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It's sort of a troublesome. Sometimes reality is unrealistic. Depends on where you suspend your disbelief which is something that varies across cultures, nevermind individuals.
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Jan 3, 2019 03:47
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu_IDIVoZ2Q Ryan north does a great bit about low hanging fruit inventions.
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Jan 3, 2019 04:05
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Furious Lobster posted:Wikipedia mentions that the second earliest example of steam cooking is found in Italy during the Bronze Age; did you miss the history section? Thanks! I skipped to the next section after reading the first sentence about Japan stone age steaming. I'll have to ask the roman history thread for more info if I ever catch up.
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Jan 3, 2019 04:11
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The wheel was invented later than things like agriculture and pottery and wasn't really used in large parts of the world until centuries ago. Things only appear intuitive after they're already known.
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Jan 3, 2019 05:29
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I can understand that frustration if the book takes place in earth history in a time when we know the thing has already been discovered, but expecting it to be true in a fantasy world seems to me to be some kind of earth-centric hindsight bias. Hourglasses seem obvious to make but after the Greeks (may have) used it, it didn't resurface until a few hundred years later in Western Europe. The Greeks even technically had steam power very early on in the first millennium but they only ever thought to use it as a toy. It's reasonable to me that a fantasy world may not have developed everything at the same rate or in the same order as us, especially when the world has magic functioning as substitutes for "obvious" inventions such as (Bookworm) magic being used to stabilize carriages instead of anyone inventing suspensions or upholstery, or say, in The Wandering Inn, when there's ample evidence to suggest that whoever created the world set up the LitRPG system to incentivize people to obsess over war instead of spending time developing entertainment to the extent that the earth people have introduced, or any number of other books where nobody thought to invent fertilizer because they'd been relying on ambient mana in the soil to nourish plants (I suspect Bookworm is going to be doing this too, but it hasn't yet). And if part of the entire premise is uplift fiction, then I'm certainly willing to cut them even more slack. This kind of reminds me of the short story "The Road Not Taken" where earth gets invaded by teleporting aliens but it turns out that the aliens have extremely primitive weapons, and their signature technology, teleportation, was actually an incredibly simple and overlooked scientific principle that was a head-slapping moment for all our scientists, after which teleportation became "obvious" to us. edit: see: that Ryan North video above Argue fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Jan 3, 2019 |
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Jan 3, 2019 14:41
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I've read through most of Cultivation Group Chat. It's really good, perhaps the best one of these I've read (at least, the Asian ones) in terms of pure writing skill. A very solid sitcom. The only issue I had with it is that it starts pretty loving slow, something I'd definitely warn anyone who wants to start reading it. Gave Warlock of the Magus World a try, because it's fairly high in the novel rankings over at Novel Updates and it's finished. I gave it, like, a regular novel's worth of chapters to catch my attention and it's just shoddily written, by-the-numbers, stat-grinding endupper (as in "protagonist ends up in X world/time period/dimension"). Definite anti-recommendation. Also I've read Reincarnation Of The Strongest Sword God. It's a very simple litrpg/MMO-but-I-got-hax-nao! story about a guy who gets reincarnated in his own body (zero explanation given to this, ofc) ten years earlier, when he's just about to start playing this crazy-rear end VR MMO that's about to become as important as the real life and how he uses his extensive in-game knowledge from the previous life to bathe in an endless shower of XP and amazing loot and slap face. It's pretty dumb but fun, if you're looking for that kind of gamelit OP power trip. It's also paced, like, five times faster than King's Avatar, the other WN with a similar theme, which is a definite plus.
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Jan 3, 2019 15:25
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Personally, I can ignore 'this extremely simple technology has been completely overlooked until I, someone from Earth, invents it' because...well, it just doesn't bother me that much? What drives me crazy is poo poo like Cook of the Mercenary Corp's weird insistence that nobody in a generic medieval fantasy isekai setting cooks using organs until the Japanese protagonist does it. Or Isekai Yururi Kikou's incredibly ill-informed knowledge of food - the first time I noticed it, it was the author claiming that the isekai society grew rice solely as animal feed, and given he referred to it as 'White Wheat' you get the real feeling he knows literally nothing about how rice is grown. Or in a more recent chapter the protagonist is gathering mushrooms and his inner monologue is like 'only in a fantasy setting could you find a red mushroom with white spots like in a manga, and of course it's safe to eat!'
