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jwang posted:For Shun, it was the end of everything he knew. For Kumoko, it was merely a Tuesday. Well, something to keep in mind is that Sariel is trying to get Shun to do something specific so I wouldn't discount him just yet. gimme the GOD drat candy posted:shun is unquestionably a better person than kumoko, but he can't do anything. being born as a human gave him too much of a disadvantage. while kumoko was struggling through the labyrinth he was a toddler. while kumoko was seizing godhood he was struggling with his old friend's new gender. while kumoko was plotting to save the world by killing half of its population he was in elementary school. Well, Kumoko did that when Shun was like 1 year old, as Iirc Sophia was something like that when that meeting happens.
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Oct 6, 2016 21:45
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Mmmh, MGRP quickly change protagonist or something? Because I only watched the first couple of episode and was frustrated at how no one caught on what was happening, but I actually sort of liked the main character.
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Dec 1, 2016 11:29
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Silver2195 posted:Finished Unsouled. Suriel explaining how crazy the powerlevels get was cool. Finished Unsouled too, but I don't remember Suriel explaining that?
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Dec 24, 2016 21:55
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I still am in the beginning of the second volume, but I am quite disappointed that Kelsa was left behind without any hints as to what was coming, as she was in many way a better character than Lindon. While Lindon being fairly good at using loophole is very nice, he - so far- is really not a hard worker at all and is VERY arrogant as it seems he somehow got from Suriel that he was sure to achive his goal, instead of it being a very, very, very long shot that he has to go against the odds for.
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Dec 25, 2016 01:13
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One thing about the Craddle series is that you have to dismiss the usual Xanxia conceit where going up a level means it's IMPOSSIBLE to lose against someone of a lower level (unless there are significant differences in techniques/whatever). It's mentioned as a real possibility that Long Sai could get ganked by a lowgold by mistake, and the fight at the end of Book 1 is very unlikely but not that rare. It's very possible the sect had some really nasty poison AND got stupidly lucky (E.G, he was out of power when he was sleeping, and not just sleeping normally), etc.
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Dec 25, 2016 13:28
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BlitzBlast posted:I think my favorite part about Konosuba is how silly the climaxes sound out of context. This doesn't sound silly at all, to be honest. There is a LOT of movies/books where even making one stumble is a good end.
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Jan 15, 2017 22:58
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darkgray posted:I think in part it's just the pendulum swinging back from a decade of light novel protagonists who were silent and took it, or something. People are probably just tired of the frustrating waiting part until the protagonist finally overcomes his internal issues or whatever. But they didn't? Like, this is a big myth, but LN protagonists always were wish fulfilment in big measures. "Silent and Took it" usually ended up meaning "had girls falling over him", and half of them actually had pro-active protagonists, though some of them arguably didn't. But even then, it was "I want girls to love nice guys (tip fedora)".
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Mar 11, 2017 09:55
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dipple posted:How far did you read into absolute choice because it had a bit of a rough start but gets pretty funny once he starts powering up. I liked the start but hated the powering up lol.
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Mar 13, 2017 15:01
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Ytlaya posted:Is there any place I can find the LN character drawings (or any sort of official character art) for Kumoko? Google image searches aren't helping me much. I found one picture with images of Shun, Sue, Julius, and the elf teacher, but it would be nice to have an image of some of these other characters like the Sword Emperor guy or Saint girl (I'm at the part where they were just introduced). http://kadokawabooks.jp/img/pc/main-books/book89.jpeg http://kadokawabooks.jp/img/pc/main-books/book125.jpeg Julius, Sue, Shun, Katia, Oka-chan.  Ronand, Sophia, Ariel: 
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Mar 21, 2017 00:56
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Ytlaya posted:I think it would be more accurate to say that the author probably perceives such actions in that way and this is reflected in the reactions of the characters in the story (sort of like how America/China actually are dastardly in the context of Mahouka's story, but only as a reflection of the author's actual views). No, not at all. It's a big thing that when Kumoko look at Kumoko she thinks "how dumb is this bitch" (see: all the mind splits). Kumoko is constantly shown as flat out wrong, and her crippling shyness is shown as crippling from a lot of the character's PoV, though some of them get impressed by the cool girl façade (Ronand, Wrath) a lot are well aware it's caused by crippling anxiety when talking to other people.
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Mar 26, 2017 19:08
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TBH translating names is an instant "throw away the book" offense to me. Translating Kuro/Shuro is in the same degree of horribleness, to me, that Translating Snape to Rogue in french is. gently caress that. I... also strongly prefer the translation choices in, say, World of Cultivation, than in most 'translate everything' translators.
