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I knew a dude in college who brewed his own mead in a garbage can and I think he still applied more scientific thinking to the process I'm also pretty sure he recognized that not everyone in Scandinavia was Hagar the Horrible
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# ? Jan 10, 2024 00:56 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 02:40 |
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PJOmega posted:Honestly I don't know which is worse, that he wrote that and published it on his blog unironically or that there are only a few responses that mildly rebuke it. Logging into those blog post sites is always a pain in the rear end so only the really dedicated people will do it
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# ? Jan 10, 2024 02:12 |
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Evil Fluffy posted:He worships Joss Wheadon so this isn't exactly a surprise. One of his replies on the comments of that blog post was straight up praising Whedon, to no surprise.
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# ? Jan 10, 2024 03:12 |
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Today I was reminded that there's two books that heavily crib from Kingkiller, Empire of Silence and The First Binding. Part of me would be sort of interested in reading another author take on Kingkiller who would actually finish their story, but apparently these guys are committing to like 7-10 book series. What the heck. They decided, well while we're next-to-plagiarising for success, might as well make it a decades long project that could define our careers. And both authors are referred to by fans as "good, but not as good as Rothfuss". Lol. I'll pass.
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# ? Jan 10, 2024 04:01 |
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Ccs posted:Today I was reminded that there's two books that heavily crib from Kingkiller, Empire of Silence and The First Binding. Part of me would be sort of interested in reading another author take on Kingkiller who would actually finish their story, but apparently these guys are committing to like 7-10 book series. What the heck. They decided, well while we're next-to-plagiarising for success, might as well make it a decades long project that could define our careers. And both authors are referred to by fans as "good, but not as good as Rothfuss". Lol. I'll pass. I've never heard of either of those. Looked up the intro for The First Binding, and you're not kidding about being heavily cribbed: quote:I buried the village of Ampur under a mountain of ice and snow. Then I killed their god. I've stolen old magics and been cursed for it. I started a war with those that walked before mankind and lost the princess I loved, and wanted to save. I've called lightning and bound fire. I am legend. And I am a monster. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't bother me. A good story is a good story (not saying those are). Might have to check it out. Hughmoris fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jan 10, 2024 |
# ? Jan 10, 2024 04:40 |
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First binding is very much kingkiller with a bit of Arabian nights glued on, thing is though the first book has pretty much done all the rothfus material already. It's ok, the female muse character has a bit more agency and the prose is less florid(although not much) and the sex ninja stuff is very minimal. I didn't mind it but it's almost a cover version rather than a new book in its own right. Sun eater (empire of silence) is up to book 5 + 4-5 side books, the first is very kingkiller in space but they move into their own thing pretty quickly. I liked a couple of them a lot but overall it's very overwrought, almost Wagnerian and rather cheesy.
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# ? Jan 10, 2024 07:59 |
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Being reminded of that mead/vikings thing just underscores what feels like a strenuous resistance in Rothfuss's work to knowing anything about anything. I'm not a musician so I can't speak to that, but musicians on this thread have commented about how shallow his grasp of music itself is (the string said SAD), and how Kvothe feels nothing like a working, practicing musician. I know a home-beer-brewing dude who loves all that fiddly poo poo in the brewing process, because learning that is what makes him good at brewing (and makes his beer good). I had the same experience learning to make bread during the pandemic, the learning is the fun part that makes you feel accomplished. If I just wanted to throw random ingredients in an oven and wave my hands over it, I could just microwave something and save the trouble. Even his reference to mad scientists is headscratching because in most fiction, mad scientists are scholars who worked and studied their asses off and have leaps of intuition beyond normal people because they know so much, not because they eschew books and studying in favor of going ham with a chemistry set. Victor Frankenstein never said, "Aw, heck with all that dad-gum book-larnin'! I'm just gonna put a corpse on a kite, now hold my beer!" Rothfuss seems to want to live in a training montage, where all the gains are shown in real quick clips over a rock song and then we cut to him knowing everything, producing the perfect mead with a wave of his cheeto-stained hand.
