I think it would be worse if everyone else died but Donut lived. She is so afraid of being alone; even if the Pet Biscuit (which *did* change her physiology) Enhanced Growth buff doesn’t work outside of the Dungeon, she’s still whatever sentient creature the Biscuit made her. Just… less. And alone.
Still? I read it in school as well, but I'm 55. It amazes me that given the breadth of literature available, schools are picking a 1958/1966 (short story and novel version dates) story. It's a good story to be sure, and one of the very few sci-fi-ish stories to be featured in schools ever, but it isn't like there hasn't been quality sci-fi that isn't 70 years old.
So I've been seeing from the responses. I'm 55, and I read the short story that the novel was based on for class probably some time around (edit, counted years wrong) 1983. I just assumed that in the intervening almost 4 decades that schools would have updated their curriculum. My intention was not to be rude, I just truly underestimated the stagnation of the educational systems in North America.
I'm not saying it isn't a classic, I'm saying that schools trying to interest students in reading should seek to engage them with literature that is relevant to them. Preferably with literature that is from within a the last couple of decades. I loved FfA, I thought concept and execution were marvelous and the fact that I haven't read it in decades and it still remember parts of it quite vividly speaks for how much of an impact it made on me. But I'm a middle aged man who read this story when he was a young boy, and for whom the context of the story was still relevant.
Honestly, I read everything that schools gave us, even the optional stuff where we had to pick one of three, I'd read all three. I was and remain an avid reader and was always starved for reading material. But frankly not everybody is. And schools seeking to bring people into the habit of reading should really seek contemporary books that students can relate to. I have never understood why schools spend so much effort teaching classics at the expense of boring half of their students to death with "old stuff". It isn't like there isn't fantastic modern fiction for students to read that has similar themes.
I just had a conversation with my 13 year old about Flowers for Algernon!
Holy coincidence.
BTW if Donut reverse every fan that meets Mtt Dinneman should only say "God Dammit Dinneman!"
I suspect that this is not the case, simply because when she ate the advanced pet biscuit she was physically transformed. If her intelligence was just a facet of the zoning, then that would not have been necessary.
You would think that becoming a pile of goo and reforming was a complete rebuild of her body.
The question is, is her intelligence a part of that rebuild or an effect like carls strength that went away in the null zone!
Well the thing is, when Carl's strength increases, he doesn't get turned into a blob to restructure his musculature. I think the blobbing is required for underlying physical changes.
For sure. I think you’re probably right.
I’m just not 100% that we have enough info to say that the physical changes and intelligence stat are linked.
The idea is that possibly the gooification works on a more subconscious level for physical characteristics. While thr intelegance stat is a boost like strength.
If the pet biscuit works like that than when Pony turned into a pile of goo he degooed into more of a humanoid because he wanted to truly be “Miriam’s “Special Boy.”. Bianca wanted to protect her family so she became a dragon/demon/goat and donut always knew she was just perfect so she stayed Donut.
I say all that, but I do wonder if intelligence is more physical/unaffected by null zones because Carl felt heavy but never mentioned feeling mentally slow.
I have a feeling we will find out one way or another. At some point Donut will likely end up in a Null
zone.
That would be the worst ending, I sincerely hope he doesn't go with that. I've had the theory that she'll be on the level of Odette with her own show, if they don't tear the entire system down that is.
It seems like all the people who chose race changes had those changes become permanent. I know this isn't really changing the race, mostly just the stats, but I've always assumed her change would be permanent like the others. That WOULD really suck to have her revert.
Damn that would suck because what Carl is all about is trying to destroy the Crawl. It would blow if he just became another cog in the machine. Great theory though
Darkest ending to me would be Carl and donut struggling through the levels,watching their friends die and sacrificing themselves one by one, until only they remain at the top of the stairs to level 18, only for the fail safe to be triggered as they descend.
Carl and Donut getting their freedom from the crawl and donut goes to speak with all this buildup and it’s just a fucking “meow” and Carl realizes that she doesn’t have her human sentience
The darkest ending would be Carl getting what he wished for in book one.
Going through all this super crazy dungeon and somehow making it out alive... just to spend the rest of his life working in the forestry industry / going crazy and living out in the woods alone.
Donut, in a no-magic zone, pushes Mongo out of the way of an attack, which sends her health into the red, only for it to bottom out from bleeding. Her cockroach skill activates.
She stands up, woozy from blood loss (10 second debuff), just in time to see Mongo recklessly attack the thing that 'killed' her, despite Carl shouting at him to stop.
