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Ytlaya posted:I feel like Rain's tinker specialization is the sort of thing that is kind of lovely on its own but would be extremely useful for other tinkers (like Kenzie) to "absorb" (since it seems like it basically lets you attach things to you and use them as an extension of your body). I suspect that Rain is learning more from Bonesaw, given that he's being used to maintain Ashley's prosthetics.
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Aug 19, 2018 18:17
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Ytlaya posted:I feel like Rain's tinker specialization is the sort of thing that is kind of lovely on its own but would be extremely useful for other tinkers (like Kenzie) to "absorb" (since it seems like it basically lets you attach things to you and use them as an extension of your body).
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Aug 19, 2018 18:17
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PracGuide: Why is Thief so very bad at this?
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Aug 20, 2018 06:48
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SITB posted:PracGuide: Why is Thief so very bad at this? We should never be surprised at Thief's incompetence at murder.
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Aug 20, 2018 10:04
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SITB posted:PracGuide: Why is Thief so very bad at this? Apparently Malicia thinks she’s still fighting a villain.
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Aug 20, 2018 17:13
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PracGuide: I love Cat SO MUCH! Also WHY is Thief so BAD at this?!? 
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Aug 20, 2018 21:20
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builds character posted:Apparently Malicia thinks she’s still fighting a villain. (PracGuild) I do like that better as an explanation for her actions than "Malicia is actually incompetent and it was only Black that was story-savvy". She's seemingly made some significant missteps lately, and it'd be really unsatisfying if Cat beats her due to her picking up an idiot ball, but her simply misunderstanding Cat's Role would be fitting.
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Aug 20, 2018 22:10
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Looking forward to this Ward chapter and not just because we get to meet Goddess. edit this ward arc or whatever Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Aug 22, 2018 |
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Aug 22, 2018 01:32
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PracGuide: Well, I guess Malicia's ultimate trump card was having a secret second simulacrum stowed away in Keter that Archer killed off screen, while being Archer. Cool.
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Aug 22, 2018 06:04
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SerSpook posted:PracGuide: Well, I guess Malicia's ultimate trump card was having a secret second simulacrum stowed away in Keter that Archer killed off screen, while being Archer. Cool. Not precisely.  I did not call that twist.
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Aug 24, 2018 05:12
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Bard's back too.
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Aug 24, 2018 05:22
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lurksion posted:Bard's back too. Yes, and it's time to guess how many levels of yomi they're on.
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Aug 24, 2018 12:51
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I feel like Malicia is going to be horribly murdered by Heroes for this. She just went from actually playing second fiddle to Catherine on the whole "every hero on the continent wants me dead" thing to being the one that set the Dead King free. She's dead and just doesn't realize it yet. Heck, Black was going all evil villain of doom and plundering and slaughtering cities, and was probably set up to eventually collapse as the first "phase" of his plan wildly succeeds and then everything goes to poo poo, and now he's suddenly way lower priority as well. I think the baby is Procer and the Bard has decided to go ahead and wipe the board as far as they go and make something better. Cordelia is basically hosed, even harder than Malicia.
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Aug 24, 2018 14:38
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PracGuide: The thing is, Cat genuinely can't make a deal with Cordelia because she was declared Arch-heretic by the Salian conclave (which operated under the tacit approval of Cordelia). All deals with Cat are null and void as far as the Grand Alliance is concerned. The ultimate spiteful move here is to wait for Procer to be attacked by the Dead King and possibly the Tyrant as well, and when Cordelia is left searching for allies to reverse her predicament Cat can go: "This situation seems awfully familiar, a good kingdom is being conquered while the rest of the world sits back and watches? Where have I seen it before, HMMM. Enjoy your occupation, First Prince" But I doubt even the most resentful of Callowans is willing to let the Dead King take over Procer out of spite, even if only because they wouldn't trust the Dead King to stop there.
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Aug 25, 2018 08:05
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Ward 9.2: Well, poo poo! That was a really bad idea!
Random Asshole fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Aug 25, 2018 |
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Aug 25, 2018 19:19
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PracGuide how much of this is black’s plan?
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Aug 27, 2018 19:15
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PracGuide: Ratface
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Aug 28, 2018 07:46
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builds character posted:PracGuide how much of this is black’s plan? Absolutely none of it. My take: Malicia just made a terrible, terrible, error.