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Mar 30, 2017 08:35
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Ytlaya posted:
The problem is Shiro's name is actually Shiro. And, yeah, I have no clue whatsoever why they translated Snape to Rogue.
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Mar 30, 2017 17:41
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Ytlaya posted:So Shiro's plan has been revealed in Kumoko, and there are a couple things I don't totally understand. quote:2. From what I understand, the two options are 1. do nothing until Sariel's soul dies, at which point Kuro takes over and sacrifices himself to save the planet and 2. kill enough people that the System can be destroyed and Sariel's soul can be saved, though she would still die (Kumoko's plan). Doesn't it seem like the the only difference is thousands of people "regular" dying vs. Sariel and Kuro soul dying? I'm not seeing what the problem is with the first option if it would still save the planet and not involved a bunch of killing (even if the killing doesn't kill their souls). My understanding is that even if Kuro sacrifices himself it won't be enough to heal the planet, just give it more time. It might have been enough if it wasn't for Potimas, but currently it won't. Shiro's plan actually seem to be a bit more nasty than what you are saying, too.
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Apr 3, 2017 08:52
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UberJew posted:tbqh this is basically a default assumption even in 'heroic' fantasy so hardly without precedent It's really, really not. It's something that happen a lot on the more 'edgy' Fantasy from authors with little knowledge. Most often, though, torture is only something that the most vile of enemies do.
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Apr 5, 2017 17:52
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UberJew posted:The 'heroes' capturing some low level bad guy and demanding answers, then breaking their nose or stabbing them in the hand or similar to get an answer is super common Not in fantasy. A very small subset of super-edgy fantasy sometimes does it, but that's a small subset of a small subset of the genre.
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Apr 9, 2017 10:38
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Mulva posted:I really think you are out of touch with how much of fantasy is still keyed in to the olden days when shirtless white guys with big swords completely brutalized the While that is certainly possible, I have read a poo poo ton of fantasy and have found that 'torture by the good guys' are usually extremely rare and often written by either fringe elements of the grimderp crowd, or amusingly written by the 'popular to people who don't read fantasy' crowd (Jordan, Goodkind, Rothfuss).
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Apr 9, 2017 19:07
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I... am not sure why you are surprised Re:Zero does this? It becomes very clear very early on that Subaru never accepts anything but a 'perfect end' and that he sees himself as a harem protagonist, with all the bells and whistles of "I am totally going to reject polygamy which will only make them push it on me and I'll have to accept it's their desire" being more or less his motivation a few times, and how things just 'fall in line' to make things easier for him to get that Best End whenever he has a reset. As for women who willingly become mistresses/etc... I think people don't really understand that mistresses actually tend to get "the good side" without having to actually do the work and have the bad part of the relationship in many cases. Women who are willing to become mistresses rarely do it as a "I want this man so much I am willing to settle for second" (though it of course does happen) but is much more commonly a "I am actually first and I don't have to have icky children and can have my own life and have my own love life If I need to". Polygamy also tends to be much more complicated than Harems. As in, very, very complicated.
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Apr 29, 2017 16:40
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Silver2195 posted:I've finished the third Cradle book, Blackflame, which has recently come out. It's pretty good. Lindon doesn't kill someone three levels above him at the end of the book this time, although he does destroy the hand of someone two levels above him. Eithan seems to be on the overpowered side, but he does have a weakness (physical attacks). Yerin ruining cool technique names was amusing, and the way she and Lindon beat the Trials was clever while remaining in keeping with her I think he felt insulted that he had issues last time with her, so it was a pride thing: he had gone up a level since then, so he let her get a level to show he had improved more. Also the guy was never really pragmatic beforehand? He had pride in spare. And, yeah, the reveal of Eithan's path seemed amusing, and I am wondering if it is Makiel or Ozriel that contacted him
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May 6, 2017 13:37
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way of doing things.
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Ytlaya posted:Man, Otto really gets some great scenes in Arc 4. Non-Subaru MVP for the arc IMO. I...think it's the opposite? When someone specifically coerce you for a promise after you broke one, especially if it's a small promise, they are giving you a freebie chance to redeem yourself. This isn't "she should have shown goodwill", it is "She has shown goodwill by giving him a second chance, which he promptly didn't care about because who the gently caress cares about promises".
