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Well, I just finished reading Honzuki no Gekokujou (Ascendance of a Bookworm) and can report that it was extremely good, so you can feel secure in enjoying the next 650 chapters or so. Admittedly I kept way too high a reading pace on the home stretch, nearly burning myself out on it, so the finale felt somewhat stretched, being nearly as long as the entire first arc (70ish chapters), but it all wrapped up well. The author has also promised to write more side story stuff eventually, so who knows long it'll truly end up being, though.
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Mar 25, 2017 01:06
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When it says Gyurigyuri is black, do they mean like black people or some sort of pitch black fantasy race?
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Mar 25, 2017 01:50
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I don't know what I was expecting when I had the notion to google Shield Hero to find out why whatshername decided to be a giant rear end in a top hat to the protagonist in the first place but oh my loving god okay, peep this poo poo: after he demonstrates to the kingdom what a cool heroic slave owner he is the queen shows up and lets him legally change the princess' name to 'Bitch.' Over the next 200+ chapters she shows up again and again to keep being a huge rear end in a top hat, gets gruesomely executed twice, and after the 2nd time comes back as a literal deity of pure spite whom the MC finally kills with the help of his entire harem But that's not the punchline. The punchline is that there is no reason she decided to frame him. None. I expected it to be petty and asinine, but even by the standards of web novels that plumbs new depths of aggrieved entitlement & wish fulfillment. Author might as well have named her Princess Girl-Who-Made-Fun-of-Me-in-High-School.
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Mar 25, 2017 03:29
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Uh, clearly the reason is that she is an evil ~female~ who isn't in love with the protagonist. edit: I like Demon King more than original Kumoko/Shiro. She has more of a personality, while Kumoko is just like some bizarre alien who cares about nothing but eating food (which was kinda a funny quirk the first few times but has gotten a bit old). The comments below each chapter all seem to dislike the non-Kumoko chapters and prefer the Kumoko ones, but I kinda feel the opposite. I don't exactly dislike the Kumoko chapters, but I like when they also include characters other than Kumoko herself. I think part of it is that the main audience for WNs really, really like absurdly overpowered main characters who get a bunch of upgrades/level-ups. I think that they treat reading WNs in the same way they do playing an MMORPG, and get a feeling of accomplishment from the protagonist becoming more powerful and gaining more skills/levels. So when it switches to a weaker side character (like Shun) they get upset, because they want to continue "leveling up" their "main". All that being said, I'm enjoying these chapters that are focusing on the vampire and goblin, and I find the overall plot interesting. I think the author does a good job of gradually revealing things, and I get the impression that the story is generally planned out and that the author isn't just making things up on the fly. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Mar 25, 2017 |
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Mar 25, 2017 05:52
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Rangpur posted:I don't know what I was expecting when I had the notion to google Shield Hero to find out why whatshername decided to be a giant rear end in a top hat to the protagonist in the first place but oh my loving god It's okay though. He has a slave army of underaged magic races that want to boink him. Also, for some reason, the queen named her kids "Melty" and "Malty". The writing may be the worst I've ever seen and I've browsed red pill forums when bored.
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Mar 25, 2017 07:18
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thanks to insomnia i ended up giving tempest of the stellar war another shot and now it is clear that i had it all wrong. it isn't some dumb, boring power fantasy. no, it is a comedic tour de force and a classic for the ages. none of the amazingly funny jokes are intentional, of course. i'm pretty sure that the author wrote what is supposed to be a sci fi story despite not having the slightest idea of what science is.
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Mar 25, 2017 11:54
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Rangpur posted:I don't know what I was expecting when I had the notion to google Shield Hero to find out why whatshername decided to be a giant rear end in a top hat to the protagonist in the first place but oh my loving god Having persevered through the entire thing, there actually IS a reason she hosed him over. The heroes exist to keep universes from merging together, that's why they fight off the waves. She's an avatar of a giant world-eating boss that is there to divide the heroes so they fail and the worlds merge until a total of 8 worlds have merged into 1, at which point they are ripe and the giant world-eating boss can eat them profitably.
