Intro

Many writers of western cartoons use social media to interact with fans and form a relationship with respective fandoms. From Noelle Stevenson who created a child of the main couple during one livestream to Alex Hirsh who loves joking with his fandom on Twitter. So when Thomas Astruc (one of the creators of Miraculous) started answering questions of his young fans, almost nobody was suprised.

Unfortunately, fandoms tend to be volatile and almost anything can start a reaction. One of the biggest dramas with Thomas Astruc started due to the final of season 3. To be more specific, it started due to one character, Chloe Bourgeois.

What is Miraculous?

To quote Wikipedia, "it is a French CGI superhero / magical girl children's television series. The series focuses on two Parisian teenagers, Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste, who transform into the superheroes Ladybug and Cat Noir, respectively, to protect the city from supervillains."

The showed gained popularity due to multiple reasons like the strong female lead, reinvented love triangle (the love square) and the atmosphere of Paris. Especially the second bit stole hearts of fangirls and ignited imagination of multiple artists.

Who is Chloe?

Chloe can be simply described as cliche mean girl that ticks off almost all boxes. She is an ignorant (telling a Chinese man to make sushi), insanely rich, snobbish bully with blond hair and heavy make-up. And of course, she bullies the main character and tries to steal her spotlight.

Basically imagine The Plastics from Mean Girls, but with yellow instead of pink.

The fandom's first reaction to Chloe (Season 1)

To fully understand how Chloe led to the drama, we must go back to the beginning.

Like I've mentioned previously, Chloe is a cliche mean girl and in first season, she was only that. She served as a source of multiple conflicts and a butt-monkey for multiple jokes, which is fairly logical if we consider a fact that the series was fairly episodic and many characters were [just](https://miraculousladyb

I made a video explaining my thoughts here. But here's the written form if you're not into long-form video reviews. Sorry for reddit text formatting:

I just saw a trashfire the likes of which compare to the tragedy of the Star Wars sequel trilogy and Game of Thrones Season 8. And for this, I must unravel this uninspired dross - thread by thread. This will be filled with spoilers, you have been warned.

For context about me, I’m no stranger to the Wheel of Time and to fantasy literature in general. I first started reading this series when I was in middle school, and stopped in High School after the author died. Admittedly, I did not complete the series and it was half my lifetime ago that I read the Eye of the World. I am no book-purist, I barely remember the plot. What I do remember is the world and the characters.

Any book reader will tell you that Robert Jordan was not concise. He was long-winded, filling thousands of pages with tiny details and with tons of repetition. And while he was a feminist and ahead of his time as far as that goes, this series does show its age in certain areas. No reasonable person is expecting a 1:1 adaptation of his hundreds of named characters and scores of interweaving, and sometimes meandering, plot points.

I don’t care if they keep things the same or change them, so long as the change makes the story better or more interesting. Does it deepen the lore? Does it streamline things that need not be complex? I believe in changing what you need to suit your vision, so long as your vision is compelling. If you have a whole new plot for this series, then great - so long and it’s consistent with itself and is a good story, books be damned.

That is not the case here.

Before I dive into the vast pool of my disappointment, let’s look at some things they did right.

Many characters in the books are explicitly expressionless. Everyone always has their poker face on all the time, never showing emotion. There's the Aes Sedai serenity, a mask of their unflappable nature. They would die before letting you know they are hot or cold, furious or delighted. Then there is Lan’s stoicism. He first appears as an emotional rock, unaffected by anything but his duty. This is fine when you have direct insight into their feelings as a reader does, but that would have been awfully boring to watch.

The channeling is more visual now as well. In the books, you don’t need to move whatsoever to use th

Do your worst!

As an avid book reader and lifelong fan of the series I was trying to figure out of there were any male characters that Rafe hasn't intentionally belittled? I'm skipping the 3 boys in this because we could spend hours on them alone.

Every single male character that was cool has been either reduced in power level, turned into a douchebag, turned into a dope...some combination of all three, or eliminated from the show entirely. Let's review:

Tam al'Thor - In the books he was one of the best warriors in the series. 10+ year military veteran. Officer. Served in two wars (Whitecloak War + the Aiel War) and was a recognized Blademaster with a Heron Mark sword. He killed at least 3 trollocs singlehandedly in the books during their first encounter.

Show Tam has so far done exactly nothing except give some heartfelt philosophical statements. He couldn't even take down a single trolloc with his son helping him and had to be saved by Rand. Meanwhile Nyneave managed to kill one all by herself after stealing its own weapon from it.

