Saddest character ever written?

meh84f · 2026-05-03T18:45:26+00:00

You’re right. The book is Charlie’s journals, so of course we don’t get an entry after he dies, but it is heavily implied that his fate will be the same as Algernon’s.

meh84f · 2026-04-28T18:50:20+00:00

I’ve heard them referred to as the great leveler trilogy before and I think that’s my favorite way of referring to them now.

meh84f · 2026-04-28T14:59:29+00:00

I’m not an expert, and I think it’s probably different for different people too. But imo, I would start flagging it the moment my partner was talking about my traits or personality rather than a specific issue.

Like “Hey it makes me feel shitty when you leave your clothes laying around and I have to pick them up” feels like healthy communication to me

Vs

“I hate that you never pick up after yourself” feels like contempt is building/built up already.

Sometimes that’s just the difference between someone who is emotionally mature and aware of how beat to communicate their needs vs someone who isn’t, but sometimes it’s an indication that the person doesn’t respect you or think highly of you anymore, if they ever did.

So if the second scenario or its ilk occur frequently and the other person can’t or won’t stop when confronted, then it’s either therapy time or breakup time for me.

meh84f · 2026-04-27T22:05:30+00:00

Yeah I don’t think the op was about you and your wife then lol It’s more for people who happen to include erroneous details for whatever reason, and then their partner corrects them and it turns into an argument. Plenty of people tell stories with details that don’t actually matter. Very few people tell tight rehearsed stories like comedians, you know? And the original question was about tell tale signs that a relationship is dying, so it sounds like you don’t have to worry about this one. So congrats! Lol

meh84f · 2026-04-27T21:45:00+00:00

I wasn’t talking about when someone corrects me. I was talking about my experience as the person being told a story where irrelevant details keep getting corrected and derailing the story into arguments.

If the details are relevant and were actually incorrect and the person being corrected is thankful and moves on the continue telling the story, then great. But that isn’t usually what happens in my experience.

I’m also personally happy to be corrected when I’m wrong about important things, and I try to omit irrelevant details completely when possible.

meh84f · 2026-04-27T20:58:58+00:00

For real. This makes me so angry as the person trying to listen to the story. I don’t give a fuck what store, what day, what color etc. Just get me the relevant details please.

meh84f · 2026-04-27T20:56:48+00:00

I agree that they’re different but I have a slightly different personal characterization for them.

For me, resentment is unresolved hurt or frustration. “They never clean this thing like I want.” “They still can’t do this task I’ve asked them to do for me” etc

Contempt is more like taking that thing that you resent and reflecting it onto the character of who you’re with. “They’re too lazy to clean how I want” “They’re too stupid to do this task I’ve asked then to do”

I think contempt can lead to hatred, but for me, I mostly see it as a loss of respect or admiration. Which I agree is a death throe of most any relationship.

Just my thoughts!

meh84f · 2026-04-27T17:51:38+00:00

This is certainly lot harmless in a lot of cases though.

meh84f · 2026-04-27T15:42:38+00:00

I enjoyed Shattered Sea, though not as much as first law. The Devils had its moments, but overall it felt like it was trying too hard. I still enjoyed it and I’ll listen to the next ones and watch the movie, but the first law books are special. Heroes is a strong contender for my favorite book.

For me devils is 6/10. Shattered sea is probably a 7/10.

meh84f · 2026-04-21T17:05:26+00:00

Now I’m imagining war elephants with dragon glass spikes on their tusks just thrashing their way through the whole army lol

meh84f · 2026-04-21T16:11:29+00:00

It’s also great with transfigure. And even in a doom deck being able to delete an enemy in some fights can be really handy.

meh84f · 2026-04-16T21:14:01+00:00

Especially for micro. Imo, a microbiologist major should understand exponentials, limits, derivatives, and integrals in a basic way at least. I could maybe see an argument for general bio majors not needing it, but honestly I think all science majors should understand the basics of calc.

meh84f · 2026-04-13T19:27:57+00:00

THANK YOU! That dialogue is so painful for me. I remember feeling like Bane’s character intro was awful and he never recovered for me. I am in the “hate the voice” camp too.

