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Here's a summary for TWI: The Wandering Inn is a a story about--well, several people, actually, but primarily, a girl from earth who finds herself teleported into a fantasy world while trying to enter her bathroom. Rather than become a legendary hero, she ends up becoming an innkeeper. However, life isn't so simple, as she still ends up becoming very important to the world. This story takes some obvious inspiration from both western serials like Worm, as well as from Japanese isekai web novels like Kumo Desu Ga--primarily by using the conceit that everyone in that world has discrete levels and skills, like in an RPG. Unlike other stories of the sort, though, the level system isn't an excuse to have a quantifiable power fantasy where we just watch the numbers keep going up. Rather, the level system actually ties in to the larger story, with hints that there are sinister reasons behind why such a system even exists at all. The Wandering Inn updates regularly and consistently every Tuesday and Saturday, and occasionally on other days, when the author has some side stories to share. === Since I mentioned Japanese web novels, I'd like to direct some attention to the ADTRW web novel thread, which focuses on those, but will occasionally talk about stuff written by English-speaking folk. If Japanese WNs are fair game here as well, I'd also like to recommend Ascendance of a Bookworm, which is an uplift fic about, yes, a girl from earth who finds herself teleported into a fantasy world. This one, though, is less about the fantasy goings-on and more about her endeavor to bring books to the world (and her efforts to gain enough capital to do so). She can be a bit of a twat at the start, but she gets better, and if you love the genre of story where someone from earth shows up in fantasy land and wows all the medieval rubes with 21st century knowledge, you'll dig this, as it's a very detailed account of how she manages to figure out how to recreate food, paper, attire, plumbing, and so forth with fantasy materials. Bookworm has a very good translation from SA goon blastron, and updates every 2 weeks, but if you know Japanese you can already read it all the way to completion.
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Aug 24, 2017 16:40
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As far as the play thing goes, I think the story has been pretty quick to point out that the world and its leveling system seem to be designed largely to facilitate conflict and strife, with very little in the way of true recreational activities. Even chess, which people play for fun, is only taken seriously because it's also a tool for gaining levels.
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Dec 16, 2017 15:19
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That was a great way to end volume 3; I was on edge the whole chapter. It's been a long time since TWI's had some good old fashioned nightmare fuel; I love stories about nice people being nice to each other but even for me the all-good feels-all-the-time Christmas chapters were going on a bit too long. Also, pirateaba didn't fool me this time! I caught on to the hidden text! I just discovered recently that aside from the Wistram golem stuff, when Ryoka first meets Teriarch, it actually flat out says he's a dragon, except it's written in black since it was scrubbed from her memory. I'm rather a fan of when webserials/webcomics try something that can't be done in print, as long as they don't get too obnoxious with it.
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Jan 2, 2018 14:43
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Thyrork posted:Help. I just devoured the ending to Worm last night and I'm on less then two hours sleep. Good news! Worm 2 just started a few weeks ago! But if you'd prefer something complete, Wildbow finished two other stories inbetween; Pact (generally considered to be worse than Worm) and Twig (generally considered to be better than Worm).
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Jan 15, 2018 05:01
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mossyfisk posted:I don't think it's a mini arc, it may well be a primary focus of this book. Hopefully this isn't going to be a primary focus; arc 3 opened with Laken but he was barely in it. I think this would have been better served as infrequent half-chapters; Flos seems like he'd be interesting in small doses, but 5 full chapters (so far) is a tough pill to swallow.
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Jan 24, 2018 06:54
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Reim would be an interesting place to put Erin's last door!
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Jan 25, 2018 04:36
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Affi posted:So I gave ascendant bookworm a shot. Does it get interesting eventually? Or good? If your problem is the main character: she gets better. If your problem is lack of action/politics/etc: a lot of that happens later, past what's been translated so far, although some hints of it are already showing. At that point the focus shifts away from technological uplift. Otherwise, it's an isekai novel so it depends on your tolerance for the genre. It avoids a lot of the problems of the genre, primarily by not being a male power fantasy, but is ultimately still about someone ending up in another world and accelerating technology by hundreds of years, which can inherently come across as very Mary Sue-ish due to the protagonist's advantages. For what it's worth, it's pretty educational and goes into excruciating detail about how she does it with fantasy world resources, and she has to fail a lot to get there.