Bran Al'Vere - Mayor of Emond's Field. Co-owner of Winespring Inn with his wife. On the Village Council. Is fat.

Show Bran - Is not fat. Has one line and is never seen again. His wife now runs the inn. He's a non-character.

Lan Mandragoran - We know all about book Lan. The most bad ass dude ever. The Chuck Norris of Wheel of Time. The man who dedicated his life to waging war on the Shadow in honor of his fallen homeland. The man who only agreed to PAUSE his war against the Shadow because Moraine convinced him that he could do more damage to the Shadow by helping her find and protect the DR.

Show Lan - apparently has no purpose in life other than to serve Moraine. Also show Lan apparently has friends he laughs with, a surrogate family he loves and brings presents to, and he loves to tweak his nipples at funerals while screaming. He's got nothing to live for though! No purpose at all! Just being Moraine's warder. SHow Lan also sends Mandarb off into the wild instead of brining him along the ways. Bye Horsie! I hope I find you again someday...horse that I rode through all 14 books!

Abel Cauthon - Book Abel was basically just an older, less scoundrel-y version of Mat. I personally think Abel Cauthon was a horsethief in his youth but that's my theory. He was considered the best in Emond's field with a Quarterstaff. Top 5 bowshot or nearabouts. He was on the village council and good friends

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

Here's last year's post

Same as last year, I'll post my top 5 (in no particular order) for each calendar month of 2020, varying from popular favourites to ones I feel like deserve way more attention in the general conversation.

Jan 2021

• One, Two, Three (1961) - To me, Billy Wilder's movies are some of the most accessible movies anyone could watch from old classics, if you're looking to get into classic cinema, then he's one of the best places to start. I know a lot of people struggle with the pacing of movies from decades prior because of the different pacing, humour and acting. But One, Two, Three is such a consistently funny comedy with rapid fire dialogue that the runtime flies by. Not to mention, James Cagney is more than up for the task with his animated, live wire performance. Plus the satire is so razor sharp that it hasn't aged a day, a lot of the barbs at corporations and Cold War politics remain just as relevant today.

• Dragged Across Concrete (2018) - By S. Craig Zahler's standards, this film went under the radar compared to his previous outings and I'm scratching my head a bit as to why that is, I guess maybe because it's his longest film so far, and the fact that people couldn't quite decide what Zahler's politics are from this film, he doesn't talk about his political views in public as far as I'm aware, so people extrapolated the film's intentions from the politics of the two lead actors, Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn. But to me, it's paced just as well as Bone Tomahawk, and Brawl in Cell Block 99. It builds flawlessly to a tense climax with satisfying payoffs and I'm pretty sure from the ending I know where Zahler's intentions lie. The stakes for each character involved in this whole mess is clearly defined and yet we root for them all even if it's a zero-sum game, I think Zahler did something very special here.

• The Tenant (1976) - Polanksi's attention to detail and the craft is always so meticulous, he's just one of those directors that came fully formed out of the gate with Knife in the Water and The Tenant is another of Polanksi's great psychological horror films much like Rosemary's Baby, it feels very modern and it's gorgeously photographed by Sven Nykvist, Bergman's regular cinematographer. It taps into some deep-seated paranoia and makes us squirm and squeal (in a good way) and Polanksi is surpisingly effective as an

Out there - Patreon (for all those curious or wanting to support :))

At the Beginning

Adventure Arc - Arc 2

Previously on Leveling up the World…

 

There many things of wonder that Dallion had seen since arriving in the world. A city of minotaurs was definitely the most outlandish and magical that he had seen by far. The creatures were nothing like the minotaurs nomads that were caught during the first expedition. They were—for lack of a better word—civilized. Everything from clothes to tools, stalls and buildings were specifically crafted to suit the physiology of the species and nothing else.

Minotaur children ran around, curious to get a closer look at Dallion. It was just like each time a travelling merchant arrived in Dherma village. Back then, merchants and the occasional monk from the Order were the only contact with the outside world. Dallion remembered well the feelings of curiosity and excitement he felt in every such instance, before the limiting echo faded the memories away. The same emotions were glowing in everyone around.

“They don’t get many outsiders here, do they?” Dallion whispered as walked on.

“Not humans,” the dryad replied.

