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You could do a lot worse than the Virtues for being the basis for your moral code, to be fair.
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Jun 23, 2022 16:09
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 00:30 |
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Miles above the morals in the books that spawned this thread.
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Jun 23, 2022 19:12
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What Would Richard Rahl Not Do
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Jun 23, 2022 20:04
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Ego Trip posted:What Would Richard Rahl Not Do Be wrong.
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Jun 23, 2022 22:50
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 WELL, GUESS I GOTTA WRITE SOMETHING NOW
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Jun 26, 2022 10:24
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You don't have to. You can still be free 
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Jun 26, 2022 10:45
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 pacta sunt servanda.
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Jun 26, 2022 10:48
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Malachite_Dragon posted:You don't have to. You can still be free None of us were ever free.
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Jun 26, 2022 20:32
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the_steve posted:None of us were ever free. I was heavily discounted.
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Jun 26, 2022 22:30
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the_steve posted:None of us were ever free. I was free but I'm a monkey's paw situation which will definitely backfire at an extremely inconvenient time.
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Jun 27, 2022 00:15
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End of the Circle. Nice.
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Jun 27, 2022 01:14
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Agents are GO! posted:I was heavily discounted. Oh, your parents got you from Sears, too? Too bad they're outta business.
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Jun 28, 2022 19:52
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Much like all video game fanfiction, this can only go well, either because it's good against all odds, sor so bad it's funny Welcome back SBG! I'm very sorry your escape was unsuccessful E: even officially licensed mass market video game books are fanfiction and you will never convince me otherwise 
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Jul 11, 2022 13:29
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Official fanfiction is still fanfiction
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Jul 11, 2022 14:18
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Yeah, Ultima Online is/was totally fanfiction, I agree.
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Jul 11, 2022 14:22
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The prologue tries to be mysterious, but also, this is basically the level writing on this novel. This single page is the entire prologue.quote:The voice from the dark had a metallic resonance, as if spoken through a musical instrument. Unlike the SoT novels, the chapters (as opposed to "prologue" or a few "interludes") all have titles. Chapter 1: The Black Duel or "Avatar, What An rear end in a top hat" We're introduced to one of our protagonists here: quote:The knight Montenegro stood atop a seaside cliff under an ashen, twilight sky. He was a tall, steel figure in his immaculate plate armor. His black curls streamed like a banner in the ocean wind. A longsword stretched naked from his grip. With hungry eyes he studied the distant waves, as if the twin moons wrote messages upon them. The ocean heaved at the foot of the bluff, its voice a deep, wordless hush. It beat against the cliffside like the wings of a caged bird. Montenegro is the leader of a small force of men, who are here at the seaside because unknown ships are on their way to land. With this group is his cousin, Damario, a smaller man described as "smaller, several years younger, in scholar's robes". Damario can see the same sights as his cousin from the clifftop, but he recommends they follow Compassion as a virtue this day, in honor of "their grandfather's shrine". Montenegro is no Avatar, however, and his response is going to gently caress everything up: quote:"I won't risk defeat for the sake of a foreigner's blood. Grandfather would have done likewise. Tonight I serve Valor, not Compassion." Gently he licked the sea spray from his lips and peered at the distant ships. "I'm a few months from becoming a general, Damario. You tutor me well in the arts, but I'll handle the military decisions, if you don't mind. Besides, Virtue deserves to be ruthless, don't you agree? Victory is a necessary evil." A little while later, a first boat comes ashore, with around thirty figures emerging. They do not look like "Meer", and "Blackthorn's men" sail in boats of metal, not