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In the book, Wil Wheaton is president and Corey Doctorow is VP.
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Dec 25, 2017 01:34
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| # ? May 24, 2024 05:34 |
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Inkspot posted:Removing all the pop culture references might be a fun writing exercise. I agree that RPO could be vastly improved by deleting 95% of it, but why stop there?
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Dec 25, 2017 02:50
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Give me the Hemingway version of RPO
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Dec 25, 2017 02:55
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For sale. Author’s nostalgic wet dream. Never scored.
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Dec 25, 2017 03:04
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Roth posted:https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha?utm_campaign=web-share-links&utm_medium=social&utm_source=link Mister Gotcha is probs the best webcomic released this decade
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Dec 25, 2017 03:06
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hiddenriverninja posted:hmm the audiobook version is narrated by Wesley Crusher. Welp. Now I gotta listen
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Dec 25, 2017 03:24
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SlimGoodbody posted:Give me the Hemingway version of RPO You mean a version that would drive one to the bottle? Think we already got it.
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Dec 25, 2017 04:10
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Welp. Now I gotta listen Pull up OKS, pull up!
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Dec 25, 2017 04:46
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Kai Tave posted:Pull up OKS, pull up! I listen to audiobooks at work so I am basically a bottomless well of lovely audiobooks.
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Dec 25, 2017 04:48
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There's no way the main character in RPO can be the only one with a DeLorean. I refuse to believe thousands of people around the world wouldn't no-life that poo poo just to have it.
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Dec 25, 2017 06:09
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hiddenriverninja posted:There's no way the main character in RPO can be the only one with a DeLorean. I refuse to believe thousands of people around the world wouldn't no-life that poo poo just to have it. But why have a DeLorean when you can have the Batmobile, or Thomas the Tank Engine, or any of the loving megazords? Here's another way of looking at RPO - Did you watch the Scott Pilgrim movie? Remember certain reality breaking video game things that happened in that story? Those are here, but the plot lacks any originality or heart or organic flow. I will not spoil things for anyone genuinely interested in reading or seeing the movie but to give you an idea - Our "hero" walks into some random abandoned corner of the virtual world and performs some geek cred activity that no one outside the character and reader see, and this results in the omega checkov's gun. Someone above mentioned that the story is pandering, and that's true, but I think that's sugar coating it. It's pandering to the point of being insulting. It's like those scripts written by a neural network, or really bad mad libs. "I start every day in the burned out remains of [American City] where my life sucks due to [Depressing Situation] caused by [Evil Entity]. My only escape is [Magical Thing], where I can [Pop Culture Reference] and [Pop Culture Reference], or [Pop Culture Reference] with [Pop Culture Reference] while I [Pop Culture Reference]. And now it turns out that there is a contest to win full ownership of [Magical Thing], but [Evil Entity] wants it too. I can only hope that my slavish devotion to [Pop Culture Reference], [Pop Culture Reference], [Product Placement] and being the best at [Pop Culture Reference] will be enough to [Obvious Ending]"
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Dec 25, 2017 06:40
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Reading more about RPO makes me actually start hating the nerdy stuff I usually like. Which is bad, because I know that fans =/= content, but still.
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Dec 25, 2017 06:59
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Honestly, there are good ideas there, that an experienced writer could've properly used. At the very end of the book the MC meets a hologram of the OASIS creator who left a message for whoever won the Easter Egg hunt. He talks about how his life was fruitless and that he doesn't wish that people become enslaved by their obsessions like he did, and offers the protagonist a Killswitch for the entire game. Which would be a great thing to happen in the middle of the book, with Parzival realizing he wasted his life memorizing sacred trivia from a man that, in the end, regretted everything. Had he deleted the game and then the story proceeds to show what he did with whatever how many billions he won and what the OASIS-less world turned out like, it would be a much more interesting take, but alas. Also funny, cause I remember reading Daemon around the same time and that book is basically the complete opposite, unabashedly displaying how technology can enslave and make us it's pawns. It was one hell of a whiplash. Too bad the sequel never got published here.
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Dec 25, 2017 07:51
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The inevitable Funko POPs for RPO are going to be hilariously impressive ouroboroses of terrible “nerd culture”
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Dec 25, 2017 08:08
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hiddenriverninja posted:There's no way the main character in RPO can be the only one with a DeLorean. I refuse to believe thousands of people around the world wouldn't no-life that poo poo just to have it. The loving guy who wrote it has a DeLorean, with the Ghostbusters logo on it. 
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Dec 25, 2017 08:29
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while i dont doubt that all the examples given are genuine, they would simultaneously be the best satire generated for a book like this
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Dec 25, 2017 09:49
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poly and open-minded posted:while i dont doubt that all the examples given are genuine, they would simultaneously be the best satire generated for a book like this Satire is dead. You can't write a parody of RPO that's distinguishable from the actual work you're parodying, at most you'll simply get people telling you how derivative it is.
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Dec 25, 2017 09:58
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Lurdiak posted:The loving guy who wrote it has a DeLorean, with the Ghostbusters logo on it. I read a fanfiction of this once that was probably better than RPO. It was by Summer broad. Due to time travel mishap Egon never became a Ghostbuster and they had used different technology to hunt ghosts and Gozers arrival was delayed by years. Emmett Brown recalled taking to him at a physics conference years before he would have become a Ghostbuster and knew he has technology that could stop Gozer. So they had to convince him ghosts were real and get him to invent proton packs. Then they fought Gozer from the flying train.
