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Hostile V posted:The protagonist is a gigantic self-insert who get his rear end kicked more than one normally would in this scenario I assure you that Pitt gets his rear end kicked even more as this book goes on, in addition to other forms of humiliation. He really just survives everything through brawn and reflexes because he's a total lunkhead.
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Apr 14, 2018 01:51
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Mel Mudkiper posted:And yet in all this dunking you have failed to explain even on a fundamental level how you enjoy something while staying disengaged from its messaging. For the same reason that I can enjoy a book with vampires in it without believing that vampires are real. quote:Most people actually get along with their bosses and don't think of killing them. Its only the people who are insecure about their own station in life who begrudge those who hold any sort of authority over them.  shitlib spotted
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Apr 14, 2018 02:33
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Clipperton posted:
I rest my case
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Apr 14, 2018 02:50
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Is shooting a vampire more or less racist than shooting a werewolf
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Apr 14, 2018 06:41
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Frankly, when I've talked about the book being not bad, it's because I enjoyed the action and monster stuff, which at the end of the day is pretty drat boilerplate. I mean, we could be going through an Anita Blake book and have the same enjoyable sections, only interwoven not by weird Libertarian propaganda and might-makes-right mentalities, but instead dimestore romantic drivel and poorly written sex scenes slowly getting more elaborate. The book would still be about a person whose main purpose in life is killing monsters, in a world where monsters actually exist, whether or not they actually automatically mean a threat to be put down. And we'd still be complaining about the trashy prose and uncomfortable mary sue protagonist. At no point in the scenario would anyone say "Boy I sure like what these guys are saying about the world, I think it's helped me decide how I'm going to vote next time!" or anything like that. I do think an interesting point is raised by having vampirism be an automatic morality switch to thunder and lightning, mustache twirling evil. Like, they've already hinted that some monsters can be reasoned with and even allied with, but apparently vamps are a zero tolerance thing? Maybe I'm just too sensitive to Monster Discrimination, being a Flesh-Golem myself (Don't call Persons of People Frankensteins, that's our word now) but I'm probably going to side with the vamps on this issue.
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Apr 14, 2018 07:16
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I just want to thank you for “Persons of People” to refer to golems. Brilliant.
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Apr 14, 2018 07:34
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Stuporstar posted:I bought a copy of Blindness a couple months ago and it's still on my to-read pile. It's been a toss-up between that, Stanislaw Lem's Hospital of the Transfiguration, or A Canticle for Leibowitz next on my list. Just a warning - Blindness gets pretty grim, so be prepared.
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Apr 14, 2018 09:02
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Choco1980 posted:I do think an interesting point is raised by having vampirism be an automatic morality switch to thunder and lightning, mustache twirling evil. Like, they've already hinted that some monsters can be reasoned with and even allied with, but apparently vamps are a zero tolerance thing? Maybe I'm just too sensitive to Monster Discrimination, being a Flesh-Golem myself (Don't call Persons of People Frankensteins, that's our word now) but I'm probably going to side with the vamps on this issue. Maybe vampires are always evil because the people who are turned into vampires have that predilection in the first place? The only vampire that's really had speaking lines was a former hunter and so far it doesn't seem out of line for any of the characters we've already met to become completely amoral if they were given such power.
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Apr 14, 2018 13:53
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Wait. You’re saying I’m a vampire because I deserved it? How dare you!
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Apr 14, 2018 14:07
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The Dresden Files handles it in an interesting way with the White Court vampires. They're psychic vampires that feed on a particular emotion like lust, fear, or rage and can psychically inspire this emotion in people to feed on them. It's hereditary rather than being an infection spread by other vampires and is caused by a demon latched to their soul that needs to be fed, which is why they start going more crazy the longer they go without feeding. They don't actually have any inherent desire to harm people and their court society puts pride in elaborate plots rather than direct action, so they generally aren't harmful and nobody bothers hunting them down until they actually start killing. It's also beneficial for them to stick to feeding in small doses to avoid killing people or drawing attention, so one vampire that feeds on fear does it by becoming a horror movie writer and director.
