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I like delve but I had to stop reading it when I realized that only maybe 1 in 4 pages were worth reading. If there's not plot stuff happening then you need to be doing character development, imo. delve would rather spend time on math and chapters where nothing has changed because for some reason we can't ever use time skips of more than a day or two
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# ? Mar 3, 2021 13:42 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 23:00 |
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HWFWM continues it's slide into mediocrity at least for the advanced chapters at the lowest Patreon contribution. Finally cut that as I realized I just didn't really care about reading it in advance for a buck.
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# ? Mar 3, 2021 19:24 |
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I was a big fan in the early rough days but yeah I've dropped it too. I suspect that the author has no clue where to go or why. A story is like a hike through the forest, you can improvise but you really gently caress yourself over without looking at a map first.
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# ? Mar 3, 2021 19:33 |
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I have stopped reading it entirely, maybe I will pick it up in the future if I am insanely bored.
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# ? Mar 3, 2021 20:27 |
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Practical Guide is baaaaack! https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/2021/03/02/prologue-7/
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 05:04 |
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I've been in a perpetual cycle of glancing at HWFWM for a week or two to see how bad it's gotten, forgetting about it for weeks, then repeating. Last time I checked, the main thing I remember weirding me out is how the central premise of "Jason is a goofy, irreverent joker no matter what's going on" somehow got turned into Jason being a grim, miserable mass-murderer or something? Also holy poo poo, I just looked at the chapter counts and apparently he's been on earth for almost half of the story at this point. That's nuts, considering how little has actually happened with that plotline.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 16:47 |
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On the other hand I'm excited to see what he writes next.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 17:04 |
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I really liked it at first. Now its basically something I check every couple of months and that's fine.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 17:07 |
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Omi no Kami posted:I've been in a perpetual cycle of glancing at HWFWM for a week or two to see how bad it's gotten, forgetting about it for weeks, then repeating. Last time I checked, the main thing I remember weirding me out is how the central premise of "Jason is a goofy, irreverent joker no matter what's going on" somehow got turned into Jason being a grim, miserable mass-murderer or something? Ah but have you considered that his number went up???
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 22:09 |
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Sampatrick posted:Ah but have you considered that his number went up??? All the numbers went up, okay??
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 22:19 |
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Dragoneye moon has more numbers going up than Jason.
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# ? Mar 4, 2021 22:24 |
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Dragoneye moon has more numbers going up than Jason.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 02:07 |
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Cicero posted:Is this serial good? It's enjoyable. A bit heavy on the skillup number spam but it's got a MC that isn't a cocky rear end in a top hat unlike half the web serials out there. I've recently binged HWFM and Primal Hunter as well, this is probably my favorite of the three so far.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 03:46 |
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Cicero posted:Is this serial good? No serial is better. The author's also incredibly good-looking and smart. (It's mine)
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 03:58 |
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Just read chapter 22 of book 2 in Tower of Somnus. The mystery thing the rival exec is looking for in Cat’s old town is Cat, isn’t it? They can't find her because she isn’t there. The stallesp are putting the screws to their pet exec to eliminate Cat because they failed to kill Dorrik’s crew in the tower repeatedly and she's the only member they can get at in the real world. Which when I write it out like that is dumb of them, but what else could be worth all this risk that is also so well hidden? In general, the first book felt tighter and higher stakes, but this is still a very enjoyable read.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 05:59 |
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Cicero posted:Is this serial good? I just caught up with Beneath the Dragoneye Moons after seeing it recommended in this thread (and not just by the author!) I'd say it's pretty good - it's a concept I've seen done before, and it is indeed heavy on the numbers going up, but it's well written and good at what it's trying to be. Plus it's already pretty long, while I prefer over whatever the newest and hottest serials that just have a few thousand words might be. Judging by the review section, it also appears to be review bombed by people who don't like its message of "Sexism is bad." LLSix posted:Just read chapter 22 of book 2 in Tower of Somnus. The mystery thing the rival exec is looking for in Cat’s old town is Cat, isn’t it? They can't find her because she isn’t there. The stallesp are putting the screws to their pet exec to eliminate Cat because they failed to kill Dorrik’s crew in the tower repeatedly and she's the only member they can get at in the real world. Which when I write it out like that is dumb of them, but what else could be worth all this risk that is also so well hidden? I had a similar thought, but while it's easy to see why they'd want Kat dead, as her alien contacts are a big threat to their plans, it's hard to imagine how they could have good enough intel to know where she is without finding out "oh, she moved out to attend college" when one of their big-wigs literally runs the college. Also Xander did piss off the merc side of the villain alliance, so I was honestly expecting them to just be moving in on him. Personally I like the more complicated/less action heavy real world arc this book. She's already killing stuff in the game, spending the awake chapters investigating and learning about the world makes for a nice change of pace to me. Bremen fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Mar 5, 2021 |
