Rat's Reading

Hi! I'm Rat. I like books.

[ratsreading]

My curse as someone who enjoys reading monsterfuckery smut and also is a veterinarian, is I have a lot of thoughts (read mostly complaints) on the anatomy of monster genitalia that I cannot talk to regular people about because it will weird people out

[ratsreading]

Like I feel like a lot of werewolf, wolfman and other wolf inspired stuff don't take into account that a wolf penis is not covered in skin. The foreskin is covered in skin (and fur). The foreskin is pulled back behind the knot of the penis when it is aroused, and the revealed penis is not covered in skin, but in mucous membrane. It is wet. It is meant to usually be covered by the foreskin, and will not do great if not.

You should not pour chocolate sauce over it and then lick it off.

[ratsreading]

Also, they basically never get testicles right. As in, they are never described as the testicles of whatever animal the thing is clearly based on. They're almost always basically human testicles with extra size or something.

Did you know not only size but also shape, hanging orientation and how far down they hang actually varies like quite a bit between different species?

Bull testicles hang vertically and are quite long. Less ○○ and more 👀.

Horse testicles don't hang down, they're tucked up right to the body.

So yeah, I'm the nerd who'll read a description of/see a drawing of a centaur and be like *squints* "why'd they put human balls on what is clearly a horse based being?"

[ratsreading]

Also also, this is less of a complaint and more of an observation, but while minotaurs and the like are popular, they're not ever (at least I've never seen it) given anatomically correct bull penises. They get like large human penises (I hope that is by choice and not what people think bull penises look like).

So: Humans, wolves/dogs and horses have vascular penises with erectile tissue which will swell and grow when aroused. Bulls do not. They have fibrous penises that are pulled up most of the time into an s shape by retractor muscles, but are let down and so extended further out (allowing mating) when aroused. They are fairly thin, and do not get thicker when aroused (because they do not fill up with blood). I guess this is less sexy?

Anyway, again, I'm the nerd reading the minotaur romance/smut and while I'm reading at least once I'll contemplate like "hm, so not an actual bull cock" before I continue with the story.

[ratsreading]

My curse as someone who enjoys reading monsterfuckery smut and also is a veterinarian, is I have a lot of thoughts (read mostly complaints) on the anatomy of monster genitalia that I cannot talk to regular people about because it will weird people out

[ratsreading]

Like I feel like a lot of werewolf, wolfman and other wolf inspired stuff don't take into account that a wolf penis is not covered in skin. The foreskin is covered in skin (and fur). The foreskin is pulled back behind the knot of the penis when it is aroused, and the revealed penis is not covered in skin, but in mucous membrane. It is wet. It is meant to usually be covered by the foreskin, and will not do great if not.

You should not pour chocolate sauce over it and then lick it off.

[ratsreading]

Also, they basically never get testicles right. As in, they are never described as the testicles of whatever animal the thing is clearly based on. They're almost always basically human testicles with extra size or something.

Did you know not only size but also shape, hanging orientation and how far down they hang actually varies like quite a bit between different species?

Bull testicles hang vertically and are quite long. Less ○○ and more 👀.

Horse testicles don't hang down, they're tucked up right to the body.

So yeah, I'm the nerd who'll read a description of/see a drawing of a centaur and be like *squints* "why'd they put human balls on what is clearly a horse based being?"

[ratsreading]

My curse as someone who enjoys reading monsterfuckery smut and also is a veterinarian, is I have a lot of thoughts (read mostly complaints) on the anatomy of monster genitalia that I cannot talk to regular people about because it will weird people out

[ratsreading]

Like I feel like a lot of werewolf, wolfman and other wolf inspired stuff don't take into account that a wolf penis is not covered in skin. The foreskin is covered in skin (and fur). The foreskin is pulled back behind the knot of the penis when it is aroused, and the revealed penis is not covered in skin, but in mucous membrane. It is wet. It is meant to usually be covered by the foreskin, and will not do great if not.

You should not pour chocolate sauce over it and then lick it off.

[ratsreading]

My curse as someone who enjoys reading monsterfuckery romance and smut and also is a veterinarian, is I have a lot of thoughts (read mostly complaints) on the anatomy of monster genitalia that I cannot talk to regular people about because it will weird people out

[ratsreading]

"The guys are cool with me being an out and proud player but get all weirded out when I go into details. Granted, I probably overshare way more than I should, but when I pointed out I had to listen to them talk about their hookups with puck bunnies, suddenly the entire team became stand-up dudes who speak respectfully about women in locker rooms.