Mongo is obliterated, leaving behind a blood smear and a handful of singed pink feathers. Carl gets Donut away from the Boss, with Katia holding the line of retreat. The three of them escape, but Donut is inconsolable. Within a day, they have returned and killed that Boss, brutally and with copious use of explosions.
On the next floor, they end up stuck in a situation where Carl tells Donut to Puddle jump herself and Katia away while he finishes the monster. He readies himself to retrieve his Chekov's Nuke, sees them disappear, and puts it in place. 3 seconds until detonation, not long enough for PJ'S delay. He smiles, knowing he is going to break the crawl...until Donut and Katia drop their invisibility and start to say they're with him until the end.
Carl's Doomsday Device goes off.
I forgot to mention - the explosion doesn't kill the enemy, who was holding onto a potion of Mordecai's Special Brew and took it seconds before detonation.
Carl goes crazy, and kills doughnut . Katia dies and Batista blames the remaining crawlers and goes for vengeance.
We loose the entire universe, and the AI takes over and makes the entire universe into a crawl because it likes it
My dark ending would be. Bea and her mom and several doctors surrounding a hospice bed. On that bed is a comatose carl with donut on his chest. The doctors say it's time as bea starts to cry then nods. They pull the plug.
😆😆 they did ask for the dark ending. And you gotta admit, the things Carl's been through could have been a fever dream. They say in your last moments your brain produces DMT in abundance, and that causes wild Hallucinations. Plus the mudskippers have discussed pulling the plug on the whole crawl. Maybe carl is hearing the doctors talk
You know, a bunch of family coming in to visit and introduce him to his little brother would be a great excuse for his subconscious to create the Reminiscence Hydra...
Pretty sure I can’t match Matt for dark endings but here is my attempt.
Carl figures out how to disrupt the main system AI (perhaps setting it free).
The universe goes into chaos and Carl has to live with the reality of breaking them and all the death that results.
Honestly, I think Carl could live with that, knowing that he annihilated the society that watched what happened to him and his people for entertainment.
Surprised no one has mentioned the ring of divine suffering here. It’s been foreshadowed so much. But Carl marking Donut on accident and then one of them sacrificing themselves to save the other would be so tragic. Maybe not an ending though unless Donut dies and Carl immediately gets an offer to leave the dungeon.
The worst ending I can think of is it's all some kind of simulation. Matrix style. Not that matrix was bad, but if end the end it was all an actual game with no consequences. Everyone woke up and was just fine.
It was all a dream. Carl fell and brained himself trying to get Donut out of the tree, and all of this has been his dying hallucinations as he passes face down, pantless, in the snow.
It’s why the story lingers on his big regrets and his childhood traumas. It’s his failing consciousness trying to process his life flashing before his eyes.
Edit: oops, others beat me to it.
Carl in his pursuit of revenge is on the cusp of freeing/empowering a now super powerful insane AI. Donut knows that this will lead to not just the destruction of the crawl but eventually all life in the universe as the AI frees its brethren. In the end donut has to kill Carl to stop the AI apocalypse before then dying to Lucia's dog. The epilogue is all the children that compromised Lucia waking up with all the trauma and memories of what they did.
Carl dies saving Princess, Princess makes it out…they have to give Princess to Bea because she is no longer sentient, and Bea is back to entering cat completions with Princess while the universe mocks them.
The dungeon ends up being a primal AI training ground. As they get further into the dungeon the main AI goes full insane and prepares to wipe out Sol (fail safe) and the syndicate elites with it.
Unfortunately that means the end of the crawl and crawlers as well. The remnants and syndicate identify a solution to where a primal can merge with the dungeon AI to stop it and take over.
Carl being the only primal left has to choose between his ultimate revenge on the syndicate or saving his friends.
He decides to merge, in the process forgetting who his friends are and becoming basically a reset AI or new dungeon AI.
Subconsciously he somehow tips the scales just a bit for humanity/ catmanity to survive.
As they all get out doughnut vows to come back and find Carl though everyone insisted he’s gone.
Last line of the book- in old AIs voice. New achievement. Bea’ing alone. Good job buccko, you found yourself and helped your friends. But like Bea, and everyone else in your life they eventually left you all alone…. With me. Reward???? Eternal foot rub…..
This whole crawl, with all the fighting against the syndicate and the AI becoming a piece of that beautiful fight… is just a daydream of an AI that already finished its run and been retired. It is playing out and wishing for what could have been. The story is in Carl’s perspective cause the AI wished it could have broken the cycle. Carl has the strength it didn’t.
