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xianxia is an ancap's wetdream up to and including the part where they won't admit they'd be some terminally low-level dweeb who gets wiped out by their self-insert
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Oct 29, 2018 01:17
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The Sandman posted:Yet another way in which Forge of Destiny is ludicrously superior to pretty much everything else out there. It really is great and "scratches the itch" of wanting a fun fantasy fighting thing without all the dumb bullshit from other web novels (and some genuinely great character/setting writing on top of that). The characters are both well-defined and "consistent" in a way that surprisingly seems to elude most other WN writers. The best way I can think of describing it is that I'm constantly getting the feeling from other WNs that characters are behaving in certain ways out of a direct effort to pander to the audience, while in FoD it feels like characters behave in ways you'd actually expect them to given their characterization, even if it might not work as well as fan-service. A good example of this is probably Han Jian's connection with Ling Qi naturally fading due to her not spending time with him; in a more poorly written WN, characters like him would just arbitrarily stay invested in the protagonist (because the protagonist is an audience self-insert of sorts). Sampatrick posted:Part 2 starts either next week or the week after that and the rewrite is by Yrsillar. Ah, nice! Since I forget a lot of the details of earlier FoD, it'll be fun to read the rewrite.
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Oct 29, 2018 02:00
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So I've started reading Cultivation Chat Group. The translation is a bit stilted and there are obviously some cultural differences that work their way in, but the inherent humor of a dude cooking up mystical bullshit medicine on his dorm room hotplate is enough to cover it so far.
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Oct 29, 2018 08:20
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Bookworm continues to be 90% progress reports and 10% juicy interesting dramatic plot. This is the problem with net fiction that also shows up in most fanfics; these are essentially stream of consciousness works with little to no editing for content. It’s hard even when writing a traditional novel where you already have the order of events pinned down not to be too wordy or include everything that pops into your head regardless of whether it adds to the story, so that is magnified quite a bit when you’re writing a story with no clear ending in mind and you’re just trying to pump out a chapter to upload every day. Unfortunately Bookworm gets to the point where the only obstacle is time so it’s a lot like reading a story about someone managing their Facebook game. The actual conflict and drama are lost among the protagonist going down a checklist and checking off crap that requires no effort. Now this would be normal in a power fantasy net novel but for Bookworm it’s kind of sad because the kid used to have so many huge, compelling obstacles to overcome.
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Oct 29, 2018 19:25
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Getsuya posted:Bookworm continues to be 90% progress reports and 10% juicy interesting dramatic plot. This is the problem with net fiction that also shows up in most fanfics; these are essentially stream of consciousness works with little to no editing for content. It’s hard even when writing a traditional novel where you already have the order of events pinned down not to be too wordy or include everything that pops into your head regardless of whether it adds to the story, so that is magnified quite a bit when you’re writing a story with no clear ending in mind and you’re just trying to pump out a chapter to upload every day. A lot of web novels are like some bizarre wish fulfillment where the wish is "being a productive human being who accomplishes things." edit: It's like how RPGs/MMOs are a simplified abstraction of the process of self-improvement, and web novels go even further and remove even the abstraction of actual work on the part of the reader.
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Oct 29, 2018 19:49
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Korean web novels have a weird cliche of the MC being frugal to the point of stupidity which is different specially once they are as rich as some countries.
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Oct 29, 2018 20:56
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meh, that's just web serial format in general. The author has no desire or obligation to wrap things up quickly. The pacing definitely suffers for it but a lot of these types of stories are designed from the ground up to be open-ended enough to let the plot drag out forever (or at least until the readers jump ship).
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Oct 29, 2018 21:41
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Fallorn posted:Korean web novels have a weird cliche of the MC being frugal to the point of stupidity which is different specially once they are as rich as some countries. This is one of the dozens of things i disliked about Legendary Moonlight Sculptor
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Oct 30, 2018 00:26
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drilldo squirt posted:Am I the only one who kinda sees a link between these and the Fountainhead ? In that both web novels authors and Ayn Rand had to make a fantasy world with tenuous connections to reality in order to justify the things they want to do? This is a setting that basically has adamantium, free energy, and perfect full spectrum electromagnetic shielding and projection. Instead of realizing they're most way to a post scarciety society a bunch of rich dudes gently caress off to create libertopia where they're literally using gold as the medium of exchange. Algid fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Oct 30, 2018 |
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Oct 30, 2018 05:37
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Getsuya posted:Bookworm continues to be 90% progress reports and 10% juicy interesting dramatic plot. This is the problem with net fiction that also shows up in most fanfics; these are essentially stream of consciousness works with little to no editing for content. It’s hard even when writing a traditional novel where you already have the order of events pinned down not to be too wordy or include everything that pops into your head regardless of whether it adds to the story, so that is magnified quite a bit when you’re writing a story with no clear ending in mind and you’re just trying to pump out a chapter to upload every day. I can't even remember the last Maine chapter I read that wasn't just her sitting at a table talking to one of the grownups. I don't think I'm where you're at but I just spent an hour last night having darkgray help me understand what's going on in a chapter and I'm only half done with it! I think I have a love hate relationship with the excruciating detail with which the author describes everything; on one hand this is exactly the level of detail I want in a story like this, but on the other hand it is painful to get through when you read Japanese as slowly as I do. I'm at the chapter where they explain their multi-stage plan to spread rumors across the county in order to make people have a favorable opinion of her. I think some interesting stuff might be happening soon based on the illustrations though!