wood. Orcs and goblins are also ruled out, as they don't sail. So we have no idea who or what these folks are, and their armor is of unknown design, all carrying polearms or broadswords. Montenegro is smug, because clearly this means they don't come in peace, so he was right. The strangers, unaware they're being watched, make a circle and begin singing in a chant. Montenegro immediately thinks magic, Damario goes "it's none I've seen, then", but follows his cousin's order, and begins summoning a meteor down on the troop: quote:Something blinked in the heavens. A tiny light grew brighter and closer, as if a star dislodged and fell toward earth. The intruders on the beach ceased their chant and pointed. Montenegro and Damario, staying out of the way from the cliff above, watch the battle. Montenegro is basically doing the Goku thing of whistling in awe while he watches a stronger dude beat the poo poo out of his boy, suggesting that even outnumbered, the mystery warriors are a match or more for his troops. Damario is ordered to ride to nearby Vesper and call for all the mages and men they can spare. Damario's pretty pissed about this, all-told. quote:"They'll think it's an invasion. If word gets out, it'll cause a panic." I will give the novel this. If this were a tale of classic Ultima, you would probably be following the Avatar or his named companions, all of them individuals of great virtue. Montenegro is not a virtuous man! Montenegro is an openly racist, possibly-genocidal piece of poo poo, and he has no time for the eight virtues. Sure, you're supposed to be curious to the whole "what the hell is the state of the world" angle given all these new races and unknown shape of the world (there are no maps anywhere in this book, I forget if the sequels finally show us what things look like after the Cataclysm), but "Our protagonist is a monster, what the hell happened to Britannia?" is a daring hook. Montenegro heads down to where his men have surrounded a survivor for him. Inside gleaming armor, the foreigner has already taken out a few of the knights, spear still bloody at the tip, as he ignores his men's concerns and wanders in to approach the outsider. Some feints and the two parties taking cautious swipes at the other lead us to a reveal of what the landing parties are... quote:The stranger emerged from the cloak of darkness. In shape he was as tall as the knight and broader of chest and shoulder. By the frantic torchlight Montenegro made out a grotesque face. Its mouth was wide and stern, its eyes set high and deep, its skin a color somewhere between amber and jade. It had a wide, featureless space where a human would have a nose. Whole lot to unpack there! If you're unaware, the Gargoyle race was involved in a large part of the second Ultima trilogy, being a massive allegory about the perils of racism and ignorance (on humanity's part). They came in two forms, winged scholars, and a more physically-adept grounded variety, both described as looking "demonic" until communications opened. So to say "oh, yeah, we just had a purge of this whole other sentient, Virtue-adjacent* race" is a loving wild revelation. Second, while the blurb on the back of the book/all the marketing for UO2 revealed a lot about the Juka and another race we saw mentioned in passing, the Meer, the story drags a lot of this out and so I'll play it close to the chest until the book reveals what happened and how nobody knows poo poo-all about anyone else. Montenegro duels Sigmhat one on one, and for a moment, the Juka warrior gets the upper hand, feinting to draw a strike from Montenegro, then impaling the knight's sword hand. There's a section here which is using terminology in a way I've never heard before, as Montenegro drops his weapon due to having a spear through his palm, but then he "flinched the blade" and is wielding it in his off-hand for the rest of this short melee? He baits Sigmhar to strike with the Juka's short sword, and blocks with the pinned side of his body. Montenegro slices Sigmhar's throat clean open with his longer sword while he's got the Juka in so close, and then he, again, with his off-hand, just tests the balance on it and single-handedly hurls it into the Juka's throat. It's a very weird fight scene. I feel like it's not meant to be thought about from moment to moment this hard. We cut ahead in time. A healer has attended to Montenegro's arm, restoring it to functionality, and a second Juka ship has come ashore. Troops from Vesper have arrived thanks to Damario, and they see what happened to the first boat, so immediately flip theirs over as a mobile fortress. Unfortunately, the Juka have no magicians of their own, so the Vesper mages set the thing aflame and begin turning the tide of battle. The Juka are being cut down by the knights, but it's at great cost, two or three humans for each Juka who falls. Montenegro tells Damario to get some rest, this is going to go on for a while and he just rode both ways in a rush. The mage puts up some 'alarm stones' around Montenegro's tent, and cautions him to be careful, because the Juka are sneaky. He found a quintet near the shore sneaking around that he had to deal with. Montenegro goes "...how did you take out five