Web Serials

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Ritley

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Figured it would be a better idea to have a thread dedicated to web serials rather than discuss new chapters in the what did you read thread.

This is a thread for discussion on the latest chapters, put everything in spoilers though so people looking for recommendations won’t have it spoiled doing so.

For those that aren’t familiar, web serials/novels are books that are written and released a chapter at a time. Some of the pros and cons are:

Pros:
  • They're almost all free. Authors will have patreons if you want to get chapters a bit earlier or just want to support them
  • Most authors release new chapters 2-3 times a week. Some release daily. You can wait for a few new chapters to build up, or just make it a nightly thing to check for new chapters.
  • Books are written in real time, and you can discuss what’s happening similar to how shows used to have weekly new episodes. Authors also typically take feedback on the direction the story should go, topics for bonus chapters, etc.
Cons
  • Quality is completely hit or miss. Some people have good ideas but also have the writing talent of a Down syndrome monkey, some people have a good idea but burn through it in the first 30 chapters and struggle to keep the story entertaining, and a few manage to keep sustained quality over years.
  • Seems like a lot of books get dropped before finishing once authors realize how much work it is to consistently put out good chapters multiple times a week it's don’t bother starting to read something until it hits over 30 chapters.
  • The genre seems to be heavily skewed towards variations of litrpg, and most of them are awful

There are a multitude of sites that you can find books on, typically they tend to draw certain genres:

Royal Road : Royal Road - primarily litrpg type of books

Webnovel : Webnovel - Your Fictional Stories Hub - site is mainly chinese translated stories, uses an horrific microtransaction system that prevents you from bingeing unless you pay up.

Wuxiaworld: https://www.wuxiaworld.com/ - also asian translation, more wuxia/xianxia power fantasies

Scribblehub: https://www.scribblehub.com/ - more international, fantasy / erotica oriented

Stories:
To start us off, these are the stories I have been reading or have read (the summaries are from the description pages for each story, in spoilers for space). Not including any I tried for awhile and dropped, since I’m considering these what I would recommend.

Completed:
Mother of Learning
Zorian is a teenage mage of humble birth and slightly above-average skill, attending his third year of education at Cyoria's magical academy. He is a driven and irritable young man, consumed by a desire to ensure his own future and free himself of the influence of his family, whom he resents for favoring his brothers over him. Consequently, he has no time for pointless distractions or paying attention to other people's problems. As it happens, time is something he is about to get plenty of. On the eve of the Cyoria's annual summer festival, he is killed and brought back to the beginning of the month, just before he was about to take a train to Cyoria. Suddenly trapped in a time loop with no clear end or exit, Zorian will have to look both within and without to unravel the mystery before him. And he does have to unravel it, for the time loop hadn't been made for his sake and dangers lurk everywhere... Repetition is the mother of learning, but Zorian will have to first make sure he survives to try again - in a world of magic, even a time traveler isn't safe from those who wish him ill.
This is a very good series that doesn’t add bloat and was written with a beginning, middle, and end in mind unlike most web novels. Overall a fun and very easy to read series.

Ongoing:
The Wandering Inn
An inn is a place to rest, a place to talk and share stories, or a place to find adventures, a starting ground for quests and legends.

In this world, at least. To Erin Solstice, an inn seems like a medieval relic from the past. But here she is, running from Goblins and trying to survive in a world full of monsters and magic. She’d be more excited about all of this if everything wasn’t trying to kill her.

But an inn is what she found, and so that’s what she becomes. An innkeeper who serves drinks to heroes and monsters–

Actually, mostly monsters. But it’s a living, right?

This is the story of the Wandering Inn.

One of the longest series by sheer word count, this series is a monster. The first volume has a lot of inconsistencies with the rest of the volumes, but overall I’d say it’s a fantastic series if you are looking for something to kill a lot of time. Most of the characters are great and the various plot lines are well done. It’s litRPG-lite, in that it does have classes, levels, and skills, but no character screens, HP or Mana, or Stats. No lengthy skill selections, characters sometimes get a skill when they level, usually not. I will say I’m enjoying the most recent volume less, as it seem the author has lost focus and just has too many characters running around.

Dungeon Crawler Carl
A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.

Probably one of my favorites right now, has a good bit of humor and is very well written. The bosses they have to fight so far are all essentially caricatures of shitty humans (like KraKaren, a MLM scheme monster)

Blessed Time
Some disasters can only be avoided if you know they’re coming, and even then, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.


