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The bit where he accidentally predicted that Taylor would at some point be able to control other capes around act 8 or 9 was kind of hilarious.
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Feb 2, 2018 05:43
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Well Daybreak was. It was. The battles were pretty cool and well thought through. And the campaigns too.
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Feb 2, 2018 08:32
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Affi posted:Well Daybreak was. It was. What's daybreak? The ward arc? That's not even the best part of the story so far
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Feb 2, 2018 09:05
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:What's daybreak? The ward arc? That's not even the best part of the story so far Sorry it's a meh webserial about a preussian war fetishist being sucked into a teenage girls body as a familiar and mistreated for months and also almost raped. But the battles are p good.
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Feb 2, 2018 14:06
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Autonomous Monster posted:
Quoting this post because today's chapter epitomizes these issues so much. Instead of advancing the plot in any meaningful way, the author spends 2/3 of the chapter in the head of a tertiary (at best) character as she reminisces about her dad teaching her to cast evil magic spells. This is not an efficient use of your word count, author! He's juggling like 5 or 6 more important plot threads in the story right now, which is already spreading it WAAAAAY too thin, no need to waste an entire chapter like this. I think I need to step away from this story for a year or so, reading as they're released is just frustrating the poo poo out of me
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Feb 2, 2018 15:37
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The Shortest Path posted:The bit where he accidentally predicted that Taylor would at some point be able to control other capes around act 8 or 9 was kind of hilarious. He even name drops Khepri at some point while he was looking up scarab-related stuff I think. Him reading only 1 Arc per week and being able to fully digest it leads to him kind of figuring things out a lot easier. Also they are both just generally competent readers and pick up on tons of beats/themes that I never would have noticed. I love it, and they're coverage of Ward so far hasn't disappointed. It will be interesting to see how they adapt to doing only 2-3 chapters per week now as opposed to entire arcs.
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Feb 2, 2018 16:09
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Cicero posted:Yeah Zorian was annoying in early Mother of Learning, but I started reading Wandering Inn (at 1.12 R right now) and wow Ryoka is a far more unlikeable jackass. I don't understand the point of writing a main character who's such an rear end in a top hat. And not, like a glorious bastard or funny rear end in a top hat or something like that, she just loving sucks. Is it some kind of Mary Sue wish fulfillment thing where she gets to be successful and surrounded by friends and praised even though she's a huge douche to everyone around her? And honestly the main character seems only marginally better for this, but at least Erin seems like she's trying to be a decent person. I hope this poo poo gets better over time. Gonna go against the thread here and say that I actually think it gets much, much worse over time but it’s Erin that’s the obvious infalliable author self insert Mary Sue and Ryoka is also a Mary Sue but sometimes fails. Safe to say I dropped it after promises that “it gets better”. Kind of sad since some of the side stories were cool but yeesh I cant see why anyone tolerates Erin anymore while complaining about Ryoka.
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Feb 2, 2018 18:47
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:If anyone is looking for more webfiction, I blew through Worth the Candle in a few days. The main character gets thrown into a fantasy world based off all pen and paper worlds he created all shoved together, it's not a happy place. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11478249/chapters/25740126 I'm not sure how quite to describe it, but I think the author is getting worse at telling his own story over time. I mean, there are a lot of things I could complain about, but overall it's not the worst thing I've read. 11th rated on top web fiction. Yet, I think I'm witnessing a story-specific brain degradation in author as he converges every character towards his hyper-rationalist ideal. Net result is a downgrade in story telling as it goes on, because everything loses weight when the characters spend heavy amounts of time on disgustingly far-fetched (and often meta) hypotheses that invariably turn out to be true because they're oh-so-smart. I mean, it was always a 'rationalist' fic, but the author is clearly 'learning' how to write 'rationalist' fiction 'better' over time.
