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Okay then here It goes: The adventures of Rania Mortal the Perfectly Normal elf. This is a comedic story about a group of adventurers in fantasy world, which went through some cataclysmic apocalypses. All of the characters are written distinctively and the narration switches between them per chapter, so you get a good feel about how each of them thinks. Main Characters by order of appearance: Atrog He's an Ork paladin and a genuinely nice professional person. The way that works in this universe is that paladins are kind of mercenaries who can be in service of any god who vaguely aligns with them. While he's a cool dude, he's mostly the straight man to the other's ridiculousness. But he's a good friend and the moral core of the group. Balron A Dwarf who used to be a an adventurer, but is now a professor of magical security for the last century or two. He joined the party because he was in a bit of a rut and to experience adversary and fight strong monsters since everyone knows that this is how you get better at everything quickly. He's the sort of person who makes recursive contingencies for the most absurd situations and has all of the material prepared. Has a rat familiar named Whiskers. Galanys A genius but inexperienced human mage with an eidetic memory. She is favored by the god of creativity and comes up with weird but effective plans. She's really into studying philosophy and solving puzzles. Like Balron, she tends to overthink things. Rania A Perfectly Normal Elf. She's a ranger with a genuinely cute little pet spider called Aranea and she's also a shaman who communicates with the spirits of the world, including one in a little rock she calls Pebble. She's a bit of a nerd about adventure stories and tends to see the world like that. Note: She does not consider herself the Main Character and she's not some Isekai self-insert nor does she do silly stuff like talk to the reader directly. She is also well versed in ~Fae Bullshit~. Why is this story different from other generic fantasy stuff? The world is quite well thought out and written. It leans heavily on D&D lore, but diverges whenever that feels more interesting. For example, the pantheon of gods is way more gradual than in other stories, as gods can change, merge or split over the centuries when the humanoids have different ideas of them. There are many different war gods depending on how ruthless you fight. The battle scenes are sparse but creative. Due to Rania's unique disposition and some other reasons the story leans heavily on literary tropes, while not being formulaic at all. Rania may be confused by this but those are all competent characters who would absolutely break story clichés if that is the logical choice. But the world itself is just so stupid! Writing a stupid world well is not an easy feat. I don't really like this, does it ever get good? For me the point at which I genuinely loved it was chapter 4 or chapter 7. Coincidentally, both of those are from Rania's point of view. At a way later moment in the story there's a huge lore dump, but the character who gives it is fun, so I don't mind. Also I found the content genuinely fascinating. Duna is a great goddess! And honestly, this world view is perfectly reasonable. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Dec 28, 2023 |
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Dec 28, 2023 10:09
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By the way, is it normal for people to write quotes over several paragraphs with one missing quotationmark? Apparently it's a real rule in English gramar, but it feels weird and unnatural like a paranthesis which was left open. E.g. Person: "I talk now. "I continue to talk." I get that it's supposed to clarify that it's still the same person, but my mathematical brain reads that as recursive quotes which never actually end. It seems the author of that story started doing that after some guy in the comments notified him about it. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Dec 28, 2023 |
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Dec 28, 2023 11:36
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That's the correct way as per standard rules, yes. I hate it and someday I will be the change I wish to see in the world, same with putting punctuation marks inside quotations even if they don't belong to the quote.
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Dec 28, 2023 11:38
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Yeah, that's also bullshit. German gramar is quite similar but doesn't have those two stupid rules. Edit: actually, it's a bit more complicated than that and I just also suck at my own langauge. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Dec 28, 2023 |
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Dec 28, 2023 11:41
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Just do it Spanish style. Desconcertado, sabiendo que los niños esperaban una explicación inmediata, José Arcadio Buendía se atrevió a murmurar: —Es el diamante más grande del mundo. —No —corrigió el gitano—. Es hielo. Disconcerted, knowing that the children were waiting for an immediate explanation, José Arcadio Buendía ventured a murmur: “It’s the largest diamond in the world.” “No,” the gypsy countered. “It’s ice.”
