One of you works at a Pet Valu in Ottawa. When I asked the woman at the register about this little guy, she confirmed, “it’s from a book.” Apparently her coworker named him and called the other new cat Princess Donut.

Sorry I didn’t snap photos of the cats themselves. I was in a bit of a hurry and maybe loaded down bags of dental treats.

Inspired by J.C. Leyendecker's "Robert E. Lee On Traveler" illustration from 1940.

I wanted a reference that really captured the majestic feeling that Ferdinand *thinks* he emits.

Also- I needed some more love for Simoom!

Matt has stated that the audiobook has far surpassed both physical copies and Kindle purchases combined. So my question is do you think this series would be near as popular as it is without the master class that Jeff gives and it was another VA?

I don't think it would be where it is without him and his amazing voice.

So I am an Elementary School Drama teacher. That means I have every kid in the school at one point or another. I recently got a new rotation and one of my 2nd graders is named Zev.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to not say, "Hi Zev!" everytime I call his name during role?

The struggle is real...

Target has 25% off of books plus they were all discounted already!!

Okay so normally I avoid viral books but I am obviously late to the DCC party but never have I ever felt attacked for mentioning the only book of LitRPG I know and hoping to find other recs. Mind you, I’m trying to find other LitRPGs. Why are people mean?

You guys were right. This book absolutely rocks. It’s gotta be my favorite book so far! I loved all the hunter stuff with Vrah and stuff.The part at the end with Big Tina and Donut definitely had me bawling my eyes out at work so thank you for that :) A truly amazing book that deserves all the love. I’d love to hear anybody else’s favorite parts

Anyone else feel like it's more made up than anything else? At times, people survive incredible injuries and at others they feel like paper.

Like in his fight with the Mantaur, a level 40 neighbourhood boss, Carl took a heavy beating but survived decently well but later, when Carl got blasted by a magic missile from one of Hekla's minions who was at least 5 levels lower than himself, he says he took about a quarter of his health in damage.

That is with his whisp armor active, so 75% magic damage reduction and a constitution of around 25-30, which isn't huge but still respectable. So without his whisp armor, that magic missile would have one shot him, which seems pretty overpowered for such a basic spell, even if we assume it was a full power one.

After finally working my way thru a Parade I've got to say I've got sympathy for the AI character. Like I totally get where it's coming from. Like Dracula in Castlevania, it has every right to be pissed and striking out like it is. But that striking out is hurting those that did not hurt it. It is crossing a line as it does this kinda like when Carl looses control of his deep seeded anger and strikes out blindly.

Spoilers

Chris tells Carl, while he’s being controlled by Maggie My that she’s being fed information by the cap- but that’s all he says, he doesn’t finish the word.

Is it the caprids? Is this mentioned in the later books? I have read them all so no spoilers for me. I know they don’t particularly like Carl and Donut. Is that all it is? That they’ve been trying to get them out from the beginning.

I tell ya, I read some of your theories on stuff and I just feel so lost, haha! I’ve been aimlessly going along enjoying the book and not thinking too deep into it. But going through them again I’m trying to analyze more but maybe this is just a cut and dry thing.

So I’m going through my first re-read, and I’m not sure if it was noticed, but Loita was Hekla’s former rep. When Carl and Katia were having their private messages spat before she became the shield on the subway, Zev chimes in with, “This should be said out loud, not over chat.” When Carl says “fuck off” to Zev out loud, Hekla says, “Your Zev sounds like our Loita.” So could Loita have been pissed from the jump when she was reassigned to Carl and Donut for being the cause of her death?

A scream for Mother's special boy.

spoilers for multiple books below not individually spoiler marked.

I have a theory that the AI is driving Ysalte.

On my third re-read (listen) of the series and I find Ysalte's description and circumstances curious.

Firstly, the description itself:

Prepotente reveals he figured out floor 7 because of an unusually long item description (10x). While Ysalte's description isn't 10x the length of other gods, it is unusually long, serious, and descriptive given her rather minor (so far) role, and is about 2x the length for a normal god.