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Feb 8, 2018 13:32
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Affi posted:Uplifting is fine and fun and I'm glad it's not creepy. But I'm going at chapter twenty five of "I need to make paper somehow" with a sprinkling of "oh this is how you make pancakes btw" If it's the pace, then uh, yeah, it's slow, and it's got a lot of slice of life stuff mixed in. I'm looking at the list of translated chapters and I can give you a broad idea of what goes on so you can decide if you want to continue: (these are very general) she completes the paper (about 11 chapters off from where you are), starts making merchant connections, learns how to leverage her knowledge (paper, cooking, and otherwise) for money, learns about the societal problems that would prevent her from just flat out inventing everything she wants, learns about her illness, and in a few more chapters, will figure out what she wants to do as a job. That stuff I described covers about 50 chapters, so if that's too slow for you... c'est la vie. But also, I should warn you that this thing only updates once a week and only 63 of about 700 chapters have been translated.
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Feb 8, 2018 14:18
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It's generally regarded as the least of Wildbow's works, but nevertheless, I'm going through Pact right now. I'm only 4 or 5 arcs in so far but it's... uh, it feels a lot slower than I remember Worm being. That may be because the characters don't seem inclined to combat, unlike a superhero world where that kind of thing is pretty much built in. The premise does lend itself to Death Note style "now it is I standing behind you" antics, so I'm hoping it'll get nuts.
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Mar 4, 2018 09:04
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Silynt posted:Wandering Inn Patreon chapter (4.22) I haven't seen the patreon chapters but I can't imagine that could be anyone other than Ryoka, since that's what she did in their encounter. Even the current free chapter has him inquiring about something that I'm pretty sure was her idea. Argue fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Mar 30, 2018 |
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Mar 29, 2018 16:13
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I don't think living in a dangerous world precludes empathy for animals; Ryoka isn't some kind of ultralogical robot vulcan; she's just genre savvy and unfriendly.
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Apr 9, 2018 17:31
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Today's Wandering Inn update was incredibly stressful and it looks like the story is entering one of its crazy phases.
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Apr 17, 2018 11:34
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TWI: I'm surprised at how much people cared about Brunkr dying; I think even killing the wagon driver Mr. Termin would have displeased me more than killing Brunkr. Also I'm not wholly convinced it'll stick anyway as the only deaths that have stuck in the past were the Horns, and even then one of them came back. If anything I was worried the author had an aversion to killing off named characters, which I guess is another problem altogether.Xun posted:So if I loving hate Erin as a character/Mary Sue should I even bother picking wandering inn back up? I still feel kind of bad because I liked a lot of the non Erin centered stuff but she is the main character :/ I doubt she's going anywhere any time soon, but fwiw, out of the last 33 chapters in the current volume Erin's been the central character in like... 3? And that's counting the ones where she's the focus of half the chapter. Not that she's absent for the other 30, mind you, but most of her appearances have been though the POV of Ryoka or other characters.
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Apr 18, 2018 07:57
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Anias posted:Naming the chapter death quote:Erin is great - I laugh every time she has the focus because the entire joke from my pov is that usually in these portal fantasy stories the main character is OP as gently caress and goes on to conquer the world etc where here the main character is OP as gently caress and gives zero shits or thoughts to consequences and it comes back to bite her. Her mary sueness is the joke to me. IDK.[/spoiler] Yeah actually; for this reason I think it's better to have her the way she's being presented in this volume--as a very OP force of nature that only Ryoka can comprehend. The stakes feel less real every time Erin is the POV because things turn out dandy for her every time, but it's a good source of comedy and/or plot movement if viewed through a third party.
