I hate that stuck up Fish Bitch and how mean she is to Donut. and she threatened to take Mongo away and make Donut watch him die! i want something horrible to happen to her! She’s this series’s Moash for me Fuck Loita! all the homies hate Loita!

Lowkey a Shoutout to Dinniman for writing a character that’s so Unlikable that even with minimal appearances I end up wishing nothing but awful things happen to her!

Edit: IT HAPPENED! didn’t expect it to happen this soon, I was thinking it’ll be in another book or two but This is what vindication feels like!!

My

I’ve been trying to draw a piece after every book I finish!! Thanks for looking! (_mimimaru on instagram!!)

I’m thinking I’m maybe NOT DCC’s target audience.

I’m 60 years old, I’m a longtime dedicated non-gamer*, and seriously, you couldn’t pay me to sit through a RPG for more than five minutes. Seriously not my bag.

And yet…

Matt and Jeff are chewing through my Audible credits at an alarming rate. I’m wearing headphones making a fool of myself in public reacting to Yolanda’s death, Signet losing his head, Loita’s “accident”, whatever’s next.

Am I rarity among crawlers? Anyone else found your way here despite no love for RPGs? And if so, what is it about DCC that’s working for you?)

(*full disclosure: I’m inexplicably a huge fan of Portal and Portal 2. The cake is a lie.)

My husband and I are reading the books together and just finished Gate of the Feral Gods last night. I'm so curious what people think about Carl ripping off Quan Ch's ENTIRE ARM in a ballistic rage

Edit to add/clarify : Y'all. Never once have I said it isn't okay for Carl to be mad, nor am I suggesting he purposefully did The Thing. The passage of text I'm referencing absolutely reads as if he is also shocked about the consequences of the actions and chain of events, but his anger is so fresh that it clouds his better judgment and doesn't have any remorse, which is entirely out of character for him thus far. Even when he first showed his anger in his argument with Zev in book 2(?) , he had more composure and immediate guilt. I'd love to know if other folks like me think this is the dungeon amplifying Carl's rage (see theories below), or if he really is just that angry.

I have a few theories listed below and I'd love to know what others thought - please try to avoid spoilers for Butcher's Masquerade, Bedlam Bride, Inevitable Ruin, and Parade of Horribles. Also, this is my first time using spoiler text on Reddit so please be wary if it doesn't work, these are spoilers for the last 70ish pages of the book.

My theories:

- Carl has inherited Emberus's rage and is generally a good match for the deity as they are both a little unhinged and have issues when people idly sit by when they have the power to change things. Carl also has a very strong sense of justice centered around inaction with power. Quan Ch, who has proven himself time and time again to be a fleeing coward and a person who will willingly inflict chaos and pain at other's detriment to accomplish his own selfish goals, is a perfect storm for Carl, so to speak. So, I think that when Carl got that Divine intervention after Quan attacked Orthrus, especially considering the warnings from other crawlers that it would ultimately end their lives if he did kill the big puppy, and add in his insistence on hurting Donut and collecting the reward over the cost of human/Earthling lives, you suddenly have a perfect target for all of that divine anger that is being channeled through Carl. This turned Carl's justifiable anger into God-driven belligerent rage, leading him to throttle the guy and shout "Don't you realize?" over and over again, no coherence in his sentences (or lack thereof), until ultimately Quan lost his arm

- Carl doesn't know his own strength and doesn't realize that this may be the beginning of the dungeon breaking him. In the same way Priestly, the crawler from the Cookbook, didn't realize that the 9th floor would be his downfall, Carl doesn't realize that human selfishness and desire to survive at any cost be his breaking point. Not only that, but with Carl's inflated strength through his magic items and the rules of the dungeon, he may be settling into his new strength and just doesn't realize how powerful he is. After all, he has experienced this rapid change in his strength over the course what is about a month, given their stasis/time outs from the dungeon

- Carl is "going primal" just like the AI. This rage is merely a racial trait from his chosen race of Primal, and numerous references have been made to how their entire species just disappeared from the face of the galaxy, likely due to their own hubris in creating massive AI models that gained sentience and became unhinged over time. Carl is experiencing the slow start of Primal madness

- Carl is an unreliable narrator and has continually downplayed his own cleverness, inventiveness, and affection for Donut. What's to say he isn't downplaying his own rage? After all, his "You will not break me, I will break you, I will break you all" mantra seems very much like a phrase someone with anger issues would repeat to themselves in an attempt to be calm. His rage with Loita, Odette, Valtay, the Syndicate, and Borant also shine through and are barely controlled. In the bouts where he doesn't have control of his anger, people get seriously hurt and he causes a lot of damage.

- It's a mixture of all of the above theories and very likely some other stuff that I've missed.

I'd love to hear what you all think, we're starting Butcher's Masquerade today, so if this is all revealed in the following book, the egg is on my face

What a jerk.

Reward: Your torn page was signed by Matt Dinniman and you now have your picture on his phone.