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May 8, 2017 23:40
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Ytlaya posted:Put yourself in Subaru's position. If he said "No sorry I can't hold your hand after you lost your parental figure, got more important things to do", Emilia, in her fragile state, would not have reacted well (possibly making her fail the trial) and probably wouldn't have been able to fall asleep. And Subaru did attempt to stick to the spirit of the promise as best he could, and was even expecting to be back to Emilia's room before she woke up IIRC. But there was no way for him to fulfill the promise while also accomplishing his goals - goals which he couldn't tell Emilia about. Huh... again, I strongly, strongly disagree. She purposefully broke her moral code to give him a second chance. He saw this as "It doesn't matter if it's a deal breaker to her, I'll just lie as clearly I don't want to either get into a row by refusing or actually be honest and do it". If you are not willing to think someone's wish are important to them, and do not care about what's important to them, don't pretend that the person is awful by being pissed at you betraying them when given a very, very rare second chance. tl;dr: Subaru is an awful friend and a arrogant rear end in a top hat who thinks his wishes to have a perfect resolution where he can eat the cake and keep it too is normal.
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May 9, 2017 10:02
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Argas posted:Plus, the plan was Jai Daishou's idea. I feel split on the greater events that's sprinkled here and there in each of the books. On one hand, I can appreciate building up a smaller scale story into something larger but sometimes, just sometimes, I'd like a story to stay small. Yeah, a story staying small isn't a bad thing, especially as the author is decent at doing the small stuff. Also, am I the only one disappointed that Lindon took a badass path instead of the Path of the Wei clan?
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May 9, 2017 12:22
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Ytlaya posted:Just because you have a moral code doesn't mean other people should have to always uphold it. Some people believe unreasonable things or have weird hang-ups, and having some moral standard that you're super unusually strict about is not other peoples' fault. Asking someone to literally hold your hand all night without leaving while you sleep is an unreasonable request, but she was obviously not in a normal state of mind and, as mentioned before, would not have reacted well to Subaru saying "nope sorry can't stay by your side all night." From what I understand, he briefly left to leave the message in the tomb (because there wasn't any other chance to do so) and had the bad luck of her waking up while he was gone. Unlike his other loops, he absolutely needed to get this one right (because of his bet with Roswaal), and if Emilia didn't sleep that night or had her state of mind disturbed even further it could have completely ruined everything. Indeed, it's called "My goals are more important than our relationships". He knows how she thinks of honesty by that time, if his own goal are so important that he can break his word, well, that's how much it's worth, and he knows what his words are worth to her. You can't have your cake and eat it too, and a deal breaker is a deal breaker, no matter how much more convenient it would be if it wasn't.
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May 9, 2017 17:41
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Ytlaya posted:It was her fault for setting those conditions in the first place, though. The situation was one where through her actions, she was basically emotionally manipulating Subaru. It's sort of like if a depressed person tells someone they like "IF YOU DON'T PROMISE TO GO ON A DATE WITH ME I MIGHT KILL MYSELF", though in this case it was more through Emilia's actions clearly indicating she was not of stable mind (she had just finished losing her poo poo and throwing furniture everywhere). Just like a person in that sort of situation, she was effectively putting Subaru under a bunch of emotional pressure to behave a certain way. Not promising to hold her hand all night in that situation was not really an option for him, and preserving her mental state was of utmost importance for reasons he couldn't articulate to her (he obviously couldn't tell her about the bet). But all of that doesn't matter. If you have to do something you know is going to destroy the person you are supposedly trying to help if they learn of it, it doesn't matter "if it's for a good cause". It might mean your relationship cannot work, definitely. But then, that's life. He[ knowingly decided to do something he knew would break her because it fit his current goals and he knowingly accepted her demands even knowing all of that instead of being honest. He wanted the cake and eat it too. 'I had a good reason' and 'I was under pressure' only partially work if he didn't know from the start what it would mean to do what he did.
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May 9, 2017 20:45
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Avulsion posted:She can't do everything on her own, half the time she tries to do anything she ends up nearly dying and having to be saved by other people. Does it? Because where I stopped reading it, she can use her kung fu just fine against giant wolves, she can run just fine on sharp rocks, she can run faster than people who are using the skill system specifically to run faster, she can make friends faster than anyone being nice.... Maybe it will change, everyone has hinted it did change. But where I stopped, it basically was confirmed author self insert.
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Jun 19, 2017 07:52
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I like the setting, and I like that he is a refiner.... however, it seems he'll be the classic 'I do pills better than anyone else AND I fight better with anyone else' thing, so... But yeah, the main character himself is fairly classic xanxia, though maybe not as awful as some others. It's the setting and secondary chars that make it entertaining.
