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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I sincerely hope there is a chapter on cheese. I’ll check when I’m back home in a day or two. There is a part about restaurants, how Asian people think bright loud restaurants are happy, while white people like quiet dark restaurants and how it’s good to mix it up to keep your white lady happy.
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Dec 28, 2023 20:16
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Snowy posted:I’ll check when I’m back home in a day or two. There is a part about restaurants, how Asian people think bright loud restaurants are happy, while white people like quiet dark restaurants and how it’s good to mix it up to keep your white lady happy. It sounds like a guide to caring for a pet gecko
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Dec 28, 2023 21:00
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Snowy posted:I’ll check when I’m back home in a day or two. There is a part about restaurants, how Asian people think bright loud restaurants are happy, while white people like quiet dark restaurants and how it’s good to mix it up to keep your white lady happy. well gently caress, they got me there
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Dec 28, 2023 22:30
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is the woman on the cover supposed to look disdainful?
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Dec 28, 2023 22:56
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Carthag Tuek posted:is the woman on the cover supposed to look disdainful? She looks like somebody just told her the name of the book and she can't bother to hide her disappointment.
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Dec 28, 2023 23:26
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Fifty Farts posted:She looks like somebody just told her the name of the book and she can't bother to hide her disappointment. "ugh, you told me this shoot was gonna be for your portfolio"
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Dec 29, 2023 00:11
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Asterite34 posted:It sounds like a guide to caring for a pet gecko Dear goons, I went on a date today. I gave her a bug and then she licked her own eyeball. I think things are going well. Is it too soon to buy her a hot rock?
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Dec 29, 2023 17:05
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I'd be shocked if Seanbaby doesn't own a copy.
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Dec 30, 2023 02:52
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Tunicate posted:There's a rational naruto RPG which of course is highly rational because every character action has to be written out in pseudocode, because that's what rationality is, only doing things that are explicitly spelled out like a beep boop robot. last update Jan 21 2024 wtf. nearly 10 years of rational naruto
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Jan 28, 2024 18:30
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cumpantry posted:last update Jan 21 2024 wtf. nearly 10 years of rational naruto Wtf
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Jan 28, 2024 19:29
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Tunicate posted:There's a rational naruto RPG which of course is highly rational because every character action has to be written out in pseudocode, because that's what rationality is, only doing things that are explicitly spelled out like a beep boop robot. Like, I haven't read the work, but I jumped to several random pages because I was interested in what the 'pseudocode' you were talking about was, and I didn't see any, in either the thread updates or the reader posts. Maybe it's there somewhere, but from what I could see, the closest thing was just people voting on plans, a thing that happens in a forums CYOA - here on SA we tend to bold votes, over there they have bold and an [X] symbol. I read the Update 0 and part of Update 1, and one of the first thing I see in chapter one is quote:Because I am a ninja I met your father, and he is my heart. And because he is my heart, we had you." Cringe, possibly, I'm not defending the quality, but this doesn't really seem like the criticism of pseudo-rational 'robotic' behavior holds water? edit: I kept reading, you mean these?  these are skill checks, friend, they have them in D&D and similar you check the numbers you have against the enemy or situation's numbers, it's a randomization method the determine the general outcome of actions John Lee has a new favorite as of 02:10 on Feb 3, 2024 |
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Feb 3, 2024 01:56
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Bro it has been several years but if i recall correctly the character follows plans to the letter with no other agency, and there was big drama when a plan which was just [X] get a spandex training suit won and the character immediately dropped everything he was doing, ignored all other priorities and beelined directly to getting the training suit, despite it making no sense in context and messing stuff up The drama was the stupid people voting for the training suit didnt understand this was the obvious outcome I poked in some point later and the votes had complex series of if/then contingencies. Tunicate has a new favorite as of 03:51 on Feb 3, 2024 |
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Feb 3, 2024 03:39
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 clearly the problem then was the RPG creator not realizing that obviously if an option is presented for obtaining a spandex training suit, people are going to want to go obtain a spandex training suit, and Naruto was just going to have to find his way back to the main story paths after the people obtained the spandex training suit for which they had clamoredSPANDEX TRAINING SUIT has entered your inventory. Equip? y/n y, of course Great. You return to your mission, already in progress, while wearing your new SPANDEX TRAINING SUIT.
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Feb 4, 2024 17:22
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Currently reading a real bait-n-switch, unsure if I should put it down in disgust halfway through or hate-read it to the end. You guys ever finish a book out of a wrongful sense of pride, refusing to give up despite knowing it's totally rubbish? Either way, I'll write up a post later. I'm angry about it.
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Mar 4, 2024 00:44
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Serephina posted:Currently reading a real bait-n-switch, unsure if I should put it down in disgust halfway through or hate-read it to the end. You guys ever finish a book out of a wrongful sense of pride, refusing to give up despite knowing it's totally rubbish? No, my bestie does this but I will ditch a book so drat fast. There are too many other things to read.