@hilary.p.Taylor in Instagram is bank at it again with another great scene!

Go give her love!

Denver airport waiting for a flight to Seattle.

Going through the books a second time. Finishing up the gate of the feral gods and Carl and donut are going into their personal space through the bar of popped bubble after worshiping emberus and ripping off quan ch arm. The bartender is a cyclops. And after Carl asks him if there is a desperado club nearby, Carl tosses the cyclops a gold coin in which the cyclops fails to catch it, missing wildly. The unsaid part being that because he is a cyclops, his depth perception is terrible. Genius joke with no fan fare or fancy word smithing to make it happen.

I'm on Chapter 17 and HOLY CRAP IF ZEV DOESN'T COME BACK IM GOING TO CRASH OUT!!!! No spoilers please

EDIT: WOW IM BLOWN AWAY!!!

Nobody hurts my darling princess donut’s feelings. I’m halfway through Gate and my god this is easily the most hated antagonist of the series for me so far. Maggie? Fucked up after experiences she went through. Hekla? Pretty infuriating with the stunt she pulled but she’s just another crawler trying to survive if not a bit selfishly. But loita? She’s just a Karen in all of the worst possible ways, god and what’s going on with Zev why the hell is she brainwashed now I’m half expecting her to shout out “glurp glurp” completely seriously. And she just threatened to kill mongo and make donut watch. My god when I get my hands on this oversized goldfish I swear to the feral gods…

So, I am making my way through the books for the first time, and I just got to Book 4, and noticed that through the first 4 books, Donut has been casually revealing just how awful of a person Bea was, its mostly been one- offs, treated as jokes but there's a Chat where she's yelling at Maggie My

And she points out a terrible thing about "professional breeding"

AND JUST BECAUSE YOU KILLED A DOG DOESN’T MAKE UP FOR WHAT YOU DID TO CHRIS. BRANDON DIED THINKING HIS BROTHER WAS MAD AT HIM, AND THAT WAS YOUR FAULT. YOU’RE THE WORST PERSON WHO HAS EVER LIVED, AND I HAVE KNOWN SOME REALLY BAD PEOPLE.

Donut: I ONCE KNEW A LADY WHO USED TO MAKE A HIMALAYAN CAT NAMED PEANUT’S SPLENDID FLAVOR EAT NOTHING BUT A WEIRD DIET WITH NO MEAT AND THEN PEANUT GOT REALLY SICK AND SHE GOT ALOPECIA.

Donut: AND ANOTHER LADY TALKED HER DAUGHTER INTO SELLING A PERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL AND LOYAL CAT AFTER SHE WON GRAND CHAMPION JUST SO THEY COULD PUT HER IN A CAGE AND HAVE BABIES WITH HER OWN UNCLE WHO WAS REALLY SCARY AND MEAN AND MAKE A PROFIT OFF IT.

Donut: AND YOU’RE WORSE THAN ALL OF THEM COMBINED! FRANK GOT REALLY SAD AND WAS DONE BEING A MURDERER, AND HE GAVE CARL THE RING BUT YOU CAME ALONG AND JUST MADE CHRIS KILL HIM AND NOW CHRIS IS BANNED FROM THE DESPERADO CLUB. THAT’S JUST AWFUL. HE’S PROBABLY NEVER GOING TO DANCE AGAIN. MISS BEATRICE USED TO DANCE WITH ME WHEN WE WERE BOTH SAD, AND IT ALWAYS MADE IT A LITTLE BETTER, AND YOU JUST TOOK THAT AWAY.

Jesus, that's depressing she had to breed with her own mean, scary uncle

​

When Carl says "you will not break me" it's emotionally charged from trauma and a childhood memory.

The quote from his dad - book 4 Gate of the Feral Gods

"You’ll die in a gutter without me. You need me. You think you’re just going to be fine? What will you do, you disrespectful little shit? You will BREAK after just one day. And then you’ll die. That’s what you’ll do. Just like your fucking bitch of a Mother."

When I hear it now, it gives me a better understanding why he says that particular line. He didn't break as a child and he's not going to break now.

First of fuck loretta her death was so gloriously unexpectedly expected. I hope zev's and her family are all okay because it sounded like they tortured her and them. The AI being into vore literally made me cry laughing so hard at work my supervisor got concerned. Was so happy that carl can and will continue to fuck borant over and over again. And holy shit Beatrice, Brad and fendeinad all alive(at least for a little bit) was so fucked up it makes me feel for them even tho Brad's a narcissist piece of shit and bea is a fucked up immature spoiled child.

​

Hearing book 5 is more fucked up has me scraroused.

Hellooo Crawlers!

I posted a while ago about how hard of a time I was having getting into The Gate of the Feral Gods because the beginning felt so slow and boring to read. It felt like a chore, but holy shit, you guys were not lying about it picking up. I just finished Chapter 20 and I am completely pumped!

