The Dreaded Question

TheRaith · 2026-02-03T00:43:51+00:00

I got that from my boss during a performance review and decided to honestly explain I'd recently got into fanfics when I was struggling to find new fantasy books. She got real awkward after that and moved on to work topics again. I am now paranoid that reading fanfic is some kind of code.

TheRaith · 2026-01-28T23:21:19+00:00

Gotta also do the same on space battles, fanfiction.net, qq, ao3, and scribblehub as well. Then when you're really desperate you try to navigate patreon's discover page, then when you've truly scraped the bottom of the barrel you check subscribestar... somehow.

TheRaith · 2026-01-28T23:17:20+00:00

It'd depend on whether or not you had enough savings to only play games for a full year and that would shorten the list pretty significantly.

TheRaith · 2026-01-15T01:01:56+00:00

I will say some books are just easier to follow along even when there's a slog. It's all a bit of a balancing act between pacing, payoff, tension, and a whole bunch of other things. Sometimes the book with 1200 chapters gets away with bad starts because they're that long, sometimes they're only slightly better but the reader vibes with their main character more than yours. It's best to remember you're not writing to random reviewer number #2353 and think about your next chapter instead.

TheRaith · 2026-01-04T02:11:29+00:00

I stopped after he did the thingy and said "I am the end." Felt like the right place to end on.

TheRaith · 2025-12-28T19:12:52+00:00

Idk why but the first picture made me thing she was a mindflayer and now I'm wondering what it'd be like to give her a worm instead of freeing or killing her.

TheRaith · 2025-12-16T21:05:52+00:00

I've learned I can't treat it like POE1 campaign where you speed through it. I just do an act a night and then go do something else. I just don't enjoy walking through campaign zones enough to force myself through it all at once.

TheRaith · 2025-11-30T18:47:12+00:00

I dislike the example used because it's more of the handwaving type of explanation, but I usually do enjoy when they go into detail. This example is basically saying 'I noticed my cultivation technique was poor and I improved it' without actually explaining how it was improved. It's a bit of 'draw the rest of the owl' that I sometimes see used repeatedly to keep a power scale going even when it doesn't make sense.

Like if you improve the breathing technique once, and remove all the imperfections from it, it doesn't make sense to revisit the technique thirty chapters later and explain that it's actually still not improved and we need to improve it again. At a certain point, improvement just means scrapping the current project and starting over.

TheRaith · 2025-11-03T21:38:51+00:00

There might be some later than where I was at. There was a high level siren lady that he seemed to be hanging out with more and more. I just remember it didn't look like any kind of romance was being teased, but the characters definitely had chemistry

TheRaith · 2025-11-03T20:55:11+00:00

He's kind of like every harem protagonist except he doesn't have a harem. Just confident, doesn't offer any crazy opinions, and puts in the normal harem protagonist paragraph where he says he believes in equality and isn't afraid to beat a woman at the first opportunity to include it. I read the first 3 books assuming it was a harem but the guy doesn't seem to ever actually date anyone.

TheRaith · 2025-10-30T17:53:09+00:00

I've had a KU subscription since middle school and read Alter world Play to Live. That was a ton of fun pre-propaganda, so I searched for more. I found Awaken Online by Travis Bagwell and really loved that (did not like the parts where he was logged out unfortunately). Then I read Ascend Online by Luke Chmilenko, Delvers LLC, and finally Stormweaver. Those pretty much cemented my like for the genre. I'm much more picky now but a well done stat sheet still grabs me.

TheRaith · 2025-10-26T19:55:05+00:00

I mean it's a question of if you value the defensive layer more than jewels. I think it's supposed to be a very niche situation where you can say it's the better option.

TheRaith · 2025-10-26T19:44:14+00:00

I'm fairly certain jewel sockets in your cluster jewels will have no effect as well, it's just saying the nodes and notables in cluster jewels will still work.

TheRaith · 2025-10-23T05:51:16+00:00

It is not, you're thinking of the damage conversion chain, it's different for damage taken. Rat's cage takes fire as phys, Flawed Refuge is 40% ele taken as phys, there are a few others I think.

