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The Shortest Path posted:All of those things end up having severe consequences, most of them near-imminently, to be fair. But yeah I can see why it would get extremely frustrating to see stuff like that keep happening and the book being so long that you aren't reasonably gonna see the payoffs until hundreds of thousands of words later. Lol I quit around the same time and I'm pretty sure the consequences for thoughtlessly almost burning down the alchemists livelihood was......the alchemist was mad for like a paragraph and then erin threw some money at her and everything was great, now erin is the most specialist and magicalist cook and can use the shop whenever
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Apr 25, 2021 02:44
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Ytlaya posted:I'm not sure if the situations here are really similar. The current Catherine would probably agree with Black's reasoning from this chapter. There are definitely some major differences. She's learned a few lessons, and she's juiced up on a different flavor of god power this month. But stabbing Black in his tent afterwards is very much similar to what she did with Akua. Big name on team evil puts her country in the crosshairs to serve their political ends, she responds later with a theatrical bridge-burning that leaves them wounded but alive and in a position to cause her grief. In both cases, there is also war going on. Similarly, the Tower has been built up as a politically significant superweapon. Both in terms of all the evil magic nonsense and the symbolic center all Praesi cackling supervillains orbit around. Black said that he was "done with half measures" when he broke Catherine and Malicia's portal-making superweapon. He thought that "keeping the weapon was certain to ensure the destruction of the Empire at the hand of heroes". It would be quite narratively satisfying if he doubled down on that promise and struck decisively at the heart of the Praesi nobility. He's not working within the system anymore, and he's probably one of the best positioned to wreck it. Given everything that has been said in this book about how the high houses are the ones ruining a pretty cool country, we might be edging into some glorious proletariat revolution territory! Catherine has more respect for royalty and strong executive powers than Black does. I would be quite entertained if the reason they can't work together is that Black is too pro-democracy.
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Apr 25, 2021 03:18
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Xun posted:Lol I quit around the same time and I'm pretty sure the consequences for thoughtlessly almost burning down the alchemists livelihood was......the alchemist was mad for like a paragraph and then erin threw some money at her and everything was great, now erin is the most specialist and magicalist cook and can use the shop whenever I wouldn't call this consequences exactly but it's been like five million words since and Erin still hasn't made anything more successful than the first recipes she invented in the shop, and her magical cooking is largely still considered either a culinary or magical failure, more often both. Lyonette is now in charge of inn finances because Erin was making the inn hemorrhage money with antics like that. I don't recall if she's been banned from Octavia's shop but her most recent attempts at experimenting now are typically either vetoed or relegated to somewhere at a safe distance. Argue fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Apr 25, 2021 |
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Apr 25, 2021 05:18
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Xun posted:Lol I quit around the same time and I'm pretty sure the consequences for thoughtlessly almost burning down the alchemists livelihood was......the alchemist was mad for like a paragraph and then erin threw some money at her and everything was great, now erin is the most specialist and magicalist cook and can use the shop whenever Well, you're pretty wrong. It's a bit like quitting Star Wars during Phantom Menace, because Anakin is a Mary-Sue character.
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Apr 25, 2021 17:37
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goethe42 posted:Well, you're pretty wrong. It's a bit like quitting Star Wars during Phantom Menace, because Anakin is a Mary-Sue character. But that is the correct choice. That doesn't get better either.
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Apr 25, 2021 17:48
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goethe42 posted:Well, you're pretty wrong. It's a bit like quitting Star Wars during Phantom Menace, because Anakin is a Mary-Sue character. Oh, Erin is definitely a Mary Sue; I think recent events have shown that everyone would gladly go to war for her if some situation like that were to arise. That said, she's pleasant to read about because it turns out that consistently advocating for kindness buys you a lot of of credit (with me at least), and the consequences of the mistakes she does make are dire enough that she isn't quite a messiah. And it helps that despite her Mary Sueness, she isn't naive about what shitheads people can actually be, nor does the story doesn't treat the huge systemic problems in her way as something that can be solved with her performative actions, nor does she make villains instantly become good or make warring factions declare peace just from forcing them to play nice with each other in the inn.
