Poobah

Neimann is suing Carlsen, Nakamura, and Chess.com for 100 million dollars.

Yeah what I thought from the quotation was that they'd been spread across time and space by whatever jank FTL method was first discovered and used back then. Regarding the current methods it seems that Stele travel is implied to be instant but only goes to pre-made anchor points (there's a comment about this in Harrow about setting up these being an important Lyctor job since they can go wherever through the river), and yeah it does feel like there must be some slow but useable method for BoE to get around under the noses of the houses. I get the impression that most of the time that human populations are moved it is by the forces of Jod forcibly relocating them after the planets they were on were killed and reached the point of uninhabitability though, but BoE feels too widespread and organised to be just hiding amongst those populations. To your other point:

I enjoyed Nona a lot, though it is my third / least favourite of the series. I have a lot of currently very disorganised thoughts that I need to take some time to sort out and write down properly. Regarding the comments about FTL, something that stood out to me as interesting given some of what we learn in Nona was this comment from John early in Harrow: I feel like this off the cuff remark is more than just a casual one off line to explain why they travel via necromancy and opens up some interesting questions/theories.

I was gonna write a whole long thing but it's too fucking hot in the UK, so I'll just say that for all it's missteps, and there are many decisions I disagreed with in the first season, I liked it well enough. And given that it's probably the only shot The Wheel of Time is going to get at a big TV adaptation I want it to succeed. Also I'll note that while I did not like some of the original scenes and changes, I thought that the episode opener with Logain and the king of Ghealdan was a fantastic, as were the scenes between Siuan and Moiraine.

This scene was one of the ones that annoyed me the most from the first season so I'm glad that the showrunner also hated it. Hopefully it means more sensical things for the coming seasons.

I watched and enjoyed this. It brought home for me the sheer scale of the project, the amount of time and money and brainpower from some of the smartest people on earth poured in to making this incredibly ambitious task a reality. And on the one hand that left me with a sense of wonder and hope for what humanity can achieve, and I mean obviously it's cool to see these incredible pictures of the universe which I'm sure there's real scientific merit to, though I'm a bit too dumb to really understand what, but on the other hand I have to wonder: if you took all those geniuses who've dedicated their lives for decades to this project, and the billions of dollars of funding they had and pointed them at climate change or any number of other pressing issues down here on earth how much tangible good could've been achieved?

The universe is amazing. I hope we never go there and ruin it.

To use your words I think the entire premise is flawed. In my opinion it's an entirely inappropriate response in which the man is re-framing the situation around himself, centring his own ego's needs ahead of the survivor.

In my role as armchair psychologist, backed up with a lifetime of experience struggling with mental health issues as well as his long track record of massively over-promising and then failing to deliver, I'd say he probably had an outline of some sort and having finished his first book thought it'd be easy to get the other two done. And then comes the enormous weight of expectations after Name of the Wind brought him acclaim, fortune, and fame, add in difficulties that only become apparent once he actually starts work - I mean GRRM is a very experienced writer and still found massive unexpected problems and structural issues with his plans that necessitated basically a complete rewrite so I can't imagine Rothfuss fared any better - and then the panic sets in, the need to live up to being "Pat Rothfuss, mega genius, fantasy darling, hottest new thing to grace the shelves of the fantasy section since ever etc." not to mention all those brags and promises that increasingly look like lies, and now it's not such an easy task to finish it after all. Perfectionism in my experience often warps in to procrastination, because there's no such thing as good enough and working on the thing just feels like failure. Except playing the role of beloved writer with legions of fans worshipping you is really cool and affirming, and admitting he's running in to difficulties like certain other well known writers would be humiliating so he keeps making those promises, telling people it's all gonna be great etc. because the coyote doesn't fall if he doesn't look down, right?

I mean he certainly writes much, much, prettier, more poetic, beautiful words than Sanderson but Sanderson's stories are structurally sound and actually go somewhere. The start of Name of the Wind is great but as soon as Kvothe arrives at magic school everything comes to a crashing halt. I recently re-read Earthsea and I realised that Rothfuss entire three book opus is basically the first half of Ged's arc in A Wizard of Earthsea, except I guess he's turning it in to a tragedy because where Ged is humbled, experiences character growth, and earns wisdom after his hubristic downfall, we already know that Kvothe is going to end up a broken man waiting to die. And where Le Guin tells the story of the young arrogant dick prodigy whose rivalry with an older student of a higher social class brings about great evil in two or three chapters Rothfuss has been flirting with that exact story for two books but instead of getting there has meandered around self-indulgently telling shaggy dog filler about how cool and talented and fuckable his protagonist is (again, yes, with pretty pretty words) for over a thousand pages at this point.