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Apr 18, 2018 14:49
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Silynt posted:All that said, regarding today's Patreon chapter: HOLY loving poo poo THAT ENDING! This author has a real hard-on for cliffhangers right now, today makes 3 brutal ones in a row. (TWI) Just came out and aw poo poo. I don't care if it's another Mary Sueing, Erin ferreting out Regrika was real satisfying, and also I started getting the sense that Ryoka might actually die. Although with the Necromancer requiring her head I have to wonder if he's going to be bringing her back somehow. I hope everyone else at the inn is going to be okay though but I predict at least one more of the gold-rankers is gonna bite it 
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Apr 21, 2018 15:08
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Gladi posted:The Wandering Inn: So that happened. Yeah TWI: Infinity War has been on fuckin fire the last few weeks. But I don't think it'll stick; otherwise the "run like the wind" arc will have gone nowhere. I was expecting that she would in the last seconds, be able to run like the wind, in order to reach Teriarch before Venitra caught her, which would have given her sufficient closure. But as it stands there are a number of Ryoka subplots left semi-open; her investigation into the leveling system, her attempts to learn magic, her attempts to run fast, her being the only link between Erin and Laken, as well as the only source of information about inventing things, and I guess also her being the only possible trainer for Garia. If she comes back, I'm not sure if I'd consider her as being plot armored as she has taken a lot of punishment, both physical and social. Simply being alive isn't a great criteria for plot armor, I think. Also RIP tsundere fairy, that one I think will stick 
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Apr 24, 2018 12:15
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Gladi posted:TWI: So there has been a plot development chapter and drat. Everybody is going to fight so hard for peace, there is going to be nothing left afterwards. That's how they're building it up but if the mage is whom I think it is, then as someone pointed out in the comments, basically everyone Magnolia is gathering up is more inclined to listen to Erin or Ryoka than her. Draw your own conclusions from that  .
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Jun 12, 2018 15:27
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I wasn't sure because she specifically mentioned an Archmage earlier in the chapter, and that one refused her. Plus she mentioned that the one she has in mind is a druid.
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Jun 13, 2018 03:46
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Indeed. The death flags were obvious but I was hedging my bets all the way to the end, since Magnolia still had that Illuminati council of hers that I assumed he'd have a lot to do in. I think Reiss turning against the Necromancer happened a bit too fast all things considered, but I'm satisfied with it. Also, that stuff was great and all but I really miss happy fun times with Erin!
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Jul 10, 2018 15:22
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She was clubbed down trying to save Zel from an ambush, but not stated to have died. Zel kills a female Hob one paragraph later, so the text saying "She screamed and died" may have thrown you off.
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Jul 10, 2018 16:58
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Pirateaba plays with the web format a bit; nothing important but it's cute whenever it happens. Like the first Clown side story, or the hidden text sprinkled here and there a few instances in the Wistram side story when they talk about the golems, and then once much earlier on when Ryoka meets Teriarch the first time (the hidden text reveals he's a dragon several chapters before Ryoka formally figures out what happened)
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Aug 4, 2018 13:26
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mossyfisk posted:TWI always feels like it's about to explore a theme around the leveling system discouraging things which don't give concrete results and how it hampers culture... but then it never does. Plus apparently all that stuff is super good for getting levels?? This is pointed out multiple times in the story; I don't think it's lacking in development. Clearly the actual physical laws of the world itself are designed to cultivate fighting and conflict; before Erin & co. arrived, all classes were either for fighting, or to do something in service of fighters (or at minimum, survival). We even have several instances of native characters wondering what the point is of this or that thing that someone tried to introduce. I don't think we can compare the world to real life cultures that had tons of art because this is a world where the gods (presumably) themselves are incentivizing cultures into combat.
