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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:world of cultivation is mostly unreadable due to an intentionally awful translation It's alright once you learn the vocabulary but the translator really shouldn't demand that of readers.
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Oct 7, 2016 14:12
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But, seriously, I really like World of Culiviation because other characters actually matter and accomplish worthwhile things on their own. And there's just more of a sense of the characters working as a team. They get to do things. And have areas they're better at than the MC, even if the MC's still terrifyingly talented in a range of areas. Edit: it's the only series of its ilk ("male MC becomes awesome and amazing") that I haven't dropped. I dropped ISSTH for example, a few Japanese novels, Terror Infinity, Undefeated God of War, etc. Kaja Rainbow fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Oct 7, 2016 |
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Oct 7, 2016 15:11
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HiveCommander posted:This sounds like it has a lot of similarities with The Realist Hero's Kingdom Restoration Chronicles, in a way, I'll have to check it out. Fair warning, the translator chose not to translate a number of terms, so you get things like ling where most people would use spirit, and so on. Similarly, the different cultivation ranks are not translated. And so on. That's why gimme the candy above was complaining about an unreadable translation. If you push through and learn the terms, it becomes easy enough to understand--it only introduces so many terms. But I agree that this is not a step the translator should demand of the readers. Kaja Rainbow fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Oct 7, 2016 |
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Oct 7, 2016 15:41
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SerSpook posted:Try Ze Tian Ji, it is really good. I've been meaning to.
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Oct 7, 2016 21:18
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I recently found Cultivation Chat Group. Basic premise: college student gets invited by accident to an internet chat group for cultivators. He thinks they're just deluded roleplayers at first. Some decent comedic touches in there.
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Dec 16, 2016 21:58
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jwang posted:Hahaha, Cultivation Chat Group is great. I don't know how far the translation is, but I'm right now at the point where a western monk is facing off with a poltergeist on a subway. It's like My Beautiful CEO Wife, but without the "justified" murders and excessively horny (antagonist) men. Only the first 100 chapters of 900+ though, so I hope it doesn't change. Also, modern weaponry isn't seen as jokes, as apparently a pretty powerful cultivator almost got blown up by a nuke one time. We aren't at that point yet, but this sounds like the story'll still stay awesome.
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Dec 19, 2016 05:12
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Krunge posted:Backing away from Harry Potter fanfiction, let me recommend a Chinese web novel that's essentially fanfiction of being the author of famous (primarily Chinese) poetry and prose, I'm Really a Superstar. The translation level is really high. To clarify, the basic premise is the MC gets transported into an alternative world that doesn't have a number of seminal works along with a game system that lets him work toward his dream of being a superstar. He basically plagiarizes a variety of works from his own world and republishes them in the alternative world and gets halted as a genius. ...It didn't really hold my interest, but I suppose if you're into that sort of thing, it's an alright read. As for what I've been reading, other than stuff like My Disciple and Demon Girl and World of Cultivation and other works that've already been mentioned in this thread, I've been reading: Single Player Only, a series about malware in the form of a game that slowly changes the real world to be more game-like while the game itself becomes more realistic, and the guy stuck playing it and struggling through deadly challenges. Speaking of deadly challenges, The Tutorial is Too Hard is about getting whisked away to a "tutorial" setting that teaches you abilities that can be used in the real world. Except that this guy picks the Hell difficulty and is stuck in it. Miniature Garden Chemister is a cute story about a cute girl who basically gets a magical home with garden and a cheat alchemist ability. But she has no combat skills and is really scared of monsters. The Latest Game is Too Amazing is about a guy who plays a new virtual reality MMORPG, but doesn't realize that every time he logs in it takes him to another world, who inhabitants tend to find his game-like abilities quite weird. Since he can log out just fine, he thinks he's just playing an amazingly realistic game. Speaking of virtual reality MMORPGs, The Taming Master is.. okay. It doesn't have the MC mistreating people and pets for no good reason like a certain sculptor, but it does have him getting stupidly lucky and gaining levels at an absurd rate. Mostly I'm just enjoying it for the bond between him and his pets. Speaking of other okay stories, The Strategy to Become Good at Magic is about an amusingly scheming girl who does things like charging to stay in the monster infested forest and training a prince to sneak and steal. And that's just about all I see fit to mention for. Oh, yeah, and the Way of Choices is as great as people've been saying.
