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Ytlaya posted:I think that Hazel's ability can only "call in debt" (or the "reward" if you already paid). I don't think she can force a chain on you (at least not in a way that makes you deal with the consequences). So Hazel can't just give Alden "Peace of Mind" against his will and force him to deal with the cost later. She can only "notice Alden is unbalanced and force him to balance his ledgers now." Re: the Patreon chapter in question I'm almost certain that it's not strictly necessary to pass a chain through the System approvals. It sounds like Lute's mentor wizard can do stuff like that and they would not have access to the System (directly).
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Oct 28, 2023 00:28
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Ytlaya posted:I think that Hazel's ability can only "call in debt" (or the "reward" if you already paid). I don't think she can force a chain on you (at least not in a way that makes you deal with the consequences). So Hazel can't just give Alden "Peace of Mind" against his will and force him to deal with the cost later. She can only "notice Alden is unbalanced and force him to balance his ledgers now." (SupSup 85) You're missing the point. She effectively walked up to him and swatted the Peace of Mind chain out of his hand by activating it when he didn't need it, wasting the "money" he spent. So now if he wants Peace of Mind, he has to pay for it again. So, yes, he does have to suffer the bad half an extra time, because he has to pay to ready the good half again. That's what people are talking about. This stuff about "forcing a chain on him" is completely sideways to anything. Sorry, but your posts here on this have been driving me nuts. Get some more sleep before reading the thread, man.
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Oct 28, 2023 04:01
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Einander posted:(SupSup 85) You're missing the point. She effectively walked up to him and swatted the Peace of Mind chain out of his hand by activating it when he didn't need it, wasting the "money" he spent. So now if he wants Peace of Mind, he has to pay for it again. So, yes, he does have to suffer the bad half an extra time, because he has to pay to ready the good half again. That's what people are talking about. This stuff about "forcing a chain on him" is completely sideways to anything. Check the mirror bud
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Oct 28, 2023 04:12
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Einander posted:(SupSup 85) You're missing the point. She effectively walked up to him and swatted the Peace of Mind chain out of his hand by activating it when he didn't need it, wasting the "money" he spent. So now if he wants Peace of Mind, he has to pay for it again. So, yes, he does have to suffer the bad half an extra time, because he has to pay to ready the good half again. That's what people are talking about. This stuff about "forcing a chain on him" is completely sideways to anything. I was just replying to this part of LLSix's post: "I agree that in this instance Alden had a "spare" peace of mind available, however; you always have to balance your chains eventually. Forcing someone to experience either half ensures they also experience the other half at some point." It's possible I misread it, but it seems to imply that Hazel could have used the same ability even if Alden didn't have a "spare" peace of mind available (because of the "in this instance"), and that's the only thing I'm talking about. I was just clarifying that I think Hazel's ability can only forcibly even out debts, not trigger word-chains. I think you're reading some sort of combativeness into my post that was not there. I'm not defending Hazel's actions here in any way, just talking about the mechanics of what she did.
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Oct 28, 2023 04:30
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Nowhere Stars is p good, huh
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Oct 28, 2023 05:25
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It’s really good until you catch up, the 1-2 updates a month is rough.
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Oct 28, 2023 05:47
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Ytlaya posted:I think you're reading some sort of combativeness into my post that was not there. I'm not defending Hazel's actions here in any way, just talking about the mechanics of what she did. I think your posts have been good, the mechanical distinction you were making is pretty important. I reread the Peace of Mind incident (chapter 69) on RR and Alden's thoughts end up at 'Hazel did this to me and she does this all the time because no one can tell they are being targeted.' Whether or not that ends up being true it's a pretty big leap to get there from 'I got targetted, my wordchain went off, and Hazel (who can sense imbalance) is across the street.' It's still written ambiguously enough that the author can do whatever they want and it will work, although I feel like Alden needs to be partially wrong or missing something critical since he doesn't really have much to go on.
