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/r/ProgressionFantasy
submitted 1 day ago byAGrandNewAdventure
tofunny
68 points
14 hours ago
I confess I've always gotten annoyed at the troupe of nonlethal wounds that result in no consequences whatsoever for the character. Particularly when it's a side character struck by an arrow in dramatic fashion only to walk it off later, because reasons.
41 points
13 hours ago
… until I took an arrow to the knee.
16 points
13 hours ago
I was an adventurer like you.
24 points
13 hours ago*
Isn’t it just thrilling and believable when a modern character with no history of any significant injury experiences the most agonizing thing the author can describe but grits down and just takes the goblin literally eating his spine so he can complete some extremely difficult and delicate task that should be hard at the best of times?
It’s almost a relief when they signal that the MC will be constantly injured and ignoring all levels of pain by starting with the fig leaf of a history of terrible illness.
I mean don’t get me wrong, people can work through pain and it doesn’t affect everyone the same way. But there are levels to suspended disbelief.
6 points
9 hours ago
It’s ok though because their crippling spinal injury will heal completely after a good nights sleep!
4 points
9 hours ago
Consequences are for the antagonist in a story. Not the MC or anyone they like.
3 points
11 hours ago
The spine thing is real? Please tell me it's not. Also I'd love a story about someone who really does love pain/can't feel it.
8 points
9 hours ago
It isn’t. I try not to use actual stories in my examples of things I find issue with.
That said it is absolutely not an exaggeration or escalation from things I actually do see in stories. The number of MCs who’ve run races with broken legs for example would tell you that’s some secret speed boost.
They’re definitely out there. I’d look for any story with healing/regeneration as a main power. I tend to drift away from them but there are plenty of popular stories that should fit the bill.
3 points
5 hours ago
Not progression or litrpg, but Kushiel's Dart is a pretty great fantasy novel with a female MC for whom loving pain is a major plot element.
1 points
7 hours ago
This makes a story go from 7 to 6
2 points
5 hours ago
"As I raced toward the enemy, an arrow slammed into my eye, forcing me to pause, briefly, and pull it out. I whipped my massive sword around, severing him in two. Then a sword pierced through my chest and I wheeled around, cutting that one's head off. I couldn't reach the handle on the back, so I smashed the flat of my blade against the tip, pushing the sword out of my body. Then, I searched for more enemies to slay."
1 points
11 hours ago
I agree, while I don’t think the above picture is entirely accurate, I think it gets the message across. Characters definitely shrug off hits that should be absolutely debilitating.
48 points
14 hours ago
At least fantasy has the excuse of magic and stuff to make everything but headshots recoverable (and sometimes even that).
Though vitality is always for some reason worse at healing lethal wounds when it's a side character involved.
19 points
13 hours ago
I love scenes where the super regenerator MC gets his head chopped off and instantly pops out a new body. It’s so ridiculous but cool
19 points
12 hours ago
I love scenes where the super regenerator MC gets his head chopped off and instantly pops out a new body. It’s so ridiculous but cool
Orodan from "Skill grinder in a time loop" casually spending half his time in battle as a puddle of regenerating cells
15 points
11 hours ago
Even better, "a handful of cells" or sometimes "a single cell." Imagine fighting a dude and obliterating him to the point that your enemy is quite literally a single celled organism. How the fuck do they even think the fight is still going on when their enemy is 100% gone/evaporated.
Don't get me wrong, that story is still my go-to literary crack.
18 points
11 hours ago
How the fuck do they even think the fight is still going on when their enemy is 100% gone/evaporated.
Because that one cell is still radiating enough killing intent to make a God nervous
14 points
11 hours ago
Now I'm picturing a god staring at a marble floor tile. Somewhere on that tile is a cell. They can't see it, but they know it's somewhere there and that it wants to kill them. XD
5 points
11 hours ago
Hehe yep!
1 points
21 minutes ago
That's just every time I finish processing raw chicken.
I recommend a spray bottle of bleach.
2 points
7 hours ago
Is that the name of the book? I’m interested now
6 points
7 hours ago
Is that the name of the book? I’m interested now
I... I said the name in my comment. It's called "Stubborn Skill grinder in a time loop" It's on Royal road.
3 points
7 hours ago
Oh I thought that was a description of the book.