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Dec 25, 2017 13:06
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hiddenriverninja posted:There's no way the main character in RPO can be the only one with a DeLorean. I refuse to believe thousands of people around the world wouldn't no-life that poo poo just to have it. In the book he's presented as being super unique special snowflake for knowing all this poo poo. Like literally the entire mcguffin of the story is formed around Perzival's personal knowlage. BTW, the core story, everyone jacks into an online world becuase it sucks but there's a secret inside of it is a fine story, and it could work with the 80s references if it was written competently. It's pointlessly set in a dystopian world. Why not go the opposite, it's a utopian world were everyone has everything they need, but they're bored so they jack into a world where they can pretend they're in ww2 or a viking or in fighting a space war or whatever. It's far in the future so 20 century pop culture is pretty much just the realm of weirdos and the main character is shown to be a weirdo shut in because of this, but inside the VR world, he notices these references to centuries old tv and music, and follows the clues and discovers that, i dunno, humanity is being controlled by the big evil corporation that makes the game.
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Dec 25, 2017 23:09
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muscles like this! posted:The book is crazy like that, the world is this insane shithole and the main character/author really don't seem to care about it. There's a plot point later in the book where the main character goes into hiding by buying a new identity, loading it up with credit card debt and waiting until he is arrested and then sold into literal slavery to pay off the debt (this was all part of a plan to infiltrate the evil bad guy company.) The outside world is like this but the main character only cares about his fake virtual world where he can play dress up with nerd toys. There’s also a part where the protagonist is taking a bus from one city to another and it’s just mentioned in an offhanded way that the bus has armed guards because warlords control the areas between major cities in this dystopian future America. I couldn’t believe it just skimmed over that. What was actually happening in real life seemed way more interesting than videogame land.
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Dec 26, 2017 00:33
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The book is un-self-awarely the equivalent of a basement dwelling neckbeard watching anime and screaming for tendies, oblivious to the nazis marching in the street above and incapable of understanding what that would mean for the world around him even if he wasn't oblivious.
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Dec 26, 2017 01:00
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Jagermonster posted:There’s also a part where the protagonist is taking a bus from one city to another and it’s just mentioned in an offhanded way that the bus has armed guards because warlords control the areas between major cities in this dystopian future America. It felt to me that all the dystopian stuff was window dressing, Cline thought "All the best stuff is in dystopian worlds, so mine will!" without actually understanding why these are good.
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Dec 26, 2017 01:46
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Consumerism will save us from the dystopia.
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Dec 26, 2017 02:21
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Lurdiak posted:Consumerism will save ftfy
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Dec 26, 2017 05:01
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Jagermonster posted:There’s also a part where the protagonist is taking a bus from one city to another and it’s just mentioned in an offhanded way that the bus has armed guards because warlords control the areas between major cities in this dystopian future America. Literally nothing is more interesting than video games and pop-culture references. You imbecile. You loving moron.
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Dec 26, 2017 05:08
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Kai Tave posted:Literally nothing is more interesting than video games and pop-culture references. You imbecile. You loving moron. I really want someone to make this your red text
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Dec 26, 2017 05:38
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SlimGoodbody posted:I really want someone to make this your red text
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Dec 26, 2017 09:53
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You couldn't have sprung for a picture of a DeLorean with the Ghostbusters logo and Knight Rider lights?
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Dec 26, 2017 12:02
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Kai Tave posted:Satire is dead. You can't write a parody of RPO that's distinguishable from the actual work you're parodying, at most you'll simply get people telling you how derivative it is. Some sections reminded me of American Psycho.
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Dec 26, 2017 13:12
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Kai Tave posted:You couldn't have sprung for a picture of a DeLorean with the Ghostbusters logo and Knight Rider lights? You'll have to settle for the dog turd picture i found and edited in ms paint.
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Dec 26, 2017 16:59
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This thread rules, I love you all
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Dec 26, 2017 19:10
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https://twitter.com/MKupperman/status/945745965755129856 https://twitter.com/MKupperman/status/945748575622975488
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Dec 27, 2017 12:08
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I know this guy's being a prat, but what's this even supposed to mean?
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Dec 27, 2017 13:20
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He's making a commentary on the state of Hollywood and DC movies and how incredibly low the bar was for Wonder Woman.
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Dec 27, 2017 14:05
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Well, he's right. Wonder Woman was structured like a Marvel Movie, only it wasn't so pathologically afraid of being sincere so it didn't undercut its tension with dumb quips a la Strange, Guardians two or Thor 3. That alone puts it above most of the competition.
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Dec 27, 2017 15:18
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ugh
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Dec 27, 2017 15:29
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Jesus Christ
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Dec 27, 2017 16:40
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Not to sound pretentious but why are you talking about a tweet with 4 likes?
mycot fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Dec 27, 2017 |
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Dec 27, 2017 16:45
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Because we can't have nice things.
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Dec 27, 2017 18:17
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I don't know who MKupperman is. Is he a figure of some kind?
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Dec 27, 2017 18:19
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