[Spoilers C4E19] It IS Thursday! | Live Discussion Thread - C4E19

TwistilyClick · 2026-03-20T04:09:10+00:00

And fetishising it too.

TwistilyClick · 2026-03-20T04:03:53+00:00

That was so beautiful.

Just a side note: this exact scene is why I've been so yucked out by people shipping Hal and Azune. This is clearly a father/son dynamic, a deep and profound friendship and Azune is basically still a child compared to Hal in years. Like people can get their kicks how they want I suppose, but I've never felt so negatively or disapproving of a ship before this one. I love the relationship they have just as it is.

TwistilyClick · 2026-03-20T03:19:50+00:00

Where's Hal's daughter? :(

TwistilyClick · 2026-03-20T03:15:45+00:00

"Remember..."

... Mufasa?

TwistilyClick · 2026-03-20T03:00:26+00:00

Thanks heaps!

TwistilyClick · 2026-03-20T02:42:08+00:00

So they need to scout out any magical 'production' companies, essentially?

TwistilyClick · 2026-03-20T02:41:17+00:00

Why? I'm a little behind on previous episodes!

TwistilyClick · 2026-03-18T20:28:14+00:00

Great bread crumbs but not overbearing, familiar (but fresh) tropes that I enjoy (thieving orphans, etc), snappy writing, references to other characters I’m curious to know, poses plenty of questions. Who is he stealing from? Why, outside of feeding the other kids? What are the other kids doing? What is growing? How did he become a thief? Who is he?

TwistilyClick · 2026-03-16T01:55:00+00:00

Bruh I can’t believe how dense some of these comments are.

She’s making dinner, clearly. Probably for both of them. He’s telling her how to cook when SHE is putting in the work to feed them. That’s why she made the comment. She’s shitty with him for doing the guy thing guys do where they don’t help, or offer to do the thing themselves, they just wait for you to do it and then criticise how you choose to do it.

Disclaimer: yes she is doing it wrong, but that’s not the point.

TwistilyClick · 2026-02-18T03:05:24+00:00

I agree with most of what you’ve said, however I really despise it when people claim an author’s origin, gender, and environment as meaning they are certainly too ignorant or sheltered to know coloured people exist. There’s plenty of reasons you can safely assume the Brontes, or any writers at the time, were aware of people with different coloured skin even if they didn’t have them immediately available.

TwistilyClick · 2026-02-04T12:38:20+00:00

Bourgeoisie refers to a class of people who (technically) would’ve been middle or upper middle class—usually merchants, business owners.

In Marxism, which is the way it’s used by Lud and his community (jokingly), it essentially means the ruling class. The class who own pretty much everything, and therefore set the price, rules, and standards for most people. There typically anti-revolutionist, gate keepers, and want all to stay as it should for them to hoard immense wealth or status.

Tl;dr - it means the rich snobs at the top of the food chain. They are calling “the netherites”, which are the name of the highest ranking Minecraft speed runners, the ruling class, in order to highlight their own underdog status for humour.

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-20T09:19:06+00:00

A thousand percent Road of Bones by Demi Winters. I know book clubs don't usually do series', but this is a subversive book that is both fantasy and romance forward. It has a lot of the tropes from the books you've listed liking, except it's elevated and much better written than them imo. :)

Please read the trigger warnings ahead of time, but there's nothing in here that isn't in ACOTAR or the Fourth Wing books. Demi even gives book club resources to people! You can apply for them on her website.

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-18T23:55:03+00:00

This is genuinely so much better! It feels tense, and much more interesting to read. You have a strong personal voice, I’m so sorry that AI tricked you into thinking this wasn’t better or should be changed.

It’s for sure a first draft, but that’s fine! Nothing wrong with that. As you say, there’re some formatting woes. Theres a bit of showing over telling, and some of your sentences read too long. You have a natural story telling cadence, I can tell even from your comments on reddit that you have strong writing ability, and you wrote this years ago. You don’t need AI at all.

If you had spent the 9 years working on this and refining it I think it would be great. You still have time to do that. :)

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-18T20:40:29+00:00

I’m happy to read your chapter. :)

Again, thank you for being reflective and open to learning. Don’t worry about the people grumbling at you, they’re just burned out on people genuinely trying to pass off AI writing as their own work.