of these beasts without anyone knowing?" "Oh, I turned the sand around their ankles into mud and hardened it, they drowned as the tide came in." Montenegro, however, is not going to sleep. He's going to stay up and dig into some tomes that he has for... some reason... and try to figure out where the Juka came from. What follows is a brief "Maybe this is the new lore? IDK?" history of the Cataclysm that I will sum up in brief because this is one of the first bits that's flowery enough to allow for abridging. One thing I'm learning is that I did not know how good I had it mocking Goodkind, because his writing is two paragraphs per sentence, whereas Andrews writes in a fashion that's hard to cut down most of the time. THE HISTORY OF THE CATACLYSM, BY MASTER WILLOUGHBY, AGE 91 The Cataclysm occurs. Massive chunks of Sosaria (the continent's name, sort of... long story) are sucked into the Ether, with entire cities swallowed and hundreds of thousands dead. Among those consumed in the incident is the Lost King, which is what we're calling Lord British because while EA kept the Ultima license, the likeness rights to LB are weird and were probably weirder still at this point of flux. (Similarly, I do not recall if we ever mention the Avatar in this trilogy, but I believe that stays with EA in the end?) The history that Montenegro is reading posits that while most people think the whole thing kicked off due to Lord Blackthorn casting some spell on LB's castle, the few survivors from the structure itself say British was the spellcaster and Blackthorn's siege was trying to stop this casting. However, "Lord Blackthorn took possession of the blame, and has been demonized for it". The Knights of the Silver Serpent proceeded to hound Blackthorn and his men off of the continent, so he took those who lived and sailed away to one of the newly-formed continents. According to seers, he then met "wingless green-skinned gargoyles, whom he conquered". Seers also say that Blackthorn is a) mad and b) surrounded by GEARED MACHINES, WHICH SERVE HIM AS DO THE GARGOYLES. However, none of us went over there and we all presume that he's going to come back and try to reclaim Britannia someday despite not talking to him. Luckily, the book posits, we've never dealt with that guy since, and our only visitors were the kindly Meer, who are simply described here with a single word: "peaceful". Montenegro sets down the book at this point, both due to getting tired, and also because using some incredibly wild and racist logic, he thinks he's solved the mystery of the Juka. I don't even want to abridge this, you'll think I'm being unfair. quote:Sufficient time had passed for Blackthorn and his followers to teach these wingless gargoyles a civilized language. Nor could Sigmhat's culture and fighting skills have derived from the crass devil-men who had plagued the Britannian continent for centuries. Surely the knights of Blackthorn's Chaos Guard had instructed them. The riddle of the Juka seemed easily solved. WOW, DUDE. He turns to tell Damario how brilliant he is, but the mage is asleep. He tousles his cousin's hair and OH poo poo THERE'S BLOOD ON MY HAND NOW. He begins going for his weapons but all have been removed from the tent, with his sheath wrapped in a black scarf. A voice tells him that this is an invitation - to a Black Duel. See, the Juka in the darkness knows that the Britannians will win this fight, but it's going to be at a tremendous cost. Would not Montenegro like to save his people's lives? If he agrees to the one-on-one with this figure, who swears they have no magic, "just steel on steel". Should the figure win, the Juka will withdraw and "collect [their] dead and sail away, not stopping until they reach the shores of Jukaran". (Hey. Montenegro. Maybe think about this later because I guarantee Blackthorn never named a thing 'Jukaran'.) If Montenegro wins, direct quote, "We shall surrender to you. You may slaughter us all then, if that is what you consider a victory." Montenegro agrees to this, and the figure introduces herself: an elderly Juka known as Thulann of Garron, Master of the Way. The rules of a Black Duel are simple: neither party can be compelled to speak of this afterwards, and its bargain is binding. Montenegro figures he can beat up an old woman and agrees, with his logic being "I bet she fights like Sigmhat, but slower. I beat one of those dudes, I can beat his bootleg." She's not the bootleg. Thulann disarms him after a few feints and goes "You're not gonna let me end this peacefully, will you." In a rage, Montenegro says he will not. Her response is "Very well, I'll stop disarming you then," and she begins handing him his poo poo in battle. Every strike he tries is parried, while she keeps slamming him in the helmet and plate mail with her spear, making sure not to kill, but his bell's ringing and his body is bruised. She does a similar kick to his shins that Sigmhat performed, and he thinks he can bait her the same way as the dead man. It goes poorly when, instead of getting felled by a sword to the gut, she uses the monemtum to backflip away in armor like an acrobat. Per Montenegro, "were it not for the blood coming out of her armor, he wouldn't even know she was