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twistedmentat posted:WotC have a book coming out for D&D that is going to switch racial attributes with cultural. I like Pathfinder 2e’s ancestry rules. Be a half-angel kobold if you want, don’t see why not.
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Sep 7, 2020 14:53
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Bismuth posted:I do think salvatore at least made it pretty clear that drow were not genetically evil but they were part of an evil death cult, and could be totally fine people if able to escape it, which I think is a lot better than "haha dark skin elf evil" hah, well said
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Sep 7, 2020 16:44
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How has Harry Turtledove not come up yet? Are there not enough history nerds reading this thread who were really taken with the idea of aliens invading right before WWII kicks off so Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and Hilter suddenly all have to team up to defeat an external threat? twistedmentat posted:Thing is, look at who is doing the terrible stuff. Richard Rahl beats and rapes women constantly but he's still the hero even when he kills a bunch of pacifists. The Mountain is never shown as anything other than a horrible person, so he being a murderous rapist is, well not okay, but acceptable because he's never shown in a heroic light. There is this weird thing I notice in bad leftist criticisms of stuff that villains aren't bad guys, that villains are the creators actual beliefs seeking through because they can be a mask to hide your true feelings. Story where the villain wants to eradicate gnomes? Well, that means the author actually hates jews and is a nazi. It's a real lovely version of death of the author where critics feel like they can ignore everything that doesn't fit with their goals, ignoring context, intent and the actual text of the work. The litcrit you all come to this thread forYeah, but using the cover of 'but it's the bad guys doing it' as an excuse to write a bunch of gross, grimdark content is still valid criticism in concept if not in every application. Goodkind is the perfect example because his books rapidly deteriorate into Richard Rahl is good and correct at all times, and not listening to him or going against him means getting attacked by the evil guys, and for women that means getting raped. So Richard does not rape anyone, but sexual assault of women is such a frequent consequence of not having his protection that it effectively becomes a passive form of punishment for not listening to him. (I think there's a part where he threatens to throw a queen into a rape pit to force her to do what he wants; he didn't make the rape pit but since it's there might as well use it? ) Compare that to GRRM who also writes a lot of rape, but ties it into a whole system of patriarchy and exploitation that is destroying their world. Rape is a symptom of a broken society, not a punishment for failing to listen to the ubermensch.
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Sep 7, 2020 20:04
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Turtledove has refought WW2, what is it 4 times now? With aliens, magic, second civil war, and finally as inspiration failed, starting slightly earlier.
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Sep 7, 2020 21:48
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there wolf posted:How has Harry Turtledove not come up yet? Are there not enough history nerds reading this thread who were really taken with the idea of aliens invading right before WWII kicks off so Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and Hilter suddenly all have to team up to defeat an external threat? Guns of the South had one woman in it and she was a sex hole for the men of the regiment who knew she was a sex worker. The sex worker was saved from sex work by one of the main characters at the end of the book. The South wasn't thaaaaaaat bad because the institution of slavery was obsolete any way they just wanted to do it on their terms, guuuuuuuuyyyyyys! I didn't read any of the other books, but with Turtledove it's probably more fan service.
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Sep 7, 2020 23:33
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I've read almost every word Harry Turtledove has ever read even made multiple Turtledove threads over the years ask me anything.
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Sep 7, 2020 23:46
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Deptfordx posted:Turtledove has refought WW2, what is it 4 times now? There's also the Japanese conquer Hawaii books and a WW2 analogue in the Atlantis books and an even different past scenario in the Third Reich collapses like the Soviet Union book and I believe another WW2 in the primitive primates live alongside humans book.
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Sep 7, 2020 23:52
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I'd say the worst part of GOT books (the series was fine until 5 and then...yeah) was how GRRM wrote himself into a dozen corners in the last one, and so that's why he's put off the next one for so long. Anyone else remember Stephen King's old fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Dragon? Not a bad book, but a formula story, but not very scary. I wouldn't mind it as a movie, it would probably translate over well if they didn't play up who wrote it.
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Sep 7, 2020 23:53
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I've read almost every word Harry Turtledove has ever read even made multiple Turtledove threads over the years ask me anything. If I liked Toxic Spelldump but not Hilter v Aliens, how would I feel about the president sasquatch books? Also T/F? Trutledove is a less creatively bankrupt history channel.
