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All you need to understand Xianxia is this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l0WnLWT40g
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Jul 6, 2023 16:48
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i started reading one of the innumerable cn monster raising stories. those are mostly interchangeable, but this one is an exception. see, it very rapidly stops being about monster raising at all. the mc uses his cheat to do a couple of low level monster upgrades, as is the standard. but then he stops progressing upward at all. it's not like he's stuck, or anything. no, he stops progressing because of the author's true passion- luxury decorating! a switch flips and the mc stops being impoverished and obtains functionally infinite wealth. so from then on the wn spends about 70% of its time on describing how the mc buys, sells and produces luxury materials to better decorate his home. this is also what his monster raising cheat is inexplicably dedicated toward. also, early on there was a focus on the mc using his cheats to heal heavily injured pets. but now he only heals plants and fish that are still technically monster pets, but are exclusively decorative. then he uses them as ludicrously valuable luxury decorations. the mc doesn't really have a goal, either. every so often someone pops in and tells him he should do x, and then he does it which results in more decorating.
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Jul 23, 2023 05:01
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i started reading one of the innumerable cn monster raising stories. those are mostly interchangeable, but this one is an exception. see, it very rapidly stops being about monster raising at all. the mc uses his cheat to do a couple of low level monster upgrades, as is the standard. but then he stops progressing upward at all. it's not like he's stuck, or anything. no, he stops progressing because of the author's true passion- luxury decorating! a switch flips and the mc stops being impoverished and obtains functionally infinite wealth. so from then on the wn spends about 70% of its time on describing how the mc buys, sells and produces luxury materials to better decorate his home. this is also what his monster raising cheat is inexplicably dedicated toward. also, early on there was a focus on the mc using his cheats to heal heavily injured pets. but now he only heals plants and fish that are still technically monster pets, but are exclusively decorative. then he uses them as ludicrously valuable luxury decorations. And you're not going to tell us what novel this is???????????????
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Jul 23, 2023 15:54
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I Thought I Wanted to Raise Monsters But Actually I Discovered My True Passion, Interior Decoration; Also gently caress The Dumb Fat Americans, China Is Best
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Jul 23, 2023 15:59
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it's called fey evolution merchant. i forgot to specify that it is actually incredibly dull and meandering. i use it as a sleep aid.
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Jul 23, 2023 16:57
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"hey you should make an esports team despite never expressing any particular interest in esports and not actually having any teammates." "okay" and then this somehow leads to more decorating while the actual esports team aspects are ignored.
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Jul 23, 2023 17:01
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Megazver posted:Also gently caress The Dumb Fat Americans, China Is Best gimme the GOD drat candy posted:it's called fey evolution merchant. i forgot to specify that it is actually incredibly dull and meandering. i use it as a sleep aid. The same could be said of all Chinese web novels (thank you! Dumb long webnovels are amazing as stress relief, and weirdly slot in nicely into my reading rotation alongside paranormal romances.)
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Jul 23, 2023 17:01
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:it's called fey evolution merchant. i forgot to specify that it is actually incredibly dull and meandering. i use it as a sleep aid. I vaguely recalled reading a few chapters of something like this and deciding I wasn't into it, so I checked just now and no, that was a different webnovel with the exact same premise. I think it was Astral Pet Store. The one webnovel that was similar to this that I actually enjoyed was Museum of Deadly Beasts.
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Jul 23, 2023 17:05
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On the subject of novels you might actually enjoy, Er Gen and Deathblade are back at it with Beyond the Timescape. It's not going to blow your socks off with originality but the setting has a minor twist (a dead god in orbit around the world sometimes opens his eyes and nukes a country with death energy) and as usual Er Gen is better at creating interesting characters than any other xianxia author, such as a minor sect leader who's read "ancient records" and knows a xianxia protagonist when he meets one, causing him to become desperate the murder the protagonist before he can get strong enough to return and take revenge. You can probably guess how well that goes for him.
