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Thread: A Practical Guide to Evil
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2018-10-17, 03:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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A Practical Guide to Evil
https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/
I binged on this recently, and was very impressed with how fun it is to read up on the adventures of a genre-savvy well-intentioned extremist anti-heroine. The quotes kicking off each chapter are often hilarious. (I'd love to read a side story or two about Dread Emperor Irritant I.)
Anyone else into this? What do you think?Last edited by Leewei; 2018-10-17 at 03:18 PM.
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2018-10-17, 03:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
I've been reading it for a while. It's displaced Ward as my top web serial.
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2018-10-17, 07:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Never heard of it, befoire, but I am part-way into chapter one and am already deeply intrigued.
Edit:
Bahahahahahahaha!
This is amazing! And hilarious!
I LIKE these people!Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2018-10-17 at 08:08 PM.
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2018-10-17, 10:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2007
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
I have to say, The Black Knight has to be one of my favorite Villains.
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2018-10-17, 11:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2005
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Never heard of it, but bookmarked for later perusal.
NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2018-10-18, 12:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2008
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
I've been reading it for a while. I have given up trying to track some of the bit players or predict what's going to happen next...I'm just along to enjoy the ride.
The Wandering Inn is my current favorite serial.
Ward is OK-ish, but there are too many characters that I just don't like. Victoria, Sveta, and Rain are the only Reach'ers that have managed to land any worthwhile sympathy from me. Most of them are jerks and/or mentally ill beyond just the normal "powers" issue in ways that the Undersiders and the Chicago Wards were not. Worm seemed more positive and hopeful than Ward did. I have not caught up on Ward in a couple of weeks.
FWIW, I did finish Wildbow's post-Worm story about the fake stick guy in Canada with magic powers in a crapsack magic world where everything is depressing and down the drains... wish I'd skipped it. I bailed on the next one because it was similarly dark and depressing. I don't care to read about worlds that would be better off being nuked from orbit.
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2018-10-18, 12:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
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2018-10-18, 09:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2013
Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
... why was I never made aware of this?
Egads, it's like a biography. It's like a documentary.
I'm only several chapters in, and the Black Knight is... He's just me. Ruthless and cold, sure, but utterly pragmatic about the genre conventions.
I am going to devour this.
And afterwards, I'm going to maim a few minions for failing to make me aware that this existed.My headache medicine has a little "Ex" inscribed on the pill. It's not a brand name; it's an indicator that it works inside an Anti-Magic Field.
Blue text means sarcasm. Purple text means evil. White text is invisible.
My signature got too big for its britches. So now it's over here!
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2018-10-18, 10:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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- In the Heart of Europe
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
What, you didnt write it?
I am shocked, SHOCKED I say!
Jokes aside: I am binging it in monthly dosages since I found it (2 years ago) most of the time. Until this thread I ahd managed to abstain for over 4, now ....I will soon ahve caught up again, dangit....A neutron walks into a bar and says, “How much for a beer?” The bartender says, “For you? No charge.”
01010100011011110010000001100010011001010010000001 10111101110010001000000110111001101111011101000010 00000111010001101111001000000110001001100101001011 100010111000101110
Later: An atom walks into a bar an asks the bartender “Have you seen an electron? I left it in here last night.” The bartender says, “Are you sure?” The atom says, “I’m positive.”
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2018-10-18, 11:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2005
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Yeah, I'm hooked.
NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2018-10-18, 11:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2009
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Ah, Pact. Yeah, it's...the magic and stuff could be interesting, but the pacing is an awful lot of "and then it gets worse". Basically non stop. It's rough. I likewise bailed on Twig.
I intent to keep reading Ward, but it does feel significantly less epic than Worm did, and I'm having more trouble empathizing with some of the characters.
I've tried to get into APGtE at least twice, but I've had a bit of trouble getting hooked. Doesn't seem bad, just...vanilla? I dunno. I'm a lot more enthused about Mother of Learning.
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2018-10-18, 11:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
I'm delighted this was so well-received!
There's a lot of spoiler-y stuff I'd love to talk about, but I'll hold off a while.
I love the attitude Team Evil has regarding Team Good: sanctimonious cheaters.
I also love how Black and others are pretty much using the Evil Overlord list as a playbook.
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2018-10-18, 11:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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2018-10-18, 01:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2005
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
I just got to the
Spoiler
Undead suicide goats.
And had to take a break to stop laughing.NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2018-10-18, 01:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Robber's cackling glee over that incident never fades.
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2018-10-18, 01:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2010
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
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2018-10-18, 03:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
It takes a few chapters to get going, and then explodes into action. The conceit of the universe is very interesting as more gets revealed, and it steadily gets better and better over time (with the exception of a rough patch in book 3, though that may just be me. I don't tend to like
)Spoiler: Book 3"war arcs" very much, they tend to drag on. Especially when it's the entire book.
It also has the benefit over MoL of being updated 3 times a week instead of once per month. =)
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2018-10-18, 05:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2009
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Perhaps I shall give it a third try, then.
I do agree that the every three weeks update of MoL leaves me with a great deal of time for reading other things. It's a great story, but I read a lot faster than that book gets written. More good web novels are always welcome!
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2018-10-18, 05:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2007
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- Lemuria
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
I think Pact suffers from Wildbow learning the wrong lessons from Worm. And this is from someone who absolutely loves Pact, loves the setting, loves the characters, I liked the story....
