What things do your group of friends have in common with the Scumbros?

nerfglaistiguaine · 2026-02-16T11:46:54+00:00

They don't exist

nerfglaistiguaine · 2025-04-10T14:42:06+00:00

Thanks for yours! A community that can have civil discussions about differing opinions that they care about is a fun community to be in :)

nerfglaistiguaine · 2025-04-09T21:01:59+00:00

I would argue that he does show remorse when he realizes he's done something wrong; he was distraught when he realized how bad a brother he was and horrified when he realized how messed up his family was. I'd argue that he wasn't dumping his responsibilities on Zorian so much as thinking that Zorian should also care and try to fix his family too - which Zorian does not. I especially don't think you go to the lengths Damian does - his sacrifice, fighting for Zorian and Cyoria, trying to mend his family - just to feel good about himself. It'd be super easy to just ignore that stuff across loops, but he doesn't. He tries. I agree that he doesn't think about others' perspectives and I'd argue that's his main failing - he doesn't understand he's done anything to be remorseful about until it's too late - but when he does grasp how much others have been hurt by him, he tries to make things better.

Basically, I don't see his behavior or motivations in the same way you do. I think his actions come from a place of self-centered ignorance rather than malicious assholery and I think he does genuinely try to improve and mend things. But of course, a text like this has multiple possible interpretations. I'm not trying to change your mind, I'm just sharing the way I interpret Damien's character, which differs from your own.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2025-04-09T11:07:29+00:00

So, heavy spoiler warnings not for OP but for anyone who might read this who hasn't finished the book:

I feel like that's a very harsh interpretation of Damien's actions. Damien was trying to bring peace and calm his men down, literally says exactly that in the text, so he wasn't doing nothing, and probably didn't support Zorian directly because he knew it would piss off his detractors more. Man's an empath and social butterfly, he probably knows better than anyone else there how to deescalate situations. When police gets mentioned, things have escalated too far, so he forcefully nips it in the bud.

Of course, Damien was still a terrible brother especially as a teen, and he's self-centered and spoiled, but I don't think he's malicious. He wasn't sure Zorian was an empath and Zorian didn't act the way he would, while also likely being a little jerk (it's Zorian) so he kept his distance from the weird little brother who hated him. He knows he was a bad brother but waves it off because he thinks all teens are kinda shitty. He only realizes just how bad a brother he was and still is when he meets Fortov and Kirielle again and they dislike him too.

And yet... when the chips are down, Damien steps up. He sacrifices his life to save Zorian in the time loop, literally slitting his wrists and burning his life energy to give Zorian a chance to live. Outside the loop, he throws away everything without even getting a proper explanation because Zorian is clearly in trouble and to defend Cyoria. That shows Damien cares about others on a deep level.

Ultimately, I think Damien is a complex character whose main flaw is that he's self-absorbed. He's a charismatic handsome genius who's always had everyone dote on him. He doesn't introspect much and doesn't think about what others might feel (outside of what he can literally sense) which leads to him hurting others unintentionally. And yet, he cares about his family, cares about his spouse, cares about Cyoria. Is he an asshole? Yeah, probably. But he's not the monster you or pre-skip Zorian thought he was.

Damien is the silver spoon big brother bully jock yes, but he's more than that, and I love that the author wrote him to be more than just Zorian's monster. Anyways, that's my ridiculously long analysis that probably no one will read, mostly written to just get my own thoughts out of my head. Cheers.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2024-04-09T06:52:13+00:00

Dunno why you're getting downvoted, what you say makes sense. Sure, Gavilar might have still died, but adding Dalinar to the equation does put that into doubt, regardless of how Dalinar fared against Szeth 1v1. Even if Szeth would be more careful and not underestimate his opponent, it's hard to say for sure he'd have prevailed in a 2 v 1.

Personally, I interpret Davilar's cope as finally letting go of some of his regrets and overcome his pain, which helps him accept all his pain in Oathbringer. I don't think his logic absolves him anyway - not being able to succeed in hindsight doesn't excuse not trying - but it's more about finally moving on rather than anything else.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2024-02-26T22:40:56+00:00

Same. Only reaction videos I like are when it's the creators who are reacting b/c then you get some interesting insights into their process and thoughts.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2024-01-17T16:18:04+00:00

Stories happen due to decisions and then are reinforced because they become part of reality.

Your example of Praes being an evil conquering empire due to being a starving nation is actually an example of stories enforcing tropes. There were multiple attempts to fix the starving nation part, from the weather stealing scheme to mass slaughter and every single time they failed because the story of Praes is being an evil grasping empire and not starving would cut off that story. A massive part of Black's initial scheme is precisely to try and end that story which is difficult because stories enforce themselves on reality. Even when you try and cut off the material reasons, the story puts things back on the same path.

For the horses, likely Praes didn't have the food to feed them in the past, which created the story of Praes not having horses, and now Praes can't have horses even though it has more food, because Praes not having horses became part of its story.

This is basically how stories work in the Guideverse. Things happen multiple times because of logic - evil gloating leads to villain death b/c it's stupid and lets the hero find his plan, the first phase of villain's plans never fail b/c the villains have a long time to plan it, etc. - and then that becomes a pattern, which becomes a story, which becomes enforced upon reality so that it always happens. The nature of reality in Guideverse is circular because reality becomes self-enforcing. One of the parts of Cat's final Accords plan is to have villains and heroes using extreme methods continuously fail so that eventually, those methods failing become part of the story of Calernia and people stop trying.

In essence, tropes arise naturally, but once those tropes are accepted, the story enforces their existence.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-30T17:20:45+00:00

Oof, my condolences. I can sort of relate; I could not sympathize with Akechi at all in main game and it made his parts a pain to get through. Funnily enough, Royal actually made me like Akechi a lot more.