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Jul 14, 2017 23:21
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jon joe posted:Crossposting from the new Web Serial thread: I tried that, but I got really annoyed very quickly at how self absorbed the whole thing was. The MC spent a thousand years in another world before, but still constantly think about newton/einstein/earth sport teams/etc. He doesn't even know the name of the world he spent 1000 years in... but talks about how he spent all his time there 'learning everything he could'. I'm not sure if it's on purpose either, but he basically makes all the usual assumptions about "doing things randomly is obviously the optimal way to go" and always seemed to be right about random guesses in the past, and continues to seem to be so now. As for the plotting/story, it just seems to be all about gloating on how much smarter he is than others, and it appears to read more as a basement-dwelling nerd thinking how much better he is than everyone else and how he understands the world better without ever connecting to anyone than anything else.
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Aug 26, 2017 08:27
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Katreus posted:If we're reccing fanfic, I'd like to rec something in a similar vein, an original xianxia quest called Forge of Destiny. A quest is basically like a forum game where all the questers control a single character and vote on actions or decisions that the character does, and the Quest Master responds with the results and controls all non-protagonist characters. Like web novels, quest posts can vary in quality. Right, going to second that one. It's fun and the world building is fairly excellent. Not only that, but the QM makes a good job of having secondary characters having agency and doing their own stuff.
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Sep 8, 2017 00:16
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Katreus posted:No idea TBH. I don't think there's been a single one that has a listed DC. Yeah, the Xanxia mongols are cool as heck. Also I'm kinda pissed that I had forgotten we had a stealth reroll. That would have convinced me to vote. Grinning Moon being smug as heck is a awesome image.
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Sep 13, 2017 19:36
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SerSpook posted:It is good. Speaking of the original character choice options, the noble dude with the tiger cub is pretty clearly the noble starting option as well. Kinda poor talent, a reputation as a wastrel that he's trying to work off. It's believed that Han Jian is a rework on the High Noble option (too much Talent for it), Li Suyin of the Scholar option (not rich enough for it), Gan Guangli of the soldier option (born commoner, picked up by CRX), Ji Rong is mostly straight criminal option. As for expys, Sun Liling was inspired by Ranma(Ranko), Cai Renxiang by Satsuki (Kill la Kill), Gu Xiulan by Azula (A:TLA), Huang Da by 'harem protagonist creep', and maybe I am forgetting some. Ling Qi is doing a bit better than her peers, mostly because the Ling Qi train never stops- thought it slows down sometimes. Other characters have their own plots though.
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Sep 18, 2017 09:03
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Ytlaya posted:Ah, thanks, I'm not that used to remembering Chinese names. I didn't see the spoiler before it was apparently put in spoiler bars. Yeah- we had been told repeatedly those two in particular were being hunted down, but there was a huge desire to go and feel good about winning our fight, which makes sense as celebrating is good, but was really frustrating at the time because it was drat obvious what was going on with our weaker allies.
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Sep 20, 2017 10:30
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Katreus posted:
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Sep 20, 2017 19:23
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Ytlaya posted:
Well, the conversation was a good idea because Meizhen was actually trying to make amend and it was awkward as gently caress but beside the bad rolls other reactions from Ling Qi doomed it.
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Sep 26, 2017 11:18
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Ytlaya posted:While I really, really doubt this going to be the case, it would be nice if it turns out that Ling Qi's frequent blushing/flushing when girls get close to/touch her is due to some unacknowledged bisexuality or something (though I think it's just a more general "embarrassed at having someone in my personal space" reaction, and her relative lack at a reaction to stuff like bathing with Gu Xiulan strongly implies otherwise). The problem with this is twofold. Around where you are is where it becomes really obvious that Ling Qi Very much distrusts men as a whole. In hindsight this was why she was so distrustful of Han Jian for so long, and why you constantly have her making huge assumptions on every guys she meets. Ling Qi saw horrible stuff back when she was a street rat, and and men SL are going to be really hard to get. Then, there is the fact that Ling Qi actually has been trying to check girls out since Meizhen told her this, in hope to find some latent bisexuality. She... hasn't found it.
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Sep 26, 2017 17:59
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The writer's pretty good in prose but he writes way too fast so a lot of grammar/vocabulary is not so great. Also, it's not just that every characters have goals and a life, but that there are constant details about it and the world that you have to pay attention to to notice. It's really well done. Oh, and it's a quest, not a web novel :p
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Sep 28, 2017 20:10
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Silver2195 posted:The fourth Cradle book, Skysworn, just came out. The Jai Long fight was neat; I wasn't expecting Lindon to actually lose, but he did, despite putting up a good fight. It was also nice to see Jai Chen finally being proactive (and in a very Lindon-esque way at that: just stabbing someone way above her (what level is Jai Chen anyway?)). Well, just finished. I really wonder what will be Eithan's reaction to being betrayed by his family. It's possible that he will try to wrestly control back, but I get the feeling he just doesn't have time to do that without sacrificing everything else, so he probably will just end up leaving the family completely. Which, well, will suck for the family itself.