# ? Mar 5, 2021 06:15 |
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Bremen posted:I just caught up with Beneath the Dragoneye Moons after seeing it recommended in this thread (and not just by the author!) I'd say it's pretty good - it's a concept I've seen done before, and it is indeed heavy on the numbers going up, but it's well written and good at what it's trying to be. Plus it's already pretty long, while I prefer over whatever the newest and hottest serials that just have a few thousand words might be. It's sorta depressing how offended people get by that. It's not like the story has long essays on the subject; it's mostly just a story about a woman in a society modeled off ancient Rome with a vaguely accurate depiction of what that'd be like. If anything it kinda goes out of its way to mitigate the sexism Elaine should be facing.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 07:21 |
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Plorkyeran posted:It's sorta depressing how offended people get by that. It's not like the story has long essays on the subject; it's mostly just a story about a woman in a society modeled off ancient Rome with a vaguely accurate depiction of what that'd be like. If anything it kinda goes out of its way to mitigate the sexism Elaine should be facing. The top review sure is something. Review bombing is a bit of a issue from what i have seen on RR, though usually I think they come as a bunch of .5s to keep a work lower on the listing?
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 07:48 |
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Thanks guys, I'll check out Dragoneye for sure.Selkie Myth posted:No serial is better.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 11:52 |
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Cicero posted:Is this serial good? Larry Parrish posted:Stuff that I've read lately: I posted this a while back. Like I said, I love it. Lmfao if true that people get upset about the sexism. Except for Kerberos who seemed like a regular rich person, everyone just kind of goes 'aww, shouldn't you be at home sweetie?' Which is bad and sexist, but a lot of morons in real life don't think that's sexist today. I'm amazed you could pick up on what might as well be clever subtext if you're dumb enough to also get upset by being reminded it exists.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 13:34 |
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Bremen posted:I had a similar thought, but while it's easy to see why they'd want Kat dead, as her alien contacts are a big threat to their plans, it's hard to imagine how they could have good enough intel to know where she is without finding out "oh, she moved out to attend college" when one of their big-wigs literally runs the college. Also Xander did piss off the merc side of the villain alliance, so I was honestly expecting them to just be moving in on him. You make a good point about how would they not know Cat is at college. But remember, everyone who knew who the real person behind Cat's Tower avatar is, is dead. However, people's initial location in the tower is controlled by the subscription they get. Cat got here's from Arthur, but Arthur bought his. Whoever sold it almost had to have gotten it as a Tower drop and so knows where the person they sold it to spawned. The seller knows they sold it to a manager kid at Ike, so they're looking for a manager kid at Ike. Everyone who knows the real, complicated story is either dead, and anyone with enough pieces to the puzzle to guess at the truth (Xander) are at least nominally on Cat's side. So an outside observer would probably assume "that weird human hanging with Dorrik is using that subscription that idiot sold to someone from Ike." It's fuzzy, and iffy, but if you squint hard you can at least see how its possible I think. Besides, it's pretty obvious to anyone watching that a new player showed up in the area at the exact same time "that weird human hanging with Dorrik showed up." I hope it's not Cat. It'd be a bit of a stretch. It can't be Xander, though. He's got a super obvious base with the Chrome Dogs that semi-regularly fights off attacks made by armoured vehicles! The base isn't even a little subtle. He's got to be easier to find than Cat, and they wouldn't be looking for him in the arcology - they'd be looking for him outside in the shell. Honestly, no one would care if they burned the whole shanty town to the ground.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 15:25 |
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I'm enjoying it! I just got done with the plague town arc.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 15:28 |
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It's a litrpg isekai where the protagonist is magically beautiful with eyes that look like galaxies. She becomes the greatest healer in the world before she turns 18. A group of hardened super soldiers more or less adopts her into their team. Her character flaws are things like being clumsy, socially awkward, and impulsive. All the elements of a particularly boring type of fanfic, but it's compelling enough that I spent most of last weekend binge reading it. It's a lot of fun. The MCs weaknesses actually matter. The game system stuff is satisfying. The world is a poo poo show, but it's not edgy or dark for the sake of being dark. It's good. I do hope the MC can give some inventor the idea of the printing press. Let's get some books up in dino land.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 16:28 |