I feel like for all the similarities in terms of long droughts on their main project there are much more important differences between Rothfuss and Martin. As much as I, too, have long since stopped putting any energy in to following and caring about updates or progress on aSoIaF Martin is someone with a long career as a professional writer who has produced a lot of work and who as far as I remember was pretty honest about the difficulties he'd run in to what with scrapping his originally planned timeskip and such. So I feel like there's more room to have faith that he's actually working on his series with the intent to see it finished. Rothfuss on the other hand wrote one book with some really nice prose and then rocketed from nothing to being the next big thing which clearly that did some major damage to him because he seems to have spent the 15 years since Name of the Wind was published in what I would charitably describe as a total breakdown.

Really don't like the trend of already successful brands using kickstarter when they don't need kickstarting. Also as much as I think Sanderson is a more readable author than some here I also strongly dislike the parasocial stuff he does to drive and maintain engagement with his fandom, which then leads in to projects like this where fans are forking over hundreds/thousands of dollars to a millionaire for what amounts overpaying for some books because of the promise of some extra fucking stickers or whatever in the mail every month. Maybe I'd be more enthusiastic if I had money, or if I didn't have a very strong feeling that the average age of a Sanderson reader is significantly younger than that of most other writers we discuss around here, but as it is his kickstarter projects and general way of engaging with his fans are starting to actively bother me because it really feels exploitative. Way too many of these people feel like they have some sort of relationship with the man, and a lot of the stuff he's selling via these projects (from his previous kickstarter I'm thinking stickers, pin badges, random pieces of artwork, coins etc.) feel like he's tapping in to/taking over the kind of market that I (and I think most people) would be comfortable spending more because they'd be made by fans and sold at cons or on etsy or whatever, except now it's official merch with extra FOMO.

Damn that was good. I really hope this isn't actually the end for The Expanse, but if it is it's still one of the best shows I've watched, period.

Slow down there Marco.

Forgot to mention I really liked the way this week's "one ship" bonus mini episode rolled things all the way back around to the start, before the start even. Sorta closing the loop.

Yeah I really can't believe it's coming to an end. Feels like a real tragedy that it didn't at least get more episodes this season. Yeah it truly succeeded in bringing the the world and characters of The Expanse to life, being true to the source material and even improving on the books.

I mean I agree that syfy is a garbage channel that cancels good shows for shitty network american network tv reasons that remain arcane to me. On the other hand I'm glad we got a damn good show, which was enough of a breakout to get an extra three seasons from Amazon, and which brought us Cara Gee's Drummer.

Fucking hell I need more Camina Drummer.

That's interesting. I thought the birds looked good but something about the design or texture of the dog made it look really fake and crappy to me - I think it looked better last episode when we only had a glimpse but seeing it in the light and in motion I really didn't like it. Overall I thought it was a fairly solid episode too, but a little fast paced for my liking perhaps? They seem to be really speeding towards plot points with less time for the quieter, more human moments and interactions that really sold me on The Expanse. I think this isn't helped by how much I dislike Filip and find him and his daddy issues to be uninteresting and not at all compelling when so much time is being given to it. I'd much rather see more of Marco, or Avasarala though she feels rather less interesting now she's Secretary-General and has all the power and resources than when she was in the trenches facing adversity and intrigue.

Don't do this to yourself. Hope leads to the dark place.

Moral high ground? I agree it'd be strategically sound but I can't really criticise someone for refusing to inflict massive civilian casualties. It also seems like the Earth and Mars fleets are currently pinned defending their homeworlds from all the rocks and so not necessarily available to take aggressive action. Perhaps once the Rocinante destroys this Azure Dragon they'll be free to launch a counter-offensive? Edit to add: Perhaps also places like Ceres, Tycho, and Ganymede are thought to be necessary to the inners ongoing survival longterm, if Earth's biosphere is truly damaged beyond repair?

I'll give a vouch for Wonderdraft as my preferred map tool.

Wildemount is the setting from season 2 of Critical Role. I've never run or played a campaign in it, but I have the book and I've watched the show so I know a reasonable amount about it, what kinda thing do you want to know about it?

That's fair. I had images in my head of instances where the gang make complex plans that totally fail like... immediately, or stuff like "fluffernutter" that ended up taking multiple rolls and the turns of 2 characters to do almost no damage which really stuck in my head, I really remember the feeling of disappointment I got from Sam and Laura on that one.

I don't really disagree with anything you're saying here - I really like roleplaying and I wouldn't really have any interest in D&D if it were just a wargame - but I also think that people who aren't really looking for or interested in combat (particularly combat with tons of rules) would likely be better served by alternate systems. And I think that while Mercer rightly gets and deserves praise all the acting he and all indeed that all the cast do on the show - which is what makes it a good show, I don't really think any of that is actually what makes someone a good DM or good player.