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Jan 3, 2019 16:30
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Megazver posted:I've read through most of Cultivation Group Chat. It's really good, perhaps the best one of these I've read (at least, the Asian ones) in terms of pure writing skill. A very solid sitcom. The only issue I had with it is that it starts pretty loving slow, something I'd definitely warn anyone who wants to start reading it. i got surprisingly far into warlock, like 1000 chapters. however, eventually i realized how much i hated the mc. everywhere he goes, he steals, murders, enslaves, corrupts, and destroys. the world is always worse for his presence. i stopped reading when i finally got it through my thick skull that this vile villain would never be stopped or even particularly inconvenienced for long, because he is somehow supposed to be the hero. i absolutely love sword god, though. yes, it is really bad, and the mc is a piece of poo poo who never sustains the slightest loss, only gains. but the good part is how incredibly unplayably terrible every single detail of this vrmmo is. whenever the wn reveals anything about it, it is always bad and always presented as good. a major gameplay update required every player to uh, mimic motions to use skills. so, the power of skills is based on how well players can contort their virtual bodies to emulate the ideal movements. even better, there is a shortcut available in the form of doping, which somehow alters the cognitive abilities of players. said doping is only available in a tiny corner of the world which is functionally an entirely different game that no one knows about, and they in turn do not know about the rest of the game despite the existence of forums and such. later, it is revealed that the true power of 'super guilds' (a discrete classification, because by god does this tripe love discrete classifications) is based on creating, maintaining, and playing their own, somehow even shittier vrmmo's for the purpose of training. i think my favorite thing from this wn is when the mc pops out a fancy martial art that allows him to disappear from his opponent's view temporarily. that's not an unusual concept, as there are many theoretical ways to fool the vision of someone. however, this version makes him literally invisible, to everyone, from any angle or distance. again, it is supposed to be a martial art rather than part of the game. so, magic that no one ever acknowledges as magic or even how absurd it is. it's kind of obsolete in the story now, though. currently, the mc is wildly flailing around with his sword which somehow forms an impenetrable barrier. he doesn't deliberately intercept stuff or anything, he just waves his arms around. this is also a martial art.
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Jan 3, 2019 18:43
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Megazver posted:Gave Warlock of the Magus World a try, because it's fairly high in the novel rankings over at Novel Updates and it's finished. I gave it, like, a regular novel's worth of chapters to catch my attention and it's just shoddily written, by-the-numbers, stat-grinding endupper (as in "protagonist ends up in X world/time period/dimension"). Definite anti-recommendation. I actually finished Warlock, and it pulls a M Night Shyamalan level twist half way through. I'm not saying it's good by any means, but basically going to D&D Forgotten Realms, gods and all was a good laugh. Half the problem is the main character has no redeeming qualities, and not in the 'he's misunderstood' way, but in the 'this guy is vile' sense. I guess it was entertaining watching him screw everyone over time and time again. This is a common thing in the Wuxia novels I've read, but Warlock takes it to the next level. After reading that I read Skyfire Avenue and it was a lot more enjoyable on multiple levels.
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Jan 3, 2019 19:01
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Tobermory posted:Yeah, plagiarism novels are the worst. I think my biggest objection is that they don't make any attempt to show the culture of the other world. Like, sure, you've gotten famous for performing Yesterday in a world that never knew the Beatles, but there's never any description of the hundreds of bands that got famous instead of the Beatles. One thing I like about that manga about the Japanese Beatles cover band that goes back in time to soon before the Beatles became famous (not sure if you're actually directly referring to that) is that it actually directly tackles with the ethics of doing that. The most "pro-publicizing Beatles songs" guy ends up coming up with the (admittedly fairly sound) logic that if they perform the Beatles music they know, the actual Beatles will instead come up with different music. Its Rinaldo posted:In Forge of Destiny sequel news, Ling Qi trips balls and rides the mighty moon worm in a dream only uh oh it’s the Revenge aspect and instead of a nice moon rave she eats a village of peasants and gets a hell of a hangover I'm kind of afraid to check recent updates, since I'm worried that the readers will have chosen to cultivate that edgy dark-elemental art (the first one listed among the options) instead of the cool dancing/music/wind-themed ones. I should probably start actually voting, since I have a very strong preference in favor of a "music/wind + freedom/expression" sort of theme (hard to explain exactly what I'm getting at, but it's clear in my head) and against a "dark/ice" one, and Ling Qi could really go either way given her experience and arts up until this point. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jan 3, 2019 |
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Jan 3, 2019 19:14
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The protagonist of Kuma Kuma literally invents animal husbandry, and this is fine. That sort of thing has no place outside of a relaxed comedy. Though once I thought about it, a society with a forest full of infinitely respawning edible monsters has little need for farm animals.