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Oct 3, 2017 15:29
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Silver2195 posted:"Betrayed" is a strong way of putting it. He mostly deserved it, frankly. He put his clan in the best way to reap the reward from secret info he got from a Monarch, which he couldn't quite say but could say it was trustworthy. He was betrayed after bringing his clan glory again and again because he has a arrogant attitude and was an 'otusider' from that branch of the clan That theory above is interesting. I like it, though I wouldn't dismiss the timetable being pushed up and having to fight many dreadlords instead of just the one
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Oct 3, 2017 16:47
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Silver2195 posted:It's not just his arrogant attitude. His attempts to manipulate Jai Daishou make him partially responsible for the Bleeding Phoenix's attack, he's always forcing other people to risk their lives, and he's always wasting money. His attempt to manipulate Jai Daishou is also responsible for saving the Aurelius clan and making it stronger and he is not always forcing other people to risk their lives, indeed he is actually trying not to do so, offhand I'd say the Aurelius clan as a whole tend to do that more than he does.. As for money... the big argument on him wasting money is that he is psending his time on Yerin and Lindon however not only is it his time, but it's also something that has shown to be worth it When you come down to it, this was just The dad being butthurt by Eithan taking his place
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Oct 4, 2017 05:28
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The Sandman posted:Something that probably helps Forge of Destiny is that we aren't just mainlining through all the early training and stuff to get to the bit where you casually explode people the way a lot of xianxia seems to. And that the characters aren't one-dimensional assholes. Yan Renshu has done the one thing no one in the thread would ever forget. Ytlaya posted:It's sad that Su Ling is going to inevitably be pushed out of the plot, since there's no way she ends up an Inner Desciple. Ling Qi even realizes this and is trying to get her some other friends. Su Ling is the only truly decent character in this story aside from maybe Gan Guangli or Han Jian. Also, Xuan Shi is shill. Anyway, I'd say Su Ling has good chance to stay relevant if we go sect route, as we likely will end up her captain during the army. One of the part of CRX route than annoys me is, indeed, not being able to do that. SerSpook posted:I'm pretty sure Su Ling is a production student and those use different criteria to advance to the inner sect. At the moment, Ling Qi seems totally unaware of what these are and the chances Su Ling has. I'll agree that it's hard to grasp how utterly bulshit Ling Qi's advancement has been... but we shouldn't under-estimate the resource advantages of the monsters. They have kept pace with us, week wise in pure cultivation (Meizhen got to late yellow week 5 and us week 24, she got to early green week 19 and us week 37) though we have managed to catch up art wise and skill wise (I expect them to have much higher than we were at similar levels). The big thing, though, is that the higher you are the rarer resources you need, and we just won't quality easily for such resources, while they will. So, I'd say while we could arguably catch up by the tournament simply because each step takes longer and longer, that doesn't mean they won't distance us again by next year.
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Jan 25, 2018 18:38
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SerSpook posted:Not to get into too much detail about it, but Ling Qi's status is going to pretty significantly change after the tournament I think it's fair to say. It's hard to gauge just what kind of resources will be available, and it depends pretty heavily on choices the players make. Well, a few things: Most of the more potent houses have ways to increase Talent. It's been hinted that the sect also does. High end characters (Prisms, White) likely have had 3/4 talent increase unless they are Shenhua. Our talent, once the monsters get the full resources of their house, will become only less and less useful (especially as it's not that high). Elder Jiao is at the absolute top of what you usually expect non-hermit cultivators to be. Whites are basically 'constant closed door' except for Shenhua/Shao, and while going the CRX route means being a Cai vassal, it does not mean being directly under Shenhua unless we do something really insane (like be violet when CRX is Cyan). While Shenhua certainly has higher resources than Jiao, Jiao also certainly have much more higher resources than CRX, and is more capable to give them to his single apprentice. Beside that, there are arguments for Shenhua actually being worse for arts/etc than a great sect. What CRX route gives is political influence and a direct way to influence the incoming poo poo storm (E.G, being much higher up in the chain of decisions).
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Jan 25, 2018 19:54
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Jackard posted:Hm! Are there any other fantasy stories where the protagonist isn't a. overpowered and b. a piece of poo poo? Nighthunter is actually not awful about this, as is Doomsday wonderland. "There is no Epic Loot here, Only Puns (Dungeon)" is also decent. https://royalroadl.com/fiction/14850/nighthunter https://www.webnovel.com/book/7141995206000505/Doomsday-Wonderland https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/there-is-no-epic-loot-here-only-puns-dungeon.590739/
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Feb 3, 2018 17:26
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