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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i disagree. no matter how the dice rolls play out or what choices are voted for, she still gets more and better stuff which takes the form of more and better dice. While there is a few exceptions to this, Ling Qi does get quite lucky. However, dice is still important for those of us who likes manipulating odds and mechanics. That the actual benefits might be more narrative than mechanics doesn't actually change that I don't consider it superfluous at all, and 'stacking the odds' is something fun.
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Feb 21, 2018 14:08
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:and then they went back for another try later on, but the rolls were successful that time. Later being late enough that the friendship had permanently changed and the friend in question also has permanently changed.
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Feb 22, 2018 12:20
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Autonomous Monster posted:Bookworm's got 677 chapters. Blastron's done 67 of them. At his currently fortnightly release rate, it will take him an actual quarter century to finish. I think the author knows, but it's somewhat hard to tell because chinese values are somewhat in awe of dystopias, so....
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Mar 15, 2018 12:48
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SerSpook posted:So on Forge of Destiny, I went back and looked over a few older chapters/updates. One thing that stood out to me, and makes me feel pretty good about Cai Renxiang, is that she did show some pretty decent consideration and regard of Ling Qi going pretty far back. I didn't really have a dog in the race, but Cai's actions earlier in the quest stood out to me. In fact, she seems to have a repeated behavior of looking after Ling Qi's safety when Thunderdome type situations spring up, and when it's not her, Gan Guangli seems to serve a similar role. While I agree she tries to do good things, I would not say Ling Qi is a good example of someone who has been victim of injustice and abuse by those stronger than her? Hell, Su Ling/ Li Suyin/ Ji Rong would be better example of those, really. What Ling Qi exhibited was both talent and a significant loyal streak, as well as the capacity to submit to those stronger than her. Arkeus fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Mar 26, 2018 |
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Mar 26, 2018 11:41
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Ytlaya posted:I'm honestly curious how in the gently caress this story is ever supposed to end, or even get remotely far into Ling Qi's cultivation. Like, at some point we're going to need multi-year time skips or something, since it seems to be the case that this sort of week to week progress just isn't a thing beyond green/bronze (even green/bronze seems long enough that it's doubtful Ling Qi will pass it in the next year or so, from what I understand). I guess to some degree you can just increase the vote periods from weeks to months to years, but the journey ahead is so long that it seems very unlikely to ever reach the point where Ling Qi is actually in the upper echelons of the empire. After the tournament there is going to be a new thread, and we'd be going with longer turns (maybe a month?), and then once we leave the sect completely even longer turn probably, and so on.
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May 27, 2018 13:22
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Silver2195 posted:I'm halfway through Ghostwater. I felt sorry for the gold dragon girl and her attendants. She wasn't actually trying to kill Lindon at first, and the attendants didn't really do anything wrong. And while Lindon was also willing to negotiate initially (Orthos got in the way), he did miss a chance for a non-lethal resolution when he ran inside the second time she confronted him instead of just handing over the Eye of the Deep. Granted, he would probably have been killed by something else shortly thereafter while either wandering around outside in search of the other portal or acting as the dragon girl's lackey (and Orthos would never have accepted the latter option anyway). I.. am not sure? Dragon girl was specifically following Lindon not only because she thought he knew something, but also because black dragon ingredients are worth money, so she wanted to harvest Orthos. The attendants are basically victims here, but there is no real indication she would not have killed him had she taken the eyes of the deep. Or any indication he could have survived without it even if she didn't (and she wanted Orthos too).
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Jun 15, 2018 10:47
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Silver2195 posted:She specifically said she would let him live if he handed over the Eye of the Deep (and there's nothing to suggest she was lying, especially since there was nothing really stopping her from killing him first and then taking the Eye). I mean, she also specifically said she was looking forward to skinning and selling off Orthos, and the thing that would stop her from killing him first and then taking the eye is him plausibly destroying the eye first/trying to escape.