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# ? Jan 10, 2024 14:54 |
It's not so much that as that he's a Mediocre White Man, with all the overconfidence that implies. He has a puddle-depth knowledge of a handful of things that he gets to call himself nerdy about, and because he's aggressively culled his life of people who will tell him "no" he gets to pretend that those puddles are all that's important about the subject, that he's cut through the excession and pedantery and elitism and can tell you how it really is. What's a minor chord, we just want music to say sad. If he was a south african with emerald money, he'd have bought twitter by now.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 15:25 |
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StonecutterJoe posted:Being reminded of that mead/vikings thing just underscores what feels like a strenuous resistance in Rothfuss's work to knowing anything about anything. I'm not a musician so I can't speak to that, but musicians on this thread have commented about how shallow his grasp of music itself is (the string said SAD), and how Kvothe feels nothing like a working, practicing musician. I've mentioned it in the past. There was some scene, I think it was in the music club, where Kvothe has some "I'm a true musician and can't accept this" freakout that just doesn't happen among actual musicians and his writing about music in general is extremely clear that he knows gently caress all about the subject. I forget what exactly the scene was at this point but I remember reading it and thinking "I've known primadonnas who have stormed off stage during concerts or had public blowups with conductors and even they don't act like this" because it was just something unbelievably stupid. I think it was something like a person played a song he knew/liked and was upset he couldn't play it right then and there since it wasn't his turn?
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 16:32 |
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I'm reminded that Rothfuss managed to completely blow his chance at a major TV adaption from, of all people, Lin Manual Miranda that a poster who dealt with him in a professional capacity said he was extremely disrespectful to anyone and everyone trying to do business with him.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 17:40 |
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pentyne posted:I'm reminded that Rothfuss managed to completely blow his chance at a major TV adaption from, of all people, Lin Manual Miranda that a poster who dealt with him in a professional capacity said he was extremely disrespectful to anyone and everyone trying to do business with him. I was astonished when none of the adaptations just completely fizzled out because it'd be such an easy lay-up to adapt the books since they have very little going on and not a lot in the way of action that requires special effects.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 10:55 |
That was probably for the best.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 16:52 |
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Kchama posted:I was astonished when none of the adaptations just completely fizzled out because it'd be such an easy lay-up to adapt the books since they have very little going on and not a lot in the way of action that requires special effects. They likely fizzled out due to a combination of Rothfuss not being able to give them any sort of outline to work off of (which GRRM at least gave D&D) and I don't doubt for a second that Rothfuss wanted total control over the show, which coupled with his complete lack of writing progress and work ethic meant it could only fail.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 17:47 |
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It’s been ages since I’ve read the books; one of the only sequences I remember is “pranking” non-musician audience members by acting like an easy song was hard to play and an insanely hard song was a walk in the park. I think the reason this stuck with me is because I can’t think of any songs that would fit this criteria in real life. Maybe flight of the bumblebee? I like to think the biggest pain to Rothfuss would be overhearing someone like me say “yes I’ve read that series, couldn’t tell you much about what went on in it though. Wasn’t very memorable.”
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 21:54 |
Democratic Pirate posted:It’s been ages since I’ve read the books; one of the only sequences I remember is “pranking” non-musician audience members by acting like an easy song was hard to play and an insanely hard song was a walk in the park. I think the reason this stuck with me is because I can’t think of any songs that would fit this criteria in real life. Maybe flight of the bumblebee? I imagine its like him playing Seven Nation Army so good it makes Taylor Swift swoon over him.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 23:26 |
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Democratic Pirate posted:It’s been ages since I’ve read the books; one of the only sequences I remember is “pranking” non-musician audience members by acting like an easy song was hard to play and an insanely hard song was a walk in the park. I think the reason this stuck with me is because I can’t think of any songs that would fit this criteria in real life. Maybe flight of the bumblebee? It's even worse, the evil school bully used magic to snap one of the strings on the lute during the performance but Kvothe went sicko mode and managed to play the song with only 5 strings instead of 6, an impossible task. It's 'justified' in text as saying yeah you'd need six strings for most people, but world class performers have ways of performing the same songs with less strings on a stringed instrument.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 23:35 |
Two separate instances.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 23:41 |
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gave himself a nickname out of it too very cringe to give yourself a nickname
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 23:54 |
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pentyne posted:It's even worse, the evil school bully used magic to snap one of the strings on the lute during the performance but Kvothe went sicko mode and managed to play the song with only 5 strings instead of 6, an impossible task. I still don't know how this works, even as someone who is big into music. You can't just will past having a fundamentally broken instrument, unless the music just didn't use the broken string at all, in which case it... isn't terribly impressive.
