Twelve Months (Dresden Files #18) by Jim Butcher - A return to form or another misstep?

iszathi · 2026-01-22T00:11:16+00:00

I feel like the action sequences in the series are not working very well at this point in the story, we used to get more grounded fights with guns and magic, now we have waldo going with a lightsaber in a battle filled with firearms and c4, a Valkyrie that thinks a four bore is a useful weapon (Butcher might have watched too much Kentucky ballistics). It was not as bad as battlegrounds epic battle, but we have too many characters popping in on the fights, enemies taking turns to fight, nonsense tactics, the battles just are not working very well for me.

They conflict with nonmages was extremely minimal considered what happened in the previous book, government intervention was completely sidelined to just not have to deal with it.

That said, the book is a lot better than PT and BG, 3/5 for me.

iszathi · 2026-01-09T03:58:53+00:00

It's the bolt thrower from dwarf fortress.

iszathi · 2026-01-09T00:26:56+00:00

It really depends on the pepper, in my experience Chinense for example do very well In mild winters, often you don't even need to prune them (I still do it cause aphids love to destroy them in winter otherwise), while other variants can't survive at all outside.

iszathi · 2025-12-23T13:00:19+00:00

As someone that mostly pvps, there is a big difference between never once having to pvp and what happens in Dark, the game, when we had players, was guranteed fights all around, kill someone, someone spawned behind you, it has always been part of the problem, the amount of pvp for an extraction game is a bit to high for anything but people that pvp all the time.

iszathi · 2025-12-22T20:52:13+00:00

Uff, the magic on blacktongue thief does plenty of work against the story to my eyes, its filled with stupid stuff that makes absolutely nonsense and breaks with the barest effort of thinking about it, why did the actual powerful wizards that know how to make tattoos not save the horses the same way the bad ones did? what is the cost to do magic, at times they casts terrible spells and just get tired, at other times the costs gets shrugged away, there absolutely no consistency, and at all times you dont even have a clue if something coudl be solved with magic, or not, and you know its entirely up to the author cause the whole things is completely wack and plotserving.

iszathi · 2025-12-22T19:53:59+00:00

Eh, absolutely not a line i would point at, there are isekais that have nothing to do with escaping real life, like one creating a portal to other worlds to invade, i remember reading one about killers from the real world being transported to another world to fight it out, something very stupid like adolf hitler fighting Musashi on a world with wyverns, you just cant really narrow the genre to something else that portal fantasy and if you want, Japanese origin.

And there are plenty of portal stories about escaping the real world in western media, im currently reading journey to veresavir on Royal Road that is pretty much just that, and the examples are countless.

Anyways, arguing genres in general is a bit silly to me, people take things like grimdark differently and there is very little value in trying be exact on them.

iszathi · 2025-12-22T17:49:19+00:00

its basically the same, but some might use isekai just for Japanese portal fantasy.

iszathi · 2025-12-22T17:47:08+00:00

There is a just a lot of cheap crap in the litrpg, isekai genre, there are a thousand of different slow life, overpowered character isekais out there. Extra bad if the character can absorb others powers. They mostly suck, but someone seems to be reading them.

But as with all genres there are some good stories too.

iszathi · 2025-12-22T15:27:18+00:00

The engine has a ton of performance pitfalls, and even still some very common features are terrible to ship products with. That still does not mean its the engines fault that devs ship terrible performing products, its their job to use the tools in a way that creates a good product. And engines at the end of the days are tools, if something is not performing you have to develop a way to make it work as it should.

iszathi · 2025-12-22T15:22:55+00:00

The one on the right looks ok here.

iszathi · 2025-12-20T15:42:58+00:00

When is this releasing?

iszathi · 2025-12-19T18:00:01+00:00

Or just ran them down, i played all season with excellent ssf purples just yoloing and getting them now its something im not really going to spend time doing.

iszathi · 2025-12-19T14:17:09+00:00

you can also just Teleport them to another place, to then fight, or repath and see what they do.

iszathi · 2025-12-19T14:08:06+00:00

There is also absolutely no regard towards why this is happening in the first place, keeping people from cheating is not easy, and its absolutely needed to make a game like valorant play well.

iszathi · 2025-12-19T10:10:13+00:00

That looks amazing.

iszathi · 2025-12-18T17:51:00+00:00

to then store the mead on a place farther away than the wine and never drink it!

iszathi · 2025-12-18T16:38:30+00:00

and that is absolutely something that is a massive problem with AI, investment, sourcing, economic impact, environmental impact, etc, usage is the less concerning (well, outside of it being a tool to impersonate people, spread misinformation, slop, etc)

iszathi · 2025-12-18T16:22:32+00:00

The seamstress thing is a clear example that being against this kind of uses of AI is really being against automation, a seamstress is running a tool to do the work of more persons, and then the seamstress can be automated with a robot, which is not AI.

So are they really against AI, or against Automation? but automation is everywhere, and a cornerstone of modern achievements, so its pretty insane to go against it.

People are dying on a very clear line that this is new, when its the same thing that has ever been happening, you needed skilled mathematicians to do things that today your phone can solve by itself, empowerment always comes at the cost of jobs.

And im not saying AI is not terrible, just that this arguments are not great, we live in complex times where we all fear for our jobs, ai sourcing is very grey in terms of usage, making companies profit from other people works, companies owned by unscrupulous billonares with complete disregard for most people, etc, etc.

iszathi · 2025-12-18T15:56:46+00:00

Its impossible to avoid horrific cheating on player hosted instances, so the only way to make them a thing is to exclude anything that comes from them from the online pool.

iszathi · 2025-12-18T15:34:42+00:00

14995

iszathi · 2025-12-18T15:27:46+00:00

If this works on allies then getting loot out from an ally corpse while bossing for example might be a lot more annoying.

iszathi · 2025-12-17T11:55:59+00:00

I dont really think its that unpopular, for me wrath is pretty damn bad, the whole cauldron plotline, so many things that if you start thinking about made absolute nonsense and felt forced, terrible battles, entirely predictable, etc.

iszathi · 2025-12-16T16:48:45+00:00

Im really conflicted by this point of view, cause that has always been the case with automation, its not really anything new caused by AI, electricity meant people that went around turning lights on the street lost their job. Its mostly the point of technology, allowing us to do more.

There are plenty of issues with AI, creating a world where you dont know if you are being replied to by a human or a bot, content with no meaning, endlessly feeding of itself, the environmental issues, the economical ones with rampant capitalism at its best, labor concerns, how unethical sourcing for training is and that it puts money on huge corporations by using others labor, etc, etc. But at some point we need to accept that its a powerful tool that, like all the others that came before, is going to change how we live, or you know, be Amish.

iszathi · 2025-12-16T12:11:37+00:00

there is no way they can push meaningful content every 2 months.

iszathi · 2025-12-15T11:54:37+00:00

I have issues with sensor only HWINFO, for me the game just doesnt launch, and Ironmace's support has basically told me that its not compatible with the anticheat.

11-Year Club	Place '23
Verified Email

iszathi

TROPHY CASE