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Jun 15, 2018 20:26
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Ytlaya posted:I like how the recent Forge of Destiny stuff actually mentioned how much Ling Qi's personality has changed. Part of me doesn't really like the direction her personality has gone, but it's also made her a better and more distinct character than if she just did/said the things that I wanted her to. Ji Rong kinda had a point when he mentioned that there's nothing really more evil/bad about what he did than what Ling Qi/Cai's faction did (if anything, it was a pretty morally neutral conflict). It's also nice that Ji Rong himself seems to be changing; FoD's biggest strength has always been how organic/natural its characters feel, and how they're capable of growing and changing along with the protagonist. I mean... Ji Rong was someone who spent his time in the conflict purposefully attacking people weaker than he was to break their face in, while Ling Qi/Cai's faction spent most of their giving training lessons to the lesser able people in the outer sect, giving them access to cheaper pills and giving them access to a safe space they could train in and sites. CRX was totally a Tyrant, but it's worth noting that she was never on the offensive, and pretty much everything Liling's faction did was guerilla fighting and ambushes targetting at weaker cultivators, while CRX put herself in a position to guide and protect them. Ji Rong's whole point in his dialog is that he hates people who pretend to help because those people lie anyway. So he continued to follow his old path of being a Thug Enforcer.
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Aug 29, 2018 11:16
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Ytlaya posted:It's pretty valid to think that the outer sect should just be a free for all and to resist Cai's changes, though (and Cai's help was contingent on submission to her). Like, it's not really morally better or worse to push back against Cai's control. And it's not like Ling Qi is a big fan of playing fair; she's done some lovely stuff too. It's not really valid to think there should be no factions. It is valid to think one should try and help his own faction be stronger than other factions, obviously, but everyone under Liling was /also/ under Liling, and arguably moreso than people under CRX were under CRX. Yeah, the argument that CRX should be the one heading the outer sect is basically 'lol nepotism', but it's the same argument that Sun Liling should be leading her own faction, and ultimately we need to look at what the actual factions were doing. Cai and Ling Qi have actually been rather consistent about being "one the defensive" and not "randomly bash people's head" like Sun Liling and Ji Rong have been doing, barring some of Fu Xiang's shenanigans (and at this point it is pretty clear Fu Xiang does not, in fact, follow CRX's wishes). It's not morally bad to push back against CRX and want to establish your own thing, but it's morally bad when you do so by purposefully targeting the weaklings in order to create terror. Ji Rong just is looking back at the good old day when he was a gang leader, and wishes he was still one.
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Aug 29, 2018 21:15
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SITB posted:So because they were 'turbo bourgeoisie' it's ok to beat the poo poo out of them? Do the Ma twins or Gan Guangli deserve to be beaten down simply because they joined the sect and weren't scouted? (IIRC, Li Suyin father took a loan to pay her tuition fee). Yeah, Suyin's dad spent 10 years of saving and took out a loan to get her in the sect. Ma twin's father is a potter, so probably had to take quite the loan too. In the sect people might be much richer than Ji Rong used to be as a rule, but they are probably are poorer than Ji Rong now is as the same rule.
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Aug 30, 2018 08:54
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Kaja Rainbow posted:I downloaded Qidian's webnovel app (the english one) so I could read Cultivation Chat Group on my phone and a series called Lady Cultivator caught my eye. According to the translator, it's more cultivation focused than romance focused, which got me interested since that isn't common with a female protagonist. So I've been reading it, and it seems decent so far. I'll keep reading to see how it turns out. Lady Cultivator is the first series by the author of Phoenix Destiny, which I also like a lot. Phoenix Destiny has a bit more romance, but is almost solely not about romance, too.
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Nov 7, 2018 23:48
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Ytlaya posted:
Yeah, there is still a possibility to go for a less dark domain, though a significant portion of the voterbase likes dark stuff. That, and Zeqing just keeps on giving. Anyway, Harmony thankfully will most likely be learned fairly rapidly. I suspect ENM (the memory wind/dark art) will be learned first, but Harmony is pretty much locked fairly soon.
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Jan 5, 2019 19:46
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Ytlaya posted:Yeah, it's seemed obvious that a lot of the voterbase is a fan of the dark stuff. I kinda wonder if the focus on music wasn't almost entirely due to narrative (and Ling Qi acquiring a bunch of stuff that made focusing on that mechanically ideal for her), since if things were left entirely to the audience I would have expected something sticking to the stealth/knives. There is actually a funny story about the music stuff. Basically the chargen vote about Ling Qi had the voters talking about her having some music abilities to tide the dark times in the streets, which is why she began with a flute and such. Exotic/Advanced elements are a bit of a weird thing. For example, the Gu (from Xiulan fame) have a line toward Sun that comes from Fire/Heaven, but some other people have Sun that comes from, say, Fire/Wind or something. This is why some Ice arts we have seen previously were Wind/Water, but Zeqing's seems to be Dark/Water (which is kinda weird for a sentient Blizzard). Anyway, my point is that Ice is its own element, but it's more that Ling Qi herself isn't able to directly access it it yet, so instead she does Dark/Water.