On Karell, you are either blessed by the gods, granted a unique power and the ability to gain experience and levels, or you are forgotten. Micah Silver was a boy picked for greatness. Chosen by the gods to bear a mythic power, he longed to take his place amongst the heroes and legends he grew up reading about.

Unfortunately his primary blessing only allows him to travel into the past by sacrificing his class, wealth, and levels. Even if Micah's unwilling, fate has a way of forcing you to take up your destiny, possibly at the cost of everything. Over and over again.
Seems to take a page out of Mother of Learnings book, essentially his power is a 10 year Groundhog Day. So far the story arcs seem to be split up into those 10 year periods, and the ones so far have been pretty good without a lot of fluff.

He Who Fights With Monsters
Jason wakes up in a mysterious world of magic and monsters. He’ll face off against cannibals, cultists, wizards, monsters, and that’s just the first day. He’s going to need courage, he’s going to need wit and he’s going to need some magic powers of his own. But first, he’s going to need pants.

Follow Jason as he makes a place for himself in a world that is strange, yet sometimes strangely familiar. He’ll meet crime lords and aristocrats, gods and monsters on his path from would-be victim to heroic adventurer. At least, he tries to be heroic. It’s hard to be good when all your powers are evil.

Good writing and characters and an every weekday chapter. Set up with ranks instead of levels, there’s still a fair bit of skill descriptions but not nearly as bad as some others.

Infinite Realm
The world has ended, and those worthy of it have received the chance for a new life in a new reality.

Zach grew in power and thrived in the post-Framework world. He became a respected leader, a shining example of what it meant to be good. But as the world ended, he had only one thought: to punish the monster that had killed the world long before the Framework ended it. Yet not even with his incredible power was he able to stand against the World Ender. His arrival in the new realty, the Infinite Realm, gives him the chance to grow stronger, to find the monster again—and make it pay.

Ryun survived the chaos after the arrival of the Framework by pushing harder than anyone else. He grew in power until he became the most powerful being that had ever walked the planet; but he is hated by the world, called a monster by all others, the World Ender. As the world ends and he steps into a new one, where people stronger than him have lived for centuries, he finds himself lost and without purpose. The only thing that had mattered to him had been lost to him long ago. He truly was the monster that people considered him to be, and he now finds himself wondering if this new reality has a place for someone like him—but he had never been one for lying down and dying without a fight. One world fell to his power, and another might follow.
This one is very skill and stat description heavy. Main problem I have with it is that there are 2 main characters, and one is much more interesting than the other. For whatever reason it’s still really entertaining despite its flaws

Vaudevillian
Dylan is your average nerd. He works downtown for an architecture firm during the day and enjoys all manner of games and media in his spare time. But while Dylan likes all forms of sci-fi and fantasy, he really likes the genre of superheroes.

So when an indie company releases a virtual reality MMO where players choose to play as heroes or villains, Dylan immediately buys into it. He has a specific type of character he really enjoys watching, something that always makes his inner child laugh in delight. The Saturday morning cartoon villain.

Yes, those inept, bungling, yet highly dangerous villains found in so many of Dylan's cartoons as a child. He loves how they always come up with strange ways to conquer the world and how they get thwarted every weekend. He remembered laughing at every silly antic, every cliched shout of "Curses! Foiled again!" He loves it so much he decides to take this idea into the MMO.

But to grab a playerbase, the company has announced a promotion that players with a high enough reputation can get contacted to become permanent raid bosses in the game. Those chosen will be paid as if employees of the company. Serious players all hoping to live the dream of playing videogames all day rush to purchase copies of World of Supers!

What will happen when Dylan, someone playing the game for fun, clashes with these overly serious players?

This is one where everything takes place in a VR game, and it’s not a “serious” story. Main Character is just a dude that has fun role playing an old timey villain. Just don’t think too hard on the technology involved to actually create the game or how unrealistic pretty much anything that goes on outside of the game is.

Delve
Delve is an isekai litrpg that follows an average guy who just happened to wake up in a forest one day. He wasn’t summoned to defeat the demon lord or to save the world or anything like that, at least as far as he can tell. The only creature there to greet him was a regular old squirrel.

Soon enough, he meets other people, only to discover that he can’t speak the language, and that not everybody immediately trusts random pajama-wearing strangers they met in the middle of the wilderness. Things generally go downhill from there, at least until the blue boxes start appearing.

Delve is a story about finding your way in a new, strange, and dangerous world. It’s about avoiding death, figuring out what the heck is going on, and trying to make some friends along the way. It’s not about getting home, so much as finding a new one.