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Jan 3, 2019 19:24
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 (Other World Death Games)
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Jan 3, 2019 19:46
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I can't believe SAO was only the best of the worst web novel MMOs. I mean, SAO the game is still terrible but sheesh.
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Jan 3, 2019 21:34
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Every time I start to feel angry about a VRMMO in a game being bad or having nonsensically awful design decisions I just remember some of the poo poo that went down in Everquest and it doesn't seem so unrealistic anymore. The most realistic is defnitely Kono Sekai ga Game da to, Ore dake ga Shitte Iru in that the game is a buggy awful mess and they openly acknowledge it.
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Jan 4, 2019 10:38
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Are there any isekais about a warrior from a fantasy world who gets reincarnated as a high schooler in modern-day Japan, and then they discover that a popular MMO is a recreation of their home world, so they use their knowledge of their home to become a top player in the MMO
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Jan 4, 2019 11:47
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Oh, you've heard of Warrior From Fantasy World Reincarnates as High Schooler And Becomes a Top Player in the MMO Based On His Old World.
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Jan 4, 2019 13:48
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Ytlaya posted:I'm kind of afraid to check recent updates, since I'm worried that the readers will have chosen to cultivate that edgy dark-elemental art (the first one listed among the options) instead of the cool dancing/music/wind-themed ones. I should probably start actually voting, since I have a very strong preference in favor of a "music/wind + freedom/expression" sort of theme (hard to explain exactly what I'm getting at, but it's clear in my head) and against a "dark/ice" one, and Ling Qi could really go either way given her experience and arts up until this point. The only one of the new arts voted to be learned in this turn is the Moon based perception Art. As far as Darkness Arts goes I think the second Darkness Art (which is actually Darkness/Wind) is the one that most everyone would like to learn, unless a stronger alternative is presented. I think thematically the general desire is to continue to build on the idea of a Home, and it'd incorporate both the more musical and whimsical side of Ling Qi, as well as the more gloomy aspects. If you're worried about going super edgy it's probably not something to worry about, given her... uhhh... reaction to the most recent turn of events.
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Jan 4, 2019 17:55
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Megazver posted:Oh, you've heard of Warrior From Fantasy World Reincarnates as High Schooler And Becomes a Top Player in the MMO Based On His Old World. What does it say that I had to make sure this wasn't actually a real thing?
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Jan 4, 2019 19:15
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Bakanogami posted:Every time I start to feel angry about a VRMMO in a game being bad or having nonsensically awful design decisions I just remember some of the poo poo that went down in Everquest and it doesn't seem so unrealistic anymore. Reality is unrealistic. Even with WoW defining what a standard MMO is like in terms of conveniences and activities, you still get stuff like FFXIV 1.0. Or hell, look at Wildstar, which did follow the formula yet twisted lots of little elements and things in a certain way that made them worse. Probably the most unrealistic part of these awful fictional games is their massive, often explosive popularity before anything is fixed.
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Jan 4, 2019 20:12
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The reason YGGDRASIL was being shut down in Overlord was that it was a lovely MMO that nobody played anymore. The only reason it was ever popular was because the players could basically customize everything.
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Jan 4, 2019 20:29
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SerSpook posted:The only one of the new arts voted to be learned in this turn is the Moon based perception Art. As far as Darkness Arts goes I think the second Darkness Art (which is actually Darkness/Wind) is the one that most everyone would like to learn, unless a stronger alternative is presented. Ugh. That's better than the first one, but still not at all what I'd prefer. The best ones are Audacious Fairy's Lark (this is by far my favorite) and Harmony of the Dancing Wind. In general I don't really like the sort of "gloomy" (as you put it) and aloof aspects to some of the arts she's taken. Then again, I only really care about the Arts in terms of their themes and "visuals," while I think a lot of the thread focuses on the mechanics of them (since dark-related stuff mechanically is often good due to her primary Arts benefiting from it). edit: My reasoning behind Audacious Fairy's Lark is that it seems to fit very well with her general style of combat, which relies upon her being able to perform her musical arts uninterrupted, and the "visuals" of someone performing a musical art while just getting batted around like a leaf when attacked are appealing. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Jan 4, 2019 |
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Jan 4, 2019 20:55
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Ytlaya posted:Ugh. That's better than the first one, but still not at all what I'd prefer. The best ones are Audacious Fairy's Lark (this is by far my favorite) and Harmony of the Dancing Wind. In general I don't really like the sort of "gloomy" (as you put it) and aloof aspects to some of the arts she's taken. Then again, I only really care about the Arts in terms of their themes and "visuals," while I think a lot of the thread focuses on the mechanics of them (since dark-related stuff mechanically is often good due to her primary Arts benefiting from it). As a vocal member of the Archery Cabal I get the visual vs crunch disjoint. I do like the Fairy Lark art but I am not a fan of wind arts give how personality wise Ling Qi has changed. We’ll have our day when Biyu gets older  Also you did miss a salt pile when Ling Qi didn’t get the optimum outcome from the dream encounter. I got accused of being worse than the Nazis! Not an exaggeration that was almost the phrasing.