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Mar 25, 2017 15:23
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NinjaDebugger posted:Having persevered through the entire thing, there actually IS a reason she hosed him over. Ytlaya posted:she is an evil edit: I don't actually want to make this a whole derail, I was just so gobsmacked by what I read on the wiki that I had to share my reaction. TBH stuff like this only makes me more thankful for stuff like Kumoko and Hohzuki that rises above the sludge. Rangpur fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Mar 25, 2017 |
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Mar 25, 2017 16:32
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who isn't in love with the
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So I'm now at the chapter in Kumoko where the vampire girl and her retainer guy have been saved and picked up by Ariel and Shiro/Shiraori. I think I'm starting to have some idea why my perception of Shiraori/main Kumoko is different from a lot of the comments. She finds communicating with other people to be an annoyance (in addition to not really valuing life itself, but that's another matter*), and I think that there's a difference in the way I perceive that and the way other people do. To me, stuff like constantly ignoring people who speak to you is a sign that a person is just conceited/selfish, but I think that a lot of the other readers perceive her standoffish-ness as a cool thing because they perceive most other people as being dumber than them in their own lives (like for example a nerdy teenage who thinks all the popular/"normal" kids are superficial). This isn't necessarily bad if the person is just bad at communicating and wants to get better, but that obviously isn't the case with Shiraori. Either way, thank god she has a posse now so we're not left with nothing but her own thoughts. *At first I attributed this to whatever she learned from Taboo lvl 10, but she also feels this way towards the reincarnated classmates
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Mar 26, 2017 02:14
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Rangpur posted:Yeah, no. I might have bought that if it had ever come up before she somehow returns from the dead to get tortured to death for the second time. What you're describing is the justification. The reason is that Yeah, I enjoyed Shield Hero for what it's worth, but the author definitely went through a bad breakup and projected his ex onto the female villain, or something like that. There's too much irrational venom otherwise.
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Mar 26, 2017 03:03
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I'm stuck on a plane for many hours, so thank you blastron for (re)translating kumoko and bookworm!. I still have like 5 hours to go though...
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Mar 26, 2017 03:18
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Bakanogami posted:Yeah, I enjoyed Shield Hero for what it's worth, but the author definitely went through a bad breakup and projected his ex onto the female villain, or something like that. There's too much irrational venom otherwise. Nah, that's more a "women are evil because they won't date me" malice than something resulting from having broken up with someone IMO.
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Mar 26, 2017 03:32
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Way of Choices has got to be the best written web novel I've ever come across. Every character feels like they have their own agency and goals, most of them are even likable. There was a lot of build up recently and drat was this not satisfying, 'Qiushan Jun looked at the mountains and casually said, "And then…naturally, the disciples of Mount Li raise their swords to confront the enemy." Xiao Songgong's complexion grew abnormally unsightly. He coldly shouted, "Just what are you doing! Did you not hear your master admit that Qi Jian's mother is a Demon Princess!?" Qiushan Jun raised his sword and looked at Xiao Songgong and those powerful enemies. He asked, "And so what?"'
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Mar 26, 2017 04:35
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Ytlaya posted:So I'm now at the chapter in Kumoko where the vampire girl and her retainer guy have been saved and picked up by Ariel and Shiro/Shiraori. I think I'm starting to have some idea why my perception of Shiraori/main Kumoko is different from a lot of the comments. She finds communicating with other people to be an annoyance (in addition to not really valuing life itself, but that's another matter*), and I think that there's a difference in the way I perceive that and the way other people do. To me, stuff like constantly ignoring people who speak to you is a sign that a person is just conceited/selfish, but I think that a lot of the other readers perceive her standoffish-ness as a cool thing because they perceive most other people as being dumber than them in their own lives (like for example a nerdy teenage who thinks all the popular/"normal" kids are superficial). This isn't necessarily bad if the person is just bad at communicating and wants to get better, but that obviously isn't the case with Shiraori. Well the characters in the story perceive her the second way. She's not conceited or selfish though, she's just a massive anti-social goon with poor manners.
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Mar 26, 2017 04:52
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Lyon posted:Way of Choices has got to be the best written web novel I've ever come across. Every character feels like they have their own agency and goals, most of them are even likable. There was a lot of build up recently and drat was this not satisfying, It's a great story, and I like how the only stereotypical Xanxia Protagonist in the story is Zhou Dufu, who everyone agrees was a complete rear end in a top hat and they are happy that he's dead. Su Li tried to act like a Xanxia Protagonist because he thought that fear would keep his family safe, but it seems to have backfired.