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Oct 28, 2023 06:02
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Halfway through book 6 of APGtE and enjoying it. It's been an enjoyable surprise that it has (almost) all been a mystery and political thriller in the Alliance's secret weapon research facility rather than the an endless battle scene like you would get from many other authors. The White Knight's refusal to compromise at all with the Red Axe was kind of grating. Even something as simple as trying her under both Procerian and The Terms rather than just The Terms was too much to him. While at the same time he's perfectly happy for the Mirror Knight to violate his oaths under The Terms and avoid punishment. The Grey Pilgrim is at least honest in his willingness to break any oath or duty if he feels it necessary.
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Oct 28, 2023 19:00
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Ar'Kendrythist 264: Jesus loving Christ Erick. Combining vile and exalted into the Valkyrie super spell is a pretty potent gently caress you to the quiet war.
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Oct 28, 2023 21:03
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Man, The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere is incredibly poorly served by being a web serial. This kind of dense, twisty mystery with multiple major concurrent threads really requires engaged readers that can keep everything in their heads, and that’s really hard to do when you’re reading things in ten minute chunks. Time To Orbit: Unknown gets away with it by having only one big thing going on at a time, so there’s less you need to keep in your head, and its pretty quick release schedule means it’s in the front of your mind more often, even if the chapters are very short. With Flower, though, I’m finding it very hard to engage with any of the plot, almost solely because I can’t keep any of the details in my head. We just had a big confession scene and I legit did not remember half the stuff the culprit was confessing to. This is significantly worsened by the fact that there are so many plots to keep track of and, unlike in TTO:U, they are all happening simultaneously and fighting for control of the narrative. This would be perfectly fine in a novel, where you’ve got the entire completed work in front of you and the author has total control over the pacing, but when it could be entire months between movement on a literal battle to the death, maintaining tension (and interest) is so much more difficult. The author has a note at the end of the most recent chapter wondering if the drop in readership they’re seeing is because the story looks like it’s ending. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s because people are just frustrated that the big climax of the story was put on hold for nearly two months by flashbacks to events that are irrelevant to that climax, and that they’re planning on coming back once they can read through it in one go. Conventional wisdom, after all, for reading a serial whose update schedule hurts its readability is to wait for a bunch of chapters to accumulate so you can read them in bulk. However, I’m wondering if it might be better to just drop it entirely and come back to it once it’s totally finished. Batching chapters would involve multi-month breaks, and that would just give me more time to forget all of the important details. I very much want to keep reading, because the story’s actually pretty good and is very much My Kind Of poo poo, but I think it might be best experienced as a novel, not a serial.
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Oct 28, 2023 21:31
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Wittgen posted:Ar'Kendrythist 264: Jesus loving Christ Erick. Combining vile and exalted into the Valkyrie super spell is a pretty potent gently caress you to the quiet war. The chapter was great, you could tell how reluctant Erick was to make such a dangerous spell, and even when he did, he made it as humanely as possible.
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Oct 28, 2023 23:06
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uPen posted:It’s really good until you catch up, the 1-2 updates a month is rough. Yeah, I think I'm just going to come back to it in 6 months or something.
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Oct 29, 2023 00:09
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Wittgen posted:Ar'Kendrythist 264: Jesus loving Christ Erick. Combining vile and exalted into the Valkyrie super spell is a pretty potent gently caress you to the quiet war. A'K 264: And apparently it's going to come to form a soul at some point, so that's going to be a fun family dynamic. It sounds like that's far enough in the future that Valkyrie won't get much time on screen as an actual character, but I hope it at least shows up in the epilogue or something.
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Oct 29, 2023 05:58
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TTOU: I can't believe Aspen would kick Meringue's body like the football. Jail for Aspen.
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Oct 29, 2023 11:35
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Einander posted:A'K 264: And apparently it's going to come to form a soul at some point, so that's going to be a fun family dynamic. It sounds like that's far enough in the future that Valkyrie won't get much time on screen as an actual character, but I hope it at least shows up in the epilogue or something. A'K 264: There is the minor Chekov's gun of it becoming sentient after a certain number of souls as well, but I feel like Arcs historically has enough "well, that's probably fine" things that are actually probably fine that it's unclear.
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Oct 29, 2023 15:31
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uPen posted:It’s really good until you catch up, the 1-2 updates a month is rough. One of the first rules of web serials: If it's written in books, you should read it in books! Reading by the update can be fun if you're bored, but I think the work always suffers for it unless you're really reading entirely for the prose and don't care much about larger concerns. This mostly applies to humor.
