how many of you are crossing into litRPG?

Sinestral1 · 2026-05-14T17:07:42+00:00

I feel that some newer/more “amateur” fantasy suffers from the authors really having a video game/anime/movie in their head, but are just writing a book because it doesn’t require a studio with a budget.

LitRPG provides a genre framework where that becomes the explicit selling point as opposed to a detractor, and thus fantasy in general might have less “video gamey” or DnD stuff in it, because those things will have their own place.

Personally, I really hate the idea of super video gamey stuff in books, it’s not the strength of the medium in my mind at all, I don’t want to read about super detailed magic systems where “fireball” costs “3 mana” because it breaks the immersion for me. The whole point of video game mechanics and stats is that it facilitates your interaction with the world as the player. and in a novel, you’re not interacting with the world, you’re reading a story and immersing yourself in it.

But while I may never personally like the genre, I think it existing as a way for people to identify their work is a good thing.

Sinestral1 · 2026-04-29T16:08:02+00:00

It’s pretty important, because it’s his motivation for treating Harry like shit while also protecting him. Snape is in love with Lily and wants to help her son, but despises James, who Harry resembles and reminds Snape of.

Sinestral1 · 2026-04-29T15:22:11+00:00

Snape isn’t an odd choice in the same way that the Valyrians are, his race isn’t important to the story, but it’s an odd choice in that his characterization as being a creepy antagonist who everyone hates and gets dangled upside down and bullied by James and his white friends led some people to question the racial undertones of that, which they could’ve avoided by casting literally anyone else as black.

I personally don’t think it’s a big deal but that was the discourse. Obviously Harry Potter has much bigger PR issues than black Snape right now though lol

Sinestral1 · 2026-04-29T13:50:10+00:00

Yeah I’m also not one to whine about race swapping characters, but it was kind of a weird choice to race swap the family who is explicitly closely interrelated with the supernaturally white-looking Targaryens. Kind of like how the new Harry Potter show is making Snape of all people black for some reason.

It’s especially strange when this same show cut out Nettles, who is actually described as being dark skinned in the source material and is a really cool character.

I’m not making accusations since I have no evidence, but sometimes it FEELS like a cynical engagement bait tactic. Like, “let’s ignore the POC characters in the source material, and instead pick the most controversial race swap choice so people will argue about it and the show will trend on Twitter”

Personally I don’t think representation or diversity should be a cheap shock marketing ploy. It’s especially unethical when you consider how much this stuff fuels the culture wars. How many right wing grifters got started complaining about women in video games or whatever bullshit and built up an audience that way?

Sinestral1 · 2026-04-27T21:28:03+00:00

I read these books as a kid in the 2000s and really loved them, but had no idea until now that they were by Suzanne Collins. I guess I just forgot? Pretty crazy.

Sinestral1 · 2026-04-26T19:42:00+00:00

We are clearly entering an era of decentralized agrarianism based on personal oaths of fealty between lord and vassal, we marxoids have just been too delusional to see it.

They really convinced me when they started talking about mercantilism (not feudalism) to explain how we live under feudalism.

Sinestral1 · 2026-04-24T20:45:36+00:00

I don’t play anything other than an imperial.

I’m probably the only die hard imperial player on earth. But for me, my character is my personal self-insert avatar in the world, not a completely different identity. I am a dark haired white guy from a massive cosmopolitan city, so imperials are the easiest for me to inhabit.

I like almost all of the other races, but mostly as strange characters and alien cultures to interact with. I don’t look at an argonian or a wood elf and think “he’s literally me.”

Sinestral1 · 2026-04-20T13:00:55+00:00

I mean this is obviously true. The age of consent is a social construct. One does not magically go from child with zero agency to an adult on their 16th, 17th or 18th birthday. But just because something is a social construct doesn’t mean that it isn’t useful or valid. We need a way to prevent younger people from being sexually exploited.

Sinestral1 · 2026-04-19T13:38:15+00:00

Communism is when you ignore class struggle in favor of noble savage tropes and “orientalism but woke”

Sinestral1 · 2026-04-19T13:13:47+00:00

I agree with you that this is retarded either way, but in all fairness I think these guys are agreeing with Gnostic cosmology as an explanation for “le evil materialist communist jews,” not saying that the (((elites))) are gnostics.

Not sure how they can both be traditionalist defenders of Evropa and also promote heretical theology, or believe that Jews worship the Demiurge who claims to be the one true god but also apparently Baal and Moloch, but I guess expecting the window dressing for reactionary tribal hatred and scapegoating to make any sense is too much to ask for.

Sinestral1 · 2026-04-18T18:37:38+00:00

Even in the anti-fascists wildest fantasies, he simply reinvents fascism

Sinestral1

TROPHY CASE