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Apr 14, 2018 15:07
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Renegret posted:Have you ever seen a vampire poop? The Jane Yellowrock books are about a vampire hunter who ends up working for vampires, and it's got some funny interactions around this. It's a running gag for her to ask the most important vamp about this to piss him off, and for him to refuse to answer. chitoryu12 posted:The Dresden Files handles it in an interesting way with the White Court vampires. They're psychic vampires that feed on a particular emotion like lust, fear, or rage and can psychically inspire this emotion in people to feed on them. It's hereditary rather than being an infection spread by other vampires and is caused by a demon latched to their soul that needs to be fed, which is why they start going more crazy the longer they go without feeding. They don't actually have any inherent desire to harm people and their court society puts pride in elaborate plots rather than direct action, so they generally aren't harmful and nobody bothers hunting them down until they actually start killing. Yeah, it's an interesting concept, but it gets real rape-y in execution for the Lust ones, who are 99% of the ones you meet.
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Apr 14, 2018 15:13
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EVGA Longoria posted:Yeah, it's an interesting concept, but it gets real rape-y in execution for the Lust ones, who are 99% of the ones you meet. I’d say that’s probably the entire point, given that the White Court are almost entirely supernatural rapists. The problematic part is Butcher put one of them on Team Scooby presenting him as a noble man for struggling with his desire to rape. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Apr 14, 2018 |
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Apr 14, 2018 15:18
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I rest my case "workers should get along with bosses and shouldn't begrudge them their authority" is way more pernicious than anything in MHI Now I really want to read a lefty gun-nut werewolf book. MONSTER HUNTER INTERNATIONALE
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Apr 14, 2018 16:39
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it's normal and healthy to project onto your boss all of your frustration at your own inadequacies to an extant that you regularly fantasize violently murdering himClipperton posted:"workers should get along with bosses and shouldn't begrudge them their authority" ah yes, that classic lefty position, the rallying cry of socialists everywhere
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Apr 14, 2018 17:04
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chernobyl kinsman posted:ah yes, that classic lefty position, the rallying cry of socialists everywhere Dude: I am a socialist. When I say I want to read lefty werewolf gun-porn I am not being ironic. When I say workers should absolutely reject bosses' authority I am 100% serious (as for whether they should drop them out of a window...depends on the boss) You and Mel are the ones with the "workers and bosses should just get along" and "if you begrudge your boss's authority it's because of your own inadequacies" attitude, which makes you libs. hth
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Apr 14, 2018 17:42
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A lot of broke brain going on here over a dumb book. 
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Apr 14, 2018 17:47
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Clipperton posted:You and Mel are the ones with the "workers and bosses should just get along" and "if you begrudge your boss's authority it's because of your own inadequacies" attitude, which makes you libs. hth this is not what mel or i are saying you wet dunce
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Apr 14, 2018 18:31
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Clipperton posted:Dude: I am a socialist. When I say I want to read lefty werewolf gun-porn I am not being ironic. When I say workers should absolutely reject bosses' authority I am 100% serious (as for whether they should drop them out of a window...depends on the boss) Dude, why bother wishing death upon someone whose pathetic existence working for uncaring corporate overlords is their own punishment. The worst I ever wished my worst bosses is for them to continue grinding under that corporate wheel until it spits them out broken, having all their efforts go just as unappreciated as they treated the workers under them.
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Apr 14, 2018 19:04
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doesn’t sound like a very exciting action scene tbh
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Apr 14, 2018 19:59
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Clipperton posted:doesn’t sound like a very exciting action scene tbh actually it sounds insanely good
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Apr 14, 2018 20:03
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Proteus Jones posted:I’d say that’s probably the entire point, given that the White Court are almost entirely supernatural rapists.
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Apr 14, 2018 20:31
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I like the part where the good guys fight the monsters.
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Apr 14, 2018 20:35
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I'm reading the copy that's free on Amazon but I notice there's a "Second Edition" out there too, has anyone read this and is it any different?