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Jan 5, 2019 03:40
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Its Rinaldo posted:As a vocal member of the Archery Cabal I get the visual vs crunch disjoint. I do like the Fairy Lark art but I am not a fan of wind arts give how personality wise Ling Qi has changed. I like Lark, what's really screwing it is the fact we can't find any Wind sites to save our life. Well, that, and the fact that "If you can pickpocket somebody, why don't you just backstab them instead?" arguement. Despite the fact that Lark combined with that dark/wind spell literally enables Skyrim style stealth where you steal their stuff, cloud their memories so they don't know that their stuff is missing, and repeat until you've stripped them of all their valuable gear.
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Jan 5, 2019 04:52
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I don't like lark because I don't like the gamey steal items ability and don't really want more Dodge by floating on air like a wisp. Harmony is very cool though so I'm in favor of learning it. Big fan of control and communication arts. The lucio-zen hybrid will be real.
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Jan 5, 2019 05:04
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Its Rinaldo posted:As a vocal member of the Archery Cabal I get the visual vs crunch disjoint. I do like the Fairy Lark art but I am not a fan of wind arts give how personality wise Ling Qi has changed. Why did you get accused of that? I was kind of surprised when it turned out that people apparently voted to ask for the Fang boon thing. Regarding Ling Qi's personality, I have a theory that part of why her personality has changed is that she's been so heavily using dark/frost elemental Arts. I'm pretty sure it was mentioned that heavily using (or rather equipping to meridians or whatever) certain elements can influence a person's personality (with Xiulan being a big example). So, to me, it's not so much a question of "find Arts that match her personality" as it is "finding Arts that represent the way you want her to develop as a character." In that regard, I'm partial to Wind (and Wind is still her "natural" element or whatever, though I don't think that has a huge impact on anything). Alectai posted:I like Lark, what's really screwing it is the fact we can't find any Wind sites to save our life. Katreus posted:I don't like lark because I don't like the gamey steal items ability and don't really want more Dodge by floating on air like a wisp. I don't really care for the stealing aspect; I just like the movement aspect and its associated "visuals." But yeah, Harmony also would have been good, and I would also be happy with that (it also seems like it could be more interesting narratively). In general I'm not a huge fan of dark stuff, though Ling Qi was kind of railroaded into that when she was granted these extremely good dark-element arts early into her cultivation (though this is kind of her last chance to change direction without any significant downsides, if I'm understanding the way Domains work correctly).
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Jan 5, 2019 05:37
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I've been reading I Favor the Villainess, an otome game isekai about a big ol lesbian who uses her special power of having written a bunch of fanfiction about the game to romance the villainess instead of any of the canon capture target princes. Which, big same. 79 chapters in it's revealed that one of the capture targets was born as a girl, and magically cursed to become a boy, so they're now experiencing what's explicitly described as gender dysphoria. Oh, also the otome game is called Revolution, so no prizes for guessing what the ongoing tensions between the commoners and the nobles at the magic school is leading up to.
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Jan 5, 2019 06:41
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:What does it say that I had to make sure this wasn't actually a real thing? It says "the east asian web novel naming conventions are loving dope".
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Jan 5, 2019 16:30
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LibrarianCroaker posted:I've been reading I Favor the Villainess, an otome game isekai about a big ol lesbian who uses her special power of having written a bunch of fanfiction about the game to romance the villainess instead of any of the canon capture target princes. Which, big same. Huh, that's actually a pretty different variation on the typical otome-game based WNs.
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Jan 5, 2019 19:25
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Ytlaya posted:
Yeah, there is still a possibility to go for a less dark domain, though a significant portion of the voterbase likes dark stuff. That, and Zeqing just keeps on giving. Anyway, Harmony thankfully will most likely be learned fairly rapidly. I suspect ENM (the memory wind/dark art) will be learned first, but Harmony is pretty much locked fairly soon.
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Jan 5, 2019 19:46
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I really doubt Ling Qi is going to drop darkness, she's just spent too much time with it. Her best mentors are both Darkness themed and her Domain Weapon is based around it and her next Spirit is probably the Darkness aligned Yukinko. If she's dropping an element, it'll probably be Water once she figures out how. Voters never even wanted Water anyway, it just sorta happened. Also archery is dead and should stay dead, that's just facts. Bard Lyfe.