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Oct 29, 2023 18:27
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SupSup Patreon ch 101 was fun today with drug dealers, budget sways, and the future Primary becoming a cat burglar as POVs
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Oct 29, 2023 18:40
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Nitrousoxide posted:SupSup Patreon ch 101 was fun today with drug dealers, budget sways, and the future Primary becoming a cat burglar as POVs Yeah, fantastic little interlude chapter. I like seeing how other people are getting on with their life as Alden settles into his next phase. It's slice of life goodness while also setting up some stuff that feels likely to come crashing back into Alden's story later. And the greatness of Kibber can't be denied.
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Oct 29, 2023 20:09
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Alden's beautiful, fat Victor the kyat
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Oct 29, 2023 23:25
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Okay, I caught up with Nowhere Stars. I probably should have waited until phase 2 was done to catch up in hindsight. Oops. Oh well. I really enjoyed it so far! This sort of YA-ish story lives and dies based on what it's like to live in the protagonist's head, and it's both easy to sympathize and root for Lia and want better things for her, but also to cringe when she's obviously making a mistake. The Harbingers are strong antagonists, terrifying but also vulnerable and understandable. It helps that the story consistently portrays Lia as both the heroine and often underdog (which, of course, she is), but also from another perspective as a cruel, monstrous force; as the sign of ill health, of the future closing itself off from you without rhyme or reason. The action scenes tend to run long--- it is web fiction--- but they can generally maintain enough propulsive force to stay exciting to read; one of the Harbingers cursing Lia as "the beast of malediction" will stick with me. Phase 2 does feel like it's getting a bit too big, so I hope Anemone lands the ending.
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Oct 30, 2023 01:11
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(Nowhere Stars Book 7) Something I only realized after sitting on it a little while is the extent to which Lia is frightened of Seraph because he's a boy. It's right there in the text but it took awhile for it to really sink in for me. But it's likely she's never been close friends with a boy before, and the memory of the grasshopper certainly suggests she has a lingering fear of male violence. And it's no wonder that Seraph's actions, his desire and willingness to assert dominance and make things go his way by force, look a lot like casual and unthinking cruelty to Lia. Combined with her nasty habit of thinking of any setback on something that's important to her as a threat to her life, there's no wonder things went so badly so quickly.
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Oct 30, 2023 03:43
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Fuuuck I need something else to read now. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and read some actual YA lit lol. I did enjoy Scholomance when I read it last year. I could get back to Persuasion instead but it’s my subway book right now.
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Oct 30, 2023 03:52
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Read Orbis Tertius! It's great!.
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Oct 30, 2023 03:56
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I recently had a lot of free time so I randomly read some stuff on the top rated section of RR. Most of it was whatever but I must say I really did end up liking Carousel. It does something fresh with the LitRPG concepts by applying them to tropey horror movies. The actual adventures tend to be kinda whatever but the overarching plotline is pretty intriguing. The big lore dump at the end of Part 1 was neat, setting up for some really interesting stuff to happen in Part 2 soon.
