• God@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Douluo Dalu’s protagonist’s weapons were some throwable things, pretty much a Mary Sue who never failed a shot and never failed to surprise an opponent. Basically his reincarnation cheat. He also focused on poison a lot. I don’t know why I liked it so much. I honestly have so much criticism for it hahah but at the same time the story was pretty cool.

      One of my favorite things in Xianxia is not even the whole killing and fighting, although that’s not bad either, but chiefly the literary tourism I can do. I love doing tourism as well and meeting different cultures and perspectives, different landscapes, it feels very rewarding.

      I haven’t been able to start with Japanese literature, though. Their train of thought style prose is impossible for me.

      I tried Reverend Insanity (is that the Gu guy who’s notoriously evil?). I’ve tried a few times. I think I get the same problem as with Japanese novels, trying to stick my head into the character’s drive and not really “clicking”.

      Lord of the Mysteries, was that the guy that was kind of integrated with a tree and was like a mind beside a city and was farming Bleach-style minions to do his bidding and govern his ever-expanding domain? I don’t know if that’s the one or if it was a other one that I recall had more of a punkish urban fantasy vibe.

      And yeah, I used to read everything on wuxiaworld. Their shenanigans turned me toward doing a bit more piracy. I was very poor when I started and literally had no money to pay anything. Nowadays I do but I’m not as obsessive about it. I did pay like $70 for a yearly Viki subscription to watch more kdrama though. Nowadays my wallet seems to have a hole lmao. My software dev money is financing shitty startups around the world.

      Edit: I also “disingenuously” implied that I don’t like the violence in Xianxia but chiefly the tourism. Tbh I do like their contrasting and super exaggerated and ultra-violent perspective of the world. That feeling they evoke of eternal growth and violence is, while obviously not emulatable, mesmerizing. There’s something very human about conquest war and they readily accept it.

        • God@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          I don’t remember spring traps in douluo dalu, mmm. I remember fighting, poison, building weapons and smithing, some spiritual hammer, and tons of superpowers. Maybe I just forgot them.

          Agreed 100% on the worldbuilding. My most enjoyable books have enormous very complex worlds. The books I’ve been trading most recently try to have characters who are distinguishable among themselves. Some of the things I enjoy the most are when the character travels and suddenly everything is new again lmao, but with some stability because, well, they and their plot are still there.

          The most recent book I read was like the most complex puzzle like you mention, and the author just kept piling on things and I was like, how are you even gonna untangle this mess lmao, sometimes he just goes and inserts a mood like “well no one even knows what happened but that’s okay”.

          Aahhh so LoTM was that one. I tried to read it but it was so strange at first that I didn’t get immersed quick enough for my ADHD to lock in. That’s most things tbh. By the time I remember I was doing X, I already forgot what I was doing and I’m doing Y with great passion and I’m like, whelp, this is my life now. But it gets recommended so much that I will probably give it another try later on in life.

          I hadn’t watched a Korean show in like all my life. And suddenly this year I decided “why not watch one of these?” and I just watched the soapiest romance ever and I actually liked it, so I’ve now watched over 15 kdramas this year and more to come. It was a surprising development, to say the least. From almost hating it because of prejudice against romance, Korean stuff and things teenage women like, to obsessively binging them with zero period of transition.

            • God@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              I tried reading Warlock of the Magus World. I love the way people describe his character. Somehow though reading it was much harder. There was something coarse stopping me all the while and ultimately it wasn’t giving me the good feel I usually get. I don’t know what it was, maybe the different kind of motivation the character has. Which reminds me of RI, similar characters probably.

              Damn you flipped on the kdrama’s, I personally could never get into romance or drama

              You know, it is so stupidly strange. As a kid, I was a snob metalhead, doing anything not to be “girly”, I dressed black, carried a chain, wanted to be violent, read the “Bible of the Church of Satan” and I was like 10% is weird but the rest is awesome! And then I met the ideas of Stirner and was like “holy shit he’s me!”. My tastes in music are super aggressive and many claim it’s not even music even though it’s what I enjoy. And my tastes in literature are similarish to yours. These books have a lot of cool shit but they’re pretty much aggression with sugar on top lmao.

              So in my teenage ideas of superiority and manlihood I’d insult lgbt people, people who liked romantic stuff, any genre of music that was anything less than rock, and even tho I don’t have that perspective anymore, my tastes in music and media have remained rather stable.

              To switch from being all “waaaaar, weeaponnns, aggression is my music!” to watching soapy dramas of pink girls and boys in love. It’s hard for me to understand how that happened but here we are.

                • God@sh.itjust.works
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  Egoism isn’t like hedonism for me. Sometimes maybe. It’s more of a realization of priorities, when you realize that 99% of what people tell you is important is actually completely irrelevant. Serve God, your country, morality, your family, your property, etc. You end up sacrificing your well-being for others, to externalities and ideas, many of which couldn’t even be less important to you, and some of which are actually harmful. Egoism for me was discovering that it was not my parents’ first concern to protect me from bullying, because they had their own lives too, and that everyone’s important things are what’s directly around them, and what’s important to me is external to others.

                  Stoicism is not completely incompatible with egoism. I don’t think they can be compared too well because I think they belong in different categories. I myself have taken a lot from stoicism. Egoism is more about prioritizing whatever you truly “want”, “like” or “prefer” instead of what you “should” according to any one, thing or idea.

                  Ironically metal is what I use precisely for that purpose. If I’m too unfocused or anxious, I put on some black metal to calm down. It’s like meditation that takes me right back to the basics.

                  Foundation was one where it was like “violence is the refuge of the incompetent”

                  I don’t know which foundation you’re talking about then. Maybe I just read it differently because I don’t remember that. Then again it’s been 15ish years since I read it.