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Ytlaya posted:SupSup 106: I guess Lute is about to reveal that it's possible to do wordchains without paying them off, and that this is a secret only a few humans (namely the Velras) know (but there's obviously something bad about it, since it's effectively described as "unhealthy"). SupSup 106: The way I read Manon's interlude wasn't that she could touch people's brains, but she could "read" them by her power telling her how to manipulate people in her environment to achieve her desired goal. She's not touching people's minds like a Sway, but humans are plenty manipulatable without doing so, if you have superpowers feeding you the answer. If she asked her power how to get two people in her boater to gently caress each other, it would give her the answer on how to engineer a social situation it would happen in - but the emotions and attraction would come from the people, and still be real. In some ways that's scarier than directly manipulating your mind - because there is no way to distinguish it from real experiences. Kinda like a limited Worm's Contessa. Nothingtoseehere fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Nov 16, 2023 |
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Nov 16, 2023 00:14
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Nothingtoseehere posted:SupSup 106: The way I read Manon's interlude wasn't that she could touch people's brains, but she could "read" them by her power telling her how to manipulate people in her environment to achieve her desired goal. This was the way I initially read it, but on a reread she seems pretty explicit about being able to directly "move things around." When she talks about not being a Sway, she's referring to being incapable of directly putting ideas in peoples' minds. Specifically this part: quote:She couldn’t create ideas for people. She could only arrange what already existed in their minds—a little clumsily, a little blindly, using a skill that was best at making sure people positioned their sofas correctly. This seems to imply she "directly" uses her skill on people to "arrange what's in their minds," rather than just using the information it provides her to guide her words/actions. I also trust Alden's judgement here, and the situations he described in this chapter were pretty conspicuous and can't all be explained through "normal" social engineering (which would require Manon directly say and do things to influence people). And Lute also finds the idea of it being low-level - but direct - influence pretty plausible. Edit: I'm thinking of it as a sort of "perspective" thing, like Alden has done himself (and she also has a "deep" Skill with a >10 cap). Instead of organizing just physical objects, she's also organizing people's thoughts. I initially attributed this solely to social engineering, but Alden's anecdotes (like the one where the Boater suddenly turned against him without Manon's direct input) seem to support it being direct Skill use of some sort. In that specific situation, she may have been taking their existing distrust/animosity that was forgotten in the moment and simply "brought it forward" in their minds. So she can't make people mad at someone, but can bring existing anger to the forefront in a situation where they might otherwise ignore or overlook it. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Nov 16, 2023 |
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Nov 16, 2023 00:37
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SupSup 106 Well that's probably Alden kicking that beehive that I'm sure will turn into a confrontation with one of this arc's antagonists with Manon. It was a little frustrating having Lute go "oh and there is this huge secret, but it's super quick to explain" (chapter ends).
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Nov 16, 2023 04:32
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Nitrousoxide posted:SupSup 106 Yeah, normally SupSup is good about avoiding gratuitous cliff-hangers, but that one was just kind of annoying since Lute himself even says it's not a big deal. Maybe it somehow leads to something else. Like something about it means more to Alden due to his superior metaphysical understanding of the setting or something.
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Nov 16, 2023 06:57
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Ytlaya posted:Yeah, normally SupSup is good about avoiding gratuitous cliff-hangers, but that one was just kind of annoying since Lute himself even says it's not a big deal. My guess is that you cause chaos if you don't pay it back which is going to cause strife when Lute casually mentions his family doing it.
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Nov 16, 2023 15:07
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Brain Candy posted:
This could make sense, but it seems like something the Artonans would take umbrage with (and we know that the Velras are close with a bunch of Artonans). Even if Artonans have some element of their own society that is creating chaos in some "global warming analogy"-like way, that doesn't mean they'd be okay with the resource planets going hog wild with chaos generation.
