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Milkfred E. Moore posted:I know there's probably no strict answer to these questions, but I'm curious -- what makes a good litrpg, SA web serial thread, and what makes a bad one? While I could just say "the same thing that makes any writing good," I'm guessing you're looking for something specific to litrpg as a genre. For me personally, it's the feeling that characters are acting naturally within the setting and the protagonist is being treated in a way that is fully consistent with said setting (and that the setting itself is believable/consistent, of course). What I want out of that genre is "following a character in a believable fictional world." It takes me out of the story if I can "feel" the author's presence. I don't want to be reading a story and constantly be aware "ah, I bet the author is making this happen for this reason," and this is especially the case for litrpg/"progression" stuff. This is the #1 thing that drives me away from web serials - the author's presence is frequently very obvious to me. The same applies to the protagonist becoming "overpowered" - it usually makes the setting itself less believable. The best example I can think of that achieves this with flying colors despite often having typos and mediocre prose is Forge/Threads of Destiny. It's possibly the only web serial of its nature I've read where it truly feels like side characters have their own stories and circumstances (and behave in ways consistent with their personality and motivations). The protagonist is powerful and lucky, but in a way that has plenty of precedent within the story (and she has peers of similar ability). One good example of what I like about this type of story is the side character Han Jian. Circumstances in the story (plus decisions by the readers, since they participate in making decisions for the protagonist) lead to this character growing apart from the protagonist. But it's still obvious that the character has their own story and complex circumstances - it's just that we don't get a chance to see them from the perspective of the protagonist, because their lives went in separate directions. I feel like the author was prepared to have this character take a bigger role in the story (even if it didn't turn out that way), and this makes them feel more "real." It's this sort of "organic" feeling that I'm looking for in a genre like this, and that's the main thing distinguishing it from a traditional narrative in my mind. (All this being said, I think most people are just looking for the dopamine hit from "leveling up" in stories like this - this is just my personal feeling, and probably why I don't enjoy most litrpg stuff)
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Feb 16, 2023 10:18
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Ytlaya posted:While I could just say "the same thing that makes any writing good," I'm guessing you're looking for something specific to litrpg as a genre. My personal take on OP protagonists - the System is what's allowing the protagonist to be OP. Everyone* has a System. Everyone should be munchkining the gently caress out of their build. As long as the protagonist is OP in their arena, and they frequently encounter people OP in their chosen discipline (who are relevant... 'civilians' are allowed to have average lives), then it all makes sense and there's no SOD. It's when "New person to the System figures out something these hundreds of millions of people never have" where I go "yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaah right." Rain from Delve IMO is a good example of the second, where he somehow manages to figure out all this stuff on his own, with nobody else having worked it out...?
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Feb 16, 2023 16:36
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With an Isekai thing it's fine if the MC's outlook is so completely alien or they have an understanding of something (like chemistry or whatever) that's completely beyond anyone else and that's the basis of the OP power difference. It's weird when they find an exploit that millions should have seen centuries ago though. Anyway, a good litRPG has prose that's not actively painful and gives you the same dopamine hit you get when you play RPGs. Most can't do the first thing.
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Feb 16, 2023 19:16
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Mr. Prokosch posted:With an Isekai thing it's fine if the MC's outlook is so completely alien or they have an understanding of something (like chemistry or whatever) that's completely beyond anyone else and that's the basis of the OP power difference.
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Feb 16, 2023 19:18
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Mr. Prokosch posted:With an Isekai thing it's fine if the MC's outlook is so completely alien or they have an understanding of something (like chemistry or whatever) that's completely beyond anyone else and that's the basis of the OP power difference. Ar'K uses this to get to what the story is about, the ethics of people who have tremendous power and what that does to both them and society. TWI is hit-and-miss but when it hits it explores aspects of the modern world through the influence of those ideas changing the fantasy world. Most others I've read are really dull. Germ theory and health understanding is usually okay as long as they stick to generalities, but they can get in real trouble if they try to get specific. One of the worst Isekai tendencies is when a character uses their Modern Scientific Understanding to do something beyond everyone else but the author doesn't understand what they're talking about so it's wildly incorrect.