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Mar 26, 2017 05:27
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Synthbuttrange posted:Well the characters in the story perceive her the second way. She's not conceited or selfish though, she's just a massive anti-social goon with poor manners. I think it would be more accurate to say that the author probably perceives such actions in that way and this is reflected in the reactions of the characters in the story (sort of like how America/China actually are dastardly in the context of Mahouka's story, but only as a reflection of the author's actual views). I feel like the "just awkward and antisocial" thing would be more convincing if she wasn't so quick to dismiss the feelings of (if not outright harm/kill) other people. A good example is when she's watching the Goddess and Divine Word armies facing off and just decides "eh they're all trash." Even though the beliefs are obviously dumb, the perspective of someone immersed in that sort of environment for their entire lives is going to be different, but she just dismisses them as trash who might as well die. (Granted, I get the impression that it's necessary for a bunch of people to die to accomplish some greater important goal, but even then people would normally be bothered by carrying out such actions). I mean, it's a relatively minor complaint since I find the story as a whole really fun/interesting and it's been less focused on Kumoko's perspective lately, but I tend to see this sort of "I'm reasonable and these other people are all irrational dumb trash" attitude a lot from both nerdy people and the media they consume. edit: I'm actually increasingly starting to think that Kumoko might not actually be human. There have been a number of hints that she doesn't really identify with the appearance of this Wakaba girl, and she doesn't seem to really identify with humans in general. If she was some sort of non-human (though not sure what since only humans have mentioned being in the classroom) it might explain why she doesn't think of death/killing in the same way normal humans would. It's sort of like in that one Magical Girl Raising Project volume where a turtle is transformed into a magical girl. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 06:07
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apparently the shield hero LN goes in a different/better direction i'm not about to try to justify my reading of the WN here in the garbage thread for garbage people who read garbage media though e: thats a lie i have to justify it because its still bad it managed to hook me with the actual strong start and i felt compelled to see it to the end not the first time i've made that mistake, probably won't be the last Yinlock fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 06:18
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Lyon posted:Way of Choices has got to be the best written web novel I've ever come across. Every character feels like they have their own agency and goals, most of them are even likable. There was a lot of build up recently and drat was this not satisfying, Ytlaya posted:edit: I'm actually increasingly starting to think that Kumoko might not actually be human. There have been a number of hints that she doesn't really identify with the appearance of this Wakaba girl, and she doesn't seem to really identify with humans in general. If she was some sort of non-human (though not sure what since only humans have mentioned being in the classroom) it might explain why she doesn't think of death/killing in the same way normal humans would. It's sort of like in that one Magical Girl Raising Project volume where a turtle is transformed into a magical girl. Sindai fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 07:00
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Oh man is the Su Li arc almost over? The one after it is definitely the best up to its point. poo poo gets real yo. Haven't read much after it cus I burnt out on reading the awful machine translation so I'm excited.
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Mar 26, 2017 08:28
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Yinlock posted:apparently the shield hero LN goes in a different/better direction everyone who denounces the worst trash in detail has likely read said trash. when i go on about how horrible shield hero is, that is because i am a stupid fucker with no taste who read the whole thing.
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Mar 26, 2017 08:48
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owl milk posted:Oh man is the Su Li arc almost over? The one after it is definitely the best up to its point. poo poo gets real yo. Haven't read much after it cus I burnt out on reading the awful machine translation so I'm excited. It seems like it's getting close but I really don't know. I didn't particularly love this arc but I feel Chen Changsheng developed quite a bit traveling with Su Li. I bet it will read much better as one cohesive arc on a re-read of the story. My favorite parts were either the interactions between Su Li and the demons or what I quoted above. I also love the little insights into the future that are given such as Chen Changsheng and Nanke battling many times in the future and how Chen Changsheng's understanding of the intellectual sword/star domains will have major impacts.