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# ? Jan 13, 2024 08:39 |
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Kchama posted:I still don't know how this works, even as someone who is big into music. You can't just will past having a fundamentally broken instrument, unless the music just didn't use the broken string at all, in which case it... isn't terribly impressive. I play a bit of guitar and I'm far from any good, but conceptually I could see a couple of approaches. If it's a chord, he could just play the chord without the missing string and it's possible the audience wouldn't know it, especially if he's singing loudly. You could do tricks like palm muting or pinch harmonics as well to potentially make up for missing elements in a chord, but it would mostly be hiding that the chord wasn't full rather than replacing the missing note. If it's individual notes, you could potentially play the same note on a different string in a different area of the fretboard, but depending on how far away that note is you'd need really fast hands and your memory would basically have to work like Guitar Hero to immediately start subbing notes in. No matter what, it wouldn't at all be how your muscle memory remembers the song.
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# ? Jan 13, 2024 15:01 |
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Atlas Hugged posted:I play a bit of guitar and I'm far from any good, but conceptually I could see a couple of approaches. Friend, you have just written a more compelling scene than Rothfuss.
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# ? Jan 13, 2024 15:15 |
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Ol’ Five String Fingerblaster Kvothe is just that drat good I guess, wow
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# ? Jan 13, 2024 19:28 |
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Atlas Hugged posted:I play a bit of guitar and I'm far from any good, but conceptually I could see a couple of approaches. I considered the latter part, but it just seemed so impractical that my considerations did not last long, but I do get what you're saying there. Course, Rothfuss put no such thought into his book.
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# ? Jan 14, 2024 00:01 |
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He's a loving wizard, maybe he sang the true name of the missing string.
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# ? Jan 14, 2024 02:06 |
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I think before his years as a street orphan in the city, Kvothe is wandering aimlessly in the woods for months after his parents are killed, surviving on ??? as he meanders in a fugue state playing his lute. One of his lute strings breaks, so he spends months playing it with one broken string and compensates. I think he goes to the city when another string breaks and it becomes too hard even for him. Good thing Kvothe happened by chance to have trained for this exact scenario and that Malfoy happened by chance to have snapped the one string Kvothe had learned to play without.
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# ? Jan 14, 2024 06:24 |
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God everything about that street urchin time was so profoundly stupid and I remember reading the book thinking "what the gently caress he just spent months living off the land and yet he somehow can't survive in a city and doesn't just head back into the wilderness because???" In a short series full of extremely stupid poo poo, that might be the worst part until Felurian and the Sex Ninjas that is both a matriarchal society and yet also doesn't understand basics of procreation that humanity has known for literally thousands of years and Kvothe has to mansplain to them why kids vary in their resemblance to their parents.
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# ? Jan 14, 2024 19:04 |
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Kchama posted:I still don't know how this works, even as someone who is big into music. You can't just will past having a fundamentally broken instrument, unless the music just didn't use the broken string at all, in which case it... isn't terribly impressive. The crazy thing is I actually saw that happen in real life. Guy snapped two strings just before his last song and played it anyway. I don't know anything about music but it sounded okay. Maybe he just picked a song that didn't use those two strings? But that's a lot different from Kvothe losing a string right in the middle of The Hardest Song In The World.
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# ? Jan 14, 2024 20:50 |
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Evil Fluffy posted:God everything about that street urchin time was so profoundly stupid and I remember reading the book thinking "what the gently caress he just spent months living off the land and yet he somehow can't survive in a city and doesn't just head back into the wilderness because???" it was particularly bad because he's in a "fugue" for 2+ years starving and scraping by and then when he remembers to attend magic academy he just turns on the actor mode and cons a set of high class clothes from a tailor effortlessly. The books are in general a lot of short stories that you can pretty much spot the exact moment it breaks from that original narrative and is forced back into the main plot. It's more akin to a fanfiction where the author literally forgets something and suddenly adds it back into a new chapter after remembering.