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Dec 28, 2023 11:43
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As you pointed out, it's a signifier that the same person is still talking. The key thing is, it let's you write someone delivering a speech, reciting a story, monologuing or whatever without having to say it's the same person every paragraph, so you can jump right in to what they're saying without breaking up their flow by writing a preceding or following line clarifying who's talking. (Those lines should still happen here and there, because unless they're a machine or uniquely alien or different (which you can still call out, or cover the audience's reaction, or whatever) nobody is completely motionless or has a constant tone throughout their speech.) As a reader, when I see closing quotes on a paragraph and opening quotes on the next, my immediate assumption is that it's a different character, unless it's immediately apparent through the use of accents, fonts or other typing quirks. It takes me out of the story when it turns out it's the same person and I have to readjust the flow of events, now I'm aware I'm reading, I notice every time my eyes move back and forth across the page, every page flip/screen scroll, and it takes a few minutes to get away from that distraction. Like a reading version of being aware of your tongue, or that you're actively breathing, etc..
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Dec 28, 2023 12:20
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Anyway, please read that story about Rania and her friends. It really hit my buttons and I want to know if that's just me being weird.
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Dec 28, 2023 13:39
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I'll bokmark it and read it tonight probably. So more SupSup speculation (patreon spoilers) The next "big" thing? I honestly think the Velras are the big villain of this arc and that some poo poo will be going down soon. They are the organized crime in Anesidora and Alden and Lutes meddling will not go without consequences. The boater group could interfere and create tension and conflict and I believe its just a matter of time. If things get real bad then I almost assume that the Velra attached to the Demon Slayers will sabotage the effort and we'll have a big outbreak that will hit the world. Either way I think the Velras will be properly hosed up and avowed on their payroll will go villain. Leaving the world a more dangerous place. Smaller events? I'm thinking Arjun will show up in this arc as well. Probably be the one to save Alden at some point. I know they said the principal would replace bignlittle snake but it would also be possible to slot him in there. Affi fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Dec 28, 2023 |
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Dec 28, 2023 14:21
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Nettle Soup posted:Carousel apparently stubs in a few weeks. It's worth giving a look! Agreed, it's great and the author has a really good understanding of how horror is structured. It also wins my award for "Actually good use of LitRPG", which surprises me cause I never thought I would be giving that one out. Like I honestly think you could take the full set of mechanics as-is, and use it for a pretty awesome TTRPG ruleset.
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Dec 28, 2023 14:57
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BadMedic posted:Agreed, it's great and the author has a really good understanding of how horror is structured. I am still reading it and I think it improved in terms of characters and dialogue in Book 2, but as the story transitioned into another, er, storyline storyline I realized I still find the "oh we have to play along with this fake but dangerous horror story" parts a slog. I've started to skim the current chapters. cant cook creole bream posted:Okay then here It goes: I gave it a look some time ago. It's hard to write an ensemble cast or someone who's Deadpool levels of wacky and I recall thinking the author didn't pull off either well enough to keep reading.
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Dec 28, 2023 15:50
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cant cook creole bream posted:I randomly opened a story and I've spent the past few days reading The adventures of Rania Mortal the Perfectly Normal elf. I've gotten 4 chapters in and I'm really digging this. Laughed quite a few times. If you liked A Practical Guide to Evil's metanarrative aspects this would probably appeal to you, though it's obviously more DnD trope focused rather than general "fiction" tropes like APGtE. quote:Rania knew from experience that she would not be able to help improve Atrog's plan. She was pretty great at a lot of things, but being intelligent was not one of them. If intelligence was measured on a scale from one to twenty, where ten was an average person and twenty was a world-class genius, then Rania would probably be around a seven. She was not quite sure why, but she really liked this very specific analogy.