Did I mention that there will be math?

Honestly this is one I’m about to drop but figured I would put it up here. Had a pretty strong start with a person who got dropped into a world he knew nothing about and couldn’t speak the local language. He picks a class and skills that no one in that world would pick and essentially makes it work. The problem is that the MC hasn’t advanced in forever, and the series has really slow chapter releases.
 
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Ritley

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Latest He Who Fights With Monsters:
Im already tired of him being back on Earth. I liked it when it first started, but I honestly thought it was going to be like a dozen chapters or something like that before he made his way back. His family seems pretty shitty overall, and I’d much rather go back to the other world for Jason to be able to actually advance.
 

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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Figured it would be a better idea to have a thread dedicated to web serials rather than discuss new chapters in the what did you read thread.
Good idea. I was starting to think about it.
There are a multitude of sites, but from what I’ve seen the most used is Royal Road:
Royal Road
It's mostly Litrpg/Gamelit, although there are other genres as well. It started as a site for fanfiction for Legendary Moonlight Sculptor (a litrpg webnovel)

Other common web sites are:

Webnovel : Webnovel - Your Fictional Stories Hub (site is mainly chinese translated stories, uses an horrific microtransaction system that prevents you from bingeing unless you pay up)

Wuxiaworld: https://www.wuxiaworld.com/ (also asian translation, more wuxia/xianxia power fantasies)

Scribblehub: https://www.scribblehub.com/ (more international, fantasy / erotica oriented)

As an aside:
Both also have Kindle versions if you prefer on those formats. Wandering Inn volume 1 & 2 is both on Kindle (not KU) and also available on audible, while Dungeon Crawler Carl is coming out this month.
 
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Ritley

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Good idea. I was starting to think about it.

It's mostly Litrpg/Gamelit, although there are other genres as well. It started as a site for fanfiction for Legendary Moonlight Sculptor (a litrpg webnovel)

Other common web sites are:

Webnovel : Webnovel - Your Fictional Stories Hub (site is mainly chinese translated stories, uses an horrific microtransaction system that prevents you from bingeing unless you pay up)

Wuxiaworld: https://www.wuxiaworld.com/ (also asian translation, more wuxia/xianxia power fantasies)

Scribblehub: https://www.scribblehub.com/ (more international, fantasy / erotica oriented)

Thanks, added those.

As an aside:

Both also have Kindle versions if you prefer on those formats. Wandering Inn volume 1 & 2 is both on Kindle (not KU) and also available on audible, while Dungeon Crawler Carl is coming out this month.

The ebook version of TWI is what I started with when I realized it was available. The fact that it’s only on volume 2 while the site is at volume 7 though really shows you that the ebook versions are not a top priority though.

DCC author does seem like he is pushing the ebook version as soon as the arc is complete on RR though.
 
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Ritley

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Recent Wandering Inn:
Anyone else let down by the army of the king skill that finally gets used? It’s been hyped up as a skill that literally prevents nations from attacking, and turns out all it does is give like 8 levels? It’s not bad but doesn’t seem to live up to the hype.

pirateaba’s writing seems to have gotten really sloppy the last few months. Point of views shifting around all over the place, sometimes mid paragraph. Too much author POV explaining shit in a way that I’m sure pirateaba thinks is cool but is actually boring and is being used way too often. “But it’s not his/her story” is used nearly every chapter now.

Also, I’m ready for the Onieva shit to be over but I know that will drag on so the bluehairs have someone to relate to.
 
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Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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My own current series on RR are also:

- Delve
- Infinite Realm
- He Who Fights With Monsters

And then:

- Ar'kendrithyst:
Basically, a fantasy world suffered a massive Apocalypse by being thrown into "our normal Universe"... and survived by creating a RPG System to control out-of-shape magic.

THEN, a pair of unlikely earth people are thrown into a dimensional portal, land in the middle of this, and the Dark Dragon God takes interest in them.

- Defiance of the Fall:
Standard system apocalypse, combines concept of cultivation with a RPG system. The main character is too much of a "can't fail", and the story is still entertaining, but becoming boring.

- The Daily Grind:
Two story arcs. The first was absolutely interesting for its bonkers premise: Guy working in tech support call center finds that, every week, a door in his company building opens into a RPGish version of an office. He battles thumbleweeds of CAT-5 cables, aggressive copiers, staple-throwing staplers, and decision trees. And gets random skill boosts like: [+1 Skill Rank : Drawing - Abstract Art].
Trigger warning: involves a bisexual throuple as main characters.
Second arc is not as entertaining as the first one.