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Mar 26, 2017 08:50
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So all the reincarnators in Kumoko have some unique skill, like Oka's Student List, Kyouya's Create Weapon, that one guy's Ninja, etc? What were Shun/Katia/Yuugo's unique skills? I don't think Hero or Kindness count, since characters have been shown to get Sin/Virtue skills in addition to their unique skills. edit: I'm actually starting to get the impression that the human reincarnators are super unlucky and gimped out compared with their demihuman/monster peers. Folks like Shun may have started out with a bunch of skill points and good stats for a human, but I don't think he'll ever be able to get into the 5-figures like this oni and vampire (much less Kumoko, who seemed to become stronger at a rate vastly exceeding even other reincarnators). I'm actually not entirely sure why vampire girl has such high stats. It makes sense for the oni because he's been killing a whole bunch of humans and gained many levels as a result, but she was just level 2 (and I think it was stated in the past that there's a limit to how much you can increase your stats with skills alone). While I don't think we've been shown Shun's stats in a long time, the fight against the low level Earth Dragon makes me think that he's probably in the low 4-figures. vvv: I thought Emperor was one of the "get the skill by having a particular position" skills, sort of like Hero or Saint (and Yuugo was obviously the son of the Sword Emperor). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 09:43
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Shun had some kind of "everything tends to go the way he wants" cheat skill. Tamba fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 10:15
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Lyon posted:It seems like it's getting close but I really don't know. I didn't particularly love this arc but I feel Chen Changsheng developed quite a bit traveling with Su Li. I bet it will read much better as one cohesive arc on a re-read of the story. My favorite parts were either the interactions between Su Li and the demons or what I quoted above. I'm quite fond of this exchange: quote:A while later, Chen Changsheng suddenly opened his eyes, and looked at the the sky absent-mindedly. Which I think might be the point of the arc? In a lot of ways it reads like a commentary on the genre in general. Ytlaya posted:edit: I'm actually starting to get the impression that the human reincarnators are super unlucky and gimped out compared with their demihuman/monster peers. Folks like Shun may have started out with a bunch of skill points and good stats for a human, but I don't think he'll ever be able to get into the 5-figures like this oni and vampire (much less Kumoko, who seemed to become stronger at a rate vastly exceeding even other reincarnators). I'm actually not entirely sure why vampire girl has such high stats. It makes sense for the oni because he's been killing a whole bunch of humans and gained many levels as a result, but she was just level 2 (and I think it was stated in the past that there's a limit to how much you can increase your stats with skills alone). Kumo got strong very quickly because she was born into a high level area and was speed levelling from second 1, basically. She had an advantage insofar as her race matures quickly (and can evolve into stronger species), but her rate of increase has much more to do with the fact that she's running around gobbling up xp at lightning speed than any of that. And Sophia is strong because Kumoko decides to train her, and at that point she knows exactly how to abuse the system for maximum gains. The stat/level discrepancy is, I'm fairly certain, supposed to be down to stat buffs from skills. Remember, the first and most fundamental principle of Kumo is that everyone in it is a dipshit. Very few characters know anything about anything, and almost no one knows as much as they think they do. Even if someone have a handle on something, they're liable to misinterpret it due to their own perceptual biases.
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Mar 26, 2017 14:17
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kumoko was born with the highest tier agility bonus skill, but she rarely ever seemed to have a speed advantage against her opponents.
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Mar 26, 2017 14:33
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:kumoko was born with the highest tier agility bonus skill, but she rarely ever seemed to have a speed advantage against her opponents. Disagree. At the start, she is so low-statted and low level that basically everything can one or two -hit her. She basically only survives due to being really fast and dodging a lot.
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Mar 26, 2017 16:57
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Ytlaya posted:I think it would be more accurate to say that the author probably perceives such actions in that way and this is reflected in the reactions of the characters in the story (sort of like how America/China actually are dastardly in the context of Mahouka's story, but only as a reflection of the author's actual views). No, not at all. It's a big thing that when Kumoko look at Kumoko she thinks "how dumb is this bitch" (see: all the mind splits). Kumoko is constantly shown as flat out wrong, and her crippling shyness is shown as crippling from a lot of the character's PoV, though some of them get impressed by the cool girl façade (Ronand, Wrath) a lot are well aware it's caused by crippling anxiety when talking to other people.
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Mar 26, 2017 19:08
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My favorite part of the second half of Spider Girl is the moment she realizes she can just intimidate people into doing what she wants instead of manipulating or explaining things, which she's terrible at.
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Mar 26, 2017 19:53
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My favorite running gag in the second half is when she has a long, in-depth internal monolog that reaches some decision, and then she turns to the person next to her and says nothing but "And, so, for that reason, let's go." And then teleports everyone somewhere with no warning or clarification. She's really bad at communicating.