injured". But then she rebounds from this and KNOCKS HIM THE gently caress OUT in a flurry of blows to the head. quote:He woke propped against a small boulder. It was still night. The rain still fell. Next to the sputtering torch sat the old Juka named Thulann in an easy, tranquil posture. A bandage was stuffed into her stomach wound, her blade sheathed. But Montenegro does not heed this plea, and draws his sword. Thulann isn't even pretending to humor him now, just landing blow upon blow upside his skull while dodging everything he throws at her, constantly going "Hey, how many of your men and mine are dying for every time you whiff?" Eventually, realizing that he's only getting more concussed and still hasn't hit her a second time, Montenegro yields. But he doesn't stop to listen to her response or humble himself. He says "You've made your point" and turns for his tent, not even sheathing his sword... quote:Sloshing through ankle-deep puddles, he stormed past Thulann and headed for his tent. Inside he slammed his sword into its scabbard and grabbed Damario, still unconscious. He lifted the young wizard by the folds of his robe and carried him outside. Montenegro waits a moment for Damario to leave, then he storms right back outside and tries to start poo poo with Thulann again, shouting for her, promising he'll "give [her] two days, if that's what it takes!" but nobody is around to respond, and nobody comes. His only reply is when the clouds break and in the moonlight that slips between them, he sees a black silk scarf marring his reflection in a pool of water. That is chapter one, and let me tell you: Montenegro is only going to get worse in the second! * the longer version: Gargoyles were sentient and followed their own belief system which was compatible with, but not identical to, the Virtues of Britannia, and Lord British/the Avatar had made peace with them by the end of U5 in a state that was ongoing until... let's go with "series' end", given that I'm just gonna call it at U8 for lore purposes. Hell, you can play as them in Ultima Online to this day, no purges there.
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Aug 3, 2022 05:51
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To be filled with sorrow at this book. To not think it Virtuous. To know that multiplayer was a mistake.
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Aug 3, 2022 15:34
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Hey, at least this book understands that the POV character is a massive rear end in a top hat, putting it head and shoulders above SoT  Ofc, sensible and realistic military tactics aren't necessary for a good narrative, but you'd think these "knights*" would have some way to deal with such superior opponents that you lose 3 for one of theirs like, idk, archers or more magic. *I'm sure "knight" is being used in the generic sense of "plate-armored fight man" rather than "feudal warrior class"
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Aug 3, 2022 20:47
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Yeah, it felt almost refreshing to see an rear end in a top hat protagonist painted as such. Richard would have talked that woman into submission.
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Aug 3, 2022 20:50
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:Yeah, it felt almost refreshing to see an rear end in a top hat protagonist painted as such. Richard would have talked that woman into submission. After kicking his rear end, she'd have sworn undying fealty and admitted that everything he said was actually correct both objectively and morally and he passed the test by sticking to his convictions and not admitting that her perspective may have been valid in any way shape or form.
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Aug 4, 2022 01:47
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And also, now, under ancient law and custom, he's now obligated to gently caress her. But don't worry, she'll be patient.
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Aug 4, 2022 13:13
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God will see this and go 'yep that's a legally binding marriage if i ever saw one, now to write an elaborate cuckholding prophecy'
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Aug 4, 2022 14:12
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Hey, remember that time Kahlen was decreed by the gods to be raped, in order to save the world, so like any woman in that situation would do (in Goodkind's mind, at least,) decided she might as well enjoy it and brought herself to orgasm, by sucking her own period blood off of his dick, cuz that's hot, I guess, then everybody got mad at her, because the person possessed by the gods to enforce the 'no escape clause' rape simply switched her out so she was actually banging her boyfriend, and nobody could believe she wouldn't have figured it out, so her boyfriend went into a profound depression, because he predecided she wouldn't figure it out, cuz she's a woman, amiright, so totes obvs she was cheating, but that was just according to keikaku (keikaku means plan) and therefore the world did get saved, and oh my, there goes my brain.
