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So I just realized something really horrifying about the latest Katalepsis chapter: if the thing with Zheng ever becomes romantic on Heather's side Cannibal Holocaust would be the perfect date night movie, and holy poo poo.
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Jul 26, 2020 02:32
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Anyone who longs for the He Who Fights With Monsters early chapters, I highly recommend you ignore the title and try out Dungeon Crawler Carl. It’s a comedy LitRPG where the Earth is turned into a Reality show dungeon crawl. The humor flows well with the circumstances of the story and doesn’t feel forced at all.
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Jul 26, 2020 05:46
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Silynt posted:Anyone who longs for the He Who Fights With Monsters early chapters, I highly recommend you ignore the title and try out Dungeon Crawler Carl. It’s a comedy LitRPG where the Earth is turned into a Reality show dungeon crawl. The humor flows well with the circumstances of the story and doesn’t feel forced at all. DCC is way more depressing than funny. This is all explained a couple of chapters in but spoilers The basic conceit is that evil megacorps turn whole worlds into dungeons as an excuse to strip mine them. The dungeons are then populated by sentient creatures grown specifically to be "monsters" that the former inhabitants of the world fight with for the right to get their world back. Only no one has made it even 2/3 of the way through the dungeon to get their world back, ever. And it just gets worse from there. That said, it is reasonably well written and I did enjoy the parts I didn't loathe everything about the world. Warning a cat plays a major role.
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Jul 26, 2020 15:32
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LLSix posted:DCC is way more depressing than funny. Interesting. While it’s definitely a dark comedy, your reaction to the universe created was clearly more viscerally unpleasant than mine - “loathe” is a much stronger word than I would use. The whole thing is a pretty heavy handed commentary on the evils of capitalism, but like you said it is relatively well written so I can understand how it would bother some people more than it affected me. Admittedly, I’ve only read about half of what’s been released so maybe it gets worse. Thanks for replying! I definitely did not feel like I had said enough words to sell the series so thanks for following up Silynt fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Jul 26, 2020 |
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Jul 26, 2020 17:09
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LLSix posted:DCC is way more depressing than funny. Existential horror is kind of Matt Dinniman’s thing. His other LitRPG stuff, Dominion of Blades and Battlefield Kaiju Surgeon both have awful implications and the non-LitRPG stuff I’ve read is lots of cosmic body horror.
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Jul 26, 2020 19:02
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navyjack posted:Existential horror is kind of Matt Dinniman’s thing. His other LitRPG stuff, Dominion of Blades and Battlefield Kaiju Surgeon both have awful implications and the non-LitRPG stuff I’ve read is lots of cosmic body horror. I didn't realize Dinniman was the author of DCC. I remember seeing an interview where he mentioned he told his mom that he loves her support but she should give a pass to Kaiju Surgeon, which of course meant I had to read it. Looking back on it I can see how you lose some of the impact of DCC in the serialized format where you're not reading it all in one go, at least compared to how Kaiju played out.
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Jul 27, 2020 19:29
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I read all of Carl over this weekend and yes the overall theme is grim but I've also read all of wildbow's serials so Carl's not as bad because it's basically all off camera.
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Jul 27, 2020 19:39
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Lone Goat posted:I read all of Carl over this weekend and yes the overall theme is grim but I've also read all of wildbow's serials so Carl's not as bad because it's basically all off camera. Lol read Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon. Not off camera.
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Jul 27, 2020 23:43
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Omi no Kami posted:So I just realized something really horrifying about the latest Katalepsis chapter: if the thing with Zheng ever becomes romantic on Heather's side Cannibal Holocaust would be the perfect date night movie, and holy poo poo. I'm extremely doubtful that Heather would be able to sit through that.
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Jul 28, 2020 11:07
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Given how absolutely horrifying some of the stuff they handily deal with is, I suppose it's easy to forget that when she's not barfing up primordial ocean or defragmenting her biology to match her weirdo alien dreamscape, Heather's a pretty normal person.
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Jul 28, 2020 11:58
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Megazver posted:I mean, I like comedy as much as anybody, but I think HWFWM at the moment is still... fine? As for what he's doing, he's obviously setting up pieces for the second book. Contrast that with another dumb nerd progression fantasy I read, Cradle. In Cradle, fighters each have a "path", and each path only has a handful of abilities, so the combat prose doesn't have to spend much time constantly detailing new abilities, it can focus on how each fighter is choosing to use their abilities in a particular fight, and it makes those battles flow soooo much better than HWFWM. Obviously Cradle is far from the only series to do this, it's just the one that comes to mind as a clear contrast.
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Jul 29, 2020 20:06
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Anyone know of a LitRPG with a cyborg or robot main character? I was brainstorming the other day and thought it could make a neat justification for why the MC has levels and stats without needing to stat out everyone else.
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Jul 30, 2020 17:34
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Just wanted to say I have been really enjoying Katalepsis recently. Twil owns and I liked the change of scenery to a rural location. Someone needs to talk to Zheng about her language though. Calling everyone a monkey might have been okay back in the day but in 21st century UK she is getting cancelled for sure.