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Feb 2, 2018 20:16
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The new Wandering Inn chapter is really crazy and good. I was initially disappointed we got a side story chapter right after finally getting back to Erin, but goddamn was it worth it. Regarding 'rationalist' fiction, keep in mind the people who write that schlock are the same weirdos that jack off to My Little Pony AI death cult fanfiction and Big Yud, and should be taken exactly as seriously as that would suggest. Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Feb 3, 2018 |
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Feb 3, 2018 04:26
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I'm reading PracGuide while I wait for Ward to update and I'm at the Battle of Marchford and the greenskin interlude slaaaaaaps
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Feb 3, 2018 06:27
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Welp, Snag & company sure aren't loving around. Rain, your repeated insistence that these guys aren't coming after you for Kiss/Kill reasons really isn't helping me trust you. I'm having trouble thinking of what you could have done to earn this level of enmity, and all I can really think of is you either caused the event that lead to the group trigger or killed the fifth member for a power boost. Also you have to know more about the fifth member then you're saying, you wouldn't have pick the username 'of5' if you didn't know anything about he fifth member.
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Feb 3, 2018 09:25
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Catching up with the Wandering Inn. I'm at 3.16- Erin is bored and thinks the highest ideal of humankind is to be a celebrity. What the gently caress. e: and now Shakespeare is some sort of magic. I want to hurt whoever wrote this.
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Feb 3, 2018 16:40
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Yeah it went through a weird patch around Christmas, it seems to be recovering now.
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Feb 3, 2018 17:06
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Alright I finished the green skins interlude of PracGuide and I fuckin love it. "okay, let's trap a bunch of demon corrupted soldiers in this one street, blow the street the gently caress up, and then just send Catherine and a company of deserters with nothing left to lose on a suicide run"
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Feb 3, 2018 18:02
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Nettle Soup posted:Yeah it went through a weird patch around Christmas, it seems to be recovering now. Basically everything between Lyonette turning into a decent person and today's update sucked, sans some brief stuff with Ryoka.
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Feb 3, 2018 19:56
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Objection: The Toren chapter was solid loving gold.
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Feb 3, 2018 20:44
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The Shortest Path posted:Objection: The Toren chapter was solid loving gold. That is today's update for those of us who aren't subscribed on Patreon.
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Feb 3, 2018 20:58
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Yo the chapter of pracguide where you find out that Blacks real motivation is just pure fuckin spitefulness and a desire to defy the narrative laws that govern reality and tell fate to huff a dick is the craziest loving thing Jesus Christ
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Feb 4, 2018 02:27
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Yo the chapter of pracguide where you find out that Blacks real motivation is just pure fuckin spitefulness and a desire to defy the narrative laws that govern reality and tell fate to huff a dick is the craziest loving thing Jesus Christ my favorite pracguide bits are the ones around the Democratic Communist Diplomat, but Black is arguably more important to the narrative*
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Feb 4, 2018 06:02
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Random rear end in a top hat posted:Welp, Snag & company sure aren't loving around. It might be that the dream thing is a form of the Kiss/Kill phenomenon; shards generally nudge people rather than mind control them, after all. I'm not a big fan of the male members of the therapy group team so far. They seem sort of interchangeably shady, and their powersets are overly complicated.
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Feb 4, 2018 12:14
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GreyjoyBastard posted:my favorite pracguide bits are the ones around the Democratic Communist Diplomat, but Black is arguably more important to the narrative* Black is basically Berserk as one character in story and it ruuuuules Im really glad I came back to this, I'm up to the beginning of the battle for liesse against William and the angel and I'm loving it more and more with every chapter Dying to know what the Bards deal is too
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Feb 4, 2018 18:02
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Silver2195 posted:I'm not a big fan of the male members of the therapy group team so far. They seem sort of interchangeably shady, and their powersets are overly complicated. Eh, not really. Rain is mega shady, Tristan has been accused of being shady but seems like he's just stuck in a bad situation, and Chris is only slightly shady. Kenzie is shadier than Tristan or Chris and also has a more complicated power.