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Jan 11, 2019 05:46
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blastron posted:Gromgar barely qualifies as isekai, though. Yes, the adventurers are transported from the modern world to a fantasy setting, but they lose literally all knowledge of who they were and nearly all understanding of things other than what they learn from their fledgling adventuring career. The fact that they’re from modern Japan is ultimately irrelevant, at least as far as the anime covers. They are basically blank slates that gain skill and setting knowledge at the rate the audience does. I disagree. As often as not an Isekai coming from Japan has no actual relevance to the plot. In fact, that they come from somewhere else is often not that important. Grimgarr actually has the fact that they come from somewhere else being very important, and as such it's more Isekai than many Isekai.
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Jan 12, 2019 08:55
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Piell posted:She's straight though, she mentions it later. How the hell is she straight? she spent the first 40 chapters saying she was gay.
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Feb 16, 2019 21:33
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Yeah, seems like the writer got scared or something, given that earlier on she thinks the exact opposite quite a few times.
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Feb 17, 2019 01:37
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Ytlaya posted:Ohhh, thanks, this makes sense (and now that you mention it I believe something like this was mentioned during that conversation). It does the 'classic' thing with 3 levels per realms: Copper-Iron-Jade Lowgold-Highgold-Truegold Underlord-Overlord-TrueLord? Majesty something something As such, the difference between Jade and Gold, or Truegold and Underlord, or Truelord? and Majesty? are particularly big.
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Feb 18, 2019 19:21
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LLSix posted:Not really for Jade to Gold. The transition from Jade to Gold is rushed and not handled well in general, but there's a line something like "a lowgold is just a jade with teeth" in one of the books. The transition to Underlord is unique so far though in that it adds genuinely novel abilities. The closest comparison would be the copper to iron transition which gives Iron Body except that only some Iron Bodies have cool powers, but all Underlords get a new powerset. Truegold to Underlord is definitely the biggest jump described so far. Sage is under Majesty. It's a really good Truelord. I would also say that Jade => Gold is as big as Truegold => Underlord. They both completely change how you level afterward. Copper-Iron-Jade is basically "the physical level", while "Gold/Highgold/Truegold" is "the assimilation of the thing level".
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Feb 18, 2019 19:52
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:I forgot how goddamn short Cradle books are. I haven't so much read Underlord as inhaled it. I really liked Underworld. I think it's probably the strongest since the third book. Skysworn/Ghostwater were fine, but quite a bit less well done it felt.
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Mar 2, 2019 12:11
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Ytlaya posted:One thing that confuses me a bit is that I was under the impression that Li Markuth guy from Book 1 was at least as strong as anyone on Cradle, since he had "ascended" beyond it, but the powers he demonstrates aren't anything remotely approaching that of what we've seen from a Monarch (they seemed roughly comparable to what you might expect from an Underlord or Overlord; I remember him shooting big balls of wind into the air or something, but his brief struggle against Suriel didn't involve anything approaching what we know to be "top Cradle-level power"). It was actually confirmed by the author on his site that Li Markuth ascended from secondary means (most people who ascends do) and was a Archlord. Likewise, Elder Whisper was the strongest guy around the sacred valley, and is a Truegold.
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Mar 3, 2019 18:27
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Yeah, the MC of Savage Divinity + the whole harem made me drop it like a hot potato after a while. It's a pity because I would have easily read the same story but with the MC never existing.
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Mar 6, 2019 14:36
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Ytlaya posted:I'm bummed out now that I'm all caught up with Cradle, and the next book is likely going to be one of the most exciting ones yet (since it'll be the first one where Lindon really steps out into the world as a whole). I've been spoiled by all these web serials that release at a breakneck pace. Honestly, Unsouled camed out in july 2016. If 6 books in less than 3 years isn't "breakneck pace", well.... I would say any faster and there is no way the writer could keep any semblance of quality up. Also, personally much more excited for Yerin and Eithan to be teaming up and beating up people without Lindon. Really hoping we get a lot of that.