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Oct 30, 2018 06:04
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Yeah I think you hit the nail on the head. I'd probably be way more forgiving of this if I wasn't trying to slowly read through it in Japanese. It seriously reminds me of the Wheel of Time series, where you really want to keep following a single plot thread but first the author wants to jump around to a bunch of other crap you don't care about because they want you to know what every single character is doing at each point of the story. Just get back to
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Oct 30, 2018 12:49
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Started reading Forge of Destiny. It’s very pleasant so far! Ling Qi is a good main character. She’s very practical and streetwise, but very naive about other things.
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Oct 30, 2018 15:37
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Jin Yong (Louis Cha) has passed at age 94. Let us take a moment to pay our respects to one of the greatest authors of the Wuxia genre.
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Oct 31, 2018 20:59
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brainwrinkle posted:Started reading Forge of Destiny. It’s very pleasant so far! Ling Qi is a good main character. She’s very practical and streetwise, but very naive about other things. One thing I like about Forge of Destiny (that I'm not even sure is intentional) is that (minor spoilers about the sort of elemental arts Ling Qi focuses on later) Ling Qi's personality itself seems to change as she starts leaning more heavily into the frost and dark element arts, as opposed to her very early use of wind. She becomes a lot more "aloof," for lack of a better description. Earlier she seems to be more characterized by being unconventional/street-wise and caring a lot about freedom. In general, FoD's characters are probably its biggest strength. It is very obvious that the author has an extremely clear sense of who they are as people, to the extent that he can convincingly write the way they'll react to reader-influenced choices and events.
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Oct 31, 2018 21:03
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I've been slowly reading through Shini Yasui Kōshaku Reijō to Nana-ri no Kikōshi and now I've caught up. It seems like a fairly safe recommendation. It's technically another otome game villainess death flags story, but it's more of a monster mystery/detective style game. She's not the love rival, she's the unsympathetic spoiled rich girl who dies first in every route to show the player that the story is getting serious. The death flags have all been a bit more involved than the usual and it's not enough for her to just avoid being a lovely person.
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Nov 1, 2018 17:41
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7c Nickel posted:So I've started reading Cultivation Chat Group. It's okay, then Senior White shows up and it's amazing from then on.
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Nov 1, 2018 19:28
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:It's okay, then Senior White shows up and it's amazing from then on. everyone I've recommended it to has said it had kinda started to drag and run out of steam, around twenty chapters before white shows up
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Nov 1, 2018 20:05
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It's a good series that doesn't take anything very seriously. All the fights, no matter how serious, always ends in some kind of hijinks. Whether this is due to one of Song Shuhang's abilities, some unexpected entry by a supporting character, or something else, it's bound to be entertaining. While it may drag on a bit at some points, it quickly gets going once the hijinks start again. One thing that I really need to commend this author for is that he makes sure that almost all of the supporting cast continues to be somewhat relevant, or quickly drop anyone that isn't. The character bloat isn't too terrible, and I can actually keep track of all the members of the cast due to how distinct each of their personalities are.
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Nov 1, 2018 23:03
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jwang posted:It's a good series that doesn't take anything very seriously. All the fights, no matter how serious, always ends in some kind of hijinks. Whether this is due to one of Song Shuhang's abilities, some unexpected entry by a supporting character, or something else, it's bound to be entertaining. While it may drag on a bit at some points, it quickly gets going once the hijinks start again. One thing that I really need to commend this author for is that he makes sure that almost all of the supporting cast continues to be somewhat relevant, or quickly drop anyone that isn't. The character bloat isn't too terrible, and I can actually keep track of all the members of the cast due to how distinct each of their personalities are. Been waiting for the hijinks to start once again since Song is finally back from space, but nothing's really happened and it's pretty much become the same as any xianxia story with endless power-ups. There is the occasional joke, and zany affair but nothing on the level before he took his trip upwards.