In contrast to Dallion, Vihrogon was treated as something quite average. Even Nox received a lot more attention, which he was more than happy to ignore while pretending to snooze on Dallion’s shoulder.

“You’ve the first of your kind that has come here.”

That much was clear, as was the fact that Dallion was expected. It didn’t go unnoticed that no one tried to block his path, not to mention that there weren’t any guards. The only weapons and armor gear Dallion could see were better equipped for hunting than anything else.

“No guards?” Dallion turned to Vihrogon.

“Apparently they aren’t needed,” the dryad replied. “There’s nothing that could invade this place.”

“Is that speculation, or have you been reading the dryad scrolls a bit?”

“Observation. If this is the only functioning settlement and the land around it isn’t corrupted by cracklings, there wouldn't be anyone strong enough to attack. At worst, the guardian would send a few echoes

They’re on standbi

Intro: When I decided to share some of my reviews on this sub, I knew the work would take several days, and, at the time, I also didn't have a precise idea about what the outcome should have been. Among the various possibilities, I opted to create a first, rough, draft which I would update multiple times until I felt satisfied. So, here we go! If you saw my previous post know that this one is updated and as complete as Reddit allows it to be.

FAQ:

• Why only web novels? Because of their nature, they are more accessible compare to books. You can more easily skim through them, discard what you don't like, and move on. At the same time, it's also harder to find proper reviews for web novels, in particular, I find scores on Royal Road to be useless in general. This doesn't mean that I don't read books, on the opposite, on my fantasy progression tier list there would almost be present only books;
• What novels ended up on this list? My initial plan was to have both good and bad ones, but Reddit doesn't support such long posts. I'm, therefore, forced to have only what I most care about sharing. If you don't see something that should be on the list, but it's not, leave a comment and I'll clarify if I either left it out or didn't read it. At the end of the post there should also be a brief list of not reviewed suggestions;
• What do I like? I'm an old reader. I'm past the time where I could read and enjoy anything available to me. You could find my tastes to be very needy in some ways and not so much in many others, I'm aware of it.
  I don't dislike many tags, the most notable are: novels with multiple POVs; a pure slice of life; when comedy is central; superheroes; but there are exceptions, ofc.
  On the other hand, immersion and suspension of disbelief go toe to toe for me, and I need to have both to enjoy a story. At the end of the day, a story has to remain true to its context. A System with numbers that don't make sense; a traumatic event that has no consequences; reincarnated adults that behave like teenagers; isekai where the protagonists never, ever, miss their previous happy, safe, life; characters that behave outside of their role; these are just some example of what ruins my immersion and usually leads to abandoning a novel, or at least to lower its score;
• How do you structure the reviews? I'm not a professional reviewer, I find it hard to stick to a precise and well-organized pattern. I'll try to point ou

Book One l First l Previous l Next

Discord

Be sure to leave a comment on anything you found interesting or critique worthy. Hope you all enjoy this new chapter! I also want to give a little shoutout to u/DarthSkelenton240 for giving my posts ten awards in a row, appreciate it man!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We checked our inventory while we went down the road, making sure that all our supplies and goods were accounted for. There was nothing missing from our stock and all the tools, and my sword, were present as well. I strapped the blade back to my hip, feeling much more comfortable with the reassuring weight of the steel there.

Just before we made it back to the main road, there was a slight rustling of the trees above us. I looked up just in time to see a figure dropping down into the cart. My reaction was to grab my sword and I had pulled it halfway out of the sheath before I realized what, or rather who, had dropped out of the trees.

It was Dart. He stood in the middle of the cart having recovered from his landing and then began talking as if he didn’t just fall from the sky. “Well, I'm glad to see that you have resolved that situation in the best possible way.”

Everyone could only stare at him for a moment in a completely dumbfounded way. Surprisingly, the first emotion I felt after my senses returned was annoyance. “Where the hell were you? We could have used your help back there, if not with the fighting, then at least with trying to talk it out. Did you know that they were there?”

“I was aware of them, unfortunately you were already in their sights before I could warn you. If you had suddenly stopped and turned around, then they would most likely have rushed you in a much more chaotic and sloppy ambush, increasing the risk of fatal wounds.”

“And what if they just wanted to kill us and take the loot anyway? Why didn’t you surprise them or try to help us escape?”

“I’m afraid yo

Pilot on me!!