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Mar 11, 2019 08:21
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Ytlaya posted:Oh, I'm not complaining about it being the author's fault; it's more that the unedited nature of web serials results in a ludicrous release rate (and isn't Will Wight also working on some other series at the same time currently)? Well, my pet theory is that Eithan kept himself under overlord because he was waiting for that tournament, so he wouldn't have been going 'slow'. Also, apparently Lords do age slower, with Sage or those above Archlord aging much, much slower
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Mar 11, 2019 17:47
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Lyon posted:Anyone reading Mao Ni’s (Ze Tian Ji/Way of Choices) next book The Path Toward Heaven? Yeah. I am liking it quite a bit, though I am not up to date since it went beyond a paywall. From what I am seeing something big happened last update.
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Apr 11, 2019 19:01
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Its Rinaldo posted:As for the other origins, it’s been generally agreed that Han Jian is the noble birth option and Gan Flexington is the soldier. Given other details about the noble birth, I /think/ it would have been more likely to be Fan Yu, the noble option. :Scream:
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Jun 14, 2019 15:04
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LLSix posted:Yes. So much so that beating people so badly it requires magic to heal them just results in a fine, and not even a fine large enough fine to allow their victim to find a new job (see Ling Qi's newest understanding of what happened to her mom's old job). A detail, but part of that plot was that Ling Qi realised that low level cultivators who beat up non cultivators actually got a much harsher punishment than non cultivators that beat up other non cultivators.
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Aug 24, 2019 12:50
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Ytlaya posted:
If you mean Liao Zhu, he is a Bloody Moon + Reflective Moon cultivator. E.G, 'kill the sinners but give them a chance to repent first'. He was shirtless yummy with a demon mask on his face.
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Sep 6, 2019 22:38
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LLSix posted:Meizhen got a similar super art out of her first Elder lesson. Early on it was a lot of the motivation for taking Elder lessons. For some reason that stopped being a thing later in the series. Not quite- it's more like people bullied Yrs into having Elder Ying lessons including an art, and then when we got to Elder Jiao lessons Yrs went 'you failed the test so you aren't worth an art' as an argument. OTOH, for inner disciple lessons, yeah it began as "if they like you they might give you goodies", which happened only for the very first time. Later on it was more about efficiency of the system. As for Meizhen, she got her first earth art from Elder Ying, then decided she liked earth and asked home to send her more earth art. She then Beat Sun Liling using an earth art
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Oct 4, 2019 06:58
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I... actually liked Uncrowned a lot? Blackflame was hinted at thorough the whole book, so it didn't feel 'cheap' to me that he learned it offscreen. Finaly fight basically went how I wanted it to go in a way that makes perfect sense, though I am disappointed We haven't seen Eithan going all out to destroy the golden dragon. I mean, yeah. tournament arcs aren't the most fun. There was a few scene early on in the book where it fellated Lindon a bit too much. But overall it was quite a bit better than I expected, from the people comments here. Ytlaya posted:Which art was her earth art? The thing where she came out of the mud near the end? Yeah, that one. Iirc she also used it do dodge an attack. Ytlaya posted:Next time Ling Qi meets with Xiaofen she finds out that Su Ling kicked Gan Guangli's rear end and took over the outer sect. Sadly, there is a LOT of competitions. Gan Guangli, Lu Feng, Wen Ai, Han Jian, Chu Song are all confirmed third realms, and most of those have better ressources and arts than Su Ling. Bai Xiao Fen and the Jin guy are probably going to be there, too.