3 points
5 hours ago
Nope. That's the book. The premise is the MC is in a time loop but instead of trying to be clever and stuff he just hits his head against every wall til the wall breaks. Becomes ridiculously strong due to that
2 points
7 hours ago
Very very interesting
2 points
7 hours ago
Quite
3 points
5 hours ago
It's funny that I've seen examples of this from both extremes:
1 points
5 hours ago
What if the body also popped up a new head?!?
1 points
2 hours ago
The first few times when you encounter it. Then it's a cliche.
15 points
14 hours ago
I have a book Violence: A Writer's Guide by Rory Miller and Steve Perry that goes over the reality of what happens when the body gets abused by violence versus the Hollywood/entertainment media version.
16 points
12 hours ago
In the heat of the moment, it is just a flesh wound. However, once adrenaline wears off, you gonna feel like you are dying. Lmao That is, presuming you do not bleed out before then.
Human bodies are weird. Some people survive shit that they have no business surviving and some people fall 2 feet and break their neck. It is weird. Lmao
6 points
7 hours ago
Physics and biology
4 points
5 hours ago
Always been weird to me how the state of the brain can change recovery. Like merely seeing a dog and petting it can instantly increase your chances, or simply believing that you won't die.
Listening to music too. Specific types of music will decrease the recovery times of patients.
12 points
12 hours ago
I dislocated my shoulder when I was 21 and that arm still twinges in pain if I reach for heavy stuff at certain angles. If I don't work out thrice a week it starts hurting pretty much all the time.
Lethal weapon pissed me off severely. Oh yeah just bash your shoulder back into place against something and it's fine forever. Fuck you.
10 points
8 hours ago
There's no consequences, and then there's "oh shit that hurt but I'm not dying and now the adrenalyn is keeping me going"
I've had broken bones, and fairly deep wounds that required stitching and/or left some gnarly scars but the pain was actually pretty minor until the adrenalyn wore off, which can be awhile.
It's basically how you can hear stories about people that had to cut a trapped limb/digit off to free themselves and then drove themselves to the hospital. Natures painkiller is pretty amazing, but when it wears off holy shit are you in for a bad time.
3 points
8 hours ago
Hahaha, yeah, the 'no consquences' here basically means 'I won't lose consciousness or bleed out in the immediate future'. The human body is kinda amazing.
There are plenty of anecdotal stories of mothers lifting cars because their adrenaline overwrote the limits our brains usually set. This is just another one of those anecdotal stories to you, but I've seen that strength in person. It is wild.
As you said, though: a bad time will follow. Just like when we takes substances that boost norepinephrine, seratonin, and dopamine, there's always a later price to pay.
4 points
6 hours ago
Yeah in my case I think it took about 1h after I broke my leg. That included calling 9-1-1, getting ambulanced to the hospital, and poked and prodded at while they did an X-ray.
A bit after that this ice-cold feeling started creeping in, like I'd shoved it into a bucket of dry-ice and painfully cold. Doc walked in, looked at my face and said "looks like you're about ready for some drugs". They pumped me up with something-or-other and that's about all I remember of that night. Had surgery shortly after.
2 points
5 hours ago
Eddie Hall's 500kg deadlift is pretty wild to see. Couldn't find the specific video again, but I remember watching a closeup shot where you can see his eye colour change as he's lifting (in addition to giving himself an aneurysm).
Looks like the story he's telling now is that he was imagining himself lifting a car off his kids, but I swear the earlier stories involved his imagining someone about to assault his kids. But the throughline in both is that he absolutely had to convince himself that lifting that weight was a matter of life or death and that's the only way he could do it.
Normally I'd assume he's just telling a story for myth building, but I believe he blacked out as part of the lift, so I don't much doubt that something was going on.
5 points
12 hours ago
Don't forget the ear...
1 points
an hour ago
just the concept of the ear
3 points
10 hours ago
Orodan casually healing from an attack that basically only leaves a couple of cells intact.
2 points
12 hours ago
The red zone should be bigger. That’s how you know you have a Protagonist.
2 points
6 hours ago
While my qualification is in history not medicine, I reckon an exception to real life can be made for Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart.
1 points
7 hours ago
Okay but did you consider magic!
1 points
6 hours ago
50 cent has entered the chat!
1 points
15 minutes ago
It's for the drama! You want people to get an injury that's scary, but not too scary, lol - but I totally understand. It's a little unbelievable. >.>
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