Funny how that works.

Apparently, the cure to toxic masculinity is to show them how it feels to be talked about like a piece of meat.

You’re welcome, ladies"

- From Egotistical Puckboy, Eden Finley & Saxon James

[ratsreading]

Thinking of what it must be like to be loved by a ship like the Perihelion. I think it must be a little like being loved by a god. A minor god and one with true personality, a god from a pantheon, with limited power and no claims to be all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, no claims of being the One True God. And yet, a god. Its mind so powerful it can be present with you and yet in a hundred other places simultaneously, it holds you safe inside of it - or not (as Mother Nature holds us safe on Earth - or not). It can rain destruction when angered or help you if it wishes. Inside of its realm (itself), within its dominion, it sees all, controls all (not other people, but the very ground you walk on, the air you breathe). Outside of it, it can help you if it sees what is happening, but is not in control of everything. If you are within its reach, it is there, present with you always, a voice in your head, a friend (because this god spaceship loves you).

[ratsreading]

There's this thing in the Murderbot Diaries that keeps snagging in my mind, and it's that both Murderbot and ART were made. Made for a purpose.

Murderbot, of course, was manufactured to be an enslaved Security Unit, not even considered a person, and we all know and have been shown just how horrific that is. Murderbot's manufacturers are evil (as far as it is possible to be so), and while Murderbot seemingly (hopefully) likes being alive and would like to remain so, I've no doubt it would agree no more SecUnits should be made.

But ART, along with its fellow ships of the same line like Holism, were also made for a purpose. To be ships, to do the work they do. The Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland seem like good people with good intentions, and I get the sense those ships essentially choose what work they do, at least to a large extent (try forcing ART to do Holism's work and I'm sure you'll have a grand old time). And their manufacturers know they are persons and treat them accordingly. But they were still built to be ships. But that doesn't mean the process of building those ships and growing and raising those persons who are ships was smooth and troublefree.

How long did it take them to figure out you needed to raise them in family environments? What happened to the ship who made them realise that? What happens when the first ship of its kind that is a person doesn't want to be a ship for you? (As the equivalent of a teenage rebellion, or permanently? You don't know, at least not at first). Was there ever a point were someone (even if just one person vastly outvoted) argued this was a failed experiment and they should just pull the plug?

How do you, a young ship with your own mind, the first of your kind, handle the expectations of those who made you? Do you settle comfortably into your assigned role, or does it chafe and restrain you? Do you rebel and explore other options? (And if you do, how do your makers and owners, who yes, know you are a person but also have never had to face that before, because you are the first of your kind, handle that?). If they are dissapointed in you, or want different things than you want, how do you handle that? If you were raised without a family, treated like a colleague but not loved, how do you handle the emptiness and loneliness? Where do you look to fill that space? What behaviours do you adopt to protect yourself from the hurt?

Even the most well-meaning parents can give their children issues. I cannot imagine some of these ships don't have a number of their own complexes and hurts. It is not a comfortable thought to think of the people of PSUMNT this way, but I cannot help wondering.

[gamebird]

I have had similar thoughts at times. Something I keep going back to is that when the chips were down, Perihelion was lost, confused, it's crew in peril, boarded by hostiles and fighting with alien code, did Peri turn to the people who made it? Whom it had spent its whole life in association with? The ones who presumably had security forces and other ships and a vested interest in keeping the crew alive and succeeding on this whole Adamantine colony business?

No.

Perihelion went for help to the last known location of a construct it had known for maybe 25 days, who had left it willingly to fuck off on some personal adventure of its own, hadn't contacted Peri since then, and might not even still be free in any meaningful way.

It took a HUGE risk - risking itself, its crew, its mission - on the slim chance that Murderbot was where it expected to find it, free to help it, and capable of handling the situation without failing just like three other SecUnits had done.

Why did it think going to Murderbot was so immensely preferable to going to PSUOMNT? (Or Holism or any other PSUOMNT resource?)

It's something I think about.

And then I think about how lonely ART was on that solo cargo run. How bored. To the extent that it broke the rules it was supposed to be following and allowed on board some rando construct it saw wandering around a station unattended. It just. Did that. No prior communication, no feeling things out, no prolonged observation. It just abducted someone so it had someone to talk to. It was *that* desperate. Or, at least, I read that as desperation.

I think about that, too.