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Jan 6, 2017 02:08
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Captain_duck posted:I just read all of this and that was really cute indeed. Basically an Atelier setting. Super Cute. Then she buys a slave Yeah, that bothered me too. But it looks like she's going to eventually be abolishing slavery, maybe, given how she got a quest to eradicate the slave curse and seemed to be interested in doing it.
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Jan 6, 2017 16:37
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Still so far it's only in a cute way. But whyyyy japan whyyyyyyy.
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i wasn't aware before, but apparently there are a bunch of translated ln's on kindle. Are they any good?
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Feb 17, 2017 03:54
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jon joe posted:Only if we also get the cultivating equivalent of King, as well. There's already at least one story featuring a guy who people think is stronger than he actually is.
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Feb 23, 2017 16:12
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Yeah, I love stories about people with alien viewpoints. That's also one of the reason I like that Demon Girl story so much. Chapter 9 was what really did it for me, and I've been following it since.
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Apr 10, 2017 13:20
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Isn't MT the series with the perverted infant that made other people uncomfortable? I didn't feel like continuing after that.
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May 4, 2017 23:32
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I guess there had to be a reason for his attraction to a boy. No homo, after all. Which I hate. More stories should have guys just hooking up without such pretenses. Girls hooking up, too. But Japan is mostly a pretty old fashioned, heteronormative country, so... But again, I've not read MT past the first chapter or two, which were too creepy and skeevy for me.
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May 5, 2017 13:54
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Unrelated to the current topic of English original stories, I just recently read all there is to date of Trafford's Trading Club. It's not half bad. Basically, this guy ends up owning a creepy store where you can get anything you want for a price, and that price isn't money.
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May 5, 2017 19:50
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Well, yeah, it isn't a super original premise. Kinda a fun read, though, and a welcome change from the usual WN themes.
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May 6, 2017 02:43
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I dropped 40 Millennia after the MC declared he'd basically turn the worst college artificer department into the best one. This was following a streak of other really bold declarations coming true. Eh. EDIT: And, yeah, the MC doesn't have much of a leg to stand on moral wise.
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Jul 13, 2017 12:43
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i like the setting. the rest isn't great, tbh. Agreed. It's a good setting.
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Jul 13, 2017 19:13
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Welp. Qidian International rehosted a bunch of translated chapters from Wuxiaworld apparently without asking and issued them a DMCA to shut down the entire site (which includes both Qidian properties and novels that aren't Qidian properties) in the same breath. Apparently Wuxiaworld is relocating to a non-US country that requires a court order for DMCA notices. Thread favorites that this impacts include I Shall Seal the Heavens and A Thought Through Eternity/A Will Eternal. Like, the novels QI took are Qidian properties, but the translations aren't. Apparently Wuxiaworld had a contract with Qidian, too, which Wuxiaworld claims QI is violating and QI claims they're honoring. Kaja Rainbow fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Aug 6, 2017 |
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Aug 6, 2017 13:57
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Eh, I think fanfiction can have a place in re-examining beloved characters in a different light or different situation. At the very least, good fanfiction doesn't take a whole lot less creativity than original writing, and certainly original writing can be rather derivative and uncreative too. And writing someone else's character correctly requires developing your ability to analyze characters and understand what makes them tick, so that you can make your own rendition of the character ring true to fans of that character. Essentially it involves both overlapping and different skills with original writing. And fanfiction isn't even a dead end professionally. There're instances of established writers who started out writing fanfiction, even ones where they got picked up because of their fanfiction. This is my perceptive anyways, as someone who prefers creating original settings and characters but routinely does freedom roleplay with people who like to play canon characters. And I'd take good fanfiction over lovely original fiction. At least the former'd be more entertaining to read.
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Aug 8, 2017 17:13
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lol at badmouthing an entire field of amateur fiction in a thread dedicated to amateur fiction.
