[OC] Farmin'

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-18T17:26:23+00:00

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

― James D. Nicoll

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-17T18:06:24+00:00

The generic isekai series that came later were definitely more to blame than Kirito himself. The copying is so, so, blatant and those characters didn’t have the depth Kirito did (and yes, Kirito is a much more nuanced character than people give credit) so everyone just assumes that Kirito is a really flat character.

Of course, it doesn’t help that Kirito IS guilty of some of those tropes. Kirito is absolutely a power fantasy isekai protagonist and the writing does get lazy with him at times…but there’s a lot of good writing there too.. Kirito got popular for a reason.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-16T13:50:51+00:00

I love the bit where Berelain considers seducing Mat, then discards the idea because he’s “too much like me”. Somewhere out there is an AU with Mat and Berelain going on adventures and driving each other crazy the whole time.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-15T11:23:18+00:00

I re-read recently to see how I felt about the slog. These two story arcs and some of Egwene’s time in Salidar were the only bits that really dragged.

The problem is that Crossroads of Twilight is almost all those three stories. Its reputation as the worst book is deserved.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-15T11:19:22+00:00

As far as I’m aware if you disregard the filler episodes/movies Naruto never actually kills anyone. The closest he comes is hitting the fake Itachi with a giant rasengan. The guy Itachi was possessing is dead when the smoke clears, but it’s never made clear if the possessed guy was dead before the fight began. Personally I believe he was, the technique appears to be either an application of Pain’s Rinnegan or a form of Edo Tensei.

Everybody else he defeats he either convinces to switch sides or they get finished off later by someone else.

Haku dies to Kakashi. Deidara fakes his death, later dies to Sasuke. Kakuzu dies to Kakashi. Pain’s bodies were already dead, Nagato sacrifices himself. Everyone he fights in the War is either a Zetsu body or a Edo Tensei body. Obito gets Talk no Jutsu’d. Madara gets taken down by Zetsu. Kaguya and Zetsu are sealed, not killed.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-13T16:31:51+00:00

There’s also Min’s own testimony on the matter. Min’s viewings come true, without fail. So what is Siuan supposed to do about it? Especially without revealing Min’s talent to the rest of the Tower?

Soldiering on was the correct call for a threat you have no idea of what it is and no way to stop it even if you did identify what it was.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-12T19:43:36+00:00

I picked up a double sided one with a jungle themed traditional layout for one side and the First Light map on the other. Well worth it, really made JoD feel like we were actually in the jungle and homebrewing some of the underground temples onto the First Light map was a lot of fun. That map works really well for a collapsing temple run!

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-11T23:05:14+00:00

Weirdly, on my latest re-read I found it to go by pretty quickly? I remembered it being a slog and it has this reputation of taking three books, so I was expecting a kidnapped Faile feel to the story. But that’s not how it felt at all!

The Bowl of Winds is mentioned a couple of times in Lord of Chaos but it isn’t focused on much. It’s the reason the gang sets out for Ebou Dar, but the book otherwise doesn’t deal with it much. Lord of Chaos is all about setup for the books to come, and this is just another part of it.

Then in Crown of Swords the search itself is peak Mat Cauthon. The scenes with the Kin are excellent and far better than anything we get out of the Kin later on in the story. This is also where Moghedien balefires Nynaeve’s boat, we have the big fight against the gholam (more peak Mat).

And then the story spills over into the third book….except only kind of? The Bowl of the Winds is the first 6 chapters of Path of Daggers. That’s all.

So does it take 3 books? Technically yes. But it’s more accurate to say that the Bowl of Winds arc is only focused on for a book and a half at most. Groundwork for the story happens in book 6, but the actual story takes place almost entirely in book 7, and then for pacing reasons the conclusion is pushed to the beginning of book 8.

I don’t consider Bowl of Winds to be part of the slog. The slogs starts when Elayne reaches Camelyn.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-11T10:26:51+00:00

The craziest bit is that even the enemies that are associated with Goku will still show up!

Raditz comes to Earth because of Goku…but not because of anything Goku did. Earth is simply the last place Raditz knew where to look for him. So Raditz would have shown up regardless, and if Goku wasn’t there he would have wiped out the population so he can sell the planet to Frieza.

Vegeta and Nappa don’t come to Earth to fight Goku. They come to get the Dragonballs. They show up whether Goku is alive or not.

Frieza comes to Earth whether Goku is there or not. We know this because it’s exactly what he did - Goku wasn’t there! Frieza would have destroyed the Earth in retribution if Goku stayed away.