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Aug 3, 2020 10:03
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Lot 49 posted:Just wanted to say I have been really enjoying Katalepsis recently. Yeah, last week's chapter was just about the most wholesome combination of gay women and tentacles ever.
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Aug 3, 2020 12:55
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I'm just glad an old favourite character's coming back.  Edit: also mrsha you loving brat
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Aug 3, 2020 13:07
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Beautiful bonus chapter for PracGuide today. ErraticErrata is so loving good at writing.
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Aug 5, 2020 01:19
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I've been recently checking out a search on Royal Road to try and find some new stuff to read and I came across a couple that were decent enough I figured I'd post here. Artificial Jelly quote:Born to die and be born again, Gell, the Jellyfae must discover her strange connection to the horrible monsters called humans, that speak with words she understands, but seem to want nothing but her death. Gell is a sentient dungeon mob in a VRMMO. She's the only one apparently, as none of the other occupants of her Dungeon Home seem to break their cycles or their instincts, like she can. Things are quiet and simple, until one day a group of players finds her dungeon and things get complicated. It's a VRMMO story, so it will likely get into litRPG stuff, but it's very light, bordering non-existent, in the 20 chapters (10 are on the author's Patreon Discord) so far. Interdimensional Garbage Merchant quote:Maya Sullivan was just an ordinary college student working for her parents, when Earth is Integrated into the System. Instead of finding herself stuck in a post-apocalyptic world of monsters and magic, Maya is trapped in a dimensional plane that's filled with its own horrors. (I only went back a month to see if anyone else has mentioned this or Artificial Jelly and didn't see anything, but this one's a few months old so maybe it's already come up?) This one is heavily litRPG. The dimensional plane that Maya gets trapped on seems to be a dumping ground of sorts, with mountains of scrap and mechanics. It's also incredibly dangerous for Maya. While she gets a couple perks from surviving what should have been a practically assured death, she's very much out of her league and has plenty to struggle against. Onean fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Aug 5, 2020 |
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Aug 5, 2020 17:11
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I'll second Interdimensional Garbage Merchant. There was a kerfluffle over the title being inaccurate, so I'll note that book one is getting to becoming a merchant. Book 1 just finished and Book 2 will be starting on Friday.
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Aug 5, 2020 17:41
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Just started a new litrpg. The MMO it describes has 50 million players, and is gaining 1.4 million players per month. Originally, I was going to mock how impossible that was, but after reviewing WoW’s population growth, it seems like an oddly realistic power fantasy. World of Warcraft peaked at about 12 million, adding about 1 million players every quarter (12 million after 4 years with a fairly steady growth rate). Interestingly, this is not enough to even make Wikipedia’s list of the 50 most popular games.
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Aug 5, 2020 18:59
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Onean posted:I've been recently checking out a search on Royal Road to try and find some new stuff to read and I came across a couple that were decent enough I figured I'd post here. I'm enjoying this one a lot so far; I just want Gell to make friends with the players and have fun times with them
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Aug 5, 2020 19:07
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The renaming in Artificial Jelly is great and I hope things turn around for the poor thing soon.
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Aug 5, 2020 19:57
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Artificial Jelly does this common amateur web author thing where the story is super cutesy, but also dipping into grimdark angst at the same time. I am usually not a fan. It's not too bad so far but I think I'll wait until it has fifty chapters or so before I read any further.
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Aug 6, 2020 00:57
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Okay, I'm out. Story I was reading kept forgetting what class the main character was. Kept switching between "warlock" and "necro." I just... who pays money for books where the author can't even remember what stuff is called for a whole chapter?
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Aug 6, 2020 02:52
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Cicero posted:Beautiful bonus chapter for PracGuide today. ErraticErrata is so loving good at writing. This. I really like Prac Guide but I am super excited for their next project whatever that might be. I think they've really grown as a writer over the course of the story - most of the basic issues in their prose have gone away (outside of too much thinking in not enough time) and they're starting to play with the structure of language in cool ways. Plus the story itself has involved a tremendous amount of growth from standard YA coming of age fantasy to something that deals much better with complexity and multiple perspectives.
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Aug 6, 2020 05:07
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LLSix posted:Okay, I'm out. Story I was reading kept forgetting what class the main character was. Kept switching between "warlock" and "necro." I just... who pays money for books where the author can't even remember what stuff is called for a whole chapter?
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Aug 6, 2020 13:03
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I mean, technically speaking, a necromancer and a warlock could be two words for the same thing in that world. Even in D&D 'necromancer' is technically a wizard sub-class.