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Jul 24, 2023 04:56
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Sindai posted:On the subject of novels you might actually enjoy, Er Gen and Deathblade are back at it with Beyond the Timescape. I checked that out previously, and the protagonist seems especially sociopathic. Unless they grow as a person later on (and not just towards harem members), I recommend against reading it. Its a shame because the setting could set up some potentially interesting plots. Also, the thing about monster raising stories is that a lot of the have monsters that are basically fully fledged people, but they are still treated like animals. Even ones that are raised from birth by the protaganist are treated like beloved pets instead an actual person. IShallRiseAgain fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Jul 24, 2023 |
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Jul 24, 2023 05:06
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I was leery too because initially it reminded me too much of Renegade Immortal but he does make friends, and the way they bounce off of him is pretty funny. For example: him repeatedly erasing and re-adding the question mark after the Captain's name on his murder list. No sign of romance so far which is for the best since I think he's still 15 or so. Sindai fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Jul 24, 2023 |
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Jul 24, 2023 05:09
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Sindai posted:I was leery too because initially it reminded me too much of Renegade Immortal but he does make friends, and the way they bounce off of him is pretty funny. For example: him repeatedly erasing and re-adding the question mark after the Captain's name on his murder list. Describing the MC’s “murder list” is not exactly convincing me the MC isn’t a sociopath.
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Jul 24, 2023 05:18
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It's annoying how Webnovel doesn't seem to be translating any new novels by any of the authors I actually liked. Authors of Cultivation Chat Group, Library of Heaven's Path, Museum of Deadly Beasts, Release that Witch all have new novels on Qidian CN that look pretty fun and none of it gets translated to English. Sigh. I guess I'll just have to wait until good Chat-GPT MTL is a thing.
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Jul 24, 2023 10:24
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Sindai posted:On the subject of novels you might actually enjoy, Er Gen and Deathblade are back at it with Beyond the Timescape. I'd been tempted to post about it too after it got going but it's definitely an Er Gen novel, though generally in the good ways. I've read all of his except the most recent one and so far I think this one has the most normal Er Gen MC to date since he actually gets to bounce off other characters more than earlier novel MCs and in general everything seems a little less edgelord than what I expected. The comedy level feels more embedded and subtle so while there's not quite the designated comedy relief character, the supporting cast all get to take part more. It definitely has more interesting characters than his other stuff, especially by this point.
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Jul 24, 2023 21:13
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"I am trying to make this sound like natural English. Also, Chinese has a way to use pronouns to indicate that the person being talked about is a god, so to replicate that naturally in English I Tunicate fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jul 25, 2023 |
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Jul 25, 2023 00:08
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I stumbled upon a story on RR that's totally a slightly cleaned up MTL translation of a Chinese webnovel... but I'm not sure if it's, cough, unauthorized or not. On one hand, the 'author' is also posting several other stories from different Chinese authors, which is weird. On the other hand, they also post them on Webnovel.com, right under Qidian's noses (and those stories were actually posted on Qidian in Chinese) so surely they couldn't get away with it if there wasn't some kind of arrangement. Maybe the Chinese authors, like Russian litrpg writers, have finally figured out they can try to publish translations of their stories on their own. Anyway, cough, the story is actually fun and no one else is translating it, so, cough, who could possibly tell if it is or isn't, hmmm, just gonna have to live with uncertainty.
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Jul 27, 2023 13:48
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Megazver posted:I stumbled upon a story on RR that's totally a slightly cleaned up MTL translation of a Chinese webnovel... but I'm not sure if it's, cough, unauthorized or not. On one hand, the 'author' is also posting several other stories from different Chinese authors, which is weird. On the other hand, they also post them on Webnovel.com, right under Qidian's noses (and those stories were actually posted on Qidian in Chinese) so surely they couldn't get away with it if there wasn't some kind of arrangement. Maybe the Chinese authors, like Russian litrpg writers, have finally figured out they can try to publish translations of their stories on their own. What is the story?