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Aug 6, 2018 04:54
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Xun posted:The argument that the inhabitants of the world are too “martial” to develop things like art and entertainment doesn’t sit well with me because that the author has not shown that at all. If the culture of the world was that different and actually revolves around combat, there would be nobody making pastries for Magnolia, making buildings that don’t look like utilitarian boxes, flower girls, carpenters making different looking furniture, tailors and a fabric industry that goes beyond whatever is the most combat focused, stonecarvers, painters, musicians, etc. So artists and creative people exist and pursue their crafts, but somehow they are also too focused on combat abilities to create entertainment, not even for profit. They need some rando to teach them how. And before you say “I bet only rich people can afford that” please remember that even serfs in the Middle Ages has entertainment. Dont the entertainers who work for nobility need to start somewhere to level up before they get hired? Or are all of them also nobility (who are strongly discouraged to take extra classes). Like holy poo poo oral performances of stories goes back thousands of years and I bet they were around when people were hunter gatherers. I didn't think about those examples you gave, which is a good point, but I do think the author has definitely shown this combat-focused aspect of the culture, several times over. It's been established that the place is at war all the time, they talk about how there's a literal bible about levels and classes, and (for instance) part of that long Flos side story that went on forever was him bemoaning how the nature of his class basically forces him to just be at war all the time. Also, I feel that given the nature of fantasy novels in general, it must be some kind of fallacy to assume a medieval-ish fantasy world should culturally correspond 1:1 with earth history. It seems reasonable to me that the arts there would be far less developed than they were here 400 years ago, especially given the way their world works. Even with analogous jobs existing, this doesn't guarantee that someone would have had the a-ha moment that seems obvious to us earthlings because someone had the a-ha moment here. Regarding the casual racism thing, when Erin meets Ryoka, she explicitly doesn't say "konnichiwa". It's pointed out that it's an urge in her head that she had to fight off, and okay, I myself found it weird the author had to say it at all, but considering how often Erin double checks with her guests that she's not accidentally being speciesist, my take on it was that she probably grew up somewhere racist and is trying to be better, which I think tracks with her being an atheist who used to believe (explicitly mentioned during her Jesus lecture then never brought up again). Edit: err, not to imply that Christians = automatically racist, of course, just that there's evidence she grew up conservative and only recently abandoned that way of thinking Edit 2: okay I checked and her reason given for not saying it is she might mess up the pronunciation, so I'll admit that my reading might be overly charitable Argue fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Aug 6, 2018 |
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Aug 6, 2018 19:28
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Mother of Learning looks really close to ending now (although honestly it's seemed that way for like a year now ) Zorian is out! It's not clear who else made it out, if any. Poor Zorian-prime
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Oct 22, 2018 05:31
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Cicero posted:Haha, I hope that (MoL) Zorian doesn't forget anything on his bigass checklist of horrible things to prevent (like Tavian getting killed by mind spiders or Alanic and his buddy getting assassinated). If we're really lucky, they managed to survive and escape to the real world offscreen. I don't think I'd like it if he was the only survivor of the loops left, especially since I think he could do with a support group once it's all over. sunken fleet posted:That... is actually really reasonable. The simulacrums are what made me feel pretty confident that he didn't lack the ability to handle things one way or the other - but thinking about it, they also represent why he would make the choice he did so easily. Saying he's been directly involved in the deaths of any number of Zorian's already isn't an exaggeration in the slightest. Simulacrums have no soul though, or rather, share their souls with the original. In that case, it's demonstrably the same person. I was kinda hoping that it would turn out the loopers shared souls with the originals in the same manner but I guess that isn't the case! If they did, or if it was a science-based story where souls weren't an observable phenomenon, I could easily accept the justification that I wasn't killing anyone, but just updating them with additional memories.
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Oct 22, 2018 13:44
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It would be hilarious if everyone who actually made it out was all the unnamed randos that the group decided to bring into the loop.
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Oct 22, 2018 18:06
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sunken fleet posted:Void Domain - It's a lot like Harry Potter, except instead of being a gormless capital "H" hero who gets by with the power of love and friendship Eva is instead a vicious girl with a penchant for brutal blood magic and deals with demons. It has an edge over a lot of other web fiction in that it is already complete! No waiting for updates here. The whole thing comes in at a hair over a million words. (The author has moved onto another project Vacant Throne that I know nothing about but if you like one you might like the other.) The "hidden world of magic" that exists in setting requires a bit of suspension of disbelief but if you can get past that it's all pretty well set up, the author clearly put a lot of thought into how the magic in his setting "works" and came up with some creative stuff. Plus who doesn't like reading about evil magicians, demons, and our marginally less evil protagonist all battling each other to the death? I started reading this but then a few chapters in I got distracted by the author's new ongoing story, Vacant Throne, which I'm enjoying much more. Not that anything was wrong with Void Domain but I'm very partial towards portal fantasy/isekai especially when there's some element of uplift (which I'm actually not entirely certain is actually going to happen in this story, but I appreciate it when protagonists question things that other stories take for granted, like everyone speaking English).