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Nov 17, 2023 01:58
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Went through Bioshifter by the same author as Vigor Mortis. That story really goes to some places. By amount, about half of it is a genuinely cool world some likeable characters and a fun magic system leaking into the real world The other half is the author working through her personal traumas and some absolutely dark poo poo. Honestly, I like both of those parts, but I can absolutely see how that would put a lot of people off. Some stuff might actually be triggering to certain people. The backstory of the murderbot society was really kind of incredibly good and dire.
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Nov 17, 2023 16:10
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Ytlaya posted:This could make sense, but it seems like something the Artonans would take umbrage with (and we know that the Velras are close with a bunch of Artonans). Even if Artonans have some element of their own society that is creating chaos in some "global warming analogy"-like way, that doesn't mean they'd be okay with the resource planets going hog wild with chaos generation. Yeah but remember their aren't that many Velras, the population of human word-chainers that could 'pollute' on purpose is very tiny. When you're losing moons to chaos, the chaos contribution of some 'rascals' in a place that's seen as a vacation spot probably doesn't register.
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Nov 17, 2023 16:55
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I like Worm. It was fantastic for its time in the 2010's and is still pretty great and served as a gateway drug for other webfiction. Ward not so much. I dropped it later at 3/4 of the way through due to the audiobook helping me power through it. I read comics for decades and they were important to how I think about, perceive and write stories. But the problem was that a lot of characters in the mainstream Marvel/DC universe were occasionally flawed, but not in interesting ways. No one died or if they did they'd come back eventually. The stakes were low because this was the 500th issue of Batman and DC wants to make sure you buy the next 500 too, which means while you may get new iterations of Batman, little truly changes. Worm was my first exposure to Superhero comics where things constantly changed and the heroes were flawed and the lines between hero and villain was at times arbitrary. It was new and exciting at the time to me because I hadn't read other critiques and deconstructions of the genre coming out of comics at the time like The Authority or The Boys until later in my life. And even if I had, Worm just had more meat because comics couldn't possibly reach the kind of word count that Wildbow fired off. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 10:37 on Nov 18, 2023 |
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Nov 18, 2023 10:27
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SS93 Maricel was the girl crying in the bathroom. her message to the wright and the multiple references to avowed on the run does not bode well for her future plans. Sleyca must have done a good job with the edits because I thought the ....Boe..... arc was fine. Hope things start to pick up a bit now. The best part of the chapter was in the character notes. Gorgon -- Enjoyed the cinnamon roll Alden sent him a lot. Has a growing collection of crickets in his lobby.
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Nov 19, 2023 17:39
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Kyoujin posted:Sleyca must have done a good job with the edits because I thought the ....Boe..... arc was fine. Hope things start to pick up a bit now. Agreed on all this
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Nov 19, 2023 19:10
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SS 107 Well, that is both obvious-in-hindsight and fairly neat info about how Wordchains work. And having a asexual main character means we get to witness teen drama as an amused bystander, rather than wierdly engrossed - the bits about Lute and Emilija were funny, aswell as the growing assumption Alden must have a crush on one of his female friends.
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Nov 19, 2023 20:53
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Nothingtoseehere posted:SS 107 Well, that is both obvious-in-hindsight and fairly neat info about how Wordchains work. And having a asexual main character means we get to witness teen drama as an amused bystander, rather than wierdly engrossed - the bits about Lute and Emilija were funny, aswell as the growing assumption Alden must have a crush on one of his female friends. I like Lute a lot, he's a good guy. I think he probably has more in common with Alden than most other humans Alden has met. The part at the end of the chapter was kind of similar to how I deal with situations where I'm not sure how to communicate something serious to someone and end up deciding to just be hyper-explicit about it. I'm curious what the deal with everyone disliking him so much is. I don't think it's just him being a Velra, since IIRC we were told earlier that there's a fairly even split of "people who hate the Velras" and "people who like them," so if it was just that he'd basically have a "clique" on his side. It's also cute how Alden now has a preteen Artonan "pen-pal." edit: I'm not sure if Sleyca is aware that they've effectively done an indirect spoiler by mentioning that the next chapter - which we know is the one where Alden confronts Laura from the boater - is going to be short. Not exactly a significant one, but it does give us some information.