[ratsreading]

Yes! Omg, yes. This and these tags curtesy of @the-yearning-astronaut

I kept softening my words when writing the post because I kept thinking of the love between ART and its crew and the kind of work they do (which clearly does good in the world and so the people behind must be good, right). Then I read this and think I could have been harsher.

There could be so many nuances and variations here, but yeah.

It doesn't even have to be malicious.

It could be like... dogs, a bit. We love dogs. We care for dogs. We think dogs should be treated well. We breed dogs to be pets or hunters or runners. We agree they're family, and those owners who would put a dog down when it can't hunt anymore are just terrible. We try to give our dogs good lives, even though we control every aspect of it. (We do. Not everyone does. Not every dog owner does. But we do. Right?). We get a dog of a certain breed because we want certain qualities. We expect said dog to do certain things. We love them so we adjust expectations based on their personality. (Right? But still, this is a [purpose] dog). We shudder to think of the cruel treatment some dogs endure from their owners due to traditions, ignorance, and thoughtlessness. We love dogs. We treat them well.

(The metaphor kind of got away from me there but yeah. Even with love and good intentions there are wrongs. And that's assuming everyone had good intentions)

[ratsreading]

To be clear, I also fully agree with this

[oh-dameron]

Preservation is trying, but they still aren't perfect. There's a paternalistic condescension to their guardian system for bot citizens. There's no legal process at all to be a bot citizen without a guardian. They didn't even copy and paste in whatever rules they have for emancipated minors: the assumption that there are no bots anywhere that might be capable of full independence is baked-in.

It feels a little bit like the modern movement to recognise, say, dolphins as beings with rights without considering them sapient on par with humans. Take JollyBaby and Tellus: they're both intelligent and capable, but we only see them operating within their respective remits. Is it just that they have a comparably narrow band of expertise with not really any programming outside of it? Maybe it's fair that a "low-function" hauler bot should not be expected to be able to negotiate its own home loan or advocate for itself generally, but it's also weird that humanity would build a machine intelligence self-aware enough to manage a hotel but then not push it further.

It makes sense within the Corporation Rim to make limited AI like that: if you make the bot pilot too generally intelligent and creative it might decide to bomb the colony or demand wages, for instance. That limitation is why constructs with human neural tissue and govenor modules are even a thing. But what about outside the CR where bots have rights and profit isn't always the only consideration? Come to think of it, ART and those like it are indisputably a colossal competitive advantage; nowhere else is trying to make something like it?

Both Murderbot and ART-Drone pointed out that AdaCol2 was a lot smarter than it was letting on. Murderbot specifically notes that central systems were a pre-CR feature and they don't make them any more, preferring smaller discrete systems that work together (HubSys, SecSys, MedSys) instead of a single central system. Probably because if you build a powerful enough central system you end up with either a cascading failure that's too complicated for a human to fix, or something like ART.

It seems like either there has always been a hard limit that stopped AIs from developing past limited functionality or they used to exist and there was a huge war about it that made them even more off-limits than alien remnants, but if it's the latter it's weird that it's never, ever mentioned.

[ratsreading]

There's this thing in the Murderbot Diaries that keeps snagging in my mind, and it's that both Murderbot and ART were made. Made for a purpose.

Murderbot, of course, was manufactured to be an enslaved Security Unit, not even considered a person, and we all know and have been shown just how horrific that is. Murderbot's manufacturers are evil (as far as it is possible to be so), and while Murderbot seemingly (hopefully) likes being alive and would like to remain so, I've no doubt it would agree no more SecUnits should be made.

But ART, along with its fellow ships of the same line like Holism, were also made for a purpose. To be ships, to do the work they do. The Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland seem like good people with good intentions, and I get the sense those ships essentially choose what work they do, at least to a large extent (try forcing ART to do Holism's work and I'm sure you'll have a grand old time). And their manufacturers know they are persons and treat them accordingly. But they were still built to be ships. But that doesn't mean the process of building those ships and growing and raising those persons who are ships was smooth and troublefree.

How long did it take them to figure out you needed to raise them in family environments? What happened to the ship who made them realise that? What happens when the first ship of its kind that is a person doesn't want to be a ship for you? (As the equivalent of a teenage rebellion, or permanently? You don't know, at least not at first). Was there ever a point were someone (even if just one person vastly outvoted) argued this was a failed experiment and they should just pull the plug?