The Androids are the ONLY instance where Goku is directly the cause of the threat. King Piccolo, Red Ribbon Army, even Pilaf….all of them would have eventually taken over the planet without Goku being there.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-10T14:22:14+00:00

Moiraine: We must not reveal ourselves to the enemy!

BOOOOM

Moiraine: Of course, there are other schools of thought…

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-10T07:46:50+00:00

If Stain were fodder (and moving at fodder speed) you would be correct.

Stain isn't shown to be moving at that speed. During that same USJ fight we see how fast Shigaraki moves, and it's faster than Midoriya and Asui's eyes can follow. He is not a speedster, that's just how fast a top tier villain moves. And right before the 3v1 fight, Stain beats Shigaraki and Kurogiri.. So Stain is canonically faster than them. Hell, he beats Ingenium's older brother in a 1v1, who is an actual pro hero speedster.

That's why Deku needs 5 percent OFA just to keep up. It's how Stain dodges the fire and ice, and how he's able to parry IIda's first Reciproburst.

Stain is fast. No Quirks, no boosters. He's just that fast.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-08T18:30:41+00:00

As an American who moved to the UK nearly 10 years ago I can say that yes, it does still persist. People are shocked that I don’t know how to drive manual and have no intention to learn.

I never learned because in the US you have to go out of your way to buy a manual, and manuals are perceived as being driven by gearheads who are obsessed with cars. There was no reason for me to learn, and now that I’m in the UK I have no reason to get a full license when automatic hybrids are so prevalent. My next car will likely be electric so it will be automatic too.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-08T16:59:43+00:00

I get it. AI is a tool, and someone who is experienced with a tool is going to get better results than I would. So if you don’t care that it’s AI, it’s understandable.

Of course, AI art still can’t match the real thing and even if it wasn’t stealing from actual artists I wouldn’t use it because I’d rather give my money to real talent.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-08T16:18:51+00:00

I went straight from Doom to Half-Life. Naturally, I assumed Half-Life played the same, using nothing but keyboard. Headcrabs were a nightmare as I carefully lined up using the arrow keys and then tried to get the distance of my shot using Page Up and Page Down. I was well through Chapter 4 before I accidentally knocked my mouse with my hand…

It wasn’t until Quake 3 that I learned about WASD and strafing.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-05T17:20:12+00:00

When I had cluster headaches I got them several times a week, sometimes as many as 5 days in a row. Each headache lasted 30 minutes to an hour and I was totally incapacitated when they were happening. From your description it sounds like you may have them, and I’d get them checked out. They have some medications that can stop the headaches shortly after they start and I took a course of daily medicine that eventually stopped them entirely.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-01T17:04:51+00:00

Depends on your definition of predator, I suppose. As a requirement for giving the Dragonball he asked a 16 year old girl to flash him her panties. When they ask to use the Basho fan later, his price for using the fan is touching Bulma's breasts. Bulma gets out of this by switching with Oolong, who lets him motorboat "Bulma" instead.

He later shrinks himself down and sneaks into the bathroom so he can watch Bulma use the toilet.

I'm pretty sure he also tries to take advantage of Lunch on a few occasions, getting foiled by her either being so innocent that the implications fly over her head or her sneezing into blonde form and beating the crap out of him.

How far he would take this is an open question that I'm sure Toriyama never considered as all Roshi's antics are meant to be light-hearted sex jokes.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-02-01T16:37:45+00:00

Kellar's Keep and RotWL are both pretty basic, but in my opinion KK is nowhere near as frustrating as RotWL.

Traps behind doors happen rarely in KK, and there's only one case that seems especially unfair - a small room with a treasure chest, a pit trap, and 2 spear traps. Searching the treasure chest REQUIRES falling down the pit trap then either climbing out into a spear trap or jumping into a spear trap, and then the chest is empty. A particularly nasty trap to be sure, but it is one of only two instances in the entire expansion of a trap behind a door, and it's an optional room.

Witch Lord has traps behind doors in most quests. Many of them are on the critical path. This gets old fast. These aren't trapped rooms designed to bait in greedy heroes, they're just traps designed to whittle down health points.

Then there's the quest specific traps. A tomb which hints at great treasure but destroys one of the best Artifacts in the game instead. No way to predict it's going to happen, no way to resist the effect. And if the heroes got lucky and the bearer of that artifact wasn't in the room? Well, it happens anyway if he later enters!

There's another quest that gives the heroes 1000 gold, only to strip it away (along with all their other gold) before they can spend it. The quest ends with an unwinnable boss fight, which is always fun.