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Feb 16, 2023 19:50
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:Ar'K uses this to get to what the story is about, the ethics of people who have tremendous power and what that does to both them and society. I do my best to research the ever living gently caress about the medicine I talk about for exactly this reason. Even then I get it a little wrong here and there, and often need to make minor corrections.
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Feb 16, 2023 19:55
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Selkie Myth posted:My personal take on OP protagonists - the System is what's allowing the protagonist to be OP. Everyone* has a System. I have a specific pet peeve where cheap litRPGs have the main character acquire or level the Analyze (etc.) skill, and everybody acts like it's unheard-of to do so because it's worthless garbage, doesn't even deal any damage, etc I've seen it like twelve times and it's so bad I think Delve isn't 100% an example of the issue you're complaining about, though - it's not because his auras-based build is supposedly such a wild and crazy idea that nobody's ever thought of it before, but just that the culture around doesn't have a lot of deviation from the norm. I haven't read Delve in a long time, so I might be wrong here about details, but IIRC a lot of the stuff with his weirdo build is stuff he discusses with others, and they're like "yeah, I guess you could do that, but then you'd run into [problems go here]," and he doesn't care about some of the problems (because they're about expectations and standard forms of combat, and he doesn't buy into a lot of the cultural norms) or he just, like, accepts that those things are problems, and has those problems. In Dragoneye Moons the system is super flexible and people get their own custom basically-anything, there's people who are like level 2000 [Bookbinders] and most of their skills are specifically about binding books in fantastical ways, or level 2500 [Constant Friend]/[Sidekick]/[Dueteragonists] who specialize in hanging out with up-and-coming heroes and bringing them to greater heights, or level 3000 [Van Wilders] who've just stayed at school for a thousand years and all their skills are about partying and mooching, but the system in Delve is WAY more restrictive, and (partially as a consequence, partially as just a general difference) the culture is not nearly as broad. It's less "nobody, out of hundreds of millions of people, ever thought of this before!" and more "The people in this country find that these options do not fit their needs and so further options in that vein haven't been adequately explored."
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Feb 16, 2023 20:01
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Delve had the plot twist where it turned out that the locals were right and the MC's build was a really bad idea because of something he didn't know about but they all did. An infinite XP engine just isn't as useful as he thought it was. BtDEM sidesteps the whole issue by starting in the early days of the world. No one came up with the idea of an oathbound healer before Elaine because it was just one of countless "obvious" things which hadn't had a chance to happen yet.
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Feb 16, 2023 20:10
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Plorkyeran posted:Delve had the plot twist where it turned out that the locals were right and the MC's build was a really bad idea because of something he didn't know about but they all did. An infinite XP engine just isn't as useful as he thought it was. which like, not only is that an accurate description of what he could do, but it makes sense that it'd be exploited by people who actually knew poo poo about poo poo!
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Feb 16, 2023 20:22
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cyrn posted:It's at least moved to a background for a while. Taking that sort of detour when you're on a 3 chapters every 4 weeks schedule is pretty tough to push through as a reader. Good news, that conflict is over! Though overall there still is not enough story in a single update, some have been quite low on math.
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Feb 16, 2023 21:32
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Well delve has had its ups and downs. Right now it's very much up Rain destroying an adamant army, The Warden mindjacking all the citizens and Ameliah turbokilling cervidian slavers/farmers is p baller. They're fast forwarding a lot of the soul stuff aswell.
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Feb 16, 2023 22:27
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I'm of two minds with the LitRPG stuff. It makes sense that if it was a part of everyday life, then of course people would try to make it work for them as best as they could. But on the other hand early on in Ar'Kendrithyst it's established that one of the most important jobs in their society is the person who gives out character build advice, and I thought that was so incredibly lame I struggled to keep reading. Maybe I'm not cut out for the stat sheet life. Fortunately AK ended up turning into god politics and wizard terraforming so I kept reading. Myriad Truths fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Feb 16, 2023 |
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Feb 16, 2023 23:04
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Affi posted:Well delve has had its ups and downs. Oh it only took irl years before the author realized that nobody gives a gently caress about that stuff? I remember telling him on his discord in the early days that nobody cares about showing his work with the stats and definitely not for multiple pages a chapter but apparently I'm wrong
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Feb 16, 2023 23:10
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DACK FAYDEN posted:also multiple people with more worldly experience hear what he says and are like "oh right, like the slaves in the evil empire who are forced to take your exact build to provide enough mana to fuel an army" Agreed, I find Delve at its best explores a game mechanic (level cap, xp, titles, damage caps), hides all the social knowledge that everyone in-world has about them and lets the MC run with their super smart optimal strategy for a while before discovering that his earth-knowledge ideas were not actually super smart and original but things no sane person who grew up in the world would do.