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Feb 4, 2018 18:23
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There's definitely something sketchy going on with Tristan and/or Byron, and I don't know which it's going to be pulling it
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Feb 4, 2018 20:44
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Yeah Tristan/Byron are definitely shadier than Kenzie imo, even if only one of them is probably the actual shady person (we just can't tell which) We don't know poo poo about Chris yet really so it's hard to call him shady, Ashley/Sveta don't come off as shady at all so watch Ashley secretly be a criminal mastermind E: Also I agree with Rain and T/B being similar, because in both cases the shadiness comes from trying to figure out if they did/want to do something terrible to someone (the cluster/the other bro) despite claiming they're innocent. Insurrectionist fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 22:55
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21 Muns posted:Eh, not really. Rain is mega shady, Tristan has been accused of being shady but seems like he's just stuck in a bad situation, and Chris is only slightly shady. Kenzie is shadier than Tristan or Chris and also has a more complicated power. More complicated than Tristan, I guess, but less so than Chris, if only because it feels like we're not supposed to think too hard about the details of Kenzie's power (which is true for most Tinker powers, I guess), while it feels like we're supposed to keep track of Chris's various forms and their associated emotional states and aftereffects. Though I acknowledge that's a subjective impression.
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Feb 4, 2018 22:55
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I don't think it's that Wildbow doesn't want us the readers to think about it as much as Kenzie doesn't want everyone else thinking about it. There's a big discrepancy between what she's said ("oh I do cameras and things for surveillance") and what we've seen her do Like program a bunch of admittedly rudimentary AIs And then you add in that there's something weird about her dad and it comes up to Kenzie is hiding dome poo poo
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Feb 4, 2018 23:33
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I sat down and read all of Twig because of that one person in this thread who keeps on saying that twig is good and people should read it. Anyways the verdict is that Twig is good and people should read it.
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Feb 4, 2018 23:43
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That's me you're welcome
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Feb 5, 2018 00:38
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I love my dead trans frankenstein
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Feb 5, 2018 00:38
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Twig is good and you should read it. Ward though, just didn't grab me... I need to catch up on it I guess.
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Feb 5, 2018 01:43
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Nettle Soup posted:Twig is good and you should read it. Ward though, just didn't grab me... I need to catch up on it I guess. The first arc is okay but does a good job introducing the new setting The later arcs are much more enjoyable because they're not a traditional superhero fighting guys story and there's so much going on under the surface that we kind of have an idea about but not enough to predict what's going to happen
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Feb 5, 2018 01:47
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The way Wildbow has been structuring story arcs in Ward is pretty different from Worm. The approach of the protagonist is very different from his other works, and the two combined get Ward off to a slower start than the other stories. I don't know how far you read in, the first two arcs are spent updating the world and introducing the main players. I think he has spent a bit more time establishing characters and building tension, and we're just now starting to see that start to pay out a bit. Ward thoughts Rain comes across a lot less shady after this chapter to me. He either did or allowed to happen something that hurt a lot of people and probably caused his cluster trigger. I'm guessing this is why he ended up in therapy as well. His cageyness/evasiveness seems to stem from knowing how bad he hosed up causing him to fear that anyone learning the truth is going to turn him away. Snag did make 2 different comments which leaves the situation muddy: he wanted Rain to suffer, and he needed Rain dead. So we really have 2 mysteries and we've only really gotten info, however vaguely, on the first one (reasons they really want him to suffer). What everyone does when it comes out ties nicely into the theme of second chances and do some people not deserve them that is going on in the story. Saw someone suggesting that maybe his emotion power effects himself, which would be pretty lovely to have on you all the time. Kenzie's power is super interesting to me, because there really isn't any way to prevent it, and it is probably harder to detect than you'd think. Watch the Cosmos (original) segment about flatland for more detail, but if you think about a wall to block line of sight, her power can view it as just a line on the ground not obstructing anything. Being able to peer into a place from a higher dimension is pretty drat great. The functionality of her chat-bots isn't close to an AI. They're very similar to the programs Dragon made while fully-restricted (unable to make or even research AI) to web-crawl and look for information and perform tasks on that information. The scary part is when they build her a fancy super-computer and unlimited internet. Then she deploys bots for every person of interest and any info about them that is on a device hooked to the web is going to get found sooner or later, and probably also correlates masks to secret identities as well as patterns of activities and poo poo like that. Then all she needs to do is convince Victoria to deploy a giant camera-satellite to watch everything all the time.