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Aug 28, 2018 13:54
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I'm curious to hear more from Black. We haven't gotten much of a view into his goals ever since the events after the mess at Liesse, and it seemed like something about his perspective had fundamentally changed. edit: I agree that Malicia is definitely hosed in the medium-long term. She can definitely screw Catherine over in the interim, but there's no way she actually ends up coming out ahead in the longer term.
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Aug 28, 2018 19:40
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I've been trudging through TWI, and this sounds like a weird criticism considering its genre but I kind of wish that the author had avoided making it an isekai story- if Erin and Ryoka had just been some random peasant jerks who engaged with the world in a counterintuitive way we would've skipped all the weird "Erin gets really sanctimonious and tries to elevate the primitives by inventing chess/singing/theater/christmas/the united nations" stuff, which in turn would've cut out like 70% of the sections I've had major problems with so far. It would be harder to explore the setting without an explicit fish out of water setup, but I think a lot of the core narratives would've been better served in the long run. (This gets down to reader preference more than objective criticism, but I'm also of the mind that if your chapter summary is "Erin walks around handing out lizard handjobs," that is a chapter you do not need.)
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Aug 28, 2018 20:26
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Ward 9.3 is really intense. I like how it's not quite clear that they're mind whammied until Byron pops out and starts freaking out, it's very well written. Also a Goddess-controlled Kenzie is loving terrifying.
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Aug 28, 2018 20:53
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The Shortest Path posted:Ward 9.3 is really intense. I like how it's not quite clear that they're mind whammied until Byron pops out and starts freaking out, it's very well written. Also a Goddess-controlled Kenzie is loving terrifying. Yeah, this is already a great arc.  I liked the comment that Goddess might not actually be that proficient a schemer or manager, her powers are just overpowered bullshit. If anything, she's quite probably using them as a crutch. Also, loved the Amy parts. This will go well.
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Aug 28, 2018 21:37
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Ytlaya posted:I'm curious to hear more from Black. We haven't gotten much of a view into his goals ever since the events after the mess at Liesse, and it seemed like something about his perspective had fundamentally changed. I assume book 4 ends with Malicia defeated, but for that to happen from her plans to gently caress other Cat backfiring would be way too obvious for how the story's gone too far. Seems more likely that she has another plan in progress to deal with the obvious repercussions of triggering a villain death flag, and her defeat will come in some other way.
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Aug 29, 2018 02:30
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The Shortest Path posted:Ward 9.3 is really intense. I like how it's not quite clear that they're mind whammied until Byron pops out and starts freaking out, it's very well written. Also a Goddess-controlled Kenzie is loving terrifying. I though it was pretty explicit that they were whammied before that. The narration just doesn't make a big deal about it because Victoria is mostly just confused about it and not upset or fighting it.
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Aug 29, 2018 02:31
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Yeah, I really liked Ward 9.3. Byron is a really, really brave guy, holy poo poo.
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Aug 29, 2018 03:57
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Plorkyeran posted:I assume book 4 ends with Malicia defeated, but for that to happen from her plans to gently caress other Cat backfiring would be way too obvious for how the story's gone too far. Seems more likely that she has another plan in progress to deal with the obvious repercussions of triggering a villain death flag, and her defeat will come in some other way. Hasn't Malicia always seemed kinda weak in the "manipulating narratives" department? Like, that has mostly been Black's thing, and I think Black was 100% correct when he anticipated Malicia's plan to use Akua's superweapon being a terrible idea. Granted, Malicia was involved in that "install a Empire-aligned Callowan as King/Queen of Callow to permanently make them part of the Empire" idea, but I'm not sure how much of that plan was just Black. I actually think that Malicia makes a better villain than Akua, in the sense that her not being a loving lunatic actually makes her evil more distasteful. Akua is too fun to be the sort of character you actively want to fail (and she was really doomed all along, since she embraced a very typical Evil role), but I really want to see Malicia face the consequences of her actions. (I'm actually kinda happy that Malicia beat Cat in the whole Keter segment, since I was thinking the whole time that it would have been pretty implausible for her to not have some plan in place to deal with the Woe's presence.) Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Aug 29, 2018 |
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Aug 29, 2018 06:13
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We've had multiple characters outright say that Malicia isn't great at the whole narrative thing and it was all Black, so obviously it can't be true. Mostly it's that I want to see Catherine defeat Malicia at her strongest, not win out of inevitability because it turned out that Malicia wasn't very good at the thing that kept her in power for so long. Narrative doom was great for a character like Akua, but Malicia should be a very different sort of enemy.
