives that mess around with tropes (see also: PracGuide, Worth the Candle). Probably not as fun to read if you haven't read any Xianxia before though.
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Jan 14, 2020 20:51
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Cicero posted:More chapters of Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4 just dropped. I love this stupid serial. It's not super well written, but it's fun, and I'm a sucker for meta-narratives that mess around with tropes (see also: PracGuide, Worth the Candle). Probably not as fun to read if you haven't read any Xianxia before though. Yeah, I’m enjoying it too for dumb fun.
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Jan 14, 2020 21:11
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finally getting around to reading lesbian wizard adventures, and GODDAMN this is anime as gently caress
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Jan 14, 2020 21:33
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Guilty as charged.
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Jan 14, 2020 21:56
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it was somewhat subtle for a while and then I got to arc 5 with big tiddy demon maid and i realised just what I'd gotten myself into
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Jan 14, 2020 22:18
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New prac guide good. I missed this.
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Jan 14, 2020 22:54
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Been reading Practical Guide for a bit now, think I've got a book and a bit before I'll have caught up? Just want to say that everything involving Akua is glorious.
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Jan 15, 2020 23:38
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The new update schedule fucks with my head.
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Jan 16, 2020 00:05
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Katalepsis has its hooks in me. I love love love everything about this story. I started reading it earlier this week and now I'm somehow five books in and haven't slept much the last few days... Every few chapters I get some kind of weird feeling that makes me terrified that Raine is really a sociopath and has been bullshitting absolutely everything and is going to betray her and I don't think my poor gay heart could handle that.  The dangerhorny bits with Raine near the beginning are loving hilarious though. Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Jan 18, 2020 |
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Jan 18, 2020 18:31
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The Shortest Path posted:Katalepsis has its hooks in me. I love love love everything about this story. I started reading it earlier this week and now I'm somehow five books in and haven't slept much the last few days... Thank you so very much, but please get some sleep, don't be like Heather! I'm really glad the inherent black humor in the dangerhorny stuff comes through for some readers. Also completely unrelated, your avatar is downright amazing.
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Jan 18, 2020 19:19
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