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Aug 6, 2020 13:22
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:I really like Prac Guide but I am super excited for their next project whatever that might be. I think they've really grown as a writer over the course of the story - most of the basic issues in their prose have gone away (outside of too much thinking in not enough time) and they're starting to play with the structure of language in cool ways. Plus the story itself has involved a tremendous amount of growth from standard YA coming of age fantasy to something that deals much better with complexity and multiple perspectives. PracGuide and Pith are probably the only web serials I've read where something about them makes it very easy for me to remember all the major arcs. PracGuide in particular is extremely good at creating memorable scenes (Pith is more strong in terms of creating memorable characters and a sense of how those characters change). I'm really loving the current arc due to all the non-hostile (or only semi-hostile) interaction between Named. The only thing that is a little tough to swallow is Catherine's ludicrous proficiency at manipulating Named, though it can kinda be explained as "Catherine is essentially a prodigy at understanding narratives and how they influence the world, and Named are individuals who strongly conform to those narratives so she can easily predict their behavior." It was kinda funny/interesting seeing how Catherine and Grey Pilgrim are basically on the same page about stuff like making Red Axe an undead being necessary, whereas most heroes would not be okay with that. Grey Pilgrim is probably the hero most similar to Catherine in terms of mindset and goals and probably one of the only heroes (other than maybe Roland) who has a similar perspective on why the Accords are a good ideaa.
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Aug 7, 2020 06:29
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Wait a minute, what the eff. Apparently in HWFWM patreon land Jason isn't even in isekai world anymore, he's running around solving a mystery in Sydney? I haven't actually read the chapters, but that sounds like just a ludicrously bad idea.
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Aug 8, 2020 06:52
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Well, we just had the first Sydney chapter on RR, without Jason so far. Apparently the gubmint is on the case of the weird magic poo poo starting to happen and there are probably Builder shenanigans starting on Earth. It seemed like an interesting enough set-up. There are some cool scenes that can be done with it, like Jason dealing with his family poo poo now that he's self-actualized and him showing off his cool powers to muggles and people actually getting to watch all the recordings he made. It all depends on the execution and generally speaking the author has been decent to good at that so far. Megazver fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Aug 8, 2020 |
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Aug 8, 2020 09:54
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Yeah, I think it's actually a very good idea. The story is at its best when it's either being funny or focusing on the character interactions. Putting Jason alone on a world where he is probably the absolute strongest person bar none is a great way to escape the pull of "epic" fights. Bring on that family drama. Have Jason solve mysteries and grapple with corrupt organizations.These are all things the story has done well before, and it's a huge improvement from the slog at the end of the first arc.
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Aug 8, 2020 16:33
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Hmm, I think what you described would definitely be fun- Funny Jerk Plays Against Genre in the first 40 or so chapters was definitely the high point of what I read. Granted I skipped the vast majority of the back half and only picked it back up when I heard how harshly the interludes were swerving the narrative, but I think my primary concern is that given how plodding and aimless a lot of the story felt after that initial burst, my immediate, perhaps excessively-pessimistic assumption was that things were moving to Sydney because the author was out of ideas and wanted to try writing an urban conspiracy thriller. Either way, I hope it goes well for them- writing serials is brutal and thankless, and it's never fun to see a promising story nosedive.
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Aug 8, 2020 18:10
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I'll eat a hat (a chocolate one that I'll buy just in case of this emergency) if a) half of the narrative isn't going to still be the rest of Jason's crew and b) if the narratives aren't going to link up somehow eventually.
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Aug 8, 2020 23:43
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The top rated story on RR is a story that has been complete for months. Lol. To be fair, Mother of Learning earned that spot.
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Aug 9, 2020 04:41
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Just a Bystander is the more Mother of Learning I desperately wanted. It is amazing.
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Aug 10, 2020 05:08
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LLSix posted:Just a Bystander is the more Mother of Learning I desperately wanted. It is amazing. Six chapters in and it’s just pretty boring classes with cardboard characters? Does it improve soon or is it just not for me?
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Aug 10, 2020 17:01
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Affi posted:Six chapters in and it’s just pretty boring classes with cardboard characters? Does it improve soon or is it just not for me? Chapter 7 has the first magical fight. Unfortunately it's the weakest magic fight in the series so far. I read it in one wild gulp so I had to go back and look. It does ramp up, but I don't think it really changes. It's strongly focused on describing mechanics and then showing how they can be bent, abused, or outright broken. May just not be for you. I thought chapter 3 (precision matters) was pretty good. It solidly establishes how awesome a top tier arcanist is.
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Aug 10, 2020 20:08
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Affi posted:Six chapters in and it’s just pretty boring classes with cardboard characters? Does it improve soon or is it just not for me? Having read all the released chapters, characters are still pretty bland. Piell fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Aug 10, 2020 |
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Aug 10, 2020 22:09
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Having now caught up to wandering inn I have to say I did like the battle in the clown chapters. But what really made me laugh was Mrshas letter to Ryoka.
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Aug 11, 2020 09:28
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Worth the Candle just dropped several new chapters. Been like three months since the last drop.
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Aug 12, 2020 17:59
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The recent PracGuide chapter was pretty depressing. The part where Hakram mentioned his name weakening as a direct result of Catherine's perception of him must have hit really hard, since it's definitely true and makes perfect sense. I was upset when I reached the end of the chapter and realized I had caught up, since I'm really curious to find out what Scribe is there for. I'm guessing passing some sort of message from Black.
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Aug 13, 2020 07:00
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