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Sep 8, 2020 00:29
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I only read the Harry Turtledove story about teddy bear aliens invading earth, and they only had matchlock pistols as their weapons even though they had FTL travel, because apparently FTL drives are renaissance level technology but humans somehow never invented them either as a fluke or because of some kind of mental block. They were horrified when they realized we had machine guns and weapons that could destroy cities, because with their ship we were now easily able to reverse engineer warp drives and would probably take over the whole universe in short order. It was pretty boss and fun.
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Sep 8, 2020 00:30
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Colonel Cancer posted:All fantasy fits in with the bad fantasy friend
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Sep 8, 2020 00:44
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there wolf posted:How has Harry Turtledove not come up yet? Are there not enough history nerds reading this thread who were really taken with the idea of aliens invading right before WWII kicks off so Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and Hilter suddenly all have to team up to defeat an external threat? Thing is, you can't just blanket assume everyone who writes a villain who's racist or sexist is doing it simply because that's their true desires. I can't think of anything where that's true, except Avengers, as in hindsight, Loki's "mewling quimm" line to black widow feels like Whedon's true scumbag self shining through. Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I've read almost every word Harry Turtledove has ever read even made multiple Turtledove threads over the years ask me anything. Did Man with a Iron Heart really bother you too? Like it applied Iraq War protest logic with WW2. It felt like Turtledove was saying "We need to stay in Iraq, or the Jihadists will come back!!!". It was pretty gross. He buys into idea that Lee was a gentlemen soldier who didn't really care about slavery but more about his state. Though The CSA falling into genocidal fascism is not far fetched at all. The US as a whole seemed on the edge of becoming like that multiple times in its history. He also seems to be unable to just not do 1 to 1 analogs for events. Oh Pittsburg is Stalingrad? Wow.
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Sep 8, 2020 00:54
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Man with an Iron Heart was the worst poo poo ever. Turtledove is a terrible author and I don't recommend any of his books to anyone.
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Sep 8, 2020 01:08
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SirSamVimes posted:The Abhorsen trilogy was very good Oh no, Clariel is that bad? 
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Sep 8, 2020 02:24
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I know I am late but I was a Forgotten Realms lore-nerd once and the drow are even weirder. Before there were Drow there were dark elves who had dark brown skin. They became drow and got ebony black when they made a pact with a demon. There was a six book series about Lolth undergoing a metamorphisis into a higher being and then a sequel trilogy came around where the drow goddess Lolth and her deity daughter of the good drow Eilistraee agreed to play a game for the future of the race with the permission of the overgod Ao. This resulted in Eilistraee melding with her brother Vhaerun (an evil deity of male drow) and killed off all the lesser gods of the pantheon almost no one remembered. In the end Lolth killed Eilistraee but it was a bit of a trick as a ritual converted her followers back into dark elves. It is implied in the novel that all the drow with a good impulse (a small line that did not make the demon pact way back in the day) but the fans revolted at the idea that Drizzt was now different so it was semi-retconned that it was only the goddess's followers that turned back into dark elves. So a bunch of brown elves turned ebony black when they made a demon pact. Then when 5e came along the Overgod Ao rewrote the tablets of fate (hit the reset button) which split the entire world and the dead deities came right back to life. On the bright side Eilistraee and her brother get along now so....hooray. On an unrelated note one deity came back as an immortal dragon turtle.
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Sep 8, 2020 02:45
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Cowslips Warren posted:Anyone else remember Stephen King's old fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Dragon? Not a bad book, but a formula story, but not very scary. I wouldn't mind it as a movie, it would probably translate over well if they didn't play up who wrote it. Yeah. King originally wrote it for his children, rather than his usual audience, which is why it's so different and not horror. A lot of fans haaaaated it, and King actually ended up writing Misery as a reaction to what he saw from those fans and how he felt chained to one specific genre. (another influence on Misery was King's raging drug addiction)
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Sep 8, 2020 02:45
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Man with an Iron Heart was the worst poo poo ever. Turtledove is a terrible author and I don't recommend any of his books to anyone. I am not a big fan of his WWII stuff but his ancient alternate history and the series involving a bunch of Roman soldiers being teleported to another world....those I found fun.