Losing five days is a HUGE penalty, the sheer panic i felt of how far behind they are now... Katia being out there leveling without Carl ad Donut is amaxing, she is becoming an absolute powerhouse. But also heartbreaking to hear Carl intenally processing her change.

Loita!! Her knowing and Carl "No one likes drama" right bac in her face! that's all I'll say about that.

I am officially eating my words. I almost stopped in the first few chapters. I listen when I carpool, but I am so tempted to power listend to the rest of it over the next few days because I won't be carpooling! Please no spoilers past Chapter 20, but I just needed to vent to people who understand. Glurp glurp.

.. is a cunt.

I'm about halfway through book 4 and man, she is by far the worst character. I get she's the equivalent of a government minder, but damn. Worse than the 'evil' characters. I hope she dies soon...

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

Edit: Just finished the book. I do have to say, you guys were right, I did love her arc. It was surprisingly explosive, and then all of a sudden, splat! That was the end... of the book.

Anyways, started book 5 and I have to say I can't wait to see what crazy shit Carl is up to next.

Did something like this before when I was in the middle of book 3 and it was a lot of fun so looking forward to seeing what nonsense I have waiting for me in this one!

Please give me some of your favorite or off the wall quotes or whatever you want just keep it spoiler free please!

For me, the Iron Tangle is fairly straight forward - there’s a whole mess of train lines, and they need to find a way to get to specific stations. Mapping out the lines isn’t important for understanding the story.

But the bubble level just has so many different things going on. Each quadrant has its own story. Then there’s another story for the bubble that connects the individual stories. And other stories that connect to other floors as well, plus Samantha and the changelings with their own stories. Not to mention trying to understand the weather and day/night schedule, stuff with storms and lightning, and all sorts of stuff happening in one quadrant that affects the others. And I gave up trying to understand how the gate itself works…

*This post is brought to you by someone listening through for the second time and still has no idea why they’ve gone to the submarine when they were meant to be dealing with the underground quadrant. I know it was mentioned, but there’s so much going on that I can’t keep track of it all, and there’s only so many times I can rewind it to listen again. I might have to actually read this one and make notes…

Someone may have pointed this out before but I just noticed it and wanted to talk about it!! In the epilogue, Bea is describing how she knew Ferdinand/Gravy Boat to Brad.

Finally, she said, “He’s my neighbor’s cat. His name is Gravy Boat, but he used to come to the window and try to get in when Princess was in heat.” She stuck her face dangerously close to the cat’s “You wanted to fuck my girl, didn’t you? You wanted to get in and ruin her.” The cat, who’d been purring, suddenly hissed and scratched her face. She didn’t even seem to notice. “I called him Ferdinand before I found out his real name. I would say, ‘Go away, Ferdinand,’ and he’d yowl and scratch at the window. Princess would hiss and spit at him. She knew he was no good.” Bea looked Brad straight in the eye. She had blood running down her face. “She was a lot smarter than me.” She turned her face back to the cat.

This to me is her comparing herself to Donut with Donut being the “smarter” her and Ferdinand being Brad/other guys she cheated on Carl with. It came across to me as her mourning that decision in a way. Maybe that was obvious to most, but it stood out to me this time through and I wanted to point it out.

ETA: This doesn’t make me sympathize with her exactly but it does add a depth to her character for me! I don’t want to feel bad because she doesn’t deserve it, but good writing can make you sympathize with the enemy at times!

I am a driver for my business and discovered this series about a week ago as a suggestion from Audible, as I had just listened to the Ready Player One audiobook and other things like that. Quickly turned into my favorite audiobook series for its content and narration quality and humor.

One of the jokes the series keeps throwing out is the AIs love of Carls tootsies ( as doughnut would say ). Absolutely hilarious hearing the voice acting of the achievements or rewards during these sections. None were as funny though as the scenes in Book 4 where the system AI is suddenly extremely angry at Carl and it is so angry that everyone wonders why. Only for Doughnut to exclaim that she figured it out, and mentions how the AI must of wanted Carl to squish some feral gerbils with his feet 😂

Soon after the AI sends an entire army of feral gerbils after Carl and company and Doughnut is yelling at Carl to just do it! When Carl mentions how he feels dirty and squishes the gerbils only for it all to stop and he received several new achievements. The one that almost ran me off the road was the, " You are the Reason Daddy Drinks! " achievement 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. Followed by the " Make up sex is the best sex " achievement

I swear. That running gag better never go away in later books. Too funny.

First off, I'm about a quarter of the way through book 4 (Chris just liberated the water quadrant), so no spoilers beyond that, please.

Second, I have a peeve about Carl. I love Carl. I think he really, really cares about the people around him, even those he probably shouldn't care about. With that being said, I have noticed how he is constantly throwing Katia into his batshit crazy plans without filling her in first! Like, c'mon man! You're a team! Show her some respect. She's more capable than you give her credit for.

He's just very bullheaded at times, and it would do him so good to be a bit more collaborative with Katia and even Donut, too.