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Nov 4, 2018 05:32
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Is there a one size fits all solution to getting notifications whenever a web serial updates; I would really like a solution that at minimum works for Wordpress/Fictionpress/Royal Road. I know they have RSS or email updates, but it would be nice if I could just have a unified channel for receiving notifications. As far as I can find, though, if I want anything like that I'd have to write one myself and scrape the contents off Fictionpress pages.
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Nov 4, 2018 16:19
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Nothing, but Fictionpress doesn't have it as far as I can see. I was hoping for something like Sonarr where someone's already done the legwork of making a single app compatible with multiple sites (except instead of loading torrents it just sends me links).
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Nov 4, 2018 17:03
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Nettle Soup posted:There's a comicrocket rss for mother of learning that I seem to remember works ok. Oh phew, thanks, I really only needed that. And it conveniently also has one for Harry Potter and the Natural 20, so I'm all good. Now I just have to wait for an update to see if I get alerted fast enough.
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Nov 5, 2018 04:18
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(MoL) So now that we know for sure what happens to anyone who leaves the loop, Red Robe could be literally anybody among their allies, right?
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Nov 15, 2018 07:12
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A big flaming stink posted:TWI patron update: Well this is gonna be a huge clusterfuck. But it sure is interesting! Stupid thanksgiving break. Ungfff and today's non-patron update really made me anxious for the next one too; I guess I should wait two weeks before catching up if it's going on break before this story finishes. Mrsha
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Nov 20, 2018 11:53
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PetraCore posted:Speaking of, I never managed to get through Pact, but my impression is it ends with the demonic end of the world or prevention of such? And Blake starts to literally fall apart and Rose has to like, literally eat him. And the last words in Pact are Blake's pov as Rose is 'eating' the tattered scraps of his identity or w/e. Is that at all accurate? I'm only halfway through Pact; I've been meaning to finish the rest, but I don't think so, as halfway through Blake is wiped from existence, with nobody remembering he even existed, and Rose (who doesn't remember Blake or being in the mirror) becoming the main character. I don't know if he comes back because I'm only a little bit past the part where it happens.
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Nov 26, 2018 03:45
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My question is: is there a reason Zorian doesn't just tell the government? He seems reasonably confident that he could convince them if he wanted to, and that the invasion would be a sure failure if he does.
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Dec 10, 2018 04:56
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Was it ever addressed what lichdad did to their souls? Didn't he do something to both their souls really early on and it wasn't really explained other than "something weird"?
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Dec 11, 2018 06:43
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edit: wrong web fiction thread sorry
Argue fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Dec 11, 2018 |
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Dec 11, 2018 14:20
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A big flaming stink posted:This time, on the Wandering Inn, its the most boring sport in the world! I dreaded reading this as I am neither American, nor do I follow sports, least of all baseball, but it turns out that chapters like this are what I live for because all I really want in any show or movie or book is for everyone to get along and have fun together.
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Dec 18, 2018 18:04
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Omi no Kami posted:Also, this doesn't have anything to do with anything, but when I did my re-read I noticed that there was a one-time aberration in chapter 24, when instead of one girl entering the train in Korsa there were two. It was probably just meaningless background detail, but I always wondered if that meant RR was doing something in Korsa to set up part of his thing. Could it maybe have something to do with that weird throwaway line in the most recent chapter where something seemed familiar about the first years on the train?
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Dec 21, 2018 13:37
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Once every three weeks. Pretty fortunate that you got started only now; this thing has been going on forever and three weeks is way too long between chapters for me.
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Dec 31, 2018 15:32
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TWI Nonpatreon: I'm happy to see that the plot threads are coming together, at least insofar as the Goblin Lord is concerned. It's gonna be so sweet when Tyrion's plan blows up in his face and he's faced with an allied army of goblins and drakes because he didn't account for Erin. At least I hope that's what's going to happen because I don't think my heart could take goblins being persecuted even more Also, I bet the illusionist guy is a red herring and is actually on the level rather than an enemy agent, since Typhenous is already Tyrion's inside man. Or I guess he could be the thief Wistram is sending to collect the door. Edit: or not, his name anagrams to something Veltras Argue fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jan 15, 2019 |
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Jan 15, 2019 18:49
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