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Wittgen posted:It's a litrpg isekai where the protagonist is magically beautiful with eyes that look like galaxies. She becomes the greatest healer in the world before she turns 18. A group of hardened super soldiers more or less adopts her into their team. Her character flaws are things like being clumsy, socially awkward, and impulsive. Yeah, that's pretty much why I like it. It's generic but done well. The world being a kind of a piece of poo poo but Elaine never really letting it bother her most of the time turns it from boring and overdone to nice.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 17:06 |
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A little context, for the people that might be turned off by some of Wittgen's negative points, despite their post being positive. The "magically beautiful" part pretty much goes for everyone. With appearance boosting skills being a thing (Elaine has Pretty, and there's a lot of other ones) and with people either expecting her to have one or not recommending she take something else, I think the people who don't have one are the outliers. That said, it's still one of her lowest skills. The constant propositioning she has to face has more to do with her being a powerful healer, who make mad cash, and people trying to set up their family with a comfy life than with her being beautiful. The galaxy eyes are a bit of silly fun, but it's not unusual for higher level people to have things that stand out from their element, and hers is Celestial (a combo element of Light and Dark) after all. As for being the greatest (general*) healer, that's due to her taking a restrictive Oath (it's basically the Hippocratic Oath) which scales her stats when healing based on the Oath's level, on top of magic being easier with knowledge and biology being one of the fields of science that hadn't had specifics wiped from her memory. (*Specialists will still beat her in their specialty, unless they're a much lower level.) The downsides of the Oath have popped up a few times, but since she's following and leveling it the upsides outweigh them. Which doesn't go unnoticed by the rest of the world, as taking a binding Oath skill becomes pretty normal for the people that look to make use of the power. Her actions are also going to narrow the gap between her and other healers over time as she's very active in spreading what she knows (it's part of the Oath she took, after all), which is a big plus in my eyes. Why she's picked up by the group is spoilery, but I do agree that it is generic but done well.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 17:36 |
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Larry Parrish posted:I posted this a while back. Like I said, I love it. Lmfao if true that people get upset about the sexism. Except for Kerberos who seemed like a regular rich person, everyone just kind of goes 'aww, shouldn't you be at home sweetie?' Which is bad and sexist, but a lot of morons in real life don't think that's sexist today. I'm amazed you could pick up on what might as well be clever subtext if you're dumb enough to also get upset by being reminded it exists. They probably wouldn't notice it if the story didn't have Elaine thinking "augh sexism" when it comes up.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 18:47 |
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Larry Parrish posted:I posted this a while back. Like I said, I love it. Lmfao if true that people get upset about the sexism. Except for Kerberos who seemed like a regular rich person, everyone just kind of goes 'aww, shouldn't you be at home sweetie?' Which is bad and sexist, but a lot of morons in real life don't think that's sexist today. I'm amazed you could pick up on what might as well be clever subtext if you're dumb enough to also get upset by being reminded it exists. I mean, I'd say it's a lot worse than that. Elaine heals a woman that's beaten by her husband because she "had a headache tonight", and when she reports it to her father the guard his response is "well, he's the husband so she's his property, we can't do anything." She's denied the chance to study for combat related skills the boys get, and she's the only woman in her class of five hundred and it's observed that the few women who do make it through are the best of the best because of the discrimination they face. It's very much laid out as a setting where being a woman is having every deck stacked against you, even if Elaine is lucky enough to avoid the worst of it because she's mostly around people who realize the whole thing is bullshit. Bremen fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Mar 5, 2021 |
# ? Mar 5, 2021 19:40 |
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Bremen posted:I mean, I'd say it's a lot worse than that. Elaine heals a woman that's beaten by her husband because she "had a headache tonight", and when she reports it to her father the guard his response is "well, he's the husband so she's his property, we can't do anything." She's denied the chance to study for combat related skills the boys get, and she's the only woman in her class of five hundred and it's observed that the few women who do make it through are the best of the best because of the discrimination they face. It's very much laid out as a setting where being a woman is having every deck stacked against you, even if Elaine is lucky enough to avoid the worst of it because she's mostly around people who realize the whole thing is bullshit. yeah, but it's usually not openly stated. anyway all of that was normal in living memory, it's hardly some over the top fantasy sexism. i don't know; people love to accuse authors of being SJWs for some reason but nothing in this story came even vaguely close to being strawmanny so in conclusion the anime poisoned populace of royalroad should be shot into space
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 20:16 |
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Larry Parrish posted:o in conclusion the anime poisoned populace of royalroad should be shot into space Dibs on pressing the button first
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 20:20 |
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Wow I looked and yikes, there are reviews like (paraphrased) "There has to be a reason for why a society is sexist. It doesn't make sense for an rpg stats society to be sexist, the women aren't even weaker!"