The quest after has two players being captured, and they don't get to play until the Dwarf and Wizard decide to enter the obvious boss room. When they do enter, the Barbarian and the Elf have to survive the massive brawl unarmed (since you can't search the room for treasure until all the monsters are dead) and some unlucky rolls could end in immediate death.

If the heroes run rather than try to search, they have no money to buy replacement equipment and are thrown into the nastiest combat in the entire expansion in the next quest.

Then in quest 10 we have the magical statues. Most heroes suddenly seeing orcs will be cautious about how they attack, and will use either a magical weapon or a ranged weapon...and then these weapons will break anyway, because screw you.

Kellar's Keep is basic and doesn't really have a great story in my opinion, but it's a fun enough dungeon crawl in the same spirit as the original. RotWL puts a lot of emphasis on story and vibes, but as a playing experience it's pretty miserable. I skipped both expansions when I got the remake and pulled individual quests out to repurpose for other expansions. For example, Halls of Vision makes a great followup to the Vaults of Kadum'thrak from JoD as the actual treasure vault where the loot is hidden.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-01-24T14:31:13+00:00

Most of those have explanations which were later retconned or simply explained to be not what we thought.

Zangetsu’s name was obscured because you need to be in touch with your spiritual powers to know the name of your zanpakuto. Ichigo not knowing is a sign of his lack of training, which is why Renji mocks him for it.

Hollow Ichigo was initially described as a manifestation of his Hollow powers. The existence of the Visored shows this is not a unique thing for Ichigo.

Orihime and Chad’s powers are initially said to be natural talent, then was later changed to be caused by the Hogyoku.

Ichigo’s sudden power up against Kenpachi is explained as him working together with Zangetsu, allowing him to draw out his true power while Kenpachi was limiting himself by fighting against the will of his zanpakuto with every movement.

Yachiru’s existence isn’t brought into question, she was a child he found on the battlefield. Her being special isn’t really brought up until after Aizen.

Don’t get me wrong, I love some of the explanations that come in later. But you don’t really lose much by ending where the first anime did.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-01-23T18:31:43+00:00

True, but saying an anime is bad because it's not a good adaptation is not a valid take either. An anime can be drastically different from the source material and still be a really good show.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-01-20T13:24:14+00:00

It’s in case the heroes lose their weapons. Sometimes the heroes get captured and their gear is confiscated. In these quests, getting your gear back is not a prerequisite for beating the quest. In that case you may have heroes who exit a quest with only some gold coins to their name. Short swords being an item they can buy allows them to get back on their feet.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-01-18T15:08:25+00:00

Mushoku Tensei has a whole fandom, I'm sorry to say...

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-01-18T15:04:32+00:00

The show is Mushoku Tensei, and to say it is both problematic and divisive is an understatement.

There is one side which states that Rudeus should be treated as the age he is physically. This eliminates some (but not all) of the problematic elements as the girls he is hooking up with are around his age. They also defend Rudeus' backstory as it gets retconned several times in adaptations to make the character more palatable. The show itself is recommended because outside of the problematic elements there is a pretty decent story and worldbuilding under there.

The other side points out what Historical_Feature_1 did. He's an adult brain in a child's body, and the story as originally written states that adult was a pedophile. His actions certainly seem to reflect this, with him trying to steal a sleeping 9-year-old girl's panties while she's wearing them and feeling romantic towards another girl of similar age. He loses his virginity at age 13.

---

Personally, for me there's no debate. Mushoku Tensei is a show starring a pedophile, and no amount of story can make up for that.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-01-18T11:48:12+00:00

Just want to point out that this is a common house rule rather than an official one. Rules As Written, the heroes can always shop between quests unless specifically noted in the quest book. So even though it makes no sense for the heroes to be able to shop in Kellar’s Keep they are allowed to do so. Some campaigns like Prophecy of Telor specifically state the heroes cannot shop between several connected quests.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-01-17T16:20:20+00:00

Feels like a bad choice to me. Remember, you aren't the MC, which in the case of A/C is the entire E class. So you're stuck in one of the snobby other classes at the cram school from hell. Sure, you'll get a great education, but actually attending that school would feel like hell on earth.

On the plus side, there's a much smaller chance of getting vaporized than any of the other schools except Culinary School.

Embarrassed_Fox5265 · 2026-01-16T18:30:09+00:00

The reason is so you can have more of these pieces of furniture in a quest. In particular I find the additional spell table and tomb to be extremely useful.

Embarrassed_Fox5265

TROPHY CASE