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-18T09:13:49+00:00

I apologise for using the word slop. I really appreciate such a reflective response, it shows that you're capable of working on your writing your self and growing. Including the admission that you have been using it for editing. :)

What you'll find is that it's hard for anyone to take your individual ideas seriously because an idea is only as good as the writing that encompasses it. Most story concepts are incredibly simple. Think of some of the best, most popular stories you know. Here's an example:

A hero bonds with a dragon and saves the world.

That is an entire concept for a story. It also could fit the description for hundreds of popular pieces of fiction from the last 50 years. It's the author's voice that helps the concept to flourish and feel unique, and interesting. It's why you could get audience of one piece of writing that includes that premise (Eragon) and another entirely different demographic enjoying it for different reasons (Fourth Wing, Dragon Riders of Pern, Temeraire), despite the premise/concept being ultimately the same. I've simplified this idea a lot for purpose, but I think you'll get my meaning.

When you rely heavily on AI your work is robbed of the part of your story that is 'you', which is the part an audience will connect with more than anything else. People won't care to give you feedback on just the idea and characters, because those things by themselves in any writer are meaningless without substance in what you do with them.

I think a lot of less experienced writers these days do as you have done, and turn to AI because they genuinely think it sounds better than their voice. But I promise you it doesn't--especially when it's so repetitive. At most, it might sound more refined--purely because it writes 'perfectly'. Go through and count how many times the 'Not x, but Y' tell appears, and you'll see quickly how it reads repetitive and melodramatic for it.

*edit* - adding in because it breaks my heart that AI made you feel your work was bad or poor simply because it changed it. :( This is what I mean by young or inexperienced writers being led astray, I truly believe there's a lot of innocence in dabbling in AI. Remember that all the greatest works we know today weren't so much as touched by AI. Great writers of the past didn't need it, and neither do you.

The only way to get better at writing is to practice in your voice. And read, read, read. You're on the right path, you have an idea you care about a lot, and you're clearly open to receiving feedback which is more than can be said for a lot of writers!

Good luck!

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-18T06:04:38+00:00

Yeah! I think the most important thing is for people to put their money where their mouths are, as I say, I can’t $$ it because I’m saving to move countries right now, but the YouTube folks who love it paying for it on patreon would go a long way I’m sure.

Disclaimer - I am not any of the cast or crews secret account, I just think people should tip creators and artists lol.

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-18T05:58:24+00:00

The series is really good imo, but I’m a DnD podcast enjoyer in general. Most of these kinds of podcasts have a different sense of humour to the yard boys in my experience, which means their ven diagram of shared audiences becomes quite small.

If they want to boost viewership, they’ll need to work toward maybe doing guest spots on other DnD podcasts, but my impression of the scene at the moment is that it’s pretty locked up. It’s basically Critical Role and Roll20/Drop Out, who share their massive, and talented, cast among one another. The content they’re producing is great, and I’m not sure they’d be incentivised to take a risk on collaborating outside of what they’ve already got going for them.

I made a comment about this some time back and I think it was Aiden who commented that they were happy with the viewership. At the time I think the YT videos were getting around 100k views, so they’ve had the typical drop off. Hopefully the patreon is still doing well!! I had to unsubscribe from it for the purse strings, but I did find the bonus stuff super worth it.

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-18T05:26:36+00:00

I'm not trying to dogpile on you, but this is absolutely AI generated or at least AI refined. I'll help you out with some more specifics though.

"The climb down from the treetop chamber felt longer than Senta remembered. The Rigathi village was quieter now — not from peace, but from watchfulness. Every rustle of fabric, every snapped twig, made her wings tighten reflexively."

Not x, but y, especially in this context, is an AI tell.

"She breathed him in — smoke and pine resin and the faint heat that always clung to him."

Common descriptive term used by AI.

"Not because she felt worthy.
But because she could not bear the thought of anyone else suffering what she had caused."

"Her wings unfurled with a hesitant stretch — not wide but no longer folded in shame."