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Apr 25, 2021 18:06
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Argue posted:Oh, Erin is definitely a Mary Sue; I think recent events have shown that everyone would gladly go to war for her if some situation like that were to arise. That said, she's pleasant to read about because it turns out that consistently advocating for kindness buys you a lot of of credit (with me at least), and the consequences of the mistakes she does make are dire enough that she isn't quite a messiah. I did think that (very recent arc spoilers) everyone going to war for her - including a decent chunk of Liscor and basically every adventurer team she's ever met - was completely ridiculous and I was expecting everyone to be under some kind of magical or aura effect. I'm genuinely surprised that didn't turn out to be the case. That's probably the most suspension-of-disbelief-breaking thing I've read in the entire story so far, even if it did shake things up in an interesting way.
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Apr 25, 2021 18:28
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Argue posted:Oh, Erin is definitely a Mary Sue; I think recent events have shown that everyone would gladly go to war for her if some situation like that were to arise. That said, she's pleasant to read about because it turns out that consistently advocating for kindness buys you a lot of of credit (with me at least), and the consequences of the mistakes she does make are dire enough that she isn't quite a messiah. I don't mind her being nice; that's why I didn't include teaching a goblin to be a tactician despite the explicitly referenced fact that could end up killing thousands of people as one of her mistakes; she didn't buy in to the "goblins are always chaotic evil" mindset and I think that's great. What I object to is that... well, I don't want to say she's an idiot, because I really don't think she is, but that the story seems bound and determined to make her act like one and that just makes it painful to read. I think this thread is making me realize that might just be me, though.
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Apr 25, 2021 19:14
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Bremen posted:I don't mind her being nice; that's why I didn't include teaching a goblin to be a tactician despite the explicitly referenced fact that could end up killing thousands of people as one of her mistakes; she didn't buy in to the "goblins are always chaotic evil" mindset and I think that's great. What I object to is that... well, I don't want to say she's an idiot, because I really don't think she is, but that the story seems bound and determined to make her act like one and that just makes it painful to read. I think this thread is making me realize that might just be me, though. The word you are looking for is naive, not idiot. Erin isn't dumb(most of the time), she just doesn't understand the consequences of her actions.
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Apr 25, 2021 21:50
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Peachfart posted:The word you are looking for is naive, not idiot. Erin isn't dumb(most of the time), she just doesn't understand the consequences of her actions. In other words, an idiot
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Apr 25, 2021 22:13
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Four more chapters of Worth the Candle dropped. After the ending of the last two, this should certainly be...interesting.
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Apr 26, 2021 00:30
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I think maybe the thing I like the most about Worth the Candle is that I think it's maybe the least predictable web serial I've read. For a given chapter drop I may know they're gonna tackle [issue], but I have no idea how they're going to do it and what the outcome will be. This latest drop is a good example of that. Whereas the other serials I read, it feels like most of the time, chapter by chapter, arc by arc, you usually have a decent feel for what's gonna happen, the number of surprises more limited. I think one of the reasons the plague town arc in Dragoneye was so gripping was that the unpredictability factor felt particularly high, and I didn't know how things would go. I think that's part of why a lot of people didn't like the end parts of Mother of Learning as much, too, that it got more by the numbers than the earlier parts of the story.
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Apr 26, 2021 01:50
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Bremen posted:I don't mind her being nice; that's why I didn't include teaching a goblin to be a tactician despite the explicitly referenced fact that could end up killing thousands of people as one of her mistakes; she didn't buy in to the "goblins are always chaotic evil" mindset and I think that's great. What I object to is that... well, I don't want to say she's an idiot, because I really don't think she is, but that the story seems bound and determined to make her act like one and that just makes it painful to read. I think this thread is making me realize that might just be me, though. It's not just you. I feel the same way and it's a big part of why I stopped reading. Cicero posted:Whereas the other serials I read, it feels like most of the time, chapter by chapter, arc by arc, you usually have a decent feel for what's gonna happen, the number of surprises more limited. I think one of the reasons the plague town arc in Dragoneye was so gripping was that the unpredictability factor felt particularly high, and I didn't know how things would go. I think that's part of why a lot of people didn't like the end parts of Mother of Learning as much, too, that it got more by the numbers than the earlier parts of the story. The Dragoneye healing plots are generally good. That was a particularly good one. I wish I could make the medical drama in my CYOA with a doctor MC as gripping. LLSix fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Apr 26, 2021 |
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Apr 26, 2021 03:27
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LLSix posted:It's not just you. I feel the same way and it's a big part of why I stopped reading. Bhodi fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Apr 26, 2021 |
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Apr 26, 2021 03:37
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I think I stopped reading Wandering Inn when it became clear that the sentient skeleton slave Erin had been abusing wasn't going to succeed in offing her.. I was so fed up with the two isekai protags at that point that it was either bail or just read the gaiden chapters. I've heard that things get cooler later, and I am definitely willing to believe it, but there are plenty of other books with more likeable protagonists that I'd rather read instead.