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Dec 28, 2023 16:44
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Nettle Soup posted:Carousel apparently stubs in a few weeks. It's worth giving a look! It's horror, but it never overdoes it in the gore and violence department like a lot of serials do. Thanks for the recommendation, I binged this over the past couple days and really liked it. I’m hoping it’ll hold up reading it serially. One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that it’s another story that leans hard into tropes and narratives. All of the horror stories are framed as movies that the characters are “acting” in, and if they play up their assigned roles in the story they can influence it in more favorable directions. The litrpg bits are less about numbers going up (although numbers do go up) and more about building your “character” by assembling a set of narrative devices you bring with you into each story, like the Athlete stacking up a bunch of bonuses for doing jock things and bringing a baseball bat to every story to capitalize on them.
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Dec 30, 2023 20:07
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Reading the Rania Mortal Web serial that was recommended and I don't really dig it but sadly I have nothing else to read and so I will continue.
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Dec 30, 2023 21:07
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Web Serials: I don't really dig it but sadly I have nothing else to read and so I will continue.
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Dec 30, 2023 21:11
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PerniciousKnid posted:Web Serials: I don't really dig it but sadly I have nothing else to read and so I will continue. Alternative: It's Christmas and I'm with the inlaws and there is nothing else to read.
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Dec 30, 2023 21:22
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Affi posted:Reading the Rania Mortal Web serial that was recommended and I don't really dig it but sadly I have nothing else to read and so I will continue. Have you read Memoirs of Your Local Small-time Villainess, Bog Standard Isekai, The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon, Evil to Eden: Turning a Haunted Castle into a Bed and Breakfast, Cultist of Cerebon? These are my current less popular follows.
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Dec 30, 2023 21:28
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Megazver posted:Have you read Memoirs of Your Local Small-time Villainess, Bog Standard Isekai, The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon, Evil to Eden: Turning a Haunted Castle into a Bed and Breakfast, Cultist of Cerebon? For a second, I was genuinely wondering if that was all the same title.
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Dec 30, 2023 22:06
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Megazver posted:Have you read Memoirs of Your Local Small-time Villainess, Bog Standard Isekai, The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon, Evil to Eden: Turning a Haunted Castle into a Bed and Breakfast, Cultist of Cerebon? cant cook creole bream posted:For a second, I was genuinely wondering if that was all the same title. No, bro, that's Bog Standard Isekai: Memoirs of Your Local Small-time Villainess Cultist of Cerebon - Evil to Eden: Turning a Haunted Castle into a Bed and Breakfast and The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon. Totally different book.
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Dec 30, 2023 22:15
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All my authors are on vacation 
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Dec 31, 2023 02:50
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Picked up Deeper Darker in RR kind of randomly, quite fun so far. A little bit humour, a bit space opera, nothing much numbers or LitRPG yet but the framework is there. Fun characters so far.
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Dec 31, 2023 03:07
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I wanted to like Memoirs but I just found it disconcerting how the main character didn’t form a genuine emotional connection with anybody for like, fifty chapters. She treats with everyone at a remove. It made it hard for me to get a sense of what Scarlett was really thinking and feeling. I mean, gently caress, even Meng Hao falls in love.
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Dec 31, 2023 03:08
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Yeah, I usually like Memoirs but that is definitely valid. This latest arc is focused around the companion she probably has the closest relationship to and is finally bringing the way she views people front and center. One of the seven leaders of the hells (blazes) compliments her manipulation of her companions and finally gets her at least aware of the problem.
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Dec 31, 2023 03:20
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Rania Mortal feels like the author really likes worldbuilding but has realized for anyone to read his worldbuilding there needs to be a story involved somehow. Also it has the vague stink of a ratfic due to how much everything needs to be perfectly and reasonably explained and every character (besides Rania) acts with an honestly unrealistic level of logic and reason. I'm still reading it though pretty much entirely to see people react to Rania even if I have to slog through another lore dump chapter that's just the author going on about how of course this country does everything in the most logical possible way  .