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Mar 4, 2024 00:59
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Yeah, I'm split on that. Sometimes I'll push through and read the trash, sometimes I'll just throw in the towel. I guess a it depends a lot on how much being boring is part of the train I'm not liking it.
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Mar 4, 2024 01:00
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Serephina posted:Currently reading a real bait-n-switch, unsure if I should put it down in disgust halfway through or hate-read it to the end. You guys ever finish a book out of a wrongful sense of pride, refusing to give up despite knowing it's totally rubbish? I used to always finish books I started, but somewhere in my 20s I realised that I could just read something good instead and have never looked back. If I'm 10% into a book and it hasn't grabbed me (and I haven't been warned in advance that it starts slow but gets good later or whatever) then I'll chuck it and try something else. If I'm three quarters of the way through and I realise I just don't care any more? Drop it. Read something else. Too much stuff to read/watch/play to waste time like that.
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Mar 4, 2024 03:17
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Tiggum posted:I used to always finish books I started, but somewhere in my 20s I realised that I could just read something good instead and have never looked back. If I'm 10% into a book and it hasn't grabbed me (and I haven't been warned in advance that it starts slow but gets good later or whatever) then I'll chuck it and try something else. If I'm three quarters of the way through and I realise I just don't care any more? Drop it. Read something else. Too much stuff to read/watch/play to waste time like that. It took me until my 40s to figure this out.  So much time wasted on books that were either utterly forgettable, or so terrible they still haunt my waking hours.
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Mar 4, 2024 04:43
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Serephina posted:Currently reading a real bait-n-switch, unsure if I should put it down in disgust halfway through or hate-read it to the end. You guys ever finish a book out of a wrongful sense of pride, refusing to give up despite knowing it's totally rubbish? Three in particular: The Devil's Rooming House: The True Story of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer. True crime about Amy Archer-Gilligan, who liked to poisonn people. Hate-read it because of how amateur the writing was. The Man from the Train. Bill James' book claiming to solve the Villisca axe murders, claiming it was a nationwide serial kkiller. Hate-read because James' premise was complete and utter bullshit, with cherry-picked "proof" and I wanted to see how beyond ridiculous the reveal was. James is actually a respected baseball writer, but this was garbage enough to make me retroactively hate everything he's ever done. Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I don't understand why this is considered a classic. Colonialism is bad, religious colonialism is terrible and still happens but this is so ham-fisted. None of the characters are people, but merely paper-thing archetypes throughout.
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Mar 4, 2024 05:00
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I read fast enough that by the time I realise a book sucks I've probably finished it.
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Mar 4, 2024 05:03
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wheatpuppy posted:It took me until my 40s to figure this out. You and me, pal, you and me. I stuck with so many books (and TV series) because I thought I had to complete them or because there was a vocal group of fans proclaiming how great it was. The big turnarounds for me were: * Realizing that there was simply not enough time left in my life to read all the recommended, interesting or popular works. * Realizing that many fans had abysmal taste and didn't value their own time Last thing I remember hate-reading was Gavin Menzies 1421, the notorious book about how an ancient Chinese fleet supposedly explored everywhere and did everything. There are some interesting stories and anomalous facts that start the story off but the book gets more and more out there until it's just pure fantasy by the end.
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Mar 4, 2024 10:22
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I thought I had to finish an entire series out of spite once, I really enjoyed the first book and then the second was awful but I was like hey maybe it's a fluke I'll read the third one and it was even worse and then there was a fourth book and I thought might as well finish the series and then it ends on a cliffhanger and I found out there was a fifth book at which point my friend talked some sanity into me.
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Mar 4, 2024 11:19
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21st Cherry boy posted:I thought I had to finish an entire series out of spite once, I really enjoyed the first book and then the second was awful but I was like hey maybe it's a fluke I'll read the third one and it was even worse and then there was a fourth book and I thought might as well finish the series and then it ends on a cliffhanger and I found out there was a fifth book at which point my friend talked some sanity into me. Aww, you stopped right before it got good again!
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Mar 4, 2024 15:11
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21st Cherry boy posted:I thought I had to finish an entire series out of spite once, I really enjoyed the first book and then the second was awful but I was like hey maybe it's a fluke I'll read the third one and it was even worse and then there was a fourth book and I thought might as well finish the series and then it ends on a cliffhanger and I found out there was a fifth book at which point my friend talked some sanity into me. This sounds like the Hitchhiker's Guide "trilogy" except the second one wasn't really that bad.
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Mar 4, 2024 17:31
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Tiggum posted:Aww, you stopped right before it got good again! Something I have literally heard. "Yeah, the sequels dip but it gets good again at book 7 ..."
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Mar 4, 2024 17:46
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nonathlon posted:Something I have literally heard. "Yeah, the sequels dip but it gets good again at book 7 ..." Yeah people keep telling me this about Wheel of Time (funny enough the place where it "gets good again" changes) but life's too drat short and I have too many books on the stack as is.
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Mar 4, 2024 17:51
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Lemniscate Blue posted:This sounds like the Hitchhiker's Guide "trilogy" except the second one wasn't really that bad. I thought Life, the Universe And Everything was a pretty solid continuation of form.