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Jul 28, 2023 07:38
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https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/70147/run-a-medical-clinic-in-the-abyssal-world
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Jul 28, 2023 20:23
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Megazver posted:I stumbled upon a story on RR that's totally a slightly cleaned up MTL translation of a Chinese webnovel... but I'm not sure if it's, cough, unauthorized or not. On one hand, the 'author' is also posting several other stories from different Chinese authors, which is weird. On the other hand, they also post them on Webnovel.com, right under Qidian's noses (and those stories were actually posted on Qidian in Chinese) so surely they couldn't get away with it if there wasn't some kind of arrangement. Maybe the Chinese authors, like Russian litrpg writers, have finally figured out they can try to publish translations of their stories on their own. Update, lol. First, this story disappeared off RR, but it was still up on WN and the, cough, author still had the other two stories they were publishing up on RR. Now the other stories on RR and WN turned into this:    but Abyssal Clinic is still being published under a paywall (which they receive payment for, presumably) on WN. Man, I just wanted to read some dumb Chinese isekai, maaaan.
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Aug 28, 2023 15:39
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lol at "OH NOTHING" - Magical Realism
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Aug 28, 2023 23:52
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Cynic Jester posted:Beware of Chicken on RRL is an enjoyable read for anyone looking for something new. Coming back three years later, but I remembered about it earlier this week, and decided to take the plunge today. Holy poo poo, thank you for this recommendation.
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Jan 18, 2024 01:55
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Will Wight has a kickstarter to create an animated Cradle TV series https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/author-will-wight/animating-cradle-bestselling-fantasy-novels-come-to-life
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Jan 27, 2024 04:09
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started reading 'The Esper's Game' I don't think its that popular. But liking its simplicity. Its a korean webnovel, standard esper/dungeon prologue, but after its all over. The 'strongest' stays back in the final dungeon. and reappears 17 years later the same age. Espers now is a sports game, since the evil was defeated. I thought he would join in and slay everyone, but his special ability is "scanning eyes" so he goes into a teaching/coach role, which I'm totally for. And at least for now, he's a good mix of arrogant, but not a jerk like a lot of other korean stories where they go full jerk early on.
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Jan 28, 2024 06:14
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IShallRiseAgain posted:Will Wight has a kickstarter to create an animated Cradle TV series https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/author-will-wight/animating-cradle-bestselling-fantasy-novels-come-to-life I mean, I'll put down money, but I don't think this is going anywhere.
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Jan 29, 2024 16:18
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:I mean, I'll put down money, but I don't think this is going anywhere. I mean, I assume this wouldn't be talking about having Jay Oliva if it wasn't going to go anywhere.
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Jan 29, 2024 16:33
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IShallRiseAgain posted:Will Wight has a kickstarter to create an animated Cradle TV series https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/author-will-wight/animating-cradle-bestselling-fantasy-novels-come-to-life It's going to be so hard to make Lindon likeable in that format though. So much of the early books' humor revolves around the disconnect between Lindon looking like a hulking murderhobo and being superpolite because he's actually weak in cultivator terms. I really hope they just skip the whole sequence where he beats up the kids several years younger than him because he finally
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Jan 29, 2024 16:39
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LLSix posted:It's going to be so hard to make Lindon likeable in that format though. Hey he didn't actually steal the manual, it was just in an obscure kiddie part of the library no one gave a poo poo about because it was almost useless for anyone who wasn't specifically Lindon. Frankly the adaptation should change it so he does steal it to be more in line with how much of a hilarious klepto he becomes.