Out there - Patreon (for all those curious or wanting to support :))

At the Beginning

Adventure Arc - Arc 2

Previously on Leveling up the World…

 

There were days in which nothing could go wrong—luck smiled on a person, all the good choices were made, all the gambles turned out worthwhile, not even fate itself could do anything to sour the mood. For Dallion, this wasn’t; one of those days. Looking back, there were signs that it was going to be a tough day since morning. For starters, he had lost his cool during the fight, resulting in the match being stopped. At the time Dallion hadn’t thought anything of it, but for everyone watching—the nobles especially—his reckless side had shown through. Following that was the visit from the tattooed man, the whole issue of helping him escape—which had all but forced Dallion into another deal with the general, should he want to keep Gleam. Later, when Dallion had tried to claim the skill gems, it turned out that he no longer had access to the sword room. The only positive thing was that the Icepicker guild had believed him. They weren’t in the least pleased, but they had definitely believed him. However, that didn’t make Dallion feel any better.

I made a mess of it, didn’t I? Dallion asked.

There’s no denying that, Nil replied.

I supposed you’ll suggest that I leave the city as well?

There’s no point in me saying anything, dear boy. I don’t have the strength to drag you out of the city. Besides, now that you know the threat, leaving might be as dangerous as staying if you don’t have enough conviction.

In what sense?

The realm is a representation of an object. It’s a representation of us all. Your achievements and victories help you shape that realm, but so do your flaws and regrets. By leveling up, you deal with those flaws, growling along with your realm. However, it works in the opposite way as well.

You never said that before.

I thought it was obvious, the echo said. For some reason, he was lying. Dallion could feel the vibration throughout his realm. More than likely Nil suspected he would be caught and yet, he was doing

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

I won't be doing that today!

Welcome to the 3rd check in for Patrick Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear. Find the schedule here and the marginali-yahhhh here.

Also our favourite author is doing some fundraising for his charity, World Builders, by reading the prologue to Doors of Stone that's Kingkiller Chronicles #3 peeps! I am excited. Of course I wouldn't risk a spoiler for love nor money, but for re-readers and for the rest of us for later here is the links to get there.. Just want to make it super clear....this is the prologue for book number 3 so likely to contain spoilers even indirect ones!!!

Phew-ee down to business. Summarising 25 chapters is no small task. Also I had a squillion questions, but I have managed to cull them to, somewhat, reasonable amounts of long, multiple questions. As always choose to answer a little, a lot or none at all and simply share your own thoughts, insights and/or questions. Thank you to u/Neutrino3000 for you hard work and passion getting us here. I have enjoyed taking on the role of read runner for this section hope you enjoy a well deserved break. So the more I read the more I realise Rothfuss' mind is both brilliant and complex. I really do not want this book to end. I just love it (now I know why so many people are salty the trilogy isn't finished, but because I want MORE not because I regret getting into this series).

By the way did this line (from chapter 45) fill anyone else with an utter sense of dread and forboding "For the first time I could remember, I actually felt like I had some control over my life." Anywho enough waffle let's get down to it....

SUMMARY

• Chapter 36 - All This Knowing

"Are you really Edema Ruh?"

Kvothe, Sim and Wil celebrate their victory over Ambrose with a bar crawl ending up at the Eolian. Rather unsteady they skip crossing Stonebridge to get home and chat in a clearing containing a Greystone. Kvothe reminisces about his family. They talk about women. Kvothe doesn't want to be just another one of Denna's

You take away their little brooms

This morning, my 4 year old daughter.

Daughter: I'm hungry

Me: nerves building, smile widening

Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.

She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.

Thank you all for listening.

It’s pronounced “Noel.”

After all his first name is No-vac

What, then, is Chinese rap?

Edit:

Notable mentions from the comments:

• Spanish/Swedish/Swiss/Serbian hits

• French/Finnish art

• Country/Canadian rap

• Chinese/Country/Canadian rock

• Turkish/Tunisian/Taiwanese rap

Bob

Just to clarify, 12345678

So that I could frequently say, "I am going to walk 5 miles now."

Edit: My most popular post on Reddit! 😀 Thank you for the awards.

Me grabbing a soda from my (what I thought was) half full 12pk...

Notices there's only 2;

Me: "Awe man... This is a damn bird box!" Her: "What the hell does that mean?!" Me: (Pulls both cans out & shows them to her) "It's only got Toucans."

I'm not ashamed to admit the look on her face was glorious.

I was just sitting there doing nothing.

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "

There hasn't been a post all year!

There hasn't been a single post this year!

(Happy 2022 from New Zealand)