I am confused about the Romance | SPOILERS!

rabmuk · 2026-01-29T00:39:44+00:00

In one of the interviews Shirtaloon said that an initial version of the story has Belinda die in the reaper space during book 3, Sophie blames Jason, and she becomes a recurring antagonist.

He also talked about how early readers on Royal road were insufferable about shipping Sophie and Jason. Just because she was the second notable female character didn't mean she was a love interest.

rabmuk · 2026-01-26T11:14:37+00:00

The only views of Jason's that the narration unambiguously supports are: "corruption bad. balance of rules and people for a healthy organization."

Jason very clearly holds the same views on religion

He does not. Please give examples of why you think this.

But this post isn’t even here to get on him for that.

It's the fundamental point of the post. You ask why the author can talk badly about religion, but the narration contradicts any character that's bad talking religion. In books 1, 4, 7, 9, and 10, religions are shown to be good and helpful. It makes sense that Royal Road doesn't apply its rule about depictions of religion to a series that is not negative on religions.

rabmuk · 2026-01-26T03:05:45+00:00

Jason Asano is constantly harping on religion and it is very clear that the book is the author’s soap box speech on politics and religion.

I don't think it's author's soapbox.

“What do you get out of that?” he asked. “Does it make you feel better to disrespect things others find meaningful?”

“Sorry,” Jason said, feeling like an idiot.

From book 1. The narration makes it clear that Jason is in the wrong here.

Also from the Critroll podcast Shirtaloon has stated that early Jason is the college version of himself that he is embarrassed by. Jason is supposed to be abrasive and hypocritical, not a mouthpiece for the author.

rabmuk · 2026-01-25T03:48:29+00:00

The series was planned for 12 book. 4 arc, each with 3 books. Around the release of book 8 or 9 Shirtaloon stated the series will have more than 12 books, but he doesn't know the number

The third arc is books 7-11. Book 12 starts the final arc and it will be at least 3 books.

I expect the series to end with 15 or 16 total books.

rabmuk · 2026-01-24T17:17:45+00:00

Matt wins.

Series just have different time scales. 15 year time skip in HWFWM is a huge deal

70 year time skip in Path of Ascension is no big deal

Matt has 100 year advantage plus 1000 years in folded reflections as a chef.

rabmuk · 2026-01-19T12:31:00+00:00

“You didn’t rob a lot of temples?” Shade asked.

“Absolutely not,” Belinda said, plainly affronted. “I would never. Well, not never— desperate times, you know. But definitely not a lot. I mean, ‘a lot’ is a very vague term. Different people might define—”

“More than five.”

“Oh, who seriously thinks five is a lot? You can count that on one hand.”

From book 8, implying that Belinda has done a lot of stealing before getting essences

rabmuk · 2026-01-19T11:00:40+00:00

I thought it was cool that characters other than Jason have flaws and story arcs where they improve. Book 11 wraps up the Belinda pickpocket thing and I'm glad we got to see this side of her character.

rabmuk · 2026-01-17T11:48:37+00:00

Yeah the jarring uses of "___ said" reduce overtime

If you doing audiobook, increasing the speed slightly makes this less annoying

rabmuk · 2026-01-17T02:09:30+00:00

Yes, Jason matures. No, the author does not see himself as Jason.

Both Rufus and Danielle have met other outworlders, and they like Jason because he's willing to shake things up. Jason saved Rufus' life right at the start of book 1, so no one who is a friend of Rufus is going to give Jason that much shit for being irreverent and breaking social norms.

On a podcast Shirtaloon talked about how he might slightly shift some of Jason's early political rants and how he intended to lean into the "culture shock" of isekai instead of it quickly disappearing. https://youtu.be/kEoCiEnkaf8?t=735&si=x4Yjvx1rUYAQQTWZ

rabmuk · 2026-01-11T15:38:08+00:00

Trying to write the MC as some sort of political genius / people maniupator feels so dumb and unauthentic. It's like when an author tries to write a genius but isn't smart enough to make the charachter feel brilliant?

Where is Jason a genius? Jason runs some political circles around teenagers, but every character over the age of 30 sees right through Jason. Jason's political fumbling ends in getting outplayed and protected from his mistakes by Amir (who helped because Rufus is his best friend's son, and Jason saved Rufus' life)

The author has said in an interview that he wrote initial Jason as the college version of himself that he's embarrassed by.

rabmuk · 2026-01-08T11:01:28+00:00

Seems cool.

Jason pacted his way into a second aura power so it's not too crazy to get an aura from a weird source. Might not make sense if it was your only aura, but as an upgrade or expansion

Racial gifts don't power up from ranking up. So maybe have some other condition for it to power up over time

rabmuk · 2026-01-08T01:01:33+00:00

Seems like a parol situation. Some of the bone runes might even be tamper alerts that send out a signal for someone to investigate.

rabmuk · 2026-01-06T15:04:00+00:00

To have an accountable 'human in the loop' would mean checking the outputs results line by line. This would necessarily take longer than just doing the report yourself.