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Oct 30, 2023 04:16
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blastron posted:Man, The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere is incredibly poorly served by being a web serial. This kind of dense, twisty mystery with multiple major concurrent threads really requires engaged readers that can keep everything in their heads, and that’s really hard to do when you’re reading things in ten minute chunks. Time To Orbit: Unknown gets away with it by having only one big thing going on at a time, so there’s less you need to keep in your head, and its pretty quick release schedule means it’s in the front of your mind more often, even if the chapters are very short. Though I'm constantly fussing with details to try to make it easier to get into, I basically wrote TFTBN for the specific niche of sickos who like taking notes and re-reading content to actively theorize about a story as it comes out. I was always craving that sort of content before I got into the medium, since I felt like the very long-term, episodic structure intrinsic to web serials would be a really good fit in theory - every time there'd be a new chapter people could go over it with a comb and theorize, while new people would always be coming in with new perspectives. Like for any serial mystery work, just, well, more. That was always going to be offputting to people who just don't enjoy that sort of thing, but I do think I sort of overdid it with the complexity, and sometimes maybe just didn't spend enough words beating particular central premises into readers heads. For a lot of people, it seems like so much gets lost in the froth that they misunderstand foundational aspects of the story, and so can't even really feel intrigued and just give up. I think I also underestimated the degree to which foundationally conceptualize web serials as media to consume very casually while working or doing other things, and will get frustrated at stuff which doesn't fit that role no matter how much you signal that it's going to be that way (Not saying that's what you're doing here, more just an adjacent thought in terms of negative feedback I get). I've managed to find a decently-sized audience who fits that original goal, at least. The next part probably will be a easier to follow passively, though, at least relatively. PoorWeather fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Oct 30, 2023 |
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Oct 30, 2023 09:32
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PoorWeather posted:Though I'm constantly fussing with details to try to make it easier to get into, I basically wrote TFTBN for the specific niche of sickos who like taking notes and re-reading content to actively theorize about a story as it comes out. I was always craving that sort of content before I got into the medium, since I felt like the very long-term, episodic structure intrinsic to web serials would be a really good fit in theory - every time there'd be a new chapter people could go over it with a comb and theorize, while new people would always be coming in with new perspectives. Like for any serial mystery work, just, well, more. Personally I prefer binging all my webserials so I haven't read further since I caught up in spring sometime, but I don't feel like there is THAT much going on that makes things difficult to remember unless a reader is trying to approach the story as a mystery to be solved rather than a story to follow along with. I'm sure I've forgotten some details and a few minor plot threads but I feel like I would be quickly on top of what's going on if I went back and kept reading at this point. At worst maybe read a couple chapters back first.
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Oct 30, 2023 23:50
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SupSup 102: This chapter was fun. Nice to see Alden getting along with everyone. That wordchain seems really nice, since you can simply sleep off the downsides (though I guess there's the risk of some emergency happening at night). Seems like there's not much reason not to simply use it every day and pay it off at night. The Peace of Mind one has always seemed like a really lovely trade-off in most situations. I guess we might get the Stu-art'h conversation in the next chapter. In a way this stuff is a little unsettling because it seems like, in hindsight, this whole section of the story is going to be some sort of "calm before the storm." But I think that calm might last for a pretty long time, given the pacing of the story.
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Nov 1, 2023 19:13
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PoorWeather posted:Though I'm constantly fussing with details to try to make it easier to get into, I basically wrote TFTBN for the specific niche of sickos who like taking notes and re-reading content to actively theorize about a story as it comes out. I was always craving that sort of content before I got into the medium, since I felt like the very long-term, episodic structure intrinsic to web serials would be a really good fit in theory - every time there'd be a new chapter people could go over it with a comb and theorize, while new people would always be coming in with new perspectives. Like for any serial mystery work, just, well, more. Oh, thanks for the reply, I didn’t know you were in the thread! (Your earlier post about making a career out of aping Umineko should have probably tipped me off, but I never said I was good at mysteries.) My general level of engagement with a serial I’m enjoying is that I’ll read a new chapter as soon as I can, in a setting where I can give it my full attention, but I generally am not part of the “fandom” in that I don’t engage outside that specific framework by speculating in the comments section, updating wikis, or whatever. I don’t know where this puts me compared to the average reader, but I think you’ve done a great job of establishing all of the major beats that needed establishing. There haven’t been any moments where I was surprised by something due to information I felt like I’d missed or hadn’t been sufficiently explained. The thing that’s tripping me up is really just the number of things I need to keep in my head in order for things to have the right amount of impact. I’m not actively trying to solve the mystery, but I feel like I should at least be able to follow along, and when a big reveal or twist falls flat because it relies on things that happened months ago in subjective time, I feel kind of lost. When Kamrusepa was going through her theories in the most recent section, I felt like I needed to have a timeline in front of me in order to keep up with how everything fit together. On a straight read through, though, this holds up very well. I binged through all of it back in April and had no trouble at all following along as things were unfolding. If you ever get this edited into a standard novel and published, it’s definitely going on my bookshelf.
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Nov 3, 2023 00:34
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Orbis Tertius. Oh poo poo here comes the mutation. I've been real curious about that since it was introduced and can't wait to see what happens.