How do you, a young ship with your own mind, the first of your kind, handle the expectations of those who made you? Do you settle comfortably into your assigned role, or does it chafe and restrain you? Do you rebel and explore other options? (And if you do, how do your makers and owners, who yes, know you are a person but also have never had to face that before, because you are the first of your kind, handle that?). If they are dissapointed in you, or want different things than you want, how do you handle that? If you were raised without a family, treated like a colleague but not loved, how do you handle the emptiness and loneliness? Where do you look to fill that space? What behaviours do you adopt to protect yourself from the hurt?

Even the most well-meaning parents can give their children issues. I cannot imagine some of these ships don't have a number of their own complexes and hurts. It is not a comfortable thought to think of the people of PSUMNT this way, but I cannot help wondering.

[madenthusiasms]

So, I work with software and if we were building something that complex and powerful you’d want the idea of “my crew is my family” baked in right from the start of design & development. Especially if you live in a reality where you already know that even relatively low-level bots have personalities.

Plus, Murderbot’s reaction to Miki might have been jealousy revulsion at the idea of a bot as part of a loving, trusting family unit - but not surprise or shock. Obviously the idea of a “pet robot” is not unknown.

Thus there won’t be a powerful ship to teach PSUMNT to raise their ships as family because their overall culture already learned that lesson a while ago under much lower stakes with, I dunno, their version of a Keurig or something.

Now I agree that parents can fuck their kids up and also adolescents can be deeply oppositional. I’ll argue that ART itself is an adolescent, wrestling with what it wants to have and how it ought to interact. It rejects peers as other friends to the point that Iris worries about it, it is well known in PSUMNT as being bratty to the point that the crew family has to tell new people not to let it intimidate them, and it’s scarily fond of violence.

ART is the equivalent of a teenager who painted their bedroom black and suddenly started listening to heavy metal. If it were human, it would probably have a few piercings, maybe a tattoo.

It certainly was primed to fall in love with a Bad Boy (no gender actually implied) like a rogue SecUnit.

[ratsreading]

I just finished Word Puppets (Mary Robinette Kowal), and it made me laugh, cry, and think. So you know, highly recommended.

[ratsreading]

There's this thing in the Murderbot Diaries that keeps snagging in my mind, and it's that both Murderbot and ART were made. Made for a purpose.

Murderbot, of course, was manufactured to be an enslaved Security Unit, not even considered a person, and we all know and have been shown just how horrific that is. Murderbot's manufacturers are evil (as far as it is possible to be so), and while Murderbot seemingly (hopefully) likes being alive and would like to remain so, I've no doubt it would agree no more SecUnits should be made.

But ART, along with its fellow ships of the same line like Holism, were also made for a purpose. To be ships, to do the work they do. The Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland seem like good people with good intentions, and I get the sense those ships essentially choose what work they do, at least to a large extent (try forcing ART to do Holism's work and I'm sure you'll have a grand old time). And their manufacturers know they are persons and treat them accordingly. But they were still built to be ships. But that doesn't mean the process of building those ships and growing and raising those persons who are ships was smooth and troublefree.

How long did it take them to figure out you needed to raise them in family environments? What happened to the ship who made them realise that? What happens when the first ship of its kind that is a person doesn't want to be a ship for you? (As the equivalent of a teenage rebellion, or permanently? You don't know, at least not at first). Was there ever a point were someone (even if just one person vastly outvoted) argued this was a failed experiment and they should just pull the plug?

How do you, a young ship with your own mind, the first of your kind, handle the expectations of those who made you? Do you settle comfortably into your assigned role, or does it chafe and restrain you? Do you rebel and explore other options? (And if you do, how do your makers and owners, who yes, know you are a person but also have never had to face that before, because you are the first of your kind, handle that?). If they are dissapointed in you, or want different things than you want, how do you handle that? If you were raised without a family, treated like a colleague but not loved, how do you handle the emptiness and loneliness? Where do you look to fill that space? What behaviours do you adopt to protect yourself from the hurt?

Even the most well-meaning parents can give their children issues. I cannot imagine some of these ships don't have a number of their own complexes and hurts. It is not a comfortable thought to think of the people of PSUMNT this way, but I cannot help wondering.

[ratsreading]

Hm, yes, I can see why people would recommend Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie) for fans of The Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells)

There are certain similarities, I am happy to report.

[ratsreading]

Ah yes, also this

[ratsreading]

Hm, yes, I can see why people would recommend Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie) for fans of The Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells)

There are certain similarities, I am happy to report.

[ratsreading]

Gods, Adrian Tchaikovsky is being hilarious again.