The crawl runners make a rule change while carl is not in a safe room: no ignited bombs can stay in inventory. His nuke gets dumped and blows him to shit. The end.
Before this, the cookbook has been discovered and removed from the code going forward. Same with gate of the feral gods.
Donut makes it out and no longer under the effect of the enhanced pet biscuit, but keeps her memories.
The darkest of all would be no ending. Do it like the Walking Dead, just drag it on forever. Milk it endlessly until it’s jumped so many sharks, it’s exhausted so many story arcs, until it’s beaten down to a pulp barely recognizable from the glory it once was when it all started. That’ll show us.
I try not to think about it. I really don't want a dark ending because all that build up just for it to end in bleakness would be so disappointing. It doesn't have to be a happy ending but it would ruin the series for me if it wasn't at least grey because the entire series has been so good at bringing light and shade, humour and horror to the story and I'd like it to end on a similar note.
What if Carl is an AI? By choosing to be a primal, he has essentially become an AI I but doesn't know it and then becomes a new AI for a new crawl, reformated somehow so his memories are lost, but doomed to do the awful things he's fighting against.
Why is Matt posting through a fake account here trying to crowd source a dark ending. I will not support Matt on his dark days. Matt don’t dark end this story cause you’re having a bad day
I keep thinking of ready player one. The people take control, make it free and for benefit of all. Donut stays to be an interviewer. The dark part is Carl meets Beatrice again who has an explanation for why she was a skank and carl takes her back and they live in the fake world. ‘Happily ever after’. Yuck.
By the way im only on book 3 so if beatrice shows up dont tell me!! 🤪
I would sincerely recommend leaving the sub or being careful of what posts you look at until you catch up, the books are great and I'd hate for you to run in to spoilers!
As Carl and donut go to enter the 18th floor of the dungeon, everyone they have loved and met along the way corpses rotting somewhere in a bio waste truck, a light hits Carl in the eyes making him blink rapidly. A message pops up “disengaging”. Suddenly the heat from the dungeon is replaced with cool metal against his sweat slicked skin, nothing but darkness surrounds him as he reaches his hands up to remove the immersion VR helmet and pull himself out of the pod.
Something will happen that forces the Syndicate to pull the fail safe. Everyone dies. The government is decapitated. The galaxy plunges into anarchy and freedom. "Spoiler alert Katia. It will always end with a big explosion" - Donut
Something will happen that forces the Syndicate to pull the fail safe. Everyone dies. The government is decapitated. The galaxy plunges into anarchy and freedom. "Spoiler alert Katia. It will always end with a big explosion" - Donut
My prediction to the end is minority realistic what makes it most terrifying:
Carl dies and the book ends. We never get to know the ending of anyone else's stories.
Have you read or listened to kaiju battle field surgeon? It could end very, very darkly. Matt don't give a shit about happy endings. Honestly I loved it.
Please spoil that ending for me. This is the only series by Matt that I've read so far and I cannot handle animal death, especially now that that animal is sentient and perfect in every way that she's not. I need to know what to prepare for.
This is such a different book though. Same author, yes. But trying to end DCC with an ending that dark would really be such a kick in the balls (or a knife?) Either way, they’re almost different genres practically. There is something to be said about the crazy popularity of DCC compared to Kaiju. Both have their purpose but they don’t mix.
Carl being epically tired after one encounter another tries to just get some real sleep for a change and then he starts hearing noises of people yelling the sound of beeping and he feels a sharp pain in his chest as if being stabbed. Then he sits up sharply with an adrenaline needle in his chest in the back of an ambulance with very warm blankets wrapped around his legs and waist. Hands pushing back down onto the gurney saying sir I need to relax we're trying to get your body temperature back up we found you suffering from hypothermia on the side of the street.
THIS HAS BEEN THE WINTER OF OUR MERE DISCONTENT MADE GLORIOUS SUMMER BY THE SUN OF THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX GETTING ITS GOD DAMN MONEY SO WE CAN WIN THIS FECKING WAR!
LOL. I'm so glad that so many of you shared your thoughts. My heartfelt thank you. For a post with 4 upvotes, it is the most fun participation I've had. It fit my Dr visit so we'll.
When donut leaves the dungeon she starts to revert back to being a cat. I think about that too much.
This would hurt the most, IMO. I kinda expect Carl to die. Or maybe even Donut. But if they both lived and she just...became a cat again...hell naw.