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Feb 17, 2023 00:15
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Larry Parrish posted:Oh it only took irl years before the author realized that nobody gives a gently caress about that stuff? I remember telling him on his discord in the early days that nobody cares about showing his work with the stats and definitely not for multiple pages a chapter but apparently I'm wrong Yeah its lost me a couple of times. Its not like i didnt give a gently caress about it even. Its a bit interesting and the soul stuff is also interesting. But when he does weeks of either and you just want to get delving its rough as gently caress. I usually read it once every six months so i can mix the slog with the good stuff. But like i said earlier there are more timeskips and less focus on the nitty gritty.
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Feb 17, 2023 14:23
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Not often that a web serial makes me do a double take. See if you can guess what this one's about from first chapter's title. Prologue: They hung him for a traitor, themselves a traitorous crew.
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Feb 19, 2023 09:11
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Mr.Sloth posted:Not often that a web serial makes me do a double take. See if you can guess what this one's about from first chapter's title.
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Feb 19, 2023 12:47
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heard worse concepts "Watanabe Generico had failed to notice the fact that John Brown had been slowly sneaking up to him, a novice mistake to not be aware of any wild abolitionists while adventuring. Brown had simply done the Lord’s work by caving his skull in with a large boulder."
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Feb 19, 2023 21:39
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Hey, PoorWeather, you write The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, right? I finally got around to reading it and it rules! I'd put it off for years, because I'd taken it into my head, based on the title and the cover art and maybe some things that got posted in here, that it was going to be some sort of floraverse type thing that I'd enjoy but need a lot of emotional and/or mental bandwidth to process. So I kept seeing it around and being like, yeah I'll read that... later. But it's actually, like, Gideon the Ninth by way of Ra, and eminently readable.
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Feb 21, 2023 13:56
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DACK FAYDEN posted:also multiple people with more worldly experience hear what he says and are like "oh right, like the slaves in the evil empire who are forced to take your exact build to provide enough mana to fuel an army" I mean, everyone knows this build is *useful* - it's just that nobody wants to be the 'powerless to defend yourself unless you are powerleveled to extremely high levels and given expensive gear (both of which are done to rain, and are mandatory for his success) support build used by disposable slaves' in a culture that *strongly* incentivizes independence and keeping builds secret - other people who go support builds who can't expect high-class crafters or reliable party members will stall out and die or end up conscripted to be a mana battery and get the dregs. Most of the System-tricks he's using likely have equivalents, but they're intended for higher-ranked people, as most people aren't dumb enough to break their soul to get root access and then gently caress with an artifact that most nations keep extremely secret. Rain was *reasonably* clever but was *very* lucky - without the latter it would have been a dead end.
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Feb 21, 2023 17:24
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:Hey, PoorWeather, you write The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, right? I finally got around to reading it and it rules! Well gently caress! Into the active queue it goes.
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Feb 21, 2023 17:26
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Alexander Wales' only review as well. 5 out of 5 out of 5. I'm sold.
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Feb 21, 2023 18:01
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:Hey, PoorWeather, you write The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, right? I finally got around to reading it and it rules!