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Nov 19, 2023 21:41
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Ytlaya posted:I like Lute a lot, he's a good guy. I think he probably has more in common with Alden than most other humans Alden has met. The part at the end of the chapter was kind of similar to how I deal with situations where I'm not sure how to communicate something serious to someone and end up deciding to just be hyper-explicit about it. Lute was bullied as a child for ??? reasons and lashed out disproportionately on his classmates. That's the kind of thing that leads to observers thinking the bullies may have had a reason not to like the kid. Also the Gloss maybe sorta caused his crush to like him. Which probably has the girls who know that wary of him.
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Nov 19, 2023 21:53
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Patrick Spens posted:Lute was bullied as a child for ??? reasons and lashed out disproportionately on his classmates. That's the kind of thing that leads to observers thinking the bullies may have had a reason not to like the kid. Also the Gloss maybe sorta caused his crush to like him. Which probably has the girls who know that wary of him. That's a good point about the Gloss, forgot about that. Even though the Gloss doesn't seem to actually affect peoples' minds, the public probably still views it that way (or suspects it to be that way).
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Nov 20, 2023 00:01
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Man, the current TWI arc. You know it's serious when (patreon chapter spoilers) characters with actual names start dying. So far no one TOO important but Solstice ain't over yet and the situation seems uh, bad. We may see some major character deaths. Probably Chaldion, that dude has been raising death flags for aaaaages.
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Nov 22, 2023 07:23
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Just finished reading it, here's hoping when Kasigna eventually dies she gets replaced by a newly-formed and benevolent god of death named Kaligma I was trying to figure out what to post and honestly one of the reasons I post about TWI chapters so little is because so much happens in a chapter that I can't decide which part I want to talk about and just give up. Like, you were a minor character but I was rooting for you, Herove! Oh no Eldavin don't do that. The blood bank finally back in the picture! And the vampires! Yelroan my boy are you gonna discover graph theory! Oh no Tekshia! Cauwine, what are you up to... Also, SHE WANTS PISCES! Horns gonna come in to save the day at the end!
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Nov 22, 2023 08:22
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Yeah, like, there's stuff happening in this chapter that we're probably still going to be feeling the consequences of a hundred chapters down the line. Stuff like The lunar halfling orbital drop that also decompressed part of Wistram. Just so much crazy poo poo happening it's hard to even keep track of it all.
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Nov 22, 2023 08:29
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Infinity Gaia posted:Stuff like The lunar halfling orbital drop that also decompressed part of Wistram. That poo poo was wild. Who the gently caress was that!?
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Nov 22, 2023 16:35
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Kyoujin posted:SS93 Maricel was the girl crying in the bathroom. her message to the wright and the multiple references to avowed on the run does not bode well for her future plans. Maricel, why?! Stick to your plan. It's a good plan. Actually, it's an awesome plan! Don't do this! Was this chapter in the Patreon version? I don't remember the Maricel viewpoints. It's... better. The pacing is still painfully slow I think but the polished dialogue makes it less obvious. Also, I read the comments, and the way people engage with web serials is so different from the way I do.
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Nov 22, 2023 18:12
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Silynt posted:That poo poo was wild. Who the gently caress was that!? Most likely a countermeasure left over from the war with the gods
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Nov 22, 2023 18:23
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LLSix posted:Maricel, why?! Stick to your plan. It's a good plan. Actually, it's an awesome plan! Don't do this! Maricel was in Patreon yes. Idk if it was edited since then, but it was definitely there.
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Nov 22, 2023 18:59
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SS 108: hahahahaha holy poo poo, that is definitely a way for a plan to go wrong
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Nov 22, 2023 19:06
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Nick Buntline posted:SS 108: hahahahaha holy poo poo, that is definitely a way for a plan to go wrong The soup thickens.
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Nov 22, 2023 19:08
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SS 108 I have no idea how this is going but seems amusing. sounds like... she's trying to sue? extort? money out of Manon. But why is Lute's mum here?