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Dec 31, 2023 04:10
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Infinity Gaia posted:Rania Mortal feels like the author really likes worldbuilding but has realized for anyone to read his worldbuilding there needs to be a story involved somehow. Also it has the vague stink of a ratfic due to how much everything needs to be perfectly and reasonably explained and every character (besides Rania) acts with an honestly unrealistic level of logic and reason. I'm still reading it though pretty much entirely to see people react to Rania even if I have to slog through another lore dump chapter that's just the author going on about how of course this country does everything in the most logical possible way I, too, am mostly in it for Rania (and Lilian) nodding sagely to each other as they suggest stuff like stacking mentorship plotlines so you can't be obi wan'd at the conclusion in one arc because another arc is too early while everyone else looks at them like they are crazy.
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Dec 31, 2023 04:20
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yeah rania seems like a bunch of exposition dumps hastily positioned as a fiction story. rania's perspective and what the hell is up with her is actually interesting, but the rest of the cast is barely a character and there is basically zero distinct character voice among them.
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Dec 31, 2023 05:00
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A big flaming stink posted:yeah rania seems like a bunch of exposition dumps hastily positioned as a fiction story. rania's perspective and what the hell is up with her is actually interesting, but the rest of the cast is barely a character and there is basically zero distinct character voice among them. Hey now, Balron has some depth. He is immortal since he survived his last week to retirement. And I'll have you know that Rania is a perfectly normal elf. Her parents had the perfectly normal 2.5 children.
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Dec 31, 2023 05:11
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Nitrousoxide posted:Hey now, Balron is immortal since he survived his last week to retirement. Look if the story was actually about rania being weird as poo poo I'd enjoy it, but no one ever reacts to the batshit insane stuff she says, not to mention i think the author has decided "show don't tell" is for cowards
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Dec 31, 2023 05:15
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Nitrousoxide posted:And I'll have you know that Rania is a perfectly normal elf. Her parents had the perfectly normal 2.5 children. It is a legally provable fact that she is perfectly normal.
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Dec 31, 2023 05:43
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whatever happened to Edge Cases? it just kinda stopped updating after the author posted an enormous rant about how the entire community was making GBS threads on him for daring to have gay protagonists, I hope they are okay 
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Dec 31, 2023 12:31
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DACK FAYDEN posted:whatever happened to Edge Cases? it just kinda stopped updating after the author posted an enormous rant about how the entire community was making GBS threads on him for daring to have gay protagonists, I hope they are okay He's been focused on his other story and posting chapters on Patreon
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Dec 31, 2023 19:33
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Well that is okay then! Long as it wasn't anything sadder.
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Dec 31, 2023 23:19
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SupSup 119: A few interesting things in this short chapter, but probably the most of all was that the Artonan knight couple (? Stuart it was more complicated than that) felt Alden's friendly omnidirectional kinderwizard authority pat he used to try and find his entrusted object. I have to imagine that another wizard or knight is going to pat back some day when Alden is trying to train his finding ability and give him a heart attack. Either way, mass pinging the entire wizard population on the island as he trains the skill is setting a pretty short timescale for him getting found out. At least we know how kibby would probably describe his authority pats, "charming" as the knight said. Unless she just found his kinderwizard pat really charming like someone singing a song your parent sang to you at bedtime Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Dec 31, 2023 |
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Dec 31, 2023 23:44
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(SupSup 119) I always really enjoy recontextualization in stories. Alden being disappointed it took him two hours to get into the object-finding mindset being followed by with other Avowed his age saying "he took two hours to figure out how to do a new trick on purpose, that's ridiculously fast" was cool. Finding out that Alden's commendation is also the highest of any human Avowed also explains the Palace of Unbreaking guy's reaction. It seems like the "honeymoon" is some sort of wizard bonding ceremony, but it was explicitly said not to be after a marriage. I wonder if the point is to support each other's Authority so the affixation hurts less. Also, apparently the demon extermination platform is experiencing chaos miasma? It already made sense why people would be made to stay away, but it also explains why the Avowed appointed to exterminate the demons train there. Being in chaos is a strain on your Authority and Authority grows faster when it has to be asserted. Nitrousoxide posted:SupSup 119: (SupSup 119) You misunderstand when the Authority greeting happened. He did that deliberately at the start of his meditation, not as a part of his object location. Otherwise they would have mentioned there being two Authority greetings and not one. (Or that someone was spamming them, when Alden was in class.)