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 20:25 |
Larry Parrish posted:people love to accuse authors of being SJWs for some reason it's probably because the overwhelming majority of serials that are widely recognized as good are clearly left-ish at the least and i'm sure that if you're a shithead enjoying a story when suddenly a character you like says "perhaps society could be improved somewhat" it feels like a betrayal obviously, this is good and cool and one of the ways that you get shitheads to think about their beliefs, but in the mean time they're going to post a lot of nasty poo poo in response
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 20:29 |
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I wasn't trying to be negative at all. Sorry. I think there are a lot of elements in dragoneye moons that are widely associated with bad stories, but this particular serial is an impressive example of how the elements themselves aren't inherently bad.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 21:03 |
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Oh, I didn't mean that you were overall. Like I said, your post was positive. I just wanted to add a little more detail to hopefully help show they can at least be okay and not drag the story down.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 21:12 |
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I'm not sure I like Dragoneye Moons, but I'm not sure why. The setting is cool, the protagonist is pretty nice and I like the side characters... I donno. I think it might be the time skips? I love my competence porn so that cant be it. Anyways, well done writing it! It sure as poo poo is better than 90% of the stuff I've read on royal road.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 21:48 |
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i mean, did you want to read about someone's childhood in more detail than we got, which was already a lot?
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 21:51 |
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Larry Parrish posted:i mean, did you want to read about someone's childhood in more detail than we got, which was already a lot? yes, I liked that arch. I quite enjoy delve as well. I do realize I've got a problem.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 21:53 |
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tbh i was one of the people who wanted another rotation as a Ranger, so i get it
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 22:03 |
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I was looking forward to one too, but this first foray as a Sentinel has been fun, although (Patreon chapters) this run of cliffhangers isn't as fun.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 22:27 |
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Mulozon Empuri posted:I'm not sure I like Dragoneye Moons, but I'm not sure why. The setting is cool, the protagonist is pretty nice and I like the side characters... I donno. I think it might be the time skips? I love my competence porn so that cant be it. The one critique I saw in the comments that I did agree with is that the MC's ADHD and how it influences her thoughts and actions isn't a lot of fun to read. It does kind of get on my nerves. But that's not bad writing or anything, it's a stylistic choice that just doesn't suit my personal tastes.
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 23:19 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 23:00 |
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Narmi posted:She screwed herself over the second she decided having a giant flying fortress that spews demons was a good idea for a deterrent because "people wouldn't dare attack her once they knew about it!" It's just been a slow death spiral since that, with her becoming more and more like just another Dread Empress, albeit still much smarter and more politically savvy. Just not good with stories, which was Black's job. Even though I said that Malicia isn't as good at stories, I think it might be more accurate to say that she's only good at Praes stories. Like, she has a very good understanding of "how to stay in power in Praes" but she left the non-Praes/Heroic Named problems to Black. The whole Dead King situation has managed to keep the heat off of her since Black departing, but it's hard to imagine that she has much of a chance against Catherine and Black. The big challenge for Catherine is mostly "defeating her while keeping Praes in a condition where it can even offer enough aid," since it's easy to imagine it turning into a Pyrric victory. (I'm sort of arbitrarily spoiling anything from the last few books to be on the safe side)
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# ? Mar 5, 2021 23:47 |