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Nov 22, 2023 19:43
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SS 108 - Yeah I'm really curious what's going on here. I have no clue, but it looks like all the stuff with Lute's backstory is going to somehow link into other characters/events.
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Nov 22, 2023 20:12
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SS 108 - Do we know anything about Lute's mother? I feel like I'm missing some context for this cliffhanger.
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Nov 22, 2023 20:33
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blastron posted:SS 108 - Do we know anything about Lute's mother? I feel like I'm missing some context for this cliffhanger. SS 108 We know essentially nothing about her, though Lute being mega short for his age would make sense with how short this woman is.
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Nov 22, 2023 20:37
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SS 94: Hillarious, it so good. 
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Nov 22, 2023 22:40
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Nettle Soup posted:SS 94: Hillarious, it so good. This bit is probably going to be the thing that always comes to mind whenever I think about good slice of life stories. I'm impressed how well it meshes the nostalgic feeling of moving into college with SupSup weirdness. “So you’re the second oldest in your group, Lexi!” “It’s not a big deal.” His voice was stiff. “I know that,” said Lute. “But do you?” Lute is such a combination of supportive and jerkish it makes him a lot of fun to read.
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Nov 23, 2023 02:27
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lmao the new Nowhere Stars Pateron chapter. 9-3 Goddamn loving nightmare reality. All the world is a stomach and every dead soul is digested in agony, forever. A god-angel thing spent aeons trying to come up with something better and its best solution was to invent annihilation. I would not be surprised if this sends Liadain's death anxiety into fullblown pathology.
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Nov 23, 2023 21:07
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Calamitous Bob 143 what a fantastic chapter. The smear campaign, bar fight, Irao excited for a bank heist, and the lich's moral compass appalled at fake news.
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Nov 25, 2023 01:36
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:lmao the new Nowhere Stars Pateron chapter. 9-3 I hope the first Nowhere Stars book is put out as an ebook soon, because I’d like to give Anemone money but no way in hell am I reading it update to update. It’s long enough and intense enough (and long enough between updates) that I’d go insane. Hell, I kinda regret even starting the second book rather than waiting for it to be complete.
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Nov 25, 2023 03:29
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Finally got around to reading Skill Thief's Canvas 32. It looks like we're finally going to find out the full story of what happened between Adam and Eric. I'm really curious and genuinely don't know what the answer is going to be. My best guess is that Eric ended up resentful towards Adam due to Adam becoming better than him, and doing *something* really bad as a result. My best guess is that he copied Adam's work to enter into the contest from the beginning of the story, but I'm not sure if that alone would explain Adam's response of instantly wanting to murder him.
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Nov 26, 2023 04:14
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TWI Patreon: After all that death, destruction, loss, a bitter victory... and this is how it ends? I am enRAGED. Roshal must fall.
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Nov 26, 2023 07:21
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Haven't read today's yet but there's at least two more chapters before the solstice (and likely the volume) ends, I think
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Nov 26, 2023 08:09
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I hope so
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Nov 26, 2023 08:17
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tithin posted:TWI Patreon: Ain't no way it goes that way, not fully. The Horns have been absent after all. Probably a relatively quick Erin Rescue Mission, not a full Erin Is In Roshal Oh gently caress Arc. But speaking of this chapter, drat, RIP to a lot of actually named characters. But on the other hand, with recent Hellste revelations and changes even death isn't really going to stop them from having storylines, haha. But probably not for a long while, so for now, RIP Halrac.
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Nov 26, 2023 08:26
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Infinity Gaia posted:Ain't no way it goes that way, not fully. The Horns have been absent after all. Probably a relatively quick Erin Rescue Mission, not a full Erin Is In Roshal Oh gently caress Arc. Missing as they're stuck in the crossroads. They've not been missing as an ace in the hole, they're missing, missing. Their ticket out of the crossroads has bolted and they're getting they rear end whooped. But yeah, that's a lot of damage, a lot of dead characters.
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Nov 26, 2023 09:00
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these two chapters summarized 
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Nov 26, 2023 09:07
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