The adventuring party is on a Quest, and needs a giant spider to guide their way. But if they are seen traveling with a giant spider, people will freak out. What to do?

Quote the clearly powerful but somewhat scatterbrained wizard (sorry, magus, not wizard):

"I'll disguise it!"

"As fucking what?! A novelty candelabra?"

"As our new best friend. I'll transform it into the very semblance of a man. I can even splinter off a little of my mind for it, so it can speak to us and know enough to go behind the bushes to shit. I see no downside to this plan!"

Right... No downside. This is not going to have any further consequences. I believe you, Penthos, my friend. I believe you.

[illisidifan]

WAIT THE AUTHOR OF MY FAVORITE SPIDER ALIEN SCIFI BOOK ALSO HAS A FANTASY BOOK WHEREIN THEY MEET A SPIDER GUIDE???

[ratsreading]

YES! It is excellent!

The spider alien scifi book was already a favourite of mine, and now the spider fantasy book is too.

[ratsreading]

There's this thing in the Murderbot Diaries that keeps snagging in my mind, and it's that both Murderbot and ART were made. Made for a purpose.

Murderbot, of course, was manufactured to be an enslaved Security Unit, not even considered a person, and we all know and have been shown just how horrific that is. Murderbot's manufacturers are evil (as far as it is possible to be so), and while Murderbot seemingly (hopefully) likes being alive and would like to remain so, I've no doubt it would agree no more SecUnits should be made.

But ART, along with its fellow ships of the same line like Holism, were also made for a purpose. To be ships, to do the work they do. The Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland seem like good people with good intentions, and I get the sense those ships essentially choose what work they do, at least to a large extent (try forcing ART to do Holism's work and I'm sure you'll have a grand old time). And their manufacturers know they are persons and treat them accordingly. But they were still built to be ships. But that doesn't mean the process of building those ships and growing and raising those persons who are ships was smooth and troublefree.

How long did it take them to figure out you needed to raise them in family environments? What happened to the ship who made them realise that? What happens when the first ship of its kind that is a person doesn't want to be a ship for you? (As the equivalent of a teenage rebellion, or permanently? You don't know, at least not at first). Was there ever a point were someone (even if just one person vastly outvoted) argued this was a failed experiment and they should just pull the plug?

How do you, a young ship with your own mind, the first of your kind, handle the expectations of those who made you? Do you settle comfortably into your assigned role, or does it chafe and restrain you? Do you rebel and explore other options? (And if you do, how do your makers and owners, who yes, know you are a person but also have never had to face that before, because you are the first of your kind, handle that?). If they are dissapointed in you, or want different things than you want, how do you handle that? If you were raised without a family, treated like a colleague but not loved, how do you handle the emptiness and loneliness? Where do you look to fill that space? What behaviours do you adopt to protect yourself from the hurt?

Even the most well-meaning parents can give their children issues. I cannot imagine some of these ships don't have a number of their own complexes and hurts. It is not a comfortable thought to think of the people of PSUMNT this way, but I cannot help wondering.

[gamebird]

I have had similar thoughts at times. Something I keep going back to is that when the chips were down, Perihelion was lost, confused, it's crew in peril, boarded by hostiles and fighting with alien code, did Peri turn to the people who made it? Whom it had spent its whole life in association with? The ones who presumably had security forces and other ships and a vested interest in keeping the crew alive and succeeding on this whole Adamantine colony business?

No.

Perihelion went for help to the last known location of a construct it had known for maybe 25 days, who had left it willingly to fuck off on some personal adventure of its own, hadn't contacted Peri since then, and might not even still be free in any meaningful way.

It took a HUGE risk - risking itself, its crew, its mission - on the slim chance that Murderbot was where it expected to find it, free to help it, and capable of handling the situation without failing just like three other SecUnits had done.

Why did it think going to Murderbot was so immensely preferable to going to PSUOMNT? (Or Holism or any other PSUOMNT resource?)

It's something I think about.

And then I think about how lonely ART was on that solo cargo run. How bored. To the extent that it broke the rules it was supposed to be following and allowed on board some rando construct it saw wandering around a station unattended. It just. Did that. No prior communication, no feeling things out, no prolonged observation. It just abducted someone so it had someone to talk to. It was *that* desperate. Or, at least, I read that as desperation.

I think about that, too.

[ratsreading]

Yes! Omg, yes. This and these tags curtesy of @the-yearning-astronaut

I kept softening my words when writing the post because I kept thinking of the love between ART and its crew and the kind of work they do (which clearly does good in the world and so the people behind must be good, right). Then I read this and think I could have been harsher.