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Mar 26, 2017 20:21
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So it was just revealed in Kumoko that she was a spider in her past life and her current self is a merging of D and the spider's souls. Having some of D's soul also explains why she learned skills so absurdly fast, which is a satisfying explanation (since "she was forced into difficult situations" isn't really sufficient to explain such absurdly fast growth). A lot of the comments kept talking about how she was at a disadvantage compared with the other reincarnators, which I always thought was bullshit (aside from maybe the very beginning up until soon after her going into the middle stratum), so it's nice to actually be told "yeah she had a pretty massive advantage and didn't become this powerful through sheer grit and moxie". If anything, she was only able to survive under those difficult circumstances thanks to having the advantages granted by D's soul fragment. I also like that this gives an explanation for her kinda being a sociopath and not valuing human life. It would have been really lame if they actually tried to write that off as "lol she was just a quirky antisocial girl" rather than something legitimately abnormal (heck, she's literally cool with eating babies). I have an easier time accepting these qualities in a not-really-human entity than I do a human (since they would just make someone a bad person in the case of the latter).
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Mar 28, 2017 00:14
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Hehe. Now you know why she kept showing up in appraisal as 'Small lesser taratect, no name'. By the way, I love the subtle hint the manga version gives for all her memories being 'false': any time she has a flashback, none of the human beings are shown with faces. Bobulus fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Mar 28, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 00:29
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Bobulus posted:By the way, I love the subtle hint the manga version gives for all her memories being 'false': any time she has a flashback, none of the human beings are shown with faces. I think you also have enough info on the whereabouts of Reincarnators by that point to realize there's one extra. You definitely can tally them up and realize there's one too many, but I forget if that's before or after the reveal.
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Mar 28, 2017 04:28
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And having caught up to that point in Kumoko you now know the title was being completely honest with you from the beginning. She's not a girl that was reincarnated into a spider. She's a spider, so what? She's not a completely screwed up human being, she's actually a fairly enlightened spider. The fact she cares as much as she does is fairly amazing.
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Mar 28, 2017 08:04
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Mulva posted:And having caught up to that point in Kumoko you now know the title was being completely honest with you from the beginning. She's not a girl that was reincarnated into a spider. She's a spider, so what? She's not a completely screwed up human being, she's actually a fairly enlightened spider. The fact she cares as much as she does is fairly amazing. But she only cares about Maou Shoujo Ariel.
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Mar 28, 2017 19:04
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As of where I am (chapter 226) am I supposed to know what Kumoko's goal is (or details about stuff like MA energy, etc)? I understand the fact that the System basically uses "real" magic to create this whole system of skills that people can manipulate, and how stuff like attributes are just the result of the System applying magic to people/creatures.
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Mar 28, 2017 19:08
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Largepotato posted:But she only cares about Maou Shoujo Ariel. ariel is the only person she has anything in common with. even aside from the soul mixing they have very similar backgrounds.
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Mar 28, 2017 19:13
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Is it ever explained how Ariel became the Demon King? She seems a little too strong to be getting involved in the war between demons and humans. Is it related to her wanting to accomplish the same goal as Kumoko that for some reason involves a bunch of people dying?
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Mar 28, 2017 21:10
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Not yet, but we're getting a flashback arc right now that's set when Ariel was just born, and before the System was created, so it might come up eventually. e: Ytlaya posted:As of where I am (chapter 226) am I supposed to know what Kumoko's goal is (or details about stuff like MA energy, etc)? I understand the fact that the System basically uses "real" magic to create this whole system of skills that people can manipulate, and how stuff like attributes are just the result of the System applying magic to people/creatures. Chapter 268 explains what's actually going on Tamba fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Mar 28, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 21:17
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There's two questions there: a) How did Ariel come to be? b) How did Ariel come to be the Demon King? The former is being answered right now in the narrative. The latter was answered a while ago, probably close to where you are in the story. She basically becomes the Demon King because anyone powerful can qualify, and she is extremely above average in power, being so old. Minor spoilers: Yeah, she wants as many people as possible to die, so she's stirring up a war and throwing everything the demons have at it, hoping the humans do the same and there's massive casualties on both sides.
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Mar 28, 2017 21:48
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Finally dove in to Ascendance of a Bookworm and people were right, this is really good. It's too bad the translations are so far behind. The story takes a pretty sharp turn shortly after where they're at, too. I'm in the raws partway through the second part and looking over the chapter titles I have no idea where this is going.
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Mar 29, 2017 01:53
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