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Mar 4, 2024 17:54
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RC and Moon Pie posted:Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I don't understand why this is considered a classic. Colonialism is bad, religious colonialism is terrible and still happens but this is so ham-fisted. None of the characters are people, but merely paper-thing archetypes throughout. Huh, I remember liking this when I had to read it in high school, though I dunno if that was just relative to other required reading. I'm also the only person I know who really enjoyed Great Expectations though so I might just be weird.
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Mar 4, 2024 18:35
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Even with the Dresden files I tend to say "it'll get good in book 3, mostly"
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Mar 4, 2024 19:10
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I read this one a bit ago and just realized I never mentioned it here (where it belongs) - the Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I only found out it existed while I was rereading the trilogy for the first time in quite a while. They generally hold up pretty well, but man, this book feels like the most pointless fan-fictiony garbage. Just the premise alone - President Snow was a figurehead villain, I never once thought it would be interesting or worthwhile to delve into his backstory. That actually made me a bit more curious in a way, like maybe the author had some big concept to make him intriguing. Nope, his younger self isn't particularly interesting or likeable. He just kind of meanders through the story, acting selfish and occasionally doing schemes to get himself ahead. And the secondary character, his would-be love interest, just comes across as artificial. All the story beats feel like things I've seen a million times before. It just chugs along with generic YA stuff and hamfisted retreads and references to things in the original trilogy, especially when it wraps things up at the very end. It really feels amateurish, like a fan project that wanted to reference the older books, but without any originality or idea of how to make Snow interesting in a way that would change how I view him in those stories. I'm not an uberfan of the originals, but I like them fine, it's just weird how big the drop in quality was for this one.
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Mar 4, 2024 19:15
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Tiggum posted:I used to always finish books I started, but somewhere in my 20s I realised that I could just read something good instead and have never looked back. If I'm 10% into a book and it hasn't grabbed me (and I haven't been warned in advance that it starts slow but gets good later or whatever) then I'll chuck it and try something else. If I'm three quarters of the way through and I realise I just don't care any more? Drop it. Read something else. Too much stuff to read/watch/play to waste time like that. I've been doing this left and right with audiobooks. I've gotten 70% through one when there was a big split personality reveal and I stopped listening. I wouldn't even call myself a fan of thrillers/mysteries, theyre just comfy to listen to at work, so I listen to quite a few and drat near half of them have some kinda split personality thing and it makes me so fuckin mad
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Mar 4, 2024 20:07
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I can't listen to books on audio. I've tried, but I just have this mental switch kick in from when I was a kid and got read to at bedtime so as soon as a book starts, I'm yawning and trying not to pass out.
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Mar 4, 2024 20:12
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I lucked out in enjoying audiobooks, between listening in bed and while doing low brainpower stuff, I get through hours a day that I wouldn't have time for if I had to sit down and read visually.
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Mar 4, 2024 20:17
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Somehow I just plain can't focus on sound-only media. Audiobooks just pass plain through my brain without being retained at all, same for podcasts. But yeah, also count me in as somebody who often sticks with bad books to the end against my better judgement. I guess part of it is that I've rarely read books where there was a singular moment that made me decide it was capital-B Bad (looking at you, Lev Grossman). Much more often it's just a case of a book having a lot of aspects that I usually enjoy but me never quite connecting with it for reasons I often can't even really articulate. Which of course leads to the eternal siren song of everything maybe finally coming together in the next chapter after all.
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Mar 4, 2024 23:09
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If you have a lot of trouble processing audio only stuff, and don't have a reason already, maybe get checked for ADHD, it was one of the things my shrink said to convince me to test. More on topic, I'm finally giving myself permission to just not finish books and it's been life changing.
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Mar 4, 2024 23:58
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Darth Walrus posted:I thought Life, the Universe And Everything was a pretty solid continuation of form. i don't remember which of the hhgttg books is which, but whichever one is the extended joke about cricket, woof e: lol that's the one you are referring to. different strokes i guess Sagebrush has a new favorite as of 00:33 on Mar 5, 2024 |
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Mar 5, 2024 00:23
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It was certainly better than Mostly Harmless which is at best pretty bleak and at worst entirely mean-spirited towards the entire series.
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Mar 5, 2024 01:43
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darkwasthenight posted:It was certainly better than Mostly Harmless which is at best pretty bleak and at worst entirely mean-spirited towards the entire series. Yeah, Mostly Harmless is the only bad Hitchiker's book. It reads like Adams was depressed.
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Mar 5, 2024 01:49
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Rascar Capac posted:Yeah, Mostly Harmless is the only bad Hitchiker's book. It reads like Adams was depressed. I like how it just perfunctorily robbed the protagonist of the one positive development in his life, and not really in a funny or ironic way... just sort of randomly, cruelly. Ha-ha!
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Mar 5, 2024 01:57
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I didn't find Mostly Harmless noticeably different in tone from the rest of the series  Random, pointless, incomprehensible cruelty is a major theme of the whole series.
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Mar 5, 2024 02:06
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