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Jan 5, 2019 21:41
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LibrarianCroaker posted:I've been reading I Favor the Villainess, an otome game isekai about a big ol lesbian who uses her special power of having written a bunch of fanfiction about the game to romance the villainess instead of any of the canon capture target princes. Which, big same. Read it and can second the reccomendation. It's fun to read, mostly light-hearted, the dialogue and characters work. None of the usual hangups that could make it trashy or disrespectful exist.
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Jan 6, 2019 00:11
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Arkeus posted:Yeah, there is still a possibility to go for a less dark domain, though a significant portion of the voterbase likes dark stuff. That, and Zeqing just keeps on giving. Yeah, it's seemed obvious that a lot of the voterbase is a fan of the dark stuff. I kinda wonder if the focus on music wasn't almost entirely due to narrative (and Ling Qi acquiring a bunch of stuff that made focusing on that mechanically ideal for her), since if things were left entirely to the audience I would have expected something sticking to the stealth/knives. I had forgotten that her ice stuff is actually dark/water (and that ice apparently isn't its own element, or at least isn't in that context). Which actually makes me even more confident in my opposition to the dark, since I wasn't a fan of that either (even though it's obviously very effective in combat). I realize it's definitely a losing battle, though, since the audience obviously likes that. I just like the idea of being more focused on wind and whatever Phantasmagoria of Lunar Revelry's deal is (I looked it up and it doesn't list the elements). If I had to choose general themes, it would probably be something like "wind/music/social".
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Jan 6, 2019 04:44
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All this mechanics-chat is why I greatly prefer Number None's system of 'these choices will not affect the protagonists' chances of success, only how success is defined and how I write it'. Just let readers pick the most fun/thematically-appropriate powers and have the author write how the hero wins with them.
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Jan 6, 2019 04:55
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LibrarianCroaker posted:I've been reading I Favor the Villainess, an otome game isekai about a big ol lesbian who uses her special power of having written a bunch of fanfiction about the game to romance the villainess instead of any of the canon capture target princes. Which, big same. This is amazingly good and the last arc blew me away. I hadn't read the spoiler beforehand but I'm very happy with how all that was handled.
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Jan 6, 2019 13:09
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Thoughts on any of these? https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/acy35g/original_english_wuxiaxianxia_similar_to_cradle/
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Jan 6, 2019 14:49
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Megazver posted:Thoughts on any of these? Devourer of Destiny is a typical overpowered xianxia story, only the MC is well aware that he and all other cultivators are sociopaths and rolls with it. The early chapters have a lot of edgy edge edginess for the sake of edge, but it improves greatly once the focus moves from doing evil to do evil and instead becomes doing whatever because it is expedient. Forge of Destiny has been discussed to death. Is good. The other three I've started reading, but dropped for reasons I can't remember, I only know I've started them because RRL remembers the last chapter I read and all of them sit at single digit chapters.
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Jan 6, 2019 14:56
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Ytlaya posted:Yeah, it's seemed obvious that a lot of the voterbase is a fan of the dark stuff. I kinda wonder if the focus on music wasn't almost entirely due to narrative (and Ling Qi acquiring a bunch of stuff that made focusing on that mechanically ideal for her), since if things were left entirely to the audience I would have expected something sticking to the stealth/knives. Revelry is a Yang Moon Art, no other elements
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Jan 6, 2019 16:04
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Megazver posted:Thoughts on any of these? I’m a big, big fan of the Cradle novel series that the question is based on, anyone who likes cultivation stories should absolutely read them. Of the other ones listed, I’m current on Painting the Mists and Forge (now Threads) of Destiny. FoD is discussed to death in this thread, it’s basically a CYOA LitRPG Cultivation story, read it it’s good. Painting the Mists is a pretty good, if predictable, cultivation story. The first book is EASILY the worst, which is unfortunate for anyone interested in reading it. The series is telling a pretty bog-standard Xianxia story, but it has the benefit of being written in novels as opposed to chapter by chapter, so there is at least a little narrative structure built in. It is released chapter by chapter on Royal Road and also available by the book on Amazon.
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Jan 6, 2019 19:24
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Does anyone have any recommendations for WNs that aren't yet translated? I've decided to drop Bookworm and am looking for some things to read raw and maybe pick up translating in a couple months or so.
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Jan 7, 2019 05:14
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blastron posted:I've decided to drop Bookworm 
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Jan 7, 2019 05:19
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