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Apr 14, 2018 23:06
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sky shark posted:"Flexible minds" is the big thing. Every one of the "hunters" has survived an encounter & came out on top, without the high speed gear. Later in the series it goes into what happens when people don't come out on top, but still survive. You also don't want monsters becoming common knowledge, because IIRC some monsters grow more powerful the more people believe in them. That and you can't have Rangers operating CONUS, but MCB does have various people seconded from higher speed units... who often don't survive. FWIW the survival rate on "hunters" is atrocious as is. This brings up another analogy. There actually are really terrible, problematic elements to sports! The incidence of concussions and other injuries, leading to severe health problems among retired players. General exploitation, leading unfortunate college and pro players destitute or worse after they stop playing. The conduct of the private owners. All of these issues are well known among sports fans and there's a large contingent of sports journalists who love the games, but are diligent about investigating these problems and calling them out. The reason why they care about these issues is because they care about sports. They don't see football or basketball as being sustainable while these problems go unsolved. They want to see continued and even better sports in the future, so these problems are important to them. And that's not to say that you need to be out there protesting every sports game either. It's just that there's a difference between the kind of fan that gets worried when they see a bad tackle, for instance, and one that's super pumped to see a guy get injured. The second kind of fan, I'm afraid, is kind of an rear end in a top hat. Now of course, there's a big difference between celebrating fictional violence versus real violence. But I hope you can see that celebrating the kind of right wing agitprop that Correia writes isn't going to build a relevant and thriving sci fi/fantasy community in the future. Monocled Falcon posted:My reasons for liking the book is that the main plot is well paced and edited, delivering a good thrill ride divorced from the right wing stuff. And the right wing stuff is loving hilarious because it does such a great job of insulting itself. For instance, Greg is a veteran hunter who fights stuff that's far stronger than a human being and he's terrified of facing Owen who's just a really big guy. Thank you, this is actually helpful. A lot of the elements you mention are actually difficult to pull off and there's nothing wrong with enjoying a well paced adventure. At the same time, you've noticed the the problematic elements of the text, but also have a clear position on them. You don't really need to write up a BotL/SMG level analysis of a book to explain why you like it or get value from it, but I hope you got something out of articulating this stuff and I hope you continue to do it!
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Apr 15, 2018 04:29
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Renegret posted:I like the part where the good guys fight the monsters. It took a really long time but it was really cool when the good guys finally showed up and handcuffed the villains and beat one of them up a bit.
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Apr 15, 2018 04:53
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Stuporstar posted:I liked John Windham's Day of the Triffids, despite how stupid the premise is on its face, because he actually used it to take a nuanced look at how humanity would fare after an apocalypse. But then, I trust someone who actually lived through the London Blitz to know how people actually would react to (and help each other out in) a doomsday situation.
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Apr 15, 2018 05:25
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Proteus Jones posted:I’d say that’s probably the entire point, given that the White Court are almost entirely supernatural rapists. The worst part is how for the lust vampires actually having consensual sex with someone you're in love with is poison because the touch of someone whose last sexual act was consensual sex with someone they loved burns them. Like, I get it I guess, love and lust are different things, except if one of the fear dudes can slake his thirst on writing and directing horror movies and everyone involved has a good time idk why this has to be different, and the special supernatural protection for someone who has sex with a loved one seems specifically designed to punish casual sex. Like... there's an onion of weird sexual implications with the lust vampires.
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Apr 15, 2018 05:32
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Since it's touched on, people who are interested in world-building an interesting and not lovely Zombie Apocalypse check out the tabletop RPG Red Markets, where most of the rich barricaded off everything East of the Mississippi and anybody too poor to be able to buy their way through the border wall gets to have a fun time scavenging in shanty-towns in the zombie-wastes. It's explicitly a giant criticism/simulation of crushing institutional poverty and the mental stresses of it with Zombies so it's not cripplingly depressive.