But there's so much reading the story that didn't make sense to me.
EDIT: Because I feel like elaborating on this, I think that Pact suffered far too much from Wildbow's reliance on Wham Moments to keep audience attention. He leaves chapters off on cliffhangers to keep you thinking about it. To keep you interested, but oftentimes the cliffhangers themselves don't make much sense or even seem to have much of a plan behind them. This doesn't lead to COMPLETE chaos, because he's a good enough writer to go from there, but for example...Spoiler: Pact Spoilers.When Blake has his friends become Practitioners and join a circle/coven/cabal with him. It's presented as a big hanging cliffhanger. But then once it's done, they're all but glossed over for the remainder of the arc it happens in. They don't actually become relevant again until after Blake has 'died' and gone to the Abyss and then clawed his way back out. And this kind of thing happens SO often. He drops a cliffhanger because he feels like a cliffhanger is needed, even if it doesn't make sense. And usually it's a 'And it gets worse' moment.Last edited by druid91; 2018-10-18 at 06:53 PM.
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2018-10-18, 10:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
I really, really like all of the chapter-opening quotes. There are so many terrible and great Emperors and Empresses.
Especially Dread Empress Triumphant, may she never return.
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2018-10-19, 09:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
May she never return!
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2018-10-19, 11:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
May she never return!Although, if her return is the end of the story kind of thing, putting it at the end of the series might be a worthy ending, just sayi.......ugkh.
Nothing to see, move along!A neutron walks into a bar and says, “How much for a beer?” The bartender says, “For you? No charge.”
01010100011011110010000001100010011001010010000001 10111101110010001000000110111001101111011101000010 00000111010001101111001000000110001001100101001011 100010111000101110
Later: An atom walks into a bar an asks the bartender “Have you seen an electron? I left it in here last night.” The bartender says, “Are you sure?” The atom says, “I’m positive.”
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2018-10-19, 02:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2009
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- Maryland
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Yeah. It's probably the biggest reason that I have such mixed feelings about it. Like, right before the Conquest arc, I was feeling really into it. You've got some great worldbuilding going on, and you finally feel like you understand the nature of the bind the protaganist(s) are in. And then...it all sort of just goes away. Yeah, I know Wildbow's really big on trying to evoke the feeling in the reader of exactly what the protaganist is going through, but sometimes that gets taken too far. A confused protagonist doesn't necessitate a confused reader.
Anyways, there's surprisingly few quality web fictions of this sort. It's a bit baffling. So many fanfics, and so very few original works of note.
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2018-10-19, 04:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
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2018-10-19, 06:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
I have been reading this for quite a while. And had actually been thinking about starting a thread myself a few times.
Though i can hear i should likely wait at least a few weeks before starting any noteworthy discussion, even though there are so many awesome topics.
Like the Peregrine, or the Bard, or the Tyrant. Or the Woes.
I love the attitude Team Evil has regarding Team Good: sanctimonious cheaters.Spoiler: Spoiler for chapter 12+ or so
See.. this is actually something that really, really enraged me by the sheer hypocracy of it.
Black and his calamities are effectively a group of mid-high level players camping the starting zone in a MMO, to preserve their stranglehold on the server.
Heck, some people are effectively directly killed during character creation by Blacks assasins.
And yet he still has the audacity to complain about unfairness?
As someone -not- killed for just having the potential to take on a name, then i dont think he should complain to loudly.
thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2018-10-19, 11:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Spoiler
Eh, I can see his argument - particularly after the later explanations where he goes into more detail on all the unfair ways the heroes get their deck stacked. I think it's pretty clear that the Good gods take a much more active role in the conflicts of Fate than the Evil gods do; if nothing else, the presence of Priest as a Hero Role and the so-far lack of any equivalent for the Villains shows a certain slant. If the Calamities are a group of high-level MMO players, the low-level players they are camping are regularly getting handed artifact-grade weapons and /console hacks by the GMs running the server. He's just trying to level an uneven playing field the one way he knows how - incredibly unfairly.
NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void
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2018-10-20, 04:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Spoiler
Well.. but would they be given all those subtle advantages, where are none are actual direct aid.
If the initial playing field were not already insanely unfair?
thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar
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2018-10-20, 07:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2006
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- England. Ish.
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.
"The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud
"Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee
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2018-10-20, 11:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2013
Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Last edited by Sapphire Guard; 2018-10-20 at 11:56 AM.
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2018-10-20, 12:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2005
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Re: A Practical Guide to Evil
Spoiler
Because Good, as mentioned, cheats. It's never meant to be a level playing field, Good is always intended to triumph over Evil in the end. That's why heroic stories feature things like plucky farm-boys finding magic swords in stones, it's an indelible part of the Heroic legend to be getting extranormal support. Hence Black's 'Rage Against The Heavens/Hells' monologue, he's pissed that the game was stacked against him from the beginning, and the result is 'if they're already cheating, I'm going to cheat too' - in his case, by knocking off potential Heroes pre-emptively before they're in a position to benefit from their deific sponsors.
NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
Hell, It's About Time: Wings of Liberty
Does This Mutation Make Me Look Fat: Heart of the Swarm
My Life For Aiur? I Barely Know 'Er: Legacy of the Void