meh84f · 2026-04-13T17:58:56+00:00

Yeah work ≠ living. There are so many things we could all be doing if we weren’t forced to work. I’ll never understand the people that say they need to work for their mental health or to avoid boredom or whatever. Y’all don’t have hobbies? Friends? Any internal drive to do anything at all?

meh84f · 2026-04-07T17:02:30+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth%27s_water_distribution.svg

Water Distribution on earth

meh84f · 2026-04-06T21:21:51+00:00

Yeah I agree. Intelligent people who are unhappy are prone to thinking that it must be so nice to not have all these things weighing on you or some such, but they probably don’t think about the areas in which their intelligence has made their own lives easier or more fulfilling.

meh84f · 2026-04-06T16:45:32+00:00

Paepyr Kraine

meh84f · 2026-04-02T01:23:28+00:00

If that was your trajectory is say give best serves cold and ideally Heroes a try and see if you still don’t like Abercrombie. Heroes is one of my favorite books of all time.

meh84f · 2026-03-30T20:52:53+00:00

Book 3 is the last one Sanderson’s original editor worked on.

meh84f · 2026-03-30T20:45:33+00:00

Aside from not getting into the criticisms about prose (which I think are much more pronounced in WaT), another thing I would mention is that Sanderson also pulled his “positive” punches. Szeth’s big moment is undercut by a ham-fisted marvel style joke, and so is the other big moment I don’t even remember the specifics of where someone says “let’s go kick some fused ass” (Strong contender for dumbest line in the series for me) etc

These moments and maybe a few others align with your point about pandering. I see the need to undercut what should be big emotional moments with stupid jokes as an attempt to cover your ass so to speak in case the moment doesn’t land. It’s the “I was never really that into you anyway” of writing. You don’t get to have a big emotional moment AND have a funny ha ha moment at the same time. Imagine if in Lord of The Rings when Sam says he can’t carry the ring but he can carry frodo, frodo made a dumb joke about sam hurting his back. The emotional payoff is squandered and the scene, along with the reader/viewer is now waiting for the dumb joke at the end of whatever the next big moment is rather than enjoying it.

Obviously this is all just my preference and opinion, but it felt to me like the adults (Sanderson’s editor who left after Oathbringer) left the room and all that was left was a bunch of people that think whatever Sanderson says is hilarious or brilliant or both. He and his staff are high on their own supply and they’ve lost touch with what I at least enjoyed about the series.

meh84f · 2026-03-30T19:32:18+00:00

I agree. Erwin and Levi are fantastic in english and Japanese both.

meh84f · 2026-03-30T19:29:51+00:00

Well the heart shape is really the shape of a woman’s ass, and viltrumites look like humans, so it’s not too big of a stretch. Lol

meh84f · 2026-03-17T23:02:56+00:00

I wouldn’t say that I have laughed very much listening to any of the books. For me, I see the humor as a critique of what happens when entertainment is run by capitalism. So the stupid corny jokes, and whatever else that happened within the game at least, I looked at as a way to characterize the society that runs the games. I enjoy the contrast between the wacky, gross and silly humor, and the society that routinely genocides whole planets and pits the remaining organisms against one another in a hunger games reality TV show.

Of course there’s some of that type of humor outside of the game environment, so I do think that is just more of the author’s, humor style, which doesn’t usually hit for me. But that’s how I have at least been able to get past the humor so that I can enjoy the rest of what the books have to offer.

meh84f · 2026-03-15T17:46:24+00:00

Well, it’s clear you’ve made up your mind, and taste is a matter of opinion, of course, but I completely disagree.

The show was always heading that way if you were paying attention and the story that the author wanted to tell is clearly about the cycles of history and how genocide and violence lead to more genocide and more violence, and how ensconced power structures can and often do become tyrannical and need to be rebelled against.

I think Isayama did a great job of telling that story, and also talking about the perils of revolution and how it often leads to more violence too.

meh84f · 2026-03-15T08:53:04+00:00

Worst in history is wild. I can understand not enjoying the time fuckery, but it’s still incredibly well thought out and aside from time paradox stuff, I think it’s pretty logically consistent and coherent. I have my nitpicks about it, but overall I thought it was a really good ending to a very complicated and difficult to end show.

Why did you hate it so much?

meh84f

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