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Sep 8, 2020 02:47
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twistedmentat posted:Thing is, you can't just blanket assume everyone who writes a villain who's racist or sexist is doing it simply because that's their true desires. I can't think of anything where that's true, except Avengers, as in hindsight, Loki's "mewling quimm" line to black widow feels like Whedon's true scumbag self shining through. I a hundred percent believe that Terry Goodkind thinks women deserve to be raped for doing the wrong thing. Which gets me back to my point- how an author contextualizes a villain and their actions are important, especially when you're using it to divine what an authors actual thoughts and values are. Any analysis that fails to do that, whether it a broad pass because it was the bad guy raping that baby on the pile of corpses OR a broad condemnation because what kind of monster would come up with that, is lovely. A small codicil- if you didn't think very hard about what you're putting in your book and rely on old tropes and/or whats popular right at the moment, then you rightfully deserve to get lumped in with the same broad criticisms of those things. You want to have some generic orc bad guys, then be prepared to deal with people connecting it to the long racist history of savage brutes in media.
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Sep 8, 2020 03:56
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there wolf posted:A small codicil- if you didn't think very hard about what you're putting in your book and rely on old tropes and/or whats popular right at the moment, then you rightfully deserve to get lumped in with the same broad criticisms of those things. You want to have some generic orc bad guys, then be prepared to deal with people connecting it to the long racist history of savage brutes in media. Orcs exist to be killed. They aren’t real. Ascribe any qualities you want to them that would make them without exception deserving of the slowest, most gruesome death player characters could supply them with. I mean, if you’re the DM of course. I mean, this poo poo ain’t real, it’s not just not real, it’s EXTREMELY not real. Biological essentialism is recognized as bullshit by everybody that matters. It’s pretend. And if I’m not allowed to discriminate against filthy I mean, we can at least all agree that halflings are filthy mushroom-munching shoeless hillbillies that belong at the bottom of a dumb orc’s stew pot, right?
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Sep 8, 2020 04:18
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Nigmaetcetera posted:Orcs exist to be killed. They aren’t real. Ascribe any qualities you want to them that would make them without exception deserving of the slowest, most gruesome death player characters could supply them with. I mean, if you’re the DM of course. EDIT: And unfortunately, there's a big chunk of the community that doesn't recognize biological essentialism as bullshit and they should be ruthlessly made fun of and driven out at any chance.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:22
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Nigmaetcetera posted:Orcs exist to be killed. keep it to yourself and let people try to play their pretend games in a way that's comfortable for them to escape the fuckshit world with you and some want mindless hordes, me and some want a slower take with different issues and no gently caress you I like hobbits
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Sep 8, 2020 04:27
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PetraCore posted:Sorry you can't see the actual real-world racial issues that are touched on when people decide to describe orcs like the most racist colonial motherfucker razing Africa described black people, just giving them green skin and tusks. If you're comfortable in game making fun of different fictional species I honestly don't care, but the stuff in the actual sourcebook should, yes, actually consider the comfort levels and implications involved. I don’t care. That means I win.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:27
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Nigmaetcetera posted:I don’t care. That means I win.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:31
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Black August posted:keep it to yourself and let people try to play their pretend games in a way that's comfortable for them to escape the fuckshit world with I like thoughtful orcs. I really like it when they have elaborate philosophical, theological, and practical justifications for their periodic murderous crusades against human and half-elf villages (elves are basically extinct in my setting). I didn’t say they didn’t have the ability to reason, just that they probably aren’t interested in engaging with you about it while they’re burning down your village. They’re assholes, not monsters, like filthy foot-fetishist halflings.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:33
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PetraCore posted:Not caring about racism doesn't mean you win. It means you're enabling racism. No, I win because you care and I don’t. You really didn’t grow up in the 90’s, did you? The person who cares less about anything wins automatically.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:34
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Nigmaetcetera posted:I like thoughtful orcs. I really like it when they have elaborate philosophical, theological, and practical justifications for their periodic murderous crusades against human and half-elf villages (elves are basically extinct in my setting). I didn’t say they didn’t have the ability to reason, just that they probably aren’t interested in engaging with you about it while they’re burning down your village. They’re assholes, not monsters, like filthy foot-fetishist halflings.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:35
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I pretty much always thought of halflings as obligate NPCs.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:36
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PetraCore posted:I don't care. You’re on the right path, I feel proud.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:36