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Nov 3, 2023 03:36
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SupSup: Was idly rereading an early chapter and it jumped out to me how there was a guy online saying superheros probably often kill people and pass it off as a combat accident. Chapter somewhere in the early 90s? :It is framed as a ridiculous paranoid internet jerks' opinion. But now there are a bunch of people in Alden's superhero ethics class that suggest committing violence and saying it was an accident.
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Nov 3, 2023 23:50
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Wittgen posted:SupSup: Was idly rereading an early chapter and it jumped out to me how there was a guy online saying superheros probably often kill people and pass it off as a combat accident. Chapter somewhere in the early 90s? :It is framed as a ridiculous paranoid internet jerks' opinion. But now there are a bunch of people in Alden's superhero ethics class that suggest committing violence and saying it was an accident. SS some earlier Patreon chapter: Very indirectly related to this, but it's kind of wild that Andrzej got into their high-school as a B-Rank Meister of a pretty normal weapon. He must have really impressed with his admissions exams and interview. I think his desire to focus on the "hit things at range" Skill helped (maybe he said as much?). It seems like most other B-Ranks have some sort of unique element to their abilities, like Max or the trash-shooting Wright.
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Nov 4, 2023 18:54
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Ytlaya posted:SS some earlier Patreon chapter: Very indirectly related to this, but it's kind of wild that Andrzej got into their high-school as a B-Rank Meister of a pretty normal weapon. He must have really impressed with his admissions exams and interview. I think his desire to focus on the "hit things at range" Skill helped (maybe he said as much?). It seems like most other B-Ranks have some sort of unique element to their abilities, like Max or the trash-shooting Wright. I agree. I also think his connections matter. He learned about the hit at range power from his family member who is a successful working hero. Basically, he is in the same situation as that B rank sight brute Alden talked to. A connected guy who knew what he wanted for years before admissions, he was able to use that time to make his application undeniable.
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Nov 5, 2023 01:20
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Skill Thief's Canvas 31 - The part where Eric suddenly shows up was great. I'd been waiting for that shoe to drop for a while now, but I definitely wasn't expecting it then. Hard to guess how this situation will resolve. I really doubt Adam/Tenver can defeat him, so I'm guessing either Eric reveals he's untouchable and gives some sort of mandate to them, or the Grandmaster gets involved.
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Nov 5, 2023 20:11
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SupSup 103
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Nov 6, 2023 03:52
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Did the Super Supportive patreon chapter numbers get desynced from public release? I went back in this thread to read the discussion on chapter 89 and they don't match what happened.
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Nov 6, 2023 15:10
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Yes things got squished together and renumbered.
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Nov 6, 2023 15:12
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Yep, here is the link to the next chapters royal road spoilers, scroll back for this chapter: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3831668&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=376#post534720698
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Nov 6, 2023 15:26
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Yesterday's SS Patreon was very nice. Wonder if anything interesting will happen when Alden goes to meet with Stu-art'h. I feel like, sooner or later, Stu-art'h is going to become the third person made aware of some of Alden's circumstances (after Boe and Kibby). Seems like the sort of thing that would come out at some point if you spend a lot of time interacting with a Knight. Feel bad for Stu-art'h. Living vicariously through Alden's growing school social life, while he seemingly has literally no friends at school.
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Nov 6, 2023 16:56
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What the hell, the Public Universal Friend is real.
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Nov 6, 2023 22:30
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Ytlaya posted:Yesterday's SS Patreon was very nice. Wonder if anything interesting will happen when Alden goes to meet with Stu-art'h. I feel like, sooner or later, Stu-art'h is going to become the third person made aware of some of Alden's circumstances (after Boe and Kibby). Seems like the sort of thing that would come out at some point if you spend a lot of time interacting with a Knight. The SupSup Patreon was jam packed with new plot hooks. But one of the biggest was probably that chainers are some sort of religious adherents among Artonans and Lute's family is closely connected to them. It makes the Velra family a lot more cult like than they were before. And Lute's reaction to the phrase "prostrated myself before you at a feast" gives Lute's earlier questions about how to decline food a lot more context (though not enough to fully get it yet)
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Nov 7, 2023 01:05
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