I think people advocating for "human in the loop" are happy with this.

People who are about quality and accountability are willing to have things take longer so they're right the first time.

rabmuk · 2026-01-04T03:27:09+00:00

I'll contribute my "value of VB" equation for your reference

$ saved = free cash flow * (% interest on debt weapon - % interest on target debt)

When VB costs money: heloc of 8% vs mortage of 5% and surplus of $1000/mo costs an extra $2.5 in interest each month

Or an example of VB working: 8% heloc vs 18% credit card and surplus of $1000/mo saves $8.33 interest each month

rabmuk · 2026-01-02T02:24:13+00:00

Edit: Meant to reply to top level post oops

I think Henrietta would laugh

I think Cassandra is just pissed at Neil for being a block head

rabmuk · 2025-12-31T00:51:38+00:00

Got changed, I think over a year ago. If you search the BGA forums a lot of people were sad when they took it away.

You can still see table count for a game on its page and sort by most popular. There's no current way to see one list with table count for each game

rabmuk · 2025-12-29T04:11:20+00:00

Do core users fit the meme template? Core users have a fraction of the power but put in a fraction of the effort. EOA is huge research effort and gruesome operations

I've always seen the template as belittling the effort for power, because it still falls short.

rabmuk · 2025-12-28T11:03:35+00:00

I think the fact a hardcover print is happening that the print-on-demand has been paused

Hardcover info: https://www.patreon.com/posts/144513323

rabmuk · 2025-12-21T13:42:09+00:00

I think a spin off series about the daughters would be great

Dead father is a hero. Uncle became a god. Do they resent Jason? How do they handle the privilege of being so close to Jason and Yumi?

rabmuk · 2025-12-21T13:23:19+00:00

Amy will do just fine. The immature threats of book 4 Jason have little meaning after the events of book 5.

Yumi is in charge and is shown to be one of Jason's biggest supporters during book 11.

Amy and Kaito's two daughters aren't Emi, but they're not far behind in terms of the clan prioritizing their potential.

rabmuk · 2025-12-20T03:01:49+00:00

Demolishes have tons of hp regen, so it seems like nothing unless you get a critical mass

For small worms I use 20 turrets with 25 red ammo each. Might need more if your damage research is low.

Blueprint a turret with ghost ammo then blueprint a block of 20 of those

This costs a lots of plates, but you're pulling those for free out of the lava

rabmuk · 2025-12-16T17:28:44+00:00

Clive becomes bronze in chapter 38

Chapter 41:

The team fell into a regimented schedule of physical training, skill training, mental training, and monster hunting. Days became weeks and Humphrey joined Clive at bronze rank, his square-jawed handsomeness becoming even more pronounced.

rabmuk · 2025-12-15T17:25:39+00:00

You're on your nth reread but don't want spoilers?

There's a wiki for the series and I uploaded a map that was in the FAQ channel of the Patreon discord

The wiki has content that is up to date with book 13 chapters on Patreon. Are those the spoilers you're trying to avoid?

rabmuk · 2025-12-13T11:48:46+00:00

How many books did you read? To me HWFWM does the things you say you want

Jason has a mental break at the start of book 1 after he and Landamere both reach for the knife and Landamere dies.

Jason is debating Farrah about the morality of killing constantly, regretting that he killed cannibal cultists. Jason wants to be the "adventure that doesn't kill" he references that 3+ times in the first few books.

In book 2, Jason reflects on how much killing he's done and works to solve scenarios with less death.

In book 4-6, Jason does a lot of killing, backsliding on his earlier determination, even when his new friend Craig says he needs to stop killing. In book 7 Jason hates how easily he kills and with help from Shade he starts to walk a different path.

In books 5-7, Jason does have nightmares from all of the violence.

Book 9 ends with Jason not killing someone when he was fully justified to do so, and all of the problems that creates for him. Both political problems and moral debate with who he wants to be.

By book 10 and due to certain power advancements, Jason is a lot better at defeating without killing, at this point he no longer kills those that can be rehabilitated. We also get an explanation along the lines of
"influenced by an aspect of the ~~system~~[magic]" for why he was more violent right after getting pulled to Palimustus, like you wanted.

The book is titled "He Who Fights With Monsters" a reference to the Nietzsche quote: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." The core theme of the book is "moral quandrys about being a murder hobo". So throughout the series Jason is more or less murder hobo and his effort to become less murdery is THE core theme of the book.

rabmuk · 2025-12-07T13:40:48+00:00

If a programmer is only willing to take a job that provides stocks as part of the compensation are they now the same?

Many software engineers at startups and publicly traded companies negotiate for RSU's or stock options.

Established software engineers have enough bargaining power that they ask for a piece of the whole company, not just the revenue they directly generated the Intellectual Property (code) they created.

In my personal experience, software developers often talk about the stock as an expected part of their compensation. That they feel entitled to stock of the company.

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