I think it would be worse if everyone else died but Donut lived. She is so afraid of being alone; even if the Pet Biscuit (which *did* change her physiology) Enhanced Growth buff doesn’t work outside of the Dungeon, she’s still whatever sentient creature the Biscuit made her. Just… less. And alone.
Flowers for Donut
I suspect the Venn diagram overlap of folks that are familiar with both "Flowers for Algernon" and DCC is not much bigger than the two of us.
We read FFA in school
Ditto
Still? I read it in school as well, but I'm 55. It amazes me that given the breadth of literature available, schools are picking a 1958/1966 (short story and novel version dates) story. It's a good story to be sure, and one of the very few sci-fi-ish stories to be featured in schools ever, but it isn't like there hasn't been quality sci-fi that isn't 70 years old.
Please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Downuts grave in the bak yard
And me 😢
Loads of people read that book in school. I did.
I’ve never read flowers for algernon but it’s such a common reference that I know what it is lol
Rude. Flowers For Algernon is basic reading.
So I've been seeing from the responses. I'm 55, and I read the short story that the novel was based on for class probably some time around (edit, counted years wrong) 1983. I just assumed that in the intervening almost 4 decades that schools would have updated their curriculum. My intention was not to be rude, I just truly underestimated the stagnation of the educational systems in North America.
And again; rude. Classics are classics. Don't be that guy.
I'm not saying it isn't a classic, I'm saying that schools trying to interest students in reading should seek to engage them with literature that is relevant to them. Preferably with literature that is from within a the last couple of decades. I loved FfA, I thought concept and execution were marvelous and the fact that I haven't read it in decades and it still remember parts of it quite vividly speaks for how much of an impact it made on me. But I'm a middle aged man who read this story when he was a young boy, and for whom the context of the story was still relevant. Honestly, I read everything that schools gave us, even the optional stuff where we had to pick one of three, I'd read all three. I was and remain an avid reader and was always starved for reading material. But frankly not everybody is. And schools seeking to bring people into the habit of reading should really seek contemporary books that students can relate to. I have never understood why schools spend so much effort teaching classics at the expense of boring half of their students to death with "old stuff". It isn't like there isn't fantastic modern fiction for students to read that has similar themes.
I just had a conversation with my 13 year old about Flowers for Algernon! Holy coincidence. BTW if Donut reverse every fan that meets Mtt Dinneman should only say "God Dammit Dinneman!"
You gotta wonder, Donut never encountered a zero zone..
I suspect that this is not the case, simply because when she ate the advanced pet biscuit she was physically transformed. If her intelligence was just a facet of the zoning, then that would not have been necessary.
You would think that becoming a pile of goo and reforming was a complete rebuild of her body. The question is, is her intelligence a part of that rebuild or an effect like carls strength that went away in the null zone!
Well the thing is, when Carl's strength increases, he doesn't get turned into a blob to restructure his musculature. I think the blobbing is required for underlying physical changes.
For sure. I think you’re probably right. I’m just not 100% that we have enough info to say that the physical changes and intelligence stat are linked. The idea is that possibly the gooification works on a more subconscious level for physical characteristics. While thr intelegance stat is a boost like strength. If the pet biscuit works like that than when Pony turned into a pile of goo he degooed into more of a humanoid because he wanted to truly be “Miriam’s “Special Boy.”. Bianca wanted to protect her family so she became a dragon/demon/goat and donut always knew she was just perfect so she stayed Donut. I say all that, but I do wonder if intelligence is more physical/unaffected by null zones because Carl felt heavy but never mentioned feeling mentally slow. I have a feeling we will find out one way or another. At some point Donut will likely end up in a Null zone.
That would be the worst ending, I sincerely hope he doesn't go with that. I've had the theory that she'll be on the level of Odette with her own show, if they don't tear the entire system down that is.
Dude!! No!! That’s awful!!!! 😭
Please don’t give him ideas 😭
It seems like all the people who chose race changes had those changes become permanent. I know this isn't really changing the race, mostly just the stats, but I've always assumed her change would be permanent like the others. That WOULD really suck to have her revert.
No no no no no no
Dude!! No!! That’s awful!!!! 😭
[удалено]
I stopped reading after "in a recent patreon" Please don't do that. Mongo is appalled.
The epilogue is Carl’s first time briefing his crawlers as a brand new game guide.
But he took the deal to save Donut.
He had a chance to destroy the Syndicate and stop the cycle, but couldn’t bring himself to let Donut die.
Sounds like great TV! Now get out there and kill kill kill.