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# ? Jan 14, 2024 21:02 |
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Yeah, when he's done slumming it he just wills himself out of poverty without any issues. He doesn't catch a huge break or anything, just "I'm done being poor now" and off he goes. The sex ninjas and Felurian are still worse though.
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 07:05 |
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I remember when I first read his paragraph-long list of boasts which include "I spent the night with Felurian and lived to tell the tale," I assumed the Felurian was the name of a very spooky haunted house and everyone who spends the night in it either dies mysteriously or emerges driven mad by untold horrors. And Kvothe survived because he was able to overcome the monster, resist the curse, and solve the mystery. Instead it's a sex fairy and he survives by being the best virgin at sex.
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 07:13 |
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I thought he survived because he used somehow used her true name and mind controlled her.
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 07:27 |
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I think he convinced her to tell him her true name by being super good at virgin sex or something? I don't know it was a long time ago I read that poo poo.
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 07:57 |
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Tree Dude posted:I think he convinced her to tell him her true name by being super good at virgin sex or something? I don't know it was a long time ago I read that poo poo. It was basically this. And yes, the Tarbean Orphan section was a short story dropped in, which is why he had to forget all about magic and his acting skills for that time then suddenly become a Hot Guy after years of being beaten and malnourished.
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 08:15 |
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As far as Kvothe and Felurian (and the audience) know at the time, he survives because he's the best at sex. Five hundred pages later, Elodin speculates that maybe Kvothe secretly subconsciously named her that first time without realizing it.
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 08:21 |
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Not The Wendigo posted:The crazy thing is I actually saw that happen in real life. Guy snapped two strings just before his last song and played it anyway. I don't know anything about music but it sounded okay. Maybe he just picked a song that didn't use those two strings? But that's a lot different from Kvothe losing a string right in the middle of The Hardest Song In The World. Really depends on what kind of song you're playing. Distorted power chords in a punk set? Broken strings are expected. I saw a live show once where the band had like three guitars on standby at any given moment because they were just shredding their strings as they played. The techs couldn't exactly bring them a new guitar mid-song, so they just powered through, but it wasn't like they were economy picking. They were just smashing chords.
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 12:35 |
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Lottery of Babylon posted:As far as Kvothe and Felurian (and the audience) know at the time, he survives because he's the best at sex. Five hundred pages later, Elodin speculates that maybe Kvothe secretly subconsciously named her that first time without realizing it. He survived through the power of negging.
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 12:37 |
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pentyne posted:it was particularly bad because he's in a "fugue" for 2+ years starving and scraping by and then when he remembers to attend magic academy he just turns on the actor mode and cons a set of high class clothes from a tailor effortlessly. The thing that really pissed me off about that was that immediately prior to the slums he was just living in the woods for like a year with absolutely no issues, including through winter. If the slums suck that bad why not just... go back to the forest, if he's that unrealistically good at wilderness survival?
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 15:53 |
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Karia posted:The thing that really pissed me off about that was that immediately prior to the slums he was just living in the woods for like a year with absolutely no issues, including through winter. If the slums suck that bad why not just... go back to the forest, if he's that unrealistically good at wilderness survival? Yeah there's nothing actually compelling him to want to remain in the city. I know it was a short story he shoehorned in and it shows but even if it's a case of him not being able to forage enough in the winter, the fact he just straight up never tries any sort of street or tavern performances to get by when he was raised by the equivalent of Gypsy Nobility is absurdly stupid even for Rothfuss. If there is enough for him to forage (or steal) outside the city, making a shelter better than "curl into a ball against a chimney in an overhang with tons of exposure" is going to be comically easy unless there are no coniferous trees/plants of any kind in the area and all the leaves on the ground magically decayed already.
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 17:51 |
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I'm thinking of the vignette where he drugs the teenage rape victims and creepily strokes their hair while they're half-conscious because one looks like the girl he's obsessed with, then convinces them that he's not one of the dangerous man as if he's taming a skittish horse, then gives them all the recovered stolen money because they're damaged goods now and the more details I remember the more disgusted I am with that whole book. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's the worst scene.
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 18:58 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 02:40 |
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Atlas Hugged posted:No matter what, it wouldn't at all be how your muscle memory remembers the song. Yeah but get this, what if the music flowed through you like limpid tears in moonlight, like petals in the swift pounding river...
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# ? Jan 15, 2024 21:55 |