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Apr 26, 2021 03:54
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avoraciopoctules posted:I've heard that things get cooler later, and I am definitely willing to believe it, but there are plenty of other books with more likeable protagonists that I'd rather read instead. the thing about latter-day TWI is that there are not really protagonists. erin still receives an above-average share of time, but other than that it is purely ensemble cast; i would absolutely not call ryoka a "protagonist" any more than say, ceria or pisces. and for the people who dislike laken, he's frankly barely even a presence at all; i think a lot of people were put off by his chapters. if erin's personality is the problem, then i think TWI isn't going to work for a reader; but most of the other problems i see people mention really and truly do fade away, and i think erin does mature quite a bit as the books go on fwiw. as for toren; they're still bumping around and might yet get another shot at killing erin anyway if TWI doesn't work for you, that's absolutely fair; asking someone to read several books they don't like to get to ones that they might like is a tall order
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Apr 26, 2021 04:41
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LLSix posted:It's not just you. I feel the same way and it's a big part of why I stopped reading. I’ve been mostly enjoying dragon eye, but there’s a seriously creepy thing in a recent chapter. The guy posted “there’s a more detailed description of that massage between a prostitute and my main character for only  to my patron” and for whatever reason it’s  -ing me out a bunch, above and beyond more explicit fare. I’m not sure why, but I don’t like it.
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Apr 26, 2021 05:15
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i always think it's weird in general when that stuff gets made optional. why write it if it had nothing to do with the story? somehow it feels skeevier than just reading a regular romance scene.
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Apr 26, 2021 05:46
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It's to make money? "I hear you're the type to commission erotic stories involving your favorite fictional characters and you are also a fan of my fictional characters! $10 and you can read one that's sort of canon by the actual author!" It's sort of brilliant? You can keep your story PG but also make money from the XXX crowd.
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Apr 26, 2021 06:01
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Speaking of making creepy poo poo optional, there's a new WtC batch and the last few updates have me wondering if the author hasn't been getting blowback for all the creepy bullshit. Both of the most recent updates e.g. "What if the Tarrasque were just a 32-square mile rape monster" and "Let's watch Juniper kill himself 22 times in a row, in increasingly horrible ways, while learning about a bunch of hosed-up poo poo" were basically handwaved away in a handful of chapters by going "Then bad poo poo happened, but honestly who wants to hear about it." Like, props to him, that's a good way to handle it... but I really wish he'd also done that every other time weird, creepy bullshit popped up.
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Apr 26, 2021 06:11
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I haven't actually read the newest ones but I was always under the impression from that start that Worth the Candle was supposed to make you feel awful. That's why I liked it anyways.
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Apr 26, 2021 06:27
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Velius posted:I’ve been mostly enjoying dragon eye, but there’s a seriously creepy thing in a recent chapter. The guy posted “there’s a more detailed description of that massage between a prostitute and my main character for only For what it's worth, I'm a Dragonseye patreon reader and saw it weeks ago, and it's barely even racey. It's pretty much just a massage (and not of the naughty bits) with an invitation to turn into something more that Elaine declines. If anything I thought it was funny imagining all the people racing to pay $10 imagining some explicit sex scene and being outraged they didn't get what they were *cough* looking for.