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Feb 21, 2023 18:39
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:Hey, PoorWeather, you write The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, right? I finally got around to reading it and it rules! Oh, thanks a lot! I'm really glad you like it. Yeah, I think I definitely flubbed the outward presentation aspect of the story in a lot of ways which is still biting a bit today. I couldn't really do anything impressive with the cover since I couldn't afford a commission artist and a generic fantasy stock image-ish look wouldn't really fit anyway, so I tried to make one myself, and it's obviously a bit janky. And though I like the title, it does seem to convey 'sad, abstract, maybe romantic' to a degree I didn't intend, even if it is all of those things to some extent. I also think I probably soured this thread in particular on it by posting it when I'd only just started and it was in a really messy state - circa 2019, there were a lot fewer unconventional hits on RR, and I felt like I needed to do more to appeal to the action-adventure-gamelit crowd. But I'm so bad at that stuff that it just came across as weird and awkward. So I eventually purged it and just embraced the story being kinda slow at first. I've heard the Gideon the Ninth comparison a bunch now, but I actually haven't read the series... I know the author is open about also being inspired by When They Cry, though, so maybe we're just drawing from the same wells. PoorWeather fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Feb 21, 2023 |
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Feb 21, 2023 19:22
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PoorWeather posted:Oh, thanks a lot! I'm really glad you like it. It's never too late to swap covers, and there are services that sell very cheap covers - like $25 with typesetting - that could be worth looking into. I've seen cover swaps and changes revive stories and give them life. Most notably was Fates Parallel, which had a terrible cover that was turning people off. I bonked the author, they got a better cover, and BOOOM they exploded.
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Feb 21, 2023 21:53
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A recommendation in the Sci fi thread led me to The Last Angel, which I am now up to date on and enjoyed immensely. I had a nose around and that led me to 12 Miles Below which I am also up to date on and while having some over long sections was also a good read. However, I am now without anything to read until they update, any suggestions as to where to go from here? I know I dont like isekai and from the description I fairly sure I wouldn't like LitRPG.
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Feb 22, 2023 13:58
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Sonderval posted:A recommendation in the Sci fi thread led me to The Last Angel, which I am now up to date on and enjoyed immensely. I had a nose around and that led me to 12 Miles Below which I am also up to date on and while having some over long sections was also a good read. However, I am now without anything to read until they update, any suggestions as to where to go from here? Based on what you said you liked, give https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/22848/post-human a try. It's about a dude stuck in a computer defending the last survivors of a devastated Earth. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/28023/katalepsis is a good, goon-written, horror story with engaging but flawed main characters.
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Feb 22, 2023 14:42
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Selkie Myth posted:It's never too late to swap covers, and there are services that sell very cheap covers - like $25 with typesetting - that could be worth looking into. I've seen cover swaps and changes revive stories and give them life. Most notably was Fates Parallel, which had a terrible cover that was turning people off. I bonked the author, they got a better cover, and BOOOM they exploded. I've looked into it a few times, but always end up butting my head into some wall. I'd feel weird paying a pittance getting it from some freelancing content mill service (having spent too much of the last 10 years slaving away for those kind of sites just to survive) and I'd want to get something pretty specific and unusual that sells the particularities of the story, since my past attempts to bait in normal RR readers have just ended in me getting rating bombed. But I'm pretty bad at finding and reaching out to specific artists too, not to mention really anal about online privacy, which can make paying people complicated. I've also just thought about bypassing the issue and making my own site for it, since RR itself seems to scare off some readers outside of that sphere, and I still barely get any new readers from within the site. But then I go down a whole different hole where I don't want to just make some generic wildbow-rear end wordpress page and also make no progress, so 
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Feb 23, 2023 07:50
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Pop into the goon AI Art thread and describe what kind of cover you want, at the very least people there would have fun throwing out ideas for you and you'll have a better idea what you want.
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Feb 23, 2023 12:23
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PoorWeather posted:I've looked into it a few times, but always end up butting my head into some wall. I'd feel weird paying a pittance getting it from some freelancing content mill service (having spent too much of the last 10 years slaving away for those kind of sites just to survive) and I'd want to get something pretty specific and unusual that sells the particularities of the story, since my past attempts to bait in normal RR readers have just ended in me getting rating bombed. But I'm pretty bad at finding and reaching out to specific artists too, not to mention really anal about online privacy, which can make paying people complicated. I'd be happy to work with you on a full rebrand and relaunch. Pop into my discord if you're interested and want to coordinate
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Feb 23, 2023 15:39
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Looks like Is Insanity a Racial Trait is back to the main storyline, can someone give me a sum up of the side story?