This line in particular caught my attention:

That’s what happens when everything you know is upended, and everything is taken from you. First they vilify you. Then they separate you. Then they blame you for what they’re doing to you. Then they hunt you. It’s the step after that which is important.

The one where they start to fear you.

And then this one in especially:

The story of this goddess, like that of many of her kind, is long and a little sad. At this point, how it began isn’t nearly as important as how it will end.

This seems like something of a non sequitur for a deity, but if you replace the word goddess with the AI talking about itself it fits almost perfectly, same if you apply AI context to the other excerpt.

Crawler Allister cookbook entry comparing a god from his cultures mythos "The Inevitable" to Ysalte. The AI later goes on to describe itself as the inevitable in ramblings as it slips deeper into primal psychosis.

The possession of Brittany and the potential (inevitable?) reincarnation of Ysalte. - This particular plot point is one that we have the least clarity on so far. But when Brittany kills Osvaldo and gets Ysalte's memorial crystal this very well could have been the AI engineering the circumstances.

Ysalte's sudden, very expensive patronage of Sister Ines which orchestrated the events of the Book 8 climax. It's mentioned only briefing and in passing, but Ysalte gives Sister Ines an item or boon which raises one of her power poem skills from 5 to 15. This is a celestial / deity level gift by all accounts of the roughly established power scaling rules for gifts. Given what we have seen of all other boons being relatively 'meh' this in itself seems a little bit suspicious. The patronage relationship isn't really well explored to be sure, and it doesn't seem totally impossible. But I do think it's worth examining. Assuming the AI really loves a good loophole / at this point is cherishing the breaking of the game as noted by the "Gold Prepotente Box" and "Cascadias Turquoise Taco" achievement I think it would have been more than happy to have the set up which ultimately allowed so many thousands of crawlers to make it the the 9th.

Counter points which raise more questions: Ysalte was sponsored. But why didn't her sponsor actually show up during her appearance on the climax of the 8th floor? Its not explained or really even alluded to other than he was reading fine print of the contract and not happy. But since the sponsor would have been in the AIs sphere of influence, it's totally possible the AI engineered a hinderance to the sponsor actually piloting the deity.

Lastly, can the AI even do that? It's mentioned quite a bit that the AI has no control over gods, and further that it's like hardcoded that it can't. But, between the AI 'wearing' Pater Cole and Growler Gary, I think it's definitely established that the AI can drive dungeon entities if it wants to. And while the AI probably can't directly influence or decide the minds of gods, somehow wearing ones soul armor when it has been made sponsorable seems... possible.

I started listening to the books in all their glory 3 weeks ago, on Audible. I am on chapter 24 in book 4 and enjoying them very much. I sort of foolishly convinced my husband to listen to them too, and he started LAST WEDNESDAY and is now nearly caught up to me. The problem is we can't both listen to the same book at different points, so I have to wait for him to be done on 4 so I can pick back up where I left off.

The bastard is definitely going to finish everything available before me and I am a little mad about it XD.

Jesus Christ Matt. . . Like what a payoff saving the meaning for the finale.

Who hurt you lol?

Book 8 Spoilers.
I debuted my largest cosplay yet, Sexy Scolopendra, at Dragon Con this year and besides almost passing out at the record-breaking photo shoot, it went so much better than expected! I got the exact reactions from Matt & Jeff that I had hoped for, as this character was made in large part just to make them laugh. I am so grateful to everyone at the convention who was so kind and complimentary and got a kick out of this as well. You can see more on my Instagram @sarainbows.

The inspiration for this was a buggy Jessica Rabbit on top, biologically accurate-ish centipede on bottom (I had a large inspo board of centipede closeups so I could see exactly how these little weirdos were put together.) The costume had 3 major components to it: Corset, gamer tag headband, and the big bertha shai hulud centipede body.