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Nov 1, 2018 23:13
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I was rereading some of Forge of Destiny and I'm pretty sure I caught something mildly interesting. Ling wanted to do something nice for Bai so she asks Cui for ideas. Cui thinks about it and responds with a piece of jewelry she recalls Bai seemed interested in. When Ling brings this up Bai takes a minute to figure it out what's she's talking about and then get's weirdly embarrassed and tells her she has no interest in the necklace. I now posit that Bai is a thirsty thirsty girl and Cui misinterpreted why Bai's attention kept coming back to that girl's chest.
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Nov 2, 2018 03:27
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Desuwa posted:I've been slowly reading through Shini Yasui Kōshaku Reijō to Nana-ri no Kikōshi and now I've caught up. It seems like a fairly safe recommendation. It's technically another otome game villainess death flags story, but it's more of a monster mystery/detective style game. She's not the love rival, she's the unsympathetic spoiled rich girl who dies first in every route to show the player that the story is getting serious. The death flags have all been a bit more involved than the usual and it's not enough for her to just avoid being a lovely person. this is decent in some aspects, but it has some problems. first, and this is more my personal preference, it heavily features pre-teen romance. nothing is less interesting than 10 year olds making dramatic declarations of love which are somehow supposed to be taken seriously. second, which is a related point, is how all of these children are weirdly precocious. none of them are even vaguely child-like, and only one of them has an excuse. the adults treat them as children, but not one child speaks or acts appropriately for their age. the worst of the lot is 7 going on 20. it's very unsettling.
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Nov 2, 2018 06:58
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So here's a random plug. Recently I found and have been reading through Lightning Empress Maid. I can guarantee it's about a million times less horrible than you might assume due to the title. The whole thing is written in a quasi-first person perspective (no use of "I" but everything clearly is filtered through the lens of the main characters thoughts) and it's an interesting stylistic thing that the translator manages to bring across pretty well. Plus it doesn't slot into any of the currently popular web novel tropes (no isekai, no otome game, no dungeons or cooking or harem) it's probably the most interesting entirely new idea™ story that I've come across in a while - and I stumbled into it while randomly searching keywords on NU. So I thought I'd share. The premise is basically that there's this super powerful person who gets chased out of her position and goes on to become a maid. There's a fairly dramatic overarching plot (involving the people who chased her out and the state of the world at large) that mostly takes a backseat to daily life hijinks and comedy for the parts of the story that I've read. When it gets serious it gets fairly serious and the rest of the time it's just pretty funny and light-hearted. In fact, even when it's serious it still feels light-hearted thanks to the unreliable narrator MC. As an example, here's a moment when Nanaki (the MC) offhandly thinks about the time she became king in mother nature. quote:“I will go catch rats.” Hints of a tragic backstory wrapped in a joke~
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Nov 2, 2018 08:06
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What an awkward and clumsy translation.
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Nov 2, 2018 10:49
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im about 90% sure its a purposeful stylistic choice
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Nov 2, 2018 11:26
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7c Nickel posted:I was rereading some of Forge of Destiny and I'm pretty sure I caught something mildly interesting. Yeah IIRC that was the first big hint that Meizhen was gay. The bits where Ling Qi tries to see if she herself is attracted to women in the hope she can reciprocate Meizhen's affections and just can't find any desire there may be one of the most melancholy things I've ever read. It's good even as it hurts.
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Nov 2, 2018 14:38
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Isn't it also that Ling Qi loves the idea of massively muscled men all shiny. Also now I am really wanting stores of people reincarnated from cultivation worlds coming to earth and seeing cell phones and cars and planes and being like what the gently caress sorcery is this I know 13 dao and I don't know what this is.
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Nov 2, 2018 15:04
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Furious Lobster posted:Been waiting for the hijinks to start once again since Song is finally back from space, but nothing's really happened and it's pretty much become the same as any xianxia story with endless power-ups. There is the occasional joke, and zany affair but nothing on the level before he took his trip upwards. I'm not sure where the translations stand right now, but it gets good again once Song's cultivation kicks into high gear (literally, in some cases). Right now he's plateaued out a bit, but once he starts leveling up, the level ups don't stop, and is always filled with all kinds of craziness. To give a hint of what's to come, in the latest chapters he literally eats the rank-up tribulations for breakfast. You just got to power through the slower parts to get to the good stuff.
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Nov 2, 2018 16:55
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i found lightning empress maid to be insufferable. it's okay when kumoko gibbers to herself in her head because she can't communicate for poo poo even when there are people to talk to. by contrast, nanaki constantly goes on these strange internal monologues where she refers to herself in the third person, and they are always about how wonderful she is.