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I'm surprised these haven't been mentioned yet. Russia apparently loves Dragonlance, and has made multiple musicals based on it. And now, because I know this, you know this too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZEXlB3tzL0 Also, Mercedes Lackey, despite being one of the most influential writers of many a young girl's childhood, is a real weirdo. She spent a lot of time on a BJD forum a friend of mine was admin of (Den of Angels), and she... Well, it's already a weird hobby that attracts weird people, but she just sucked at it. Terrible dolls with terrible clothes and terrible backstories. I also have the misfortune of having grouped with her playing City of Heroes. She was very bad at the game. Not a sexpest as far as I know or anything awful like that, but a profoundly weird person who is bad at video games.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:45
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there wolf posted:I a hundred percent believe that Terry Goodkind thinks women deserve to be raped for doing the wrong thing. Which gets me back to my point- how an author contextualizes a villain and their actions are important, especially when you're using it to divine what an authors actual thoughts and values are. Any analysis that fails to do that, whether it a broad pass because it was the bad guy raping that baby on the pile of corpses OR a broad condemnation because what kind of monster would come up with that, is lovely. Yup, does the writer constantly put this thing in? Does it come up with super hosed up poo poo that exists purely for shock value ( I'm an evil wizard that needs to have a harem of children to have sex with to increase my dark magic!), does it get way to detailed and explicit about the thing? Does the text of the document justify it in anyway (Well, the children are okay with it so why would it be bad?). I can't look into the hearts of writers that have been published, but i can talk about my own ideas. For example, I decided Orcs and their kin (decided that koboalds and goblins are just earlier stages in the orc life cycle) are the original inhabitants of this world. They were agrarian and discovered farming and animal husbandry. Though in modern times they still remember being slaves to earlier humans, though many understand that it was a long time ago, every so often some Orc warlord uses that ancient pain to gather an army to invade human lands. The real jerks of my world were the Dwarfs who were thinned skinned and completely unable to let anything go, plus they were constantly worried of their mortality and the status. That lead them into wars against the Orcs and Elves that eventually lead to their extinction. I do have Dark Elves and evil humans, but both are evil due to cultures and religions. The Dark Elves worship a literal demon and the evil humans an imprisoned Elder God like thingy. Plus both think they're just better than everyone because of their race. But i mean, Dark Elves are just elves that fit into that culture and religion ditto the humans. I feel like all of my ideas are reactions to most fantasy I've read. Making less races just evil, and have it be a cultural thing like in real life. Also not be so horny. Nigmaetcetera posted:I mean, we can at least all agree that halflings are filthy mushroom-munching shoeless hillbillies that belong at the bottom of a dumb orc’s stew pot, right? You mean Kinder, because I'm with you totally there.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:56
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twistedmentat posted:You mean Kinder, because I'm with you totally there. It’s Kender, with an E. I haven’t said anything about people misspelling it until now but I’ve had some wine and feel like it’s necessary. Yes they’re halflings written to appeal more to a
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Sep 8, 2020 05:00
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The fact that Kender exist and killing them is bad is all the evidence you need that the Gods must be destroyed
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Sep 8, 2020 05:03
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Barudak posted:The fact that Kender exist and killing them is bad is all the evidence you need that the Gods must be destroyed Maltheism is the only philosophy that makes sense in a blatantly supernatural multiverse.
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Sep 8, 2020 05:07
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I've heard that Kender only exist bc someone wanted to play a rogue but didn't want to play a filthy thief and thought someone who just stole everything instinctively was better?
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Sep 8, 2020 05:20
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Doing a quick search on Kender makes me feel really glad I barely looked at 5e and never looked at Dragonlance.
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Sep 8, 2020 05:28
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Kenku are where it's at, anyway.
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Sep 8, 2020 05:35
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PetraCore posted:Kenku are where it's at, anyway. They started off in the AD&D Fiend Folio, so at least they've been around a while?
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Sep 8, 2020 05:47
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Ok so I started drinking and tried this Dragonlance thing again and got about 1/3 o the way through, and also realised that I read this when I was 12(?) while sitting in my grandfather's hospital room. So I guess the key to reading these things is to be an alcoholic or a child. Or both, I don't judge.
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Sep 8, 2020 06:35
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I was into the Hobbit big time when I was younger and read lots of fantasy garbage growing up but could never actually get through Lord of the Rings. Then when I was 22 I started reading them while drunk. It was like a door had opened. They were so much fun! After that first read through I've done it a bunch of times sober. I feel bad talking about the only good fantasy in this thread but I just want to say there's no shame in reading under the influence, it's great.
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Sep 8, 2020 07:03
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sharknado slashfic posted:Ok so I started drinking and tried this Dragonlance thing again and got about 1/3 o the way through, and also realised that I read this when I was 12(?) while sitting in my grandfather's hospital room. So I guess the key to reading these things is to be an alcoholic or a child. Or both, I don't judge. This is how I've ended up watching Flight of Dragons multiple times, so makes sense.
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Sep 8, 2020 07:07
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