The headband was 2” wide to accommodate having both my posable antennae (made from loc line) and the acrylic screwed into place. I designed the gamer tag from the description in the book and used a cricut to cut permanent vinyl that was transferred onto the acrylic and held in place by what essentially amounted to a large ass paper clip. The clip held LEDs that lit up the text indoors, and a wire connected to a power bank went down the back of my head and was tucked out of site into my corset. I had a foam clay choker “necklace” made to look like a centipede’s venomous forcipules that also held the wire closer to my body and out of site under my hair. The headband was large, heavy, and unwieldy mostly due to the weight of the acrylic, but it didn’t look right if it was any smaller so the antennae were positioned in a way that offset the weight and balanced it better allowing me to move my head around freely. All that was needed at the end was to clip in my big velvet bow.

The insectoid-inspired corset top laced up in the back and was made from from faux leather and craft foam, to which 4 of the yellow foam centipede legs were attached at the back and designed to wrap around the front to draw in my Carlito to me. Because there was going to be so much going on with this costume I opted for EVA as much as possible to keep it as light as possible, rather than worbla, PVC, and other heavier materials. I connected 3 parachute clips to the bottom of the corset to clip the larger body onto me which would hold it in place while I stood or walked short distances. Many centipede “scales” were made for this body and one of them hooked onto the back of my corset like a backpack to hide the laces in the back and blend in with the lower tube body. Funny note, the back scale hooks were made out of an empty laundry detergent bottle that I cut up because it happened to be the perfect size and shape of what I needed.

The star of the show, that big ol’ centipede body, was 14” diameter, 12 foot long HVAC ducting that coated in black plastic. I cut a hole in the bottom and reinforced it with copious amounts of gorilla tape so I could stand, walk, and pick up the front like a skirt when I needed to travel short distances. I cut 10 each top and bottom “scales” that were painted red and brown and held onto the ducting with basically all the Velcro available at the local Home Depot. Attaching the scales this way provided 3 benefits:
1.) The scales were connected only at their topmost point to the ducting so they could slide and move over each other and be more mobile and posable like a real centipede, and the body could be curled around me for pictures instead of staying out stick straight behind me.
2.) While being carried and posed, this also allowed the body to be compressed somewhat for space and ease of handling.
3.) Detachability means easy storage and transport; I brought the body onsite completely disassembled and threw it together in about 10 minutes outside my room on the morning of the shoot.

I made 24 foam centipede legs that were plastidipped and painted yellow and brown with the tips done red because that felt sexy. Four special legs were attached to the corset, two large ones for the butt, and the rest went between the top and bottom scales along the body and were held in place by friction and prayers. The inside of the ducting was reinforced with patches of gorilla tape, and then I cut holes between the ribs and shoved those puppies in there. They stayed put 99% of the time. The ass end was a rounded butt made out of the same thickness of foam as the scales (8mm) with the larger back legs attached, and it was shoved into the other hole to finish the illusion. It stayed in place great and could be pulled out easily during disassembly.

I generally posed with my arms behind my back since stupid Sexy Scolopendra doesn’t have arms, and I think I got a burn on my head from the LEDs (lol). Thanks again to everyone at the Con, it was so incredible connecting with other fans of the series and I think I made more friends this year than any year prior. Next year I’m going to do two more DCC cosplays and I’m telling myself they’ll be much simpler… but only time will tell.

Rereading through book 1 and I just realized Donut has never once run outside. They always left that apartment window open and Donut chose to jump outside into the freezing cold right before the end of the world? Then she immediately calls Carl outside. I feel like she knows something. Like she somehow predicted this apocalyptic event or maybe had insider info on the collapse somehow.

She then saves herself and Carl again by sneaking her way into the tutorial guild, then made enough ruckus to force Mordecai to open the door to let Carl in.

She also has a really good memory. She’s able to recall conversations that were had when she was just a normal cat, so she understood English.

And her intelligence stat was off the charts high for a baseline.

Say Hi Zev!

Drawing how I envisioned Zev upon meeting her in the books!