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Nov 2, 2018 18:49
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7c Nickel posted:I was rereading some of Forge of Destiny and I'm pretty sure I caught something mildly interesting. Meizhen is confirmed all about dem titties
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Nov 3, 2018 05:44
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i found lightning empress maid to be insufferable. it's okay when kumoko gibbers to herself in her head because she can't communicate for poo poo even when there are people to talk to. by contrast, nanaki constantly goes on these strange internal monologues where she refers to herself in the third person, and they are always about how wonderful she is. It almost feels as if the MC is a creature from the "mythos" (Cthulhu and stuff) shoved into the body of a teenage girl who is trying to be normal. Where Kumoko was a kinda normal girl who was put into a spider body and dealt with the loneliness and insanity the best she could. Fallorn fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Nov 4, 2018 |
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Nov 4, 2018 18:05
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Fallorn posted:It almost feels as if the MC is a creature from the "mythos" (Cthulhu and stuff) shoved into the body of a teenage girl who is trying to be normal. ......yeah about Kumoko, how much of that story have you read? No reason I'm asking, just wondering if you'd want to revisit that statement at some point.
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Nov 4, 2018 20:43
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The Sandman posted:The bits where Ling Qi tries to see if she herself is attracted to women in the hope she can reciprocate Meizhen's affections and just can't find any desire there may be one of the most melancholy things I've ever read. It's good even as it hurts. I liked how the way that situation progresses is basically the complete opposite of fan-service. Not only does Ling Qi not reciprocate, but the situation goes on to cause awkwardness for a very long time (which still isn't really gone, even though Ling Qi tries to convince herself it is, as we see from the short Meizhen interlude at the end). The end result of Ling Qi's choices and various events is that she only has two friends who she's very close to, and both of them have no connection to one another and are awkward in various ways (like the obvious situation with Meizhen and Gu Xiulan's kinda unhinged desire to become stronger at all costs, which I think can be kind of directly linked to being close to Ling Qi and seeing her progress first-hand). I didn't mention Li Suyin or Su Ling because, while they're both Ling Qi's friends, neither are especially close to her (it already feels like Ling Qi is sort of having to go out of her way to stay involved with them; they're just going down very different paths). I think the reason I like that aspect of FoD so much is that, when I read most "nerd media" (like web novels, games, comics, etc), I can sort of "feel" the author's intent and attempts to appeal to the audience in various ways while I'm reading. In FoD I get the impression that the author is actually making an effort to think "how would this character, given their personality/history, actually behave in this situation?", even if the result is something that isn't necessarily what readers want.
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Nov 5, 2018 01:38
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Mulva posted:......yeah about Kumoko, how much of that story have you read? I mean she totally embraces the crazy in the name of tasty including eating and regenerating the girls limbs.
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Nov 5, 2018 15:48
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jwang posted:I'm not sure where the translations stand right now, but it gets good again once Song's cultivation kicks into high gear (literally, in some cases). Right now he's plateaued out a bit, but once he starts leveling up, the level ups don't stop, and is always filled with all kinds of craziness. To give a hint of what's to come, in the latest chapters he literally eats the rank-up tribulations for breakfast. You just got to power through the slower parts to get to the good stuff. Yeah, I actually find it best to read almost like a regular novel instead of a webnovel. Wait for an arc or two to stack up then pile through, and if an arc clearly ended and there arn't many chapters left stop and wait.
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Nov 5, 2018 16:23
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Anyone actually manage to parse the RTW's translation to figure out what the last few chapters' big infodump is all about? I have a loose idea, I think, but man.
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Nov 7, 2018 10:26
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I downloaded Qidian's webnovel app (the english one) so I could read Cultivation Chat Group on my phone and a series called Lady Cultivator caught my eye. According to the translator, it's more cultivation focused than romance focused, which got me interested since that isn't common with a female protagonist. So I've been reading it, and it seems decent so far. I'll keep reading to see how it turns out.
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Nov 7, 2018 21:58
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I tried Qidian's app a while ago, but I uninstalled it when it refused to open if I didn't give it what felt like every permission. I'm 90% sure that app is just a giant pile of spyware.
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Nov 7, 2018 23:05
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Kaja Rainbow posted:I downloaded Qidian's webnovel app (the english one) so I could read Cultivation Chat Group on my phone and a series called Lady Cultivator caught my eye. According to the translator, it's more cultivation focused than romance focused, which got me interested since that isn't common with a female protagonist. So I've been reading it, and it seems decent so far. I'll keep reading to see how it turns out. Lady Cultivator is the first series by the author of Phoenix Destiny, which I also like a lot. Phoenix Destiny has a bit more romance, but is almost solely not about romance, too.
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Nov 7, 2018 23:48
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I found the underground for Qidan novels and having them in 50 chapter batches is nice also no videos or locking, its a sham because the webnovel app actually works quite well if it didn't have the bullshit.
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Nov 8, 2018 06:31
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Yeah, I don't mind some romance in my stories. But if I'm going to read a dedicated romance, those days I'd rather it be a queer one. In part because I'm queer and in part because I dislike a lot of the relationship dynamics in many hetero stories.
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Nov 8, 2018 16:01
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