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Jan 29, 2024 16:41
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LLSix posted:It's going to be so hard to make Lindon likeable in that format though. I hope it plays out like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIcUgyLxNBA&t=77s
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Jan 29, 2024 16:45
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IShallRiseAgain posted:Will Wight has a kickstarter to create an animated Cradle TV series https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/author-will-wight/animating-cradle-bestselling-fantasy-novels-come-to-life Where's the tier for physical books, I want to finish my set in a conveniently helpful way  
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Jan 29, 2024 16:47
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Supremezero posted:I mean, I assume this wouldn't be talking about having Jay Oliva if it wasn't going to go anywhere. All sorts of projects enter production, have big names attached to them and end up going nowhere. I don't know whether this one was shopped around to investors for funding, but if it did then it looks like they didn't bite all that hard, because they've needed to go to the Kickstarter well for more. Like, the fact that there's a Kickstarter at all is already a bad sign to me. And that Kickstarter is looking like it might just hit its minimum target, to produce... an animatic of Unsouled, which they will then presumably try to use to drum up more interest. But Unsouled is imo by far the weakest material in the series, so I don't have a lot of faith in it. In fairness this would be a good opportunity for Wight to punch it up some. Checking Wight's blog, he does say Olivia approached them, which is a good sign, but it doesn't really matter if the money doesn't come together. KOGAHAZAN!! fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Jan 31, 2024 |
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Jan 29, 2024 17:03
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So a friend of mine is getting into reading xiania via Beware of Chicken and possibly Cradle, and wanted to know more about the Asian side of things. I got excited and began to write things up, and well, here's some of it because I think SA might have fun reading my takes on xianxia, imported from a discord chat: OK so web novels, I've focused on the English translated Asian ones, specifically Chinese and Korean. I've read a little of a lot of series, sifted through reviews, and loaded my kindle multiple times. Most of the stuff I've poked has like 90000 chapters and in general the translations are awkward. Servicable at best. This genre is very obviously adhering to the Dickens style of wordcount/chapter count = money, and everything reflects that, even the good ones. I am specifically referring to xianxia, isekai (well, Chinese equivalent), VRMMO and all of the stuff falling into the power fantasy genre. I rarely if ever touch the wuxia stuff as I love supernatural aspects. Obligatory warnings: a shitload of these feature rear end in a top hat protagonists, sexism, harems, casual use of calling people fatties, extreme violence, rape, etc. In a sense a lot of them are extremely immature, basically extreme power fantasies for teenagers. There's also a bunch of Chinese nationalism (or Korean, or Japanese, based on which country the author is from) if you wind up any featuring the 'real world'. So read with caution. Ironically, the BL ones in these genres lose most of these warnings and are weirdly wholesome compared to these? Like, genuinely, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is a wild tonal shift compared to Renegade Immortal despite featuring the same type of setting and some of the same type of characters. Renegade Immortal is actually a decent place to start as an example. It released in 2009, has 2000 chapters, and is fully translated. https://www.novelupdates.com/series/renegade-immortal/ It's one of the 'better' ones in the genre, and in some ways I'd rec it...and others I wouldn't. Its author Er Gen goes on to write multiple other long classics in the genre (I Shall Seal the Heavens, A Will Eternal, etc) that I haven't read because I decided to finish reading Renegade Immortal first, like a fool. Anyways. Its premise is, a young man is inducted into a local sect for training to become an immortal. Cue your standard weak to strong plot, right? Wrong. Welcome to the most backstabbing school of assholes I've ever seen: because the martial world is all about strength, the strong prey on the weak, the weak struggle by with scraps, and a lot is just... awful? But fascinating. Our hero has to deal with a traitorous mentor, a cheat item that isn't actually always useful, and all kinds of other problems. He does become strong... but it's a fascinating, awful journey. It doesn't help that this is one translated before a good translator picked up Er Gen, so most of Renegade Immortal is going to be tough with the translation. I like it because it's an active dialogue with the cliches of the genre while also enjoying them, and it was a cool counterpoint to Martial World, which is a straightforward tale. It also has interesting arcs, and so on and so forth. Would I rec it? /stares into sunset Martial World, meanwhile, is an easy rec if you want a more straightforward story. https://www.novelupdates.com/series/martial-world/ This one has a problem where one of the villains powers up by raping women, and the author uses this to motivate our hero by threatening one of his love interests. whoof what a content warning. ahem. Anyways, our hero goes to the capital! He wants to join the martial arts school! It's been long enough that I don't remember why, but: his cheat item is a magical cube that is basically the graveyard of a whole army of martial artists, and he slowly absorbs techniques from it. He gets into the school, begins training in the art of the spear (cool! not a sword!) and gets swept up into power, politics, and getting STRONK. It is - at least up to the point where he winds up in a new country - straightforward and fun. But I enjoy the training-and-learning-and-impressing-people phase in these books! Its TL was OK as I recall, which makes it really good by these standards 
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Jan 29, 2024 17:28
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LLSix posted:It's going to be so hard to make Lindon likeable in that format though. I mean, 'gigantic towering brute with resting murderface who's also an adorable himbo' also describes Ichiban Kasuga, and I don't think there's anyone out there who dislikes Ichi.