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Feb 23, 2023 17:49
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Lone Goat posted:Looks like Is Insanity a Racial Trait is back to the main storyline, can someone give me a sum up of the side story? The scientist that tried to dissect Jason, Valmight, found the god bracelet and is now able to level. He was doing experiments to see if you can merge a human and a blight but basically it turns you into a monster. Jason finds one of these people, a wrestler named Dinoman, and convinces him to help. Jason, Dinoman, his military handler and his girlfriend go after Valmight and nearly die to a robot/blight/human hybrid. Valmight gets away but Jason's girlfriend steals the robot's magic gun that can curve bullets. Fortunately she's an Olympic level sharpshooter so she gets to keep it. Valmight also resurrects Baker who immediately escapes but he's going to die unless he agrees to help Valmight or the gods. Instead he plays some soccer with some Brazilians and realizes being human is cool. Jason and his crew come to Brazil chasing Valmight who has a new plan to kill everyone in Brazil or South America until he hits level 99 and can kill the gods. Jason and Baker fight then they switch eyes and get powered up. They then work together to kill Valmight even though he's super overpowered from combining science and magic because Jason was a pro tennis player. Jason tells the gods to gently caress off. The End.
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Feb 23, 2023 18:45
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PoorWeather posted:I've looked into it a few times, but always end up butting my head into some wall. I'd feel weird paying a pittance getting it from some freelancing content mill service (having spent too much of the last 10 years slaving away for those kind of sites just to survive) and I'd want to get something pretty specific and unusual that sells the particularities of the story, since my past attempts to bait in normal RR readers have just ended in me getting rating bombed. But I'm pretty bad at finding and reaching out to specific artists too, not to mention really anal about online privacy, which can make paying people complicated. Having dealt with some of these issues myself, I can highly recommend two things: 1) Making a paypal business account to hide your legal name is really easy. I highly recommend it because it makes paying artists a lot safer. 2) A "generic wildbow-rear end wordpress page" is actually very useful. I don't think I would have the audience I do today if I only posted on RR and SH. There are also a lot more options out there compared to the past; I personally know somebody who's been developing a custom wordpress theme specifically designed for web serials, for example. I won't pretend it's super easy or straightforward, but I think it's really worth maintaining your own website.
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Feb 23, 2023 19:34
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Tagichatn posted:The scientist that tried to dissect Jason, Valmight, found the god bracelet and is now able to level. He was doing experiments to see if you can merge a human and a blight but basically it turns you into a monster. Jason finds one of these people, a wrestler named Dinoman, and convinces him to help. Wow this sounds like it sucks rear end and I'm glad I skipped it, thank you for your service 
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Feb 23, 2023 20:05
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Yeah I really don't think having a generic wordpress page should stop anyone if they think having their own site would help them. I don't think I've really noticed much of anything about any of the sites of serials I've read. As long as you've got a table of contents and the ability to click to the next chapter once you've finished the current one you're in good shape. I understand the desire for the presentation to be top notch, but as I reader I'm concerned about the words an author is writing, and not particularly concerned about the package that gets them to me.
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Feb 23, 2023 21:07
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Lone Goat posted:Wow this sounds like it sucks rear end and I'm glad I skipped it, thank you for your service I also appreciate the summary. Read the last side story chapter just to see if anything important happens but it was like bad fanfiction with power ups, the gods scared of Jason, and verbally fellating Rob.
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Feb 23, 2023 21:08
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i actively avoid stuff that seems too cleanly marketed lol. like then I feel like the goal is not to write a book but to get me to sub to your Patreon for 400 years and it makes me mad.
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Feb 23, 2023 21:16
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Lone Goat posted:Wow this sounds like it sucks rear end and I'm glad I skipped it, thank you for your service You're welcome. I can't say I liked it much but I also didn't want to skip a side story in a serial I otherwise enjoy. The comments seemed pretty positive though 
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Feb 23, 2023 21:18
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Tagichatn posted:The scientist that tried to dissect Jason, Valmight, found the god bracelet and is now able to level. He was doing experiments to see if you can merge a human and a blight but basically it turns you into a monster. Jason finds one of these people, a wrestler named Dinoman, and convinces him to help. You forgot that the gods are now terrified of Jason because he saw all of infinity and, rather than being driven insane by the revelation that he's a speck of a speck in an uncaring universe, he turned that into an anime powerup because his strength of will is just that strong. Also, that anime powerup looks like a super cool skull mask, and when he's wearing it, his voice sounds spooky.
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Feb 23, 2023 21:32
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this all sounds so, so stupid and like the outcast guy is deliberately trying to see what level of dreck royal road readers will suck up.
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Feb 23, 2023 21:44
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