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Aug 8, 2017 21:00
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It's going to be nice when the next thread starts up with a more narrative system.
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May 25, 2018 22:54
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So I started Myrmidon's Ascension, a scifi xianxia quest, which might or might not be of interest to people here. It's about bug people, specifically an ant person who's been sent by her hive to a xianxia school along with a team of eccentric hivemates she's expected to manage. It's still in the character creation voting stage.
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Jun 5, 2018 14:14
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I downloaded Qidian's webnovel app (the english one) so I could read Cultivation Chat Group on my phone and a series called Lady Cultivator caught my eye. According to the translator, it's more cultivation focused than romance focused, which got me interested since that isn't common with a female protagonist. So I've been reading it, and it seems decent so far. I'll keep reading to see how it turns out.
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Nov 7, 2018 21:58
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Yeah, I don't mind some romance in my stories. But if I'm going to read a dedicated romance, those days I'd rather it be a queer one. In part because I'm queer and in part because I dislike a lot of the relationship dynamics in many hetero stories.
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Nov 8, 2018 16:01
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Konstantin posted:Are there any good WNs with queer characters? It seems that most Chinese authors basically say that everyone is straight in their fictional world, at best I've seen some ambiguous side character who shows up for a few chapters and exhibits some stereotypes. Honestly, I'd look to Western webserials for queer characters. You won't find a whole lot in Chinese and Japanese WNs outside the yaoi market.
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Nov 9, 2018 00:17
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Qidian is a piece of poo poo company, but they do have a lot of female-focused works. There's a definite market there.
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Feb 15, 2019 19:30
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:i didn't get very far into lady cultivator, though it wasn't bad. the premise of that one is simply that it is about a lady cultivator, but since it is in a cultivation world there are tons of immensely powerful psychotic serial rapists running around. so, she has to work on getting strong enough to live on her own terms while never letting anyone learn that she was born with a condition that makes sex with her a single-use permanent power-up. the magic virginity thing is a pretty common concept in skeevy cultivation webnovels, but it's always from the perspective of the rapey murder hobo mc. i'm sure you can guess how they handle such events. I can see that being a turnoff, yeah. That specific worry's been coming up less in the more recent chapters, though, mostly it's her kicking rear end and encountering fated chances. There's an obvious male love interest but he seems like an okay guy other than his secrecy about his own true identity. Also, he's pure yang, which apparently has mutual benefits for her. For anyone who wants less hetero stuff, I've been reading some lesbian stuff. Here're a few. https://www.novelupdates.com/series/considering-the-possibility-of-falling-in-love-with-the-villain/ https://www.novelupdates.com/series/i-favor-the-villainess/ https://www.novelupdates.com/series/mistress-i-was-wrong/ https://www.novelupdates.com/series/the-villainess-blooms/
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Feb 15, 2019 22:52
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Ytlaya posted:Yeah, I saw that, though it's not entirely clear to me how that fits into the Cai's whole theme (those were all Cai arts, right? Or were they just arts owned by the Cai?). It's also not really a complete replacement, since it seems important to have something that actually directly mitigates damage; I got the impression from the language of that art that it was a "completely blocks stuff until it doesn't" sort of thing, which is a bit more risky. The Thousand Ring Fortress technique directly increases her vitality and acts as armor that lessens damage even if it doesn't totally block it. They were arts the Cai traded for with the Bai, who got them from assorted sources. EDIT: By the way, the math wonks seem satisfied with it as a replacement for TRF, and I generally trust them on things like that.
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Jun 12, 2019 02:34
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English webnovel, but Godking's Legacy is basically an intentional parody of the self-justifying rear end in a top hat Xianxia MC. Your mileage might vary, but I find it very funny. It helps that the MC is easily distracted and has one brain cell.
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Nov 3, 2019 23:42
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Yeah, if you like it, sure go ahead keep reading. But if you don't, there're other things you could be spending your time reading that you'll enjoy more. I'm saying that as someone who actually likes Azarinth Healer but can see why people might bounce off it.
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Apr 6, 2021 17:22
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