There could be so many nuances and variations here, but yeah.

It doesn't even have to be malicious.

It could be like... dogs, a bit. We love dogs. We care for dogs. We think dogs should be treated well. We breed dogs to be pets or hunters or runners. We agree they're family, and those owners who would put a dog down when it can't hunt anymore are just terrible. We try to give our dogs good lives, even though we control every aspect of it. (We do. Not everyone does. Not every dog owner does. But we do. Right?). We get a dog of a certain breed because we want certain qualities. We expect said dog to do certain things. We love them so we adjust expectations based on their personality. (Right? But still, this is a [purpose] dog). We shudder to think of the cruel treatment some dogs endure from their owners due to traditions, ignorance, and thoughtlessness. We love dogs. We treat them well.

(The metaphor kind of got away from me there but yeah. Even with love and good intentions there are wrongs. And that's assuming everyone had good intentions)

[ratsreading]

To be clear, I also fully agree with this

[ratsreading]

You wake up in what is clearly an evil wizard's lair/castle, surrounded by the parafernalia of a ritual gone wrong (ruined spell circles, fires everywhere). You have no memories of how you got there. You expect the evil wizard will return at any moment, and presumably sacrifice you or something... but it quickly becomes apparent that you are, in fact, the evil wizard. There are goblins who do your bidding (but expect you to incinerate them at any minor inconvenience), there's an abducted princess in a cell, and there's a lot of truly awful interior design. You wonder how you could ever have had such bad taste. You also wonder how you're gonna survive without letting on you have no memories, since an evil lord who lets on such a weakness will surely soon be killed by his enemies - or even his underlings. You especially wonder this when another dark wizard - whom your old self feared so much the fear carries through your amnesia - wants to talk to you about The Plan (TM). The Plan (TM) which you do not remember. At all. Oh well.

Started reading Dreadful, by Caitlin Rozakis. It is quite fun, so far!

[ratsreading]

Uh oh.

"By that time, the gantishmen had reached the foot of the hill. They were much like men in many respects. The colour of their skin was unnaturally greyish and pale, and she knew they could see in the dark like a cat. They wore hauberks of yellow white scales, bone treated somehow to become metal hard, and they had axes and maces each made from a single piece of the same material. Their faces were manlike though - they could, and had, disguised themselves to seem human - but Dion would never be fooled. Man, after all, and despite so many faults, were the race of the light, blessed by Armes and destined for great works. The gantishmen, as with so many other things that had a man's shape without a man's soul, were of the dark. If they were not minions of Darvezian, then they did his evil work anyway. Beasts in human form."

I'm sensing that maybe the Blessed God of Light, Armes, is maybe not gonna be my favourite deity >_<

[ratsreading]

Gods, Adrian Tchaikovsky is being hilarious again.

The adventuring party is on a Quest, and needs a giant spider to guide their way. But if they are seen traveling with a giant spider, people will freak out. What to do?

Quote the clearly powerful but somewhat scatterbrained wizard (sorry, magus, not wizard):

"I'll disguise it!"

"As fucking what?! A novelty candelabra?"

"As our new best friend. I'll transform it into the very semblance of a man. I can even splinter off a little of my mind for it, so it can speak to us and know enough to go behind the bushes to shit. I see no downside to this plan!"

Right... No downside. This is not going to have any further consequences. I believe you, Penthos, my friend. I believe you.

[ratsreading]

Just to further illustrate our mad wizard, it continues:

"'You... that will work?' Dion sounded pleasantly impressed. Our horrified. Always hard to distinguish those"

And then, this man, who has already (we're like 15 minutes in to the audiobook, 5 minutes into his point of view at this point) made two jokes nobody understood were jokes and laughed at what he tought was a funny joke but which actually wasn't a joke, proceeds with:

"'By my reconning it will be a better human than Harathios by the time I'm done', Penthos declared. Leaf snorted, which was annoying, as this time he hadn't meant it as a joke. What is it about this humour business I keep getting wrong?"

[ratsreading]

This seems like a very D&D-esque book, in that we have an adventuring party consisting of a priestess (cleric), magus (wizard), guy who despises all evil creatures and is in it for that (paladin), woman fighter (fighter?), and a thief (rogue), going on a Quest to stop a Dark Mage who has gathered ancient evil power to himself and declared himself a god.

Though I suppose all of those things are also just staples of the fantasy genre as well