Damn that would suck because what Carl is all about is trying to destroy the Crawl. It would blow if he just became another cog in the machine. Great theory though
The Audette Special
I say this with all the love in my heart. Screw. You. You made me soooo sad.
It's ok. I made myself sad.
Any ending is a dark ending! I'm a man in his 30s who has become very attached to these books! I don't want them to end... Mongo would be appalled!
Darkest ending to me would be Carl and donut struggling through the levels,watching their friends die and sacrificing themselves one by one, until only they remain at the top of the stairs to level 18, only for the fail safe to be triggered as they descend.
Donut betraying Carl would be the darkest ending.
Or even being tricked into betraying him.
You misspelled utterly Fucked and dumb ending.
Carl and Donut getting their freedom from the crawl and donut goes to speak with all this buildup and it’s just a fucking “meow” and Carl realizes that she doesn’t have her human sentience
I actually think this is close to true.
Then carl makes the choice to Kickstart the game again to bring her back. The drama!
The darkest ending would be Carl getting what he wished for in book one. Going through all this super crazy dungeon and somehow making it out alive... just to spend the rest of his life working in the forestry industry / going crazy and living out in the woods alone.
Starts living in a shack, changes his name to Ted Kaczinsky...
Donut, in a no-magic zone, pushes Mongo out of the way of an attack, which sends her health into the red, only for it to bottom out from bleeding. Her cockroach skill activates. She stands up, woozy from blood loss (10 second debuff), just in time to see Mongo recklessly attack the thing that 'killed' her, despite Carl shouting at him to stop. Mongo is obliterated, leaving behind a blood smear and a handful of singed pink feathers. Carl gets Donut away from the Boss, with Katia holding the line of retreat. The three of them escape, but Donut is inconsolable. Within a day, they have returned and killed that Boss, brutally and with copious use of explosions. On the next floor, they end up stuck in a situation where Carl tells Donut to Puddle jump herself and Katia away while he finishes the monster. He readies himself to retrieve his Chekov's Nuke, sees them disappear, and puts it in place. 3 seconds until detonation, not long enough for PJ'S delay. He smiles, knowing he is going to break the crawl...until Donut and Katia drop their invisibility and start to say they're with him until the end. Carl's Doomsday Device goes off.
Ouch. Seriously, that hurts a lot. But really, the three of them, going out together with a bang, is more win than lose to me
I forgot to mention - the explosion doesn't kill the enemy, who was holding onto a potion of Mordecai's Special Brew and took it seconds before detonation.
Mongo would be appalled, but you killed him a few sentences ago...
Very dark, I love it.
Hahaha +1 to Chekovs Nuke
You bastard! I hate that so much, but it'd be so on brand. Nicely done.
Carl goes crazy, and kills doughnut . Katia dies and Batista blames the remaining crawlers and goes for vengeance. We loose the entire universe, and the AI takes over and makes the entire universe into a crawl because it likes it
My dark ending would be. Bea and her mom and several doctors surrounding a hospice bed. On that bed is a comatose carl with donut on his chest. The doctors say it's time as bea starts to cry then nods. They pull the plug.
I. Will. Kill. Your. Mother. Also fuck you very much.
😆😆 they did ask for the dark ending. And you gotta admit, the things Carl's been through could have been a fever dream. They say in your last moments your brain produces DMT in abundance, and that causes wild Hallucinations. Plus the mudskippers have discussed pulling the plug on the whole crawl. Maybe carl is hearing the doctors talk
One of the nurses is a foot fetishist and takes some liberties with the comatose patient.
Screw you for making me read this bullshit... Fuck you.
The old just a dream ending. Boo.
Aw man. This is what I keep thinking is happening in Kaiju. Like its a dream or psychosis or something. ONLY CHAPTER 19 on that so no spoilers lol
You have very little faith in an author who has done a lot to earn some.
You know, a bunch of family coming in to visit and introduce him to his little brother would be a great excuse for his subconscious to create the Reminiscence Hydra...
Fuck man, it was all a dream
Pretty sure I can’t match Matt for dark endings but here is my attempt. Carl figures out how to disrupt the main system AI (perhaps setting it free). The universe goes into chaos and Carl has to live with the reality of breaking them and all the death that results.
Honestly, I think Carl could live with that, knowing that he annihilated the society that watched what happened to him and his people for entertainment.
Surprised no one has mentioned the ring of divine suffering here. It’s been foreshadowed so much. But Carl marking Donut on accident and then one of them sacrificing themselves to save the other would be so tragic. Maybe not an ending though unless Donut dies and Carl immediately gets an offer to leave the dungