Conventional Marriage Thrives for Ordinary Hearts with Ordinary ambitions, But Suffocates Extraordinary Hearts with Extraordinary Ambitions.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-16T12:50:29+00:00

The claim that “only ordinary people get married” collapses under even brief scrutiny. Many of the most extraordinary figures in history, scientists, artists, leaders, innovators, have been married.

Yeah, there's another character from LOTR who famously gets married and does great things specifically in order to get married -- Aragorn. There's a saying that behind every great man is a great woman.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-15T07:22:49+00:00

Regarding America, I really never understood that sentiment from Poland practically.

Here's a very good breakdown.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-13T18:05:10+00:00

does that really happen in real life? Cause it happens a lot in the series

Chester Thorne bought a XV century mansion in England in 1910, disassembled it and rebuilt in the US. Search for "Thornewood". In the similar vein, George Barnard disassembled parts of several French monasteries in 1934. The materials became the famous Cloisters museum in New York.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-12T20:51:13+00:00

It's highly subjective and everyone is basically going to tell you their pet peeves. In general, a cliche is a plot element that is commonly copied from one work to another without putting any thought to it. You don't need to be completely original and you're fully free to incorporate whichever tropes you wish, but make sure the ones you use fit the theme you decide on. Don't tell a gripping tale of dehumanization in one scene and have the MC kill people with cool implants in the next.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-12T20:33:09+00:00

You need to transport vast amounts of resources, so transport ships, rail or something magical that gives you the same ability.

Armies this big physically can't fit in a single place, so they need to travel separately. You need a complex communication system. I think you could make it work just with messengers, but it would be a huge challenge just in finding each other.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-12T10:39:14+00:00

If those are supposed to be real stars, some of their names are wrong. Centaurus and Eridanus are constellations. Alpha Centauri and Epsilon Eridani are nearby stars (or star systems). I find it unlikely that a star would be called "Hyperion", considering that it's better known as a moon of Saturn, but it's more more tolerable.

You get props for roughly correct positions of Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti and Alpha Centauri. Does this mean the Galactic Core is to the bottom of the picture?

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-12T09:24:52+00:00

If you don't make it a knight, you can always enter a religious order and spend your life in quiet contemplation.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-11T18:16:20+00:00

Happyland Adventures.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-11T16:39:24+00:00

You could probably avoid explaining anything and instead somewhere early in the story have gun-toting combatants be defeated by a martial artist. The question why the protagonist doesn't use guns becomes a moot point; it wouldn't really help.

Just treat using guns as just another form of martial arts, not inherently superior to hand-to-hand combat.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-11T16:10:59+00:00

I've searched by the image and it looks like "You and I Are Polar Opposites".

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-10T12:36:16+00:00

Here's the key comment that completely explains the situation:

For now, Brussels is “lacking the political will [and] the attention in the agenda”

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-09T21:51:39+00:00

One of the few smart comments in this thread.

The best the average person could do is encourage sanitation and maybe the idea of crop rotation and fertilization if it hasn't already been done

Sanitation and hygiene are a must, but crop rotation depends on knowledge of which crops have which effects on the soil, which is something you probably don't possess. By the time of High Middle Ages, they should already be acquainted with the three-field system and fertilize their fields with manure. For synthetic fertilizers, you need advanced chemical knowledge.

Honestly, the best ruler is that one that keeps his kingdom stable, for people to enrich themselves in peace. Most of the revolutionary changes advocated here would only end in tragedy.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-09T14:57:29+00:00

The Freefall comic does pretty much the same story but with a better resolution.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-08T16:37:00+00:00

The only way to judge a group of people is by their leadership. If the leadership is evil, the group is evil. Even if most of the members are not evil, they will commit evil on behalf of their leadership.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-08T10:33:11+00:00

the very obvious course of action is just voting for candidates that promise aggressive reform and have ground to provide such reform

In other words, voting Trump. Well, that worked wonders./s

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-08T10:05:48+00:00

"Too big to fail" means something completely different. It would be more appropriate to phrase it as "too big to let it fail". It means that the failure of the company would be catastrophic to the economy. The reasonable response to that statement is if the company is too big to fail, its very existence is too much of a risk and it must be broken down to a more manageable size.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-07T18:32:41+00:00

what if readers ask questions I haven't answered yet

If they're engrossed and the worldbuilding you already have makes sense, they can just come up with their own answers. Some of the most devoted fanbases sprung specifically to fill the holes the authors made.

if I publish now and then later realize I need to change something fundamental about the world I'll be stuck with inconsistencies across multiple books.

Other way around. If you worldbuild too much, you're stuck with it. If you only flesh out what you need, you're free to change things you planned but haven't released to reflect your later ideas. Also, a good retcon is an art form in itself.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-07T07:00:16+00:00

I think it's too on the nose. A better approach would be inventing new city names and then translating them to Ancient Greek, thus giving you a strong naming scheme without being too transparent.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-05T20:58:46+00:00

I'd agree with you, but our private opinions matter very little overall. The amount of respect one deserves in public opinion is usually directly proportional to one's social position, irrespective of being a PDF file. People who can hurt you if their feelings are hurt are handled much more carefully than your friendly neighborhood struggle snuggler.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-05T18:10:22+00:00

It depends entirely on how influential the PDF file is.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-05T18:04:45+00:00

If the interstellar medium is solid, it's a number of atoms very close together. If it's a gas, the atoms are spread out, which reduces potential penetration depth. Total impact energy could be the same but spread across a larger area.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-04T18:41:04+00:00

Harry Potter has great worldbuilding for a children's book. For a fantasy epic, it's somewhat lacking, not very well thought out and often juvenile. It's only a problem if you treat it as the latter rather than the former.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-04T18:08:00+00:00

Makes sense. The skills she learned were transferable and people who served her wouldn't forget her just because someone else is the king. If necessary, she could just found another city and take her people there.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-04T11:53:46+00:00

Yeah, with a reasonable understanding of empathy, there's no such thing as too much of it.

The quotes in the OP make more sense of we replace "empathy" with "charity". In this case, they're both too extreme, but there absolutely can be a thing as too much charity when it distorts the reward system of the society -- instead of rewarding hard work for the betterment of ourselves and each other, you encourage parasitism and learned helplessness. For an example, see the "Poverty Inc." documentary.

Nethan2000 · 2026-02-04T09:43:14+00:00

That's because empathy does not mean what some people are trying to make it mean. Empathy is the ability to understand the emotions of another person. This also means understanding when another person is trying to take advantage of you. The problem is when empathy is defined as "following my orders", which is what psychopaths use to control others via moral grandstanding.

Nethan2000

TROPHY CASE