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Jan 29, 2024 17:37
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Darth Walrus posted:I mean, 'gigantic towering brute with resting murderface who's also an adorable himbo' also describes Ichiban Kasuga, and I don't think there's anyone out there who dislikes Ichi. Ichiban doesn't have a resting murderface, though. He's directly described as being charismatic and I can't remember "people being intimidated/afraid based off his appearance" being a thing.
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Jan 29, 2024 20:43
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StrixNebulosa posted:Obligatory warnings: a shitload of these feature rear end in a top hat protagonists, sexism, harems, casual use of calling people fatties, extreme violence, rape, etc. In a sense a lot of them are extremely immature, basically extreme power fantasies for teenagers. There's also a bunch of Chinese nationalism (or Korean, or Japanese, based on which country the author is from) if you wind up any featuring the 'real world'. So read with caution. Well, a lot of what you're describing are not only extreme power fantasies for teenagers, but extreme power fantasies for teenage men. I haven't read much Chinese BL, but it's mostly read by women, right? So what the audience expects is going to look different. I've noticed the same thing reading xianxia with a female main character; there's much less of that stuff (or at least some of it; unfortunately, the main character will still probably have enemies who are "fat and ugly"... at least Er Gen likes the MC's fat friend!) but, of course, there's always a romance with a hot guy. I'm sad most of this stuff doesn't get translated (from what I can see) but I recommend Ascending, Do Not Disturb, at least, as a light fluffy romcom.
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Jan 30, 2024 01:35
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I enjoyed Ascending, Do Not Disturb, but the female MC was unsettlingly young for a romance. Much, much younger than the male MC. If you have any other recommendations like that but with less of an age gap I would love to read them, it was refreshingly fun. LLSix fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Jan 30, 2024 |
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Jan 30, 2024 02:23
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nrook posted:Well, a lot of what you're describing are not only extreme power fantasies for teenagers, but extreme power fantasies for teenage men. I haven't read much Chinese BL, but it's mostly read by women, right? So what the audience expects is going to look different. I've noticed the same thing reading xianxia with a female main character; there's much less of that stuff (or at least some of it; unfortunately, the main character will still probably have enemies who are "fat and ugly"... at least Er Gen likes the MC's fat friend!) but, of course, there's always a romance with a hot guy. I'm sad most of this stuff doesn't get translated (from what I can see) but I recommend Ascending, Do Not Disturb, at least, as a light fluffy romcom. Oh yeah, it's still a very incomplete chain of rambles/novel recs, because I haven't even touched stuff like the fun "now I own a pet store!" or my favorite comedy Library of Heaven's Path and so on.
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Jan 30, 2024 02:36
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nrook posted:at least Er Gen likes the MC's fat friend! I remember this line even years later lol  Been reading beyond teh timescape and er gen really is the grandmaster at the genre, he can just play straight cliche to expectation and subvert it all at the same time. only person capable of writing a joke
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Feb 4, 2024 04:43
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The official Renegade Immortal translations are so bad the protagonists name is sometimes spelled 3 different ways all in one chapter. I made it about halfway in despite that. Occasional weirdness common to WNs aside, the mortal arc in Renegade Immortal had some genuinely touching moments. I should really give ISSTH a shot.
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Feb 6, 2024 15:51
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LLSix posted:I enjoyed Ascending, Do Not Disturb, but the female MC was unsettlingly young for a romance. Much, much younger than the male MC. My Disciple Died Yet Again overstays its welcome a bit, but its good. There is an age-gap, but the protagonist is over 100 years old before the romance starts I think. The protagonist might have also been mentally in her 20s at the start? (the premise is that she keeps on dying and being reincarnated.) Age gaps kind of get wonky with characters that are immortal/very long lived. There is a lot of making fun of the tropes of the genre.
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Feb 6, 2024 17:35
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Homeless Friend posted:I remember this line even years later lol lol I have my problems with er gen but there are some really funny bits in there. still lol at the opening of a will eternal, where the mc slots in with the cooking team of outer disciples who are, of course, called "big fatty," "second fatty" etc., all the way down, and becomes "ninth fatty" immediately
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Feb 6, 2024 17:46
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