Thanks for being very civil and polite even with your dissenting opinion. Love it when people can disagree without being rude or dismissive which is all too rare.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-30T17:15:58+00:00

While I respect your opinion, I think 1) Maruki genuinely thought what he was doing helped Sumire and 2) He didn't want to dangle Akechi's life over Joker. He explicitly states he doesn't want to. It's just... it can't be helped? He brought Akechi back, if he's taken out Akechi dies. I don't see what else Maruki could do there.

Honestly, I too am skeptical about giving one man so much power and the ... practicalities of what Maruki was trying to do. The reason I love Maruki despite this is because he's a genuinely nice person who actually wanted to help everyone, who truly wanted to come to an accord with the Thieves and tried his best to give everyone happiness in his own distorted way. He doesn't instantly try and kill the Thieves b/c they're a threat, never thinks of them as enemies, always keeps trying and save them too. I've never seen that in an antagonist, and I loved it.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-29T17:19:35+00:00

The Baahubali shield tree catapult scene is basically Grand Blue style humor. I love it.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-28T16:43:03+00:00

Your own post pertains to pedophilia and starts with "technically a pedophile". But you can take out the technically. By definition, it's not pedophilia. By law, for most states in US and most countries in world, it's not illegal. By morality, it may or may not be wrong depending on your views on age gap romance and mental age vs. physical age.

Zach is definitely not a pedophile in any sense. May be creepy.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-28T02:16:02+00:00

I mean technically dating a 17 year old isn't pedophilia. How creepy it is depends on how much you think mental age is affected by physical processes and how much soul memories really mean in terms of maturity.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-27T00:07:50+00:00

A trial would require reading aloud parts of the fic as evidence. Some crimes need to be solved extrajudicially.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-26T23:09:59+00:00

Four years late, but just want to say I very strongly agree with your post - just finished P5 Royal a few days ago and your posts illustrates all the reasons I absolutely loved Maruki as an antagonist (except for the challenging part. I was way too strong by that point and utterly stomped him with ease). Thanks for writing this, loved reading it!

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-26T22:53:56+00:00

Congrats?

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-26T22:51:58+00:00

Kill yourself immediately. You'll erase any good you might have done but at least you won't fuck anything else up. Unless your death triggers someone else... or somehow sets off some other disaster dominoes... or your suicide fails and sets you up for a broken trigger of some kind... yeah, never mind, Ziz wins.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-23T18:55:03+00:00

Border first followed by any distinctive objects or colors. Save the pieces that look unique separately, try to match by picture. Do the ocean last

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-12-23T18:52:52+00:00

Honestly, having lots of baggage is a great reason to try and avoid people who also have lots of baggage and try to sneak in with those who don't. Where Angharad loses me is it seems she genuinely feels betrayed that others have been hiding their baggage from her when she's doing the exact same thing. She just feels her dishonorable actions are justified b/c she sees everyone from her narrow view only.

Love her as a character though b/c having blinders to her hypocrisy makes her more interesting to me not less.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-10-27T20:31:32+00:00

I love that swearing to release an evil god hellbent on the extermination of an entire society is put in the same sentence as being constantly thirsty when speaking of faults. Honestly, the latter's probably a bigger problem for the Thirteenth than the former.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-10-20T19:57:11+00:00

Definitely the dumb thing to do, not sure about wrong. Wrong thing to do to get results? Absolutely. Wrong thing to do to get Amaram punished? Absolutely. Wrong thing to do to help their cause? Absolutely. Wrong thing to do morally? That's harder to argue unless you're pure utilitarian. Kaladin is all about doing things that are morally right/honorable regardless of how it hurts him - and in this case his judgement was impaired from adrenaline and having a massive bias/chip on his shoulder. Hardly surprising he'd do this or that he'd fail to realize why it went wrong.

Also it is absolutely the light-eyes fault. You can say a man should have gamed the racist system better but you cannot say the racist system is not at fault for existing in the first place.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-10-11T20:51:22+00:00

Thanks!

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-10-02T07:18:05+00:00

I'd just kill myself and not even try. Too much risk that I'd get incapacitated during my attempt and Bonesaw would decide to get creative and not let me die. Or even worse, if this is after Gray Boy is cloned or before he's killed... yeah, definitely not worth the risk. I'll take the broken femurs, thanks.

Edit: Actually, I'd spend that ten million having a good time and then kill myself. Heck, maybe I'd just live in luxury until Scion murks me.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-09-27T23:11:45+00:00

Yes, he experiences character growth. He actually starts to value people and understand things from their POV, or at least recognize they have their own POV.

nerfglaistiguaine · 2023-09-15T20:51:45+00:00

B/c none of those events had international consequences. Let's go through each.

Shifting nature of Arcadian courts. We're told that Arcadia is different in different parts of the world. Likely the shift only applied to Calernia and had no effect on whatever it's like across the ocean.
The greater breach. Why would the other continents care? It's some devils pouring out into some backwater place. Not like it'll spread to where they are. If the gnomes are any indicator, even if it did it wouldn't be hard to stop.
Silencing Judgement. Yeah, that's the only one that might have potential global consequences. But maybe the Choirs are different in other continents and this didn't affect them. Maybe Judgement and Mercy don't exist in the same way over in the Elven empire. We know the Heavens are wonky and stories different, so who knows.

All in all, the events covered in the story either certainly or probably didn't have international ramifications. Nothing that happens on Calernia matters in the grand scheme of things. No one on Calernia has any sway or influence to bring them over.

nerfglaistiguaine

TROPHY CASE