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Aug 29, 2018 06:58
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PracGuide: Dammit Cat! Just hug him and tell him he’s your best friend and you love him and ... yeah I’m too invested
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Aug 29, 2018 08:32
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Practical Guide: Does it seem like the author is regretting how he has written Adjutant as so hyper-competent and -loyal? He's been benched for practically this entire book, kept away from the main plot for fairly contrived reasons, i.e. he missed the battle with the invaders because he was guiding the Daoine soldiers or something like that. I wonder if the author just can't think up good storylines when there is Mr. Fix-it around to pick up the pieces of Cat's most recent mess.
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Aug 29, 2018 13:51
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Masego is the best.
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Aug 29, 2018 22:09
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Plorkyeran posted:Mostly it's that I want to see Catherine defeat Malicia at her strongest, not win out of inevitability because it turned out that Malicia wasn't very good at the thing that kept her in power for so long. Narrative doom was great for a character like Akua, but Malicia should be a very different sort of enemy. I don't know; Cat is never going to out-plan Malicia, and I feel like it's sort of appropriate for Malicia to be the cause of her own downfall. If Cat does "directly" defeat Malicia, I imagine it would have to be through some clever narrative manipulation, since as mentioned Cat won't out-plan her otherwise and Malicia already knows about her raw power. edit: Was it ever explicitly stated whether non-combat names like Dread Empress get some actual superpowers related to scheming and interpersonal relations? I know Malicia has some Glory Girl-esque awe aura thing, but not sure what else. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Aug 30, 2018 |
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Aug 30, 2018 02:24
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Silynt posted:Practical Guide: Does it seem like the author is regretting how he has written Adjutant as so hyper-competent and -loyal? He's been benched for practically this entire book, kept away from the main plot for fairly contrived reasons, i.e. he missed the battle with the invaders because he was guiding the Daoine soldiers or something like that. I wonder if the author just can't think up good storylines when there is Mr. Fix-it around to pick up the pieces of Cat's most recent mess. PracGuide: I think it's a screen time issue. Hakram was super important along the end of book 1 and all of books 2 and 3, and Masego and Vivienne were front and center at the start of this book, so now Cat travels with Indrani and Akua to give them (Archer in particular) more screen time. EDIT: quote:edit: Was it ever explicitly stated whether non-combat names like Dread Empress get some actual superpowers related to scheming and interpersonal relations? I know Malicia has some Glory Girl-esque awe aura thing, but not sure what else. Terrblis was mentioned to have warfare related aspects, and presumably Sorcerous had aspects relating to magic. I am pretty sure that a Name like Dread Empress/Emperor is pretty flexible in the amount of paradigms it can support, and shape its individual manifestation to fit its bearer. SITB fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Aug 30, 2018 |
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Aug 30, 2018 07:14
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There's a bit from Akua in the first few books saying her name lets her scheme better than she should be able to given her age and Hierarch has stuff explicitly about knowing what to say to sway people to specific views so it's a safe bet Malicia has something going on.
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Aug 31, 2018 04:51
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quote:(PracGuide) “I know he’s not interested in bedplay, Cat,” Indrani snorted. “Come on. Last time he saw me shirtless he asked if I needed healing.”
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Aug 31, 2018 21:14
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I wish there were more good webserials. I’m not even that picky! I read so many it seems but there’s always a wait for the next one. Maybe I should try gods are bastards? But the first two chapters were just so dull.
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Aug 31, 2018 22:15
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Is Indrani supposed to be like fantasy-Mongolian or something? That's how I imagine her.
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Sep 1, 2018 01:52
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Affi posted:I wish there were more good webserials. TGaB is fairly laid back in general but it does indeed get far more interesting after the first couple of expositiony chapters. It's very character driven in the beginning but in a way that highlights everyone's flaws pretty harshly so to better show their growth in the long term, so keep that in mind too.
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Sep 1, 2018 14:00
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I need to catch up on ward, when was the Kenzie interlude
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Sep 1, 2018 15:47
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Kenzie interlude was the second to last chapter of arc 7, published on June 26th.
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Sep 2, 2018 02:29
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Mother of learning: Huh, didn't see that coming. If everything we heard wasn't a horrible lie, that's actually a decent way of wrapping up red robe's thing.
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Sep 3, 2018 07:34
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