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Jan 1, 2024 00:52
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No public Super Supportive today. Memoirs 201 felt like filler at first but I have a feeling Scarlett's confidence/arrogance will be a problem. She is sure she can resolve the Anguish issue but the Vile has been with her for a long time and understands how she works. She does know the demon's true name so maybe that's her trump card but I also wouldn't be surprised if this encounter blows up in her face. It's also nice to see her explain the situation to a companion and reward trust with trust.
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Jan 1, 2024 01:00
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Raina being Perfectly Normal is fun, but the rest of the story isn't very fun. I was expecting a cast of weirdos where Raina acts like the straight man but is actually the most insane one, but instead the rest of the cast is just sort of dull. The worldbuilding asides aren't completely uninteresting, but they're too frequent and they don't really give me the impression they're building towards something. If they were setting up a reveal that the society is nowhere as rational and efficient as they think they are that could be pretty interesting, but I doubt that they are.
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Jan 1, 2024 01:33
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Nitrousoxide posted:SupSup 119: I think that, if the Knights discover Alden, they'd be willing to respect Alden's wishes and keep it secret. I think it's definitely possible that they'll find out, though.
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Jan 1, 2024 01:50
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Plorkyeran posted:Raina being Perfectly Normal is fun, but the rest of the story isn't very fun. I was expecting a cast of weirdos where Raina acts like the straight man but is actually the most insane one, but instead the rest of the cast is just sort of dull. The worldbuilding asides aren't completely uninteresting, but they're too frequent and they don't really give me the impression they're building towards something. If they were setting up a reveal that the society is nowhere as rational and efficient as they think they are that could be pretty interesting, but I doubt that they are. Hah well, I'm almost caught up with Rania Mortal the Perfectly Normal Elf and... I can certainly say that society is nowhere as rational and efficient as they think it is, since it's a post apocalypse brought on by plugging chatgpt into the levers of the universe and letting it go hog wild, with Rania being an avatar of said Large Language Model making an "attempt" (as much as an LLM can have the agency to "attempt" anything) to understand the world better so it can better optimize around making the world interesting for the missing audience. I will agree that the author of the book needs to lean more into "show don't tell" though.
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Jan 1, 2024 02:03
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When you think about it, "telling" is just "showing, with words"
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Jan 1, 2024 03:01
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The setting is absolutely insane and I love that ridiculous explanation for why that world is like it is. But yeah, that author probably had the outline of that in their head and couldn't think of a way to present that in a more organical way. Honestly though, i wouldn't know how to establish that any different either. When it comes to the characters, I don't know. I liked them, but maybe I have low standards for that. Nitrousoxide posted:Hah well, I'm almost caught up with Rania Mortal the Perfectly Normal Elf and... The way I understand it, it's a bit more nuanced than that. The LLM basically only begs spirits to stuff. But now the LLM created a character sheet and convinced the spirit of adversary to roleplay as her. This weird avatar business can change the character of the spirits, so all of this is basically a manipulation by the LLM to change the mind of a natural constant which causes struggles and may be responsible for some prior apocalypses. Again, it's an absolutely insane setting and is certainly something I haven't seen before. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 03:44
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That does sound like a pretty interesting and novel concept and I wish it had been better translated into a story.
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Jan 1, 2024 06:01
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