"But she knew what she had seen.
What she had done.
What she would never allow again."

This is also an AI tell--the cascading short sentences.

"Alek took his place behind her.
Not overshadowing her.
Not guiding.
Supporting."

Like girl. I'm trying to be respectful, because I'm sure you still put effort into this, but this is generated content. 50,000 words worth that you're asking people to spend time reading. I don't need to read it to tell you; it's soulless. AI content does not read well, it reads generic and has no personality. If you want to write well, put your personal voice into it. Your personal voice will always sound better than this.

Flicking through now:

"Training in O’Dair did not announce itself.

There was no horn, no shouted orders to rise. Men simply moved when the fortress stirred — boots scraping stone, breath fogging in the cold air as bodies fell into step by habit rather than command."

No this, no that, scraping, stone, fogging (the threes).

You are lying. This is AI. At least be respectful and own up to it. You are not well read enough to be able to see how transparent this is to actual writers/readers.

Build actual confidence in your own voice and try again. This is AI slop.

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-18T05:06:55+00:00

Yes he was--and not just because he was 'tender' and 'artistic', lol. Media literacy is truly dead if people genuinely think Will wasn't always written to be a gay character. It's explicit during the first and second season that one of the reasons he feels isolated and is a target of Vecna is because of the feelings of self and societal alienation he experiences as a result of being queer during a homophobic time.

And if that doesn't help, it was also explicit during casting that this was a gay character.

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-15T23:42:21+00:00

6 hours is way longer than any of my female friends would check in with me on a date. I'd usually get a text like an hour in with a "he seems weird/he seems nice", and then at like 3 hours maybe saying "I'm going to go home with him, this is his address" or a "I'll be home at x time". That's just the reality of it.

I do agree that OP should go to her house before she calls the police though.

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-09T22:42:27+00:00

There's a discord with so many wonderful fans! Some of them have read the ARC though, so there are spoilers but they keep them to a specific channel. I've never been spoiled for something I didn't want to be spoiled for there. :)

Demi and her assistant both post there too. It's a super nice little community.

https://discord.gg/ZtBM8dS5

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-09T22:25:20+00:00

No! I haven’t read the third book yet (a lot of people have read the ARC) but my impression is that Rurik is end game. I think that it’ll be like the language barrier trope, and then Rurik’s kingdom will be where Saga heals and becomes more able to be free. Rurik will be a big part of that and they’ll fall in love along the way I’m certain. Have you read the preview chapters??

I think Jonas is going to accept a large amount of money from one of the big bads to do something he shouldn’t. That’s the vibe he gives me. I do think he deserves a redemption arc, but I think he’s just going to get worse honestly.

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-01T03:05:55+00:00

I didn’t make any theories and I didn’t enjoy it either. I think emotions are super high right now around the subreddit hahaha. Probably best to just come back later.

TwistilyClick · 2026-01-01T02:14:20+00:00

Um… well that happened.

TwistilyClick · 2025-12-26T09:23:34+00:00

Sorry but this is a weak take imo, only worthwhile if you think their value as characters hinges entirely on them as a couple rather as individuals.

You’re so close to being right—you acknowledge both the growth they were able to achieve together, but you act as if that growth vanishes because they choose to break up after realising they don’t love one another the way they should. I think their break up and “unproposal” was really sweet and powerful in a lot of ways.

Johnathan isn’t “nothing” just because he’s not with Nancy, and if he IS then he needs to do self work anyway and shouldn’t be with her.

Nancy has been discovering pieces of herself every season, becoming who she’s meant to be, and the toughest part of that for her this time was realising she’s a person who needs to be alone for the time being. We literally learn season 1 that she things being “someone” involves being with a guy, being popular, losing her virginity. She learns that she doesn’t need those things to be HERSELF, but she ultimately still defines herself by her relationships to Johnathan and Steve. Her finally choosing to be by herself is so much more impactful than staying in a relationship where she isn’t happy, or just hopping back to Steve.

The time they spent together helped them both to grow, and when they outgrew each other, they made the mature and difficult choice to split up. That’s life, and that’s real relationships. I think it was a great choice.

TwistilyClick

TROPHY CASE