- The Gilded Hero (book 1 complete):
Dark and gritty litrpg. Guy is summoned to serve as a cannon fodder in a massive war, due to the bonus summoned "Heroes" get.

Finally, on my to-read list, due to regular recommendations:
- Threadbare (book 1, 2 & 3 complete, also on Kindle):
An animated Golem living a RPG world has many adventures. His main characteristics: its a teddy bear.
 
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TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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I really like Delve but the guy really fucked up on the world organization to the point that it is very nonsensical and irritates me. Updating slowly is just another issue with it. The grand scheme of the world is about the Democratic Kingdoms and Empire conflict but in that dynamic the global, "Watch" order makes ZERO fucking sense. When all they seemingly do is serve as police for that singular city and the other distant independent city that is also the Adventurer's headquarters but at the same time are commanded by an uber scary lich queen or whatever with mind control powers.... who sits on some random island alone unless you piss her off.

I like where it's going I guess but it needs to stop fucking around. All of the characters and the mercenary company arc being great keeps me reading.
 

velk

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I think the political organization of Delve is deliberate, in that it is looking at how individuals with godlike power shape society around themselves. The wardens are the result of one uber-powerful person deciding that she is going to enforce order on the world, something that could never happen in our world, but in Delve her strength is enough that she can just mostly get away with it.

I agree the slow updates are annoying there, but I still look forward to reading the update on the weekends.

I've stuck Ar'kendrithyst on the to-read list.

Most of the ones I read regularly have been covered already, either here or in recently read.

I'm reading Chrysalis at the moment, which is pretty entertaining. Typical isekai litrpg style, difference though is that the MC ends up as giant ant, and then pretty much rolls with it. The early chapters have awful editing, but partway through the author gets some volunteer proofreaders which make a night and day difference in the quality there. It's not amazing stuff, but I find it solidly entertaining so far.

Vainqueuer the Dragon ended this week, with a pretty satisfying ending overall. I quite liked this series, particularly Victor's, uh, 'complicated' love life. The author was definitely taking aim at Isekai tropes in actually giving him what he wanted.
This man does not even know the meaning of 'Don't stick it in the crazy'.
 
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velk

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Recent Wandering Inn:
Anyone else let down by the army of the king skill that finally gets used? It’s been hyped up as a skill that literally prevents nations from attacking, and turns out all it does is give like 8 levels? It’s not bad but doesn’t seem to live up to the hype.

pirateaba’s writing seems to have gotten really sloppy the last few months. Point of views shifting around all over the place, sometimes mid paragraph. Too much author POV explaining shit in a way that I’m sure pirateaba thinks is cool but is actually boring and is being used way too often. “But it’s not his/her story” is used nearly every chapter now.

Also, I’m ready for the Onieva shit to be over but I know that will drag on so the bluehairs have someone to relate to.

Mmm, maybe. It buffed the lowbies up to level 30, and presumably effects the entire army, no matter how big it is, so it's more a matter of using it at an incredibly shitty time in a more or less panic.
 

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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Another webseries I still follow, but not on the main sites:


That's called the Jenkinverse (despite the titular Jenkins not having been in the story for nearly 2/3rd of the chapters), and a mainstay of Reddit's HFY subreddit.
HFY = Humanity, Fuck Yeah! if you are wondering. It's an umbrella for all kind of sci-fi stuff about how awesome humans are vs aliens. Which is a kind of funny in this one, since the story is basically setting up one of the other Deathworlder species as basically probably better than humans.

Quick summary: Galactics rank worlds in habitability on a 1-10 scale. Anything above 10 is called a Deathworld, and isn't supposed to be even able to host intelligent life. Guess who lives on a Deathworld, and some Galactics have difficulty wrapping their mind around it? And then, it turns out there's a reason why Deathworlds don't have intelligent life, and the Humans don't like that.

It's a very complicated setting, with a lot of varied point of views, uber-marines, evil aliens, politics, and... well, Humanity, FUCK YEAH!
 