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Oct 5, 2019 22:49
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Ytlaya posted:How does Chu Song fit into this, then? Why didn't she make it into the inner sect last year? It seems like if someone like her can exist outside of the inner sect and reach third realm in the outer sect, there should be at least a few other people in the outer sect who also reached third realm in their third or fourth years or whatever. If you recall in the tournament, not everyone got as difficult fights as others. Kang Zihao in particular got a prelim where he was with Sun Liling, then a fight against a yellow that was his old subordinate during the year... and then he was punted aside with a Meizhen fight. Ling Qi, otoh, got in a prelim fight with both a green 2 opponent but also a full group of Sun Liling's faction who were armed with specific anti-Ling Qi talisman. Then she got a fight against Chu Son to get in the inner sect. Basically, being a high noble gives you the easy road, and being a vocal anti-cai gives you the harshest road. quote:edit: Unrelated, but upon re-reading the Bai Meizhen/Sun Liling fight and even the Gu Xiulan/Wen Ai fight, Ling Qi really needs to get some flashier abilities. She mostly just makes her mist and then freezes people. I feel like the other characters often have aesthetically neater and more coherent powersets because they're left up to the author, instead of the readers choosing stuff based upon game stat stuff. This is something that's often mentioned to the author, and I think it's because fights being from Ling Qi's PoV means there is more of a focus on the details and less of a focus on the aesthetics.
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Oct 7, 2019 21:06
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Ytlaya posted:I think I talked about this some in the web serial thread, but there's something about Wandering Inn that fundamentally prevents me from truly "buying into" its story and setting. Like something about the characters, events, and writing makes it impossible for me to forget "this is written by a nerdy person on the internet" (which obviously isn't an inherently bad thing since it's true for literally all of the stuff in this thread, but it can be a problem when it directly influences the writing in a negative way). The best way I can think of articulating it is that I can distinctly derive a sense of "these dialogue and events are being written to appeal to a specific type of person who is familiar with nerd culture in 2019." I think a lot of this is tastes and colours? I know I stopped Pracguides specifically because I felt everything about it was intended to be fanservice for a specific fanbase, for example. I stopped Worm for many reasons, but that was also one of the reasons (never took up Ward, so I can't tell about this one). Basically, I think that if you are the intended audience for the fanservice then the fanservice feels more organic than if you are not the intended audience.
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Oct 17, 2019 13:33
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:yeah, that's pretty much just a word-for-word description of he who fights with monsters. Well, except for being 'a good guy', sure. The main issue with 'Assholish but good' subgenre is that it very rarely actually plays it well on webnovels as it takes quite a bit of know-how, and instead you get 'rear end in a top hat and evil' or just 'good' after a few chapters. He who Fights Monsters is the former.
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Dec 12, 2019 12:04
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Avulsion posted:Did you quit reading after he played Dead by Daylight in the holodeck? Everything he's done since then has been pretty clearly not-evil, even if he's still a huge rear end in a top hat. He has been doing a lot of evil stuff, just nothing that actually has consequences, and he benefits from the good old "If he is being evil, the person he is being evil toward will be retroactively shown to be a villain".
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Dec 12, 2019 23:02
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atelier morgan posted:The telling thing is that he's actually enough of a realized person that you can argue about his morality, rather than just an outright villain treated as a hero by the story like many WN protags But... he is treated by a complete hero by the story. That's why so many people give up in disgust about the story. It constantly does the "Jason makes a quick assumption of someone's personality, and it turns out right". If someone is evil, they will dislike Jason. If someone is nice, they will like him. If Jason dislikes someone, that person will turn evil (or there is a plot point about it). If Jason likes someone, they will be good. And that's in the first half second of a meeting. The story is hilariously shallow.
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Dec 13, 2019 10:29
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:mostly that it's a vaguely decent cultivation wn with a female lead. it's a time leap, but the first time around the mc was mostly just jerked around by life even though she eventually reached a high cultivation. the second time, she's more focused on taking care of the people she lost. there's also how as a side effect, she actually lost cultivation and is far weaker than she was at the same point in her first life. it's still very much a power fantasy, but the power is purely social thus far. in other words, when the mc flexes it is in the form of being a catty bitch to assholes she hates. Mmmh, I am hoping that changes somewhat though, because so far this kind of thing is what is sort of traditional for transmigration/time travel of women in cultivation story. Mostly social put down and not much actual cultivation at all. I'm also having a hard time thinking the original girl was really really dumb, given all we learn about her past self.
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Feb 29, 2020 23:16
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Legendary mechanics I gave up on when it gave up on the premise of having the 'awesome players' have any agency or capability that isn't a gift from the protagonist. Early on there was a lot of bits where it looked like while the protagonist had immense advantages, he also had disadvantages and other people were aweomes. Once they leave the original world, that's far gone.
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Mar 30, 2020 08:41
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