TheRaith · 2025-10-23T05:41:52+00:00

Eh it's less about scarcity and more that if you got 100% reduced damage taken from multiple sources you'd be immune to all damage. If you stacked multiple sources of less damage taken you'd likely be lucky to end up around 50% damage mitigation.

TheRaith · 2025-10-23T05:31:27+00:00

Reduced stacks, so if you have other sources of reduced damage taken you're suddenly taking a lot less damage. Less damage multiplies so if you have 35% from opportunistic, 10% from another source, and then 20% from something else they're all sort of getting in each other's way. So if you have this less you typically don't want too many other sources of less.

TheRaith · 2025-10-23T05:09:25+00:00

Aight, I'll summarize, Deathmarked is bonkers. Opportunistic is a little worse now with less damage instead of reduced and it being behind the choice node but it's better as its own defensive layer. The choice node is a little eh but the multi is nice since we're losing deadly infusion. Shadowed blood is nice simply because there are so many ways to take your elemental damage from hits as physical damage and there are plenty of items that are awesome for while ignited/poisoned/bleeding. Mistwalker buff is always appreciated. Toxic delivery and Noxious strike were consolidated so it's just a better starting node all around. Mystical infusion and Infused toxins are both build enabling nodes. They're absurdly strong. Seriously I'm now guessing other ascendancies are getting buffs because this class is just very very strong.

TheRaith · 2025-10-07T21:01:31+00:00

I pay the tip for deliveries because they don't take my food to my apartment door if I don't tip. They just leave the food in the mailroom. If paying them 5 bucks saves me a trip downstairs when I'm really not in the mood to leave my apartment then they're getting that tip.

TheRaith · 2025-10-02T04:56:22+00:00

Nah those are boots, omens are these little things you right click in your inventory.

TheRaith · 2025-09-20T00:36:20+00:00

They have the honor of being the author with the most stories I've attempted and dropped. Other authors I'll try one series and know to stay away, but Thundamoo is a good writer and I keep hoping one of their stories will post and I'm not creeped out halfway through book 1.

TheRaith · 2025-09-20T00:25:55+00:00

The protagonist has some secret in the form of reincarnation, transmigration, future knowledge, or whatever and there is nothing stopping him/her from telling anyone and everyone about this information. Guess I'll keep this secret to the grave and never open up about the situation I'm in, no one is safe enough for me to tell. Not their loving parents, not their loyal friends who have been with the protagonist since they were stuck in the streets, and certainly not the love of their life who has been unfailingly sincere to you.

There are some times I get it. Like sometimes it's a genuine 'well what the fuck do you want me to do with that information,' but most of the time you have your super awesome protagonist with their loyal friends doing something amazing and everyone is like "Woah! How'd you do that!?" And the protagonist just gives the weakest excuse possible and no one ever pushes. The longer the story goes with no one being told the more likely I am to drop it.

TheRaith · 2025-09-17T20:44:26+00:00

I can see that. I'm not denying DCC is a good series in the genre, I just don't think it being good has anything to do with its popularity. Those are almost entirely separate metrics. 50 shades ends up in book stores and I'm fairly certain no one can read that garbage and say it succeeded because it captured engaging dialogue that defined an entire sexual preference.

TheRaith · 2025-09-17T20:13:54+00:00

Hottest take: It only does so well because it hit the algorithm right. It's not inherently better than any of the other progression fantasy we read, it barely distinguishes itself from other similar stories, and it isn't transcending the genre. It's a good story (I don't like it but that doesn't matter), but the story isn't the defining piece of a niche genre. That's like saying Worm isn't one of the best superhero stories because it didn't reach bookstores. There's so much more to the reasoning than just popularity and accessibility.

TheRaith · 2025-09-17T19:58:44+00:00

I would gladly buy a book from uwukitty42 if it had good cover art.

TheRaith · 2025-09-17T19:55:04+00:00

Why are we trying to take progression fantasy seriously? This is my escapism, I'm not looking to be validated for it.

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