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Feb 5, 2018 09:01
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I want to know how that plays into her dad being weird, and also j want to see the rest of the team realize it and go "oh wait gently caress no this is worse than I expected"
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Feb 5, 2018 09:32
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More PracGuide stuff: the interlude about Wekesa becoming the Warlock loving ruuuuuuuuuuules
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Feb 5, 2018 21:39
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PracGuide speculation, spoilered for recentness: So I have a theory about what Black is up to now, on thought. Liesse is a place where names can be taken- see Chidder last time. The Black Knight may only pass their name on death… usually. Black has literally every death flag in the world pointed right at his head, and he knows it. Black is here to hand Catherine the title willingly, using Liesse as the medium. This accomplishes all of his short term goals in one swoop- 1. Survive the next year. 2. Consolidate Catherine’s power. 3. Prevent his friends and loyalists from going wild at his death. 4. Put him back in a position to affect the “narrative-” the Nameless but wise mentor figure to our up and coming Queen. 5. And most importantly, stick a finger right into the eye of narrative inevitability. After all, he’s always been said to not particularly exert his power directly. Losing it wouldn’t cripple him like it would say, Warlock. This also sets up possibly the most embarrassing and therefore probable possible future: Lord Chancellor Black.
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Feb 6, 2018 02:56
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Just read Captains flashback and Jesus Christ I thought Warlocks was metal, she turned into totally not a werewolf and murdered the god of war This is some Malazan level poo poo
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Feb 6, 2018 04:40
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So, Ward. Let’s see if I’ve got this this right: First, the group that Snag’s army (30 to 60 parahumans, jfc) is targeting isn’t Team Group Therapy. It’s a cell/colony of Fallen that Rain is apparently a part of, who make MUCH more sense as the targets of such overwhelming firepower. That’s gonna be pretty fun to explain to the rest of the group: “So, our main superpowered allies in this fight are a bunch of racist teenage doomsday cultists, and an extremely suspicious weirdo I met on the internet.” I’m also currently thinking that the fire at the mall was a Fallen terrorist attack or something, which would explain Rain’s involvement. I also think that despite what Rain has been saying it actually IS Kiss/Kill that’s the reason Snag & co. are so fixated on him; I don’t think he was the mastermind (doesn’t seem the type AND too young), they’ve just focused their emotions on him because of their mental connection and Rain FEELS like he deserves it so he downplays that aspect. I’m pretty excited for where this story is going, both in the short and long term. With the recurring theme of ‘secrets’ and ‘the limits of redemption’, the inevitable confrontation between Vicky and Amy is... sure gonna be something.
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Feb 6, 2018 08:55
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I must say this latest ward chapter was excellent. If you've done any reading on cults this is extra creepy. If you listen to any last podcast on the left, this gives me heavy vibes of the latest jonestown episode. Also every time I see people semi-defending the fallen I think they just don't get it. For RA: Rain was raised by the fallen, probably when he got sent to his aunt. He's probably living in one of the places mentioned in the chapter where Victoria confronts the fallen members recruiting people fresh from the portal. In terms of the fire, fire doors open outwards so I'd guess that he was involved with blocking the doors. The reason why he says it isn't kiss/kill is they get a rotating view of "what happened before we triggered" and his involves locking them in. In reality there is probably some kiss/kill going on as every night they're forced to dream about their trauma. He definitely wasn't a ringleader for the attack, but in that sort of environment the combination of social pressure and brainwashing leads to people doing really hosed up things. And now he gets to view it every night in his dreams followed by 3 people talking about their plots to kill him. Agreed on the 'secrets and lies and the limits of redemption' being a giant clusterfuck for our heroes (and also the society in general) to wrestle with while poo poo goes sideways being a great story.
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Feb 6, 2018 14:18
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its cool how you can see every aspect of the powers the group has explained in the head of snag in the dream
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Feb 6, 2018 15:20
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violent sex idiot posted:its cool how you can see every aspect of the powers the group has explained in the head of snag in the dream The only one I didn't see was the tinker power
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Feb 6, 2018 15:28
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