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Apr 15, 2018 05:56
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Internet Wizard posted:It took a really long time but it was really cool when the good guys finally showed up and handcuffed the villains and beat one of them up a bit. agreed he loving deserved it
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Apr 15, 2018 12:11
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Clipperton posted:Dude: I am a socialist. When I say I want to read lefty werewolf gun-porn I am not being ironic. When I say workers should absolutely reject bosses' authority I am 100% serious (as for whether they should drop them out of a window...depends on the boss) you're bad at being a socialist and it's funny that you also try to use that as an excuse to be wrong about books, lol
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Apr 15, 2018 12:49
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pospysyl posted:Thank you, this is actually helpful. A lot of the elements you mention are actually difficult to pull off and there's nothing wrong with enjoying a well paced adventure. At the same time, you've noticed the the problematic elements of the text, but also have a clear position on them. You don't really need to write up a BotL/SMG level analysis of a book to explain why you like it or get value from it, but I hope you got something out of articulating this stuff and I hope you continue to do it! And I have to say, I originally attributed the problematic issues to ineptness when blending tropes together, but I'm starting to think it might be something more sinister.
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Apr 16, 2018 04:04
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quote:We called for help and Milo retrieved us an hour later with the jacked-up Chevy. We drove south in silence. Our mission was at a dead end. The Feds were running us off. Harbinger was in a bad mood as we stopped for gas in a small town. Milo apologized, but apparently the newly purchased truck got about three miles to the gallon. Harbinger gives Chuck Mead, the Army Ranger with the SAW, to Boone as his replacement for Roberts. He gives Sam the major honor of reforming Team Haven in the Intermountain West region and leading it, so he's going to get some of the newbies we haven't met yet. The rest of the newbie squad is going with Julie, Milo, and Harbinger to try and dig up intel; while they're officially not supposed to be hunting these vampires, they figure they can "accidentally" stumble upon them. quote:We were dropped off at the little airport. The sun was gradually setting over the Georgia countryside and mosquitoes and little evil gnats swarmed over our bodies. The Hind was prepped, and we made our way toward it, carrying duffel bags and heavy cases. The airport manager sat in a lawn chair in front of his little rusted trailer, an old gray dog curled at his feet. He waved at us lazily. All right, so the only part he cares about is making Julie mad. Good to know he's honest. quote:"I'm fine, but I've got one request. Stay out of my business. What happens between me and Grant is between me and Grant. Not you, not Earl, not Milo, or Sam or anybody else who feels the need to harass me about it. I know how you guys see him, but I know him better than that. I'm sure he had a reason for what he did." Hey, I wonder what's the absolute worst thing Pitt could do in this situation. Like, the one thing you never ever want to say right after being told to stay out of a girl's business and quit messing with her about her relationship. quote:"Are you going to dump him?" I asked, suddenly hopeful. "Because he panicked and left me behind?" It's that. That is the worst thing Pitt could do. quote:"What did I just say?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQeezCdF4mk
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Apr 16, 2018 14:30
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Anyone else reading Skippy as Billy Witchdoctor from Aqua teen Hunger Force?
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Apr 16, 2018 15:25
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If Pitt's scar runs evenly down the middle of his head, and he's got as much hair as the guy he's a standin for, does that mean he looks like:
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Apr 16, 2018 15:40
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Clipperton posted:If Pitt's scar runs evenly down the middle of his head, and he's got as much hair as the guy he's a standin for, does that mean he looks like: The true origin story.
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Apr 16, 2018 15:50
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Larry posted on his blog way back in 2009 about wanting people to make real lyrics and potentially do a full recording of "Hold The Pig Steady".quote:EDIT: A google search shows a surprising number of hits for “Hold the Pig Steady.” Apparently holding your pig steady for various things is rather important, and should not in any way be taken lightly. Monster Hunter Nation is not responsible for any injuries sustained from lack of proper pig manipulation. Void in California. Another blog, Redneck MP, posted his own example. A true work of art, in my opinion: quote:daddy was dreaming screaming
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Apr 16, 2018 15:58
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Do I even need to point out the implicit colonial racism of Skippy or can I just trust you guys to pick up on that one yourself
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Apr 16, 2018 16:07
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You don't have to Really, it's okay
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Apr 16, 2018 16:14
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Renegret posted:You don't have to I dunno, it sounds like you're not picking up on it Might need my help
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Apr 16, 2018 16:14
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Renegret posted:You don't have to what if this book is actually pro-vampire propaganda
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Apr 16, 2018 16:58
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