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Aug 4, 2022 14:54
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I stopped reading when the original series ended but i cannot fathom any of the later books being Worse than Temple of the Winds, loving messed up contrived bullshit followed by Richard moping alone in a magic temple instead of saving the world from an actual plague because his wife enjoyed his dick wrong. Anyway looking forward to more Avatar poo poo, i love Uĺtima 9 as an example of a long running series completely making GBS threads the bed on multiple levels, very interested in seing another weird bad take on ultima.
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Aug 4, 2022 15:12
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Mr Phillby posted:I stopped reading when the original series ended but i cannot fathom any of the later books being Worse than Temple of the Winds, loving messed up contrived bullshit followed by Richard moping alone in a magic temple instead of saving the world from an actual plague because his wife enjoyed his dick wrong. All of them are worse written but in a different way. Half incredibly bad rips-off of other things Goodkind had definitely never heard of such as "A Song of Ice and Fire" and "The Walking Dead", half restating the same thing 20 times in a row in a neverending game of telephone from person to person. You bet that killing off fan favorites left and right is part of the New Edge, too.
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Aug 4, 2022 15:23
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This Richard guy sounds like a rahl dick. secretly best girl posted:The prologue tries to be mysterious, but also, this is basically the level writing on this novel. This single page is the entire prologue. Oh great wheels in my dreams keep on spinnin' Calculate for a war tomorrow Ooo wheels in my dreams keep on spinnin' Excited to see the thread updating again, thanks op!
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Aug 4, 2022 17:20
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Some day, we'll get the Terry Goodkind/John Ringo collaboration we all deserve as penance for our words and deeds.
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Aug 4, 2022 17:48
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TheCenturion posted:Some day, we'll get the Terry Goodkind/John Ringo collaboration we all deserve as penance for our words and deeds. It might be a little difficult to get Mr Goodkind to take part in any collabs.
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Aug 4, 2022 18:03
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GruntMountain posted:It might be a little difficult to get Mr Goodkind to take part in any collabs. Oh, right. Nevertheless, the collaboration will somehow have been retroactively written two thousand years ago, and stored with a magically enslaved whore, because she knows how to keep secrets.
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Aug 4, 2022 18:27
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GruntMountain posted:It might be a little difficult to get Mr Goodkind to take part in any collabs. I imagine he's more open to collaboration now than he ever was.
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Aug 4, 2022 19:40
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If Tom Clancy can continue to release video games and novels years after his death I see no reason Disney can't haul up Goodkind's corpse to pillage his good name with their prior rights claims
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Aug 4, 2022 19:51
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Terry Goodkind's™ TRUTHSWORD CHRONICLES™: Book Seven: Rock and Rahl Fantasy by John Ringo
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Aug 4, 2022 20:08
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I'm personally hoping the duo decides to work at Terry's new place, and that they take all the time they need together to turn out a true masterpiece. We'll wait.
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Aug 4, 2022 20:20
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TheCenturion posted:Oh, right. Nevertheless, the collaboration will somehow have been retroactively written two thousand years ago, and stored with a magically enslaved whore, because she knows how to keep secrets. There will be dozens of decoy books, but only one that has the true canonical ending.
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Aug 4, 2022 21:10
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secretly best girl posted:If Tom Clancy can continue to release video games and novels years after his death I see no reason Disney can't haul up Goodkind's corpse to pillage his good name with their prior rights claims His what name
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Aug 4, 2022 23:42
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The word is in the name, I would be a lying liar lady liar to deny it.
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Aug 4, 2022 23:46
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Yeah ok fair enough i guess i just... hate seeing the word good associated with anything to do with him
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Aug 5, 2022 00:02
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I must apologize for terrible good kind. He is an idiot. We named him this, as a joke. ~Ayn rand, probably
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Aug 5, 2022 00:57
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Anias posted:I must apologize for terrible good kind. He is an idiot. We named him this, as a joke. ~Ayn rand, probably Ayn Rand never apologized for anything in her life
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Aug 5, 2022 22:10
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 00:30 |
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I hope she apologized for dying poor and failing her own philosophy
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Aug 5, 2022 22:36
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