Rebecca Black

It sure was something. But not nothing.

(And I say all this as someone who read Mistborn, found it quite mid, and had no interest in reading any other Sanderson until I was desperate during the pandemic and finally agreed to read Stormlight, and it wasn't until the end of WoK that I was actually drawn in.)

...so devoted to his work isn't that we don't know what eloquent prose looks like or whatever you'll see people say; it's that at the scale of tens of thousands of pages across dozens of worlds it's a truly breathtaking creation filled with some of the best characters I've ever known.

...his stuff really isn't great in small doses. And not everyone will want to read a book where a lot of the payoff comes seven thousand-page books later in a different series or whatever. It's a choice to structure his stuff that way and it makes each book less readable. But what makes people...

...just add up to one of the richest, most deeply woven, powerful and satisfying acts of storytelling ever produced. I know there's no way to say "unless you've read all of it you can't understand" that doesn't sound obnoxious but it's also just true. And it's a real drawback, because...

There are plenty of reasons for people not to feel like reading Sanderson's stuff, including just not enjoying the style, and there's plenty across all of his stuff that I groan or roll my eyes at. But all of it, taken together, the worlds and the magic and (above all) the people and the *story*...

No one asked for my Cosmere takes but oh well. I just need people who *haven't* read any/much Sanderson and hear people online dismissing it as paint-by-numbers male-centric user-friendly fantasy slop that's popular because it's accessible and generic to understand that that is just not true.

I'm all for Apple TV giving creative control of the cosmere stuff to Brandon as long as they secretly sneak in a clause specifying that Kaladin is gay.

Check out this amazing project so many of us at Performant Software have been working on for the past couple of years. We can't wait for the launch and for everyone to see it!

Screenshot from Silksong: "Pain, Anguish and Misery / WISH GRANTED"

I love Silksong to death but also am surprised I haven't seen this screenshot being used more widely. I see you Team Cherry, I see you.

SILKSONG SPOILERS ~~
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I'm still processing it all but god damn there's a whole paper to be written about Silksong and HK as a meditation on parenthood and what it means to create life and the selfishness of imposing legacy on our children in ways that deny their personhood.

I'm turning 40 next spring and I think a good goal for the next decade of my life would be getting the any% ending of Hollow Knight: Silksong. (I was gonna say beating act I but let's dream big.)

Important update, I beat him before my next flight took off! My reward was the red boingies yaaayyyy ☺️💢

Chonky bone enemy from Hunter's March

If anyone sees a tiktok or something being like ha ha this loser on my flight just spent an hour and a half dying to this early game Silksong enemy, that was me, I'll own it. 😇🕷

It's been so many years of the word "silksong" being a constant meme that the actual semantics of the name never really sunk in before playing it. The role of music and sound in this game is absolutely S-tier. I'm utterly blown away.

Okay but why does Bilewater's music of all places slap so hard? 😂☠️

Ahh you are totally right, I was thinking that any% doesn't need tear but yeah that's with acid skips. My bad!

I know it's beside the point but I don't think that's true; you can pogo the durandoos to get in from greenpath.

And yeah I completely understand people's complaints about the punishing damage and general difficulty. I just people saying it's linear aren't doing enough exploring. 😅

Hmm can't you get there via greenpath? In any case yeah it may be fewer areas but to me the feeling of the exploration and backtracking is very similar.

The sound design of Silksong alone should win every award ever. (Yes every award, not just the one for sound design, that's how good it is.) 🔔🔔

It's definitely true that Hornet's quest is "get from point A to point B" (in act 1 anyway) while the knight's is "get from point A back to point A but after you've done a bunch of stuff" and I definitely take your point that that automatically gives the exploration a different vibe.

That's not really true in HK, if your goal is to get the dreamers and defeat THK you don't need to bother with exploring kingdom's edge or hive or howling cliffs or even waterways. There's a lot of HK's map that's just for exploration and leveling up. (Slightly less so for TE obviously.)

Hopefully you'll get that experience more in act 2, whatever it is (don't tell me!) 😊

(Okay only one of them actually had the ice thing but you get the idea)

Mmm yeah that's a really interesting point. But I'm so curious which biomes you did in what order before reaching the citadel because there really are so many areas that had that "wait where the hell are we, why are we taking ice damage, wtf is happening uhhh run away" sort of feeling. 😂

But... that's happened to me like five times lol, we keep stumbling into biomes and being like uhhhhh are we supposed to be here. 😅 I won't name then 'cause spoilers I guess but that's been a huge part of my experience so far.

Yeah I'm expecting it to open up even more after act 1 (I have literally no idea what act 2 is, no spoilers!) but how much backtracking did you do? If your only goal is to get to Citadel there's probably a pretty defined path to follow but if your goal is to explore the map there's so much to find.

Rosaries are mostly useful for benches and bell stations and maps, but if you're exploring all the crevices/breakable walls etc you'll get most of them from caches you find there; grinding enemies for resources hasn't felt necessary. (Paying for benches is bullshit though lol, sheesh 😅)

But basically everyone I've watched play Silksong has discovered things in vastly different orders. Silksong is bigger and more complex than HK but progression doesn't feel fundamentally different to me.

Yeah lol I saw people complaining in a steamer's chat literally Thursday at like 2pm that the map was too linear... guys it's been out for four hours. 😂 Backtracking is insanely fruitful.