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Apr 26, 2021 06:53
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Larry Parrish posted:I haven't actually read the newest ones but I was always under the impression from that start that Worth the Candle was supposed to make you feel awful. That's why I liked it anyways. “It’s horrible,” said Lisi. “But it’s how things work in
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Apr 26, 2021 07:37
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Early on I assumed that WtC was going for some kind of mangled growing up/therapy vibe, where the protagonist was his own worst enemy and he had to get over himself and learn how to human in order to overcome the adventure... but a lot of the back half has been so ceaselessly miserable and nihilistic that I assume I was just reading stuff into the early part. Heck, in the latest update there's a bit where the DM, who was seemingly pretty neutral this whole time, goes off on a rant about how much he hates the protagonist, and it's treated as a fairly unsurprising piece of information. At this point I couldn't tell you what it's going for, but I'm going to be pretty impressed if the author manages to tie the story into a coherent, internally-consistent thing by the end.
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Apr 26, 2021 10:05
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i basically considered it to be juniper basically getting what he thinks he deserves for how he was as a teenager. but that might just be projection cuz i was a scumbag as a teenager and have a lot of self-loathing about it.
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Apr 26, 2021 11:30
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Larry Parrish posted:i basically considered it to be juniper basically getting what he thinks he deserves for how he was as a teenager. but that might just be projection cuz i was a scumbag as a teenager and have a lot of self-loathing about it.
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Apr 26, 2021 12:21
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For PracGuide, what are the chances are that Catherine ends up as the white knight, and then ends up in direct conflict with black?
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Apr 26, 2021 19:19
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OscarDiggs posted:For PracGuide, what are the chances are that Catherine ends up as the white knight, and then ends up in direct conflict with black? 0. Cat has been offered significantly better opportunities and turned them down. At this point, she’s done that enough that it is a thing she can do.
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Apr 26, 2021 20:04
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She's already in direct conflict with Black Knight, they're about to have a military engagement.
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Apr 26, 2021 20:45
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Juniper has been getting better, and he's very obviously a much better person than he was before getting isekai'd, the recent chapter where he's DM'ing the Fel Seed quest makes that clear enough.Larry Parrish posted:i basically considered it to be juniper basically getting what he thinks he deserves for how he was as a teenager. but that might just be projection cuz i was a scumbag as a teenager and have a lot of self-loathing about it. edit: and w/r/t to the creepy poo poo in WtC, I didn't get a sense that there's been any real blowback from fans. Fel Seed being edgelordy as gently caress has been telegraphed for forever -- seeing it written out at first is viscerally shocking, but not very surprising. But once you set the tone by showing it for a bit, you don't have to belabor the point. Not dwelling on it overly long makes sense.
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Apr 26, 2021 23:47
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goethe42 posted:Well, you're pretty wrong. It's a bit like quitting Star Wars during Phantom Menace, because Anakin is a Mary-Sue character. Ngl this got a lol from me because I never liked star wars so actually you're entirely correct. Although in star wars case ive been assured I only need to sit through a few hours of movie untill they get good at some point instead of....several million words. Xun fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Apr 27, 2021 |
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Apr 27, 2021 05:38
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Who'd have ever thought that the character named Luke S written by the guy named Lucas is a Mary Sue? Yes, I knows you were talking about Anakin but I still feel that this applies.
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Apr 27, 2021 18:49
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The latest TWI patreon chapter ends on one loving hell of a cliffhanger. Also, I won a TWI branded frying pan
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Apr 28, 2021 11:47
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Congratulations!