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Lanx

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is there some weird wuxiaworld, comment on a series and you can keep on reading more?

thing they had going on? i stopped reading most of the stuff once that happened, i believe it was annoying and theyre all just the same.

i think it'd be helpful too if we did a

web novel - aka manga/manhwa

example

Peerless Martial God - aka God of Martial Arts
 

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Another webseries I still follow, but not on the main sites:


That's called the Jenkinverse (despite the titular Jenkins not having been in the story for nearly 2/3rd of the chapters), and a mainstay of Reddit's HFY subreddit.
HFY = Humanity, Fuck Yeah! if you are wondering. It's an umbrella for all kind of sci-fi stuff about how awesome humans are vs aliens. Which is a kind of funny in this one, since the story is basically setting up one of the other Deathworlder species as basically probably better than humans.

Quick summary: Galactics rank worlds in habitability on a 1-10 scale. Anything above 10 is called a Deathworld, and isn't supposed to be even able to host intelligent life. Guess who lives on a Deathworld, and some Galactics have difficulty wrapping their mind around it? And then, it turns out there's a reason why Deathworlds don't have intelligent life, and the Humans don't like that.

It's a very complicated setting, with a lot of varied point of views, uber-marines, evil aliens, politics, and... well, Humanity, FUCK YEAH!

I liked Deathworlders and I've read a lot of HFY. Some of that shit is A++. However, reddit is pretty awful for serials so the better one offs really thrive on r/HFY compared to others. TY for showing me this in a convenient binge format.
 
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TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
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is there some weird wuxiaworld, comment on a series and you can keep on reading more?

thing they had going on? i stopped reading most of the stuff once that happened, i believe it was annoying and theyre all just the same.

i think it'd be helpful too if we did a

web novel - aka manga/manhwa

example

Peerless Martial God - aka God of Martial Arts

Infinite Realm, Cradle, Reborn:Apocalypse are my current favorite Wuxia type stores out there I guess.
 

Ritley

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- Ar'kendrithyst:
Basically, a fantasy world suffered a massive Apocalypse by being thrown into "our normal Universe"... and survived by creating a RPG System to control out-of-shape magic.

THEN, a pair of unlikely earth people are thrown into a dimensional portal, land in the middle of this, and the Dark Dragon God takes interest in them.
Started reading this, starts out very similar to Delve but I’m liking it a lot so far around chapter 50.
 
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TJT

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I'm getting kind of annoyed with He Who Fights Monsters. Guy's been dragging on this current story arc for like a solid month and endlessly teases it into, "just this next chapter." It was fine for awhile but this was too much.

I'll be monumentally pissed if the "resolution" with his family is just cut with what he's done so far because it's completely nonsensical.
 
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Ukerric

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I'm getting kind of annoyed with He Who Fights Monsters. Guy's been dragging on this current story arc for like a solid month and endlessly teases it into, "just this next chapter." It was fine for awhile but this was too much.

I'll be monumentally pissed if the "resolution" with his family is just cut with what he's done so far because it's completely nonsensical.
Relatively slice of life, not much action yet, I agree.

It's going to end with Taika perverting Gordon with old movies and series, mini-Jason (Emi) wrapping Shade around her finger, and Jason left alone forlornly looking at Colin "You're never going to abandon me, old buddy?" (/em waves its many lamprey mouths in negation)
 
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TJT

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Relatively slice of life, not much action yet, I agree.

It's going to end with Taika perverting Gordon with old movies and series, mini-Jason (Emi) wrapping Shade around her finger, and Jason left alone forlornly looking at Colin "You're never going to abandon me, old buddy?" (/em waves its many lamprey mouths in negation)

He better not relent and give Kaito, Amy, or Mom jack shit either. All three of them should be under strict speak when spoken to rules. I wouldn't give anything to anyone in the family other than Hiro, Taika and Em. Everyone else, at a minimum, looked the other way when Mom encouraged Kaito and Amy together. Added saltiness is that Mom and Dad purchased houses for Kaito and Erika next door to eachother while Jason lived in Sydney alone, blacksheeped, spiraled into depression, and ruined his life with self-destructive behavior. None of them (even Erika) gave a shit until after he was dead/missing.

You can't just have a casual conversation to resolve all of that. It's not possible without being stupid.
 
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Ukerric

Bearded Ape
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You can't just have a casual conversation to resolve all of that. It's not possible without being stupid.
It can't be resolved. That kind of shit never is. You can let it go, try to ignore it, but it's an albatross that is going to hang on your shoulders for the rest of your life.
(which can be pretty long if you keep ranking up)

If he writes it well, it is going to remain a kind of shimmering background that's never fully cleared. Because it isn't, until everyone is dead. As they say, you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family.
 
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TJT

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Deathworlders extended series is pretty good. But this author strikes me as annoyingly Woke.
 
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