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Apr 28, 2021 11:48
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The Shortest Path posted:All of those things end up having severe consequences, most of them near-imminently, to be fair. But yeah I can see why it would get extremely frustrating to see stuff like that keep happening and the book being so long that you aren't reasonably gonna see the payoffs until hundreds of thousands of words later. The bit with Pawn hasn't, yet, as far as I've gotten in book 7, but that also very much feels like an endgame-type setup, since the world's relationship to its gods is never really explained beyond "thank gently caress they're dead." Jazerus posted:the thing about latter-day TWI is that there are not really protagonists. erin still receives an above-average share of time, but other than that it is purely ensemble cast; i would absolutely not call ryoka a "protagonist" any more than say, ceria or pisces. and for the people who dislike laken, he's frankly barely even a presence at all; i think a lot of people were put off by his chapters. if erin's personality is the problem, then i think TWI isn't going to work for a reader; but most of the other problems i see people mention really and truly do fade away, and i think erin does mature quite a bit as the books go on fwiw. Laken sucks so much, literally just the protagonist of a way shittier isekai. Josh Christ fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Apr 28, 2021 |
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Apr 28, 2021 15:39
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tithin posted:The latest TWI patreon chapter ends on one loving hell of a cliffhanger. Oh wow, that's an interesting setup for future adventures. So my guesses for where they might end up are BIG PATREON ENDING SPOILERS Yvlon -> wherever the King of Duels is, Ceria -> wherever Gazi is, Pisces -> near Khelt or the hollowed out Old One, Ksmvr -> slavers Also, congrats! Is that the only one, aside from the one Podium sent to scarra?
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Apr 28, 2021 17:12
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Argue posted:Oh wow, that's an interesting setup for future adventures. So my guesses for where they might end up are BIG PATREON ENDING SPOILERS Yvlon -> wherever the King of Duels is, Ceria -> wherever Gazi is, Pisces -> near Khelt or the hollowed out Old One, Ksmvr -> slavers It'd be cool if at least one of them ended up near Pomle. Maybe Yvlon? It seems like learning some martial arts would really help out with the realization she may as well fight with her magic metal arms rather than a sword. Also I hope that, unlikely though it may be, none of them end up near Flos. But one of them probably will, because... Flos, I guess. I'm a little disappointed NO ONE important died in the ultra deadly raid. Like, I know TWI has a very low mortality rate in general, but it really seemed like they could've killed SOME D-list characters. gently caress, even the goddamn just introduced prince guy got to live! He would've been so easy to kill for drama!
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Apr 29, 2021 03:46
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Argue posted:Oh wow, that's an interesting setup for future adventures. So my guesses for where they might end up are BIG PATREON ENDING SPOILERS Yvlon -> wherever the King of Duels is, Ceria -> wherever Gazi is, Pisces -> near Khelt or the hollowed out Old One, Ksmvr -> slavers I believe so 
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Apr 29, 2021 03:53
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Infinity Gaia posted:It'd be cool if at least one of them ended up near Pomle. Maybe Yvlon? It seems like learning some martial arts would really help out with the realization she may as well fight with her magic metal arms rather than a sword. Also I hope that, unlikely though it may be, none of them end up near Flos. But one of them probably will, because... Flos, I guess. it's definitely pisces that's gonna be sent to flos, although he'll end up chilling with fetohep eventually. i don't think ceria or yvlon would have much to do in that situation, whereas pisces reminds everybody of a young perril chandler and that will get flos all excited. i think yvlon going to pomle sounds pretty reasonable! it's ceria who's the mystery - she might end up being used as a perspective on someplace we haven't seen much of, like nerrhavia, or maybe rescuing ksmvr in roshal overall i agree that a few people should have probably died. how many times has moore been an inch from death now??? it's a lot. i think the low mortality rate was basically all in service of the god plot though - a solid percentage of the adventurer cast now owe their lives to a paladin calling down divine intervention
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Apr 29, 2021 07:15
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Infinity Gaia posted:It'd be cool if at least one of them ended up near Pomle. Maybe Yvlon? It seems like learning martial arts would really help out with the realization she may as well fight with her magic metal arms rather than a sword. Also I hope that, unlikely though it may be, none of them end up near Flos. But one of them probably will, because... Flos, I guess. Ksmvr the slavers found? The only hint is that they lay facing down and Ksmvr is the one, who being chained up is the easiest to explain. They probably wouldn't need to come up with "some justification". I hope it's him ending up in Pomle. He would fit right in with his modesty. If it was Yvlon the slavers caught, she could do a Daenerys and free the slaves of Chandrar, or something. The plot-armor most of the Named Characters have is actually the thing I like about TWI. Almost all of the chapters end on a good note, which is why the ones that do not have so much more impact. I know it's somehow seen as a mark of good writing when the good guys die or at least not succeed, but I'd rather re-read the whole of TWI twice than even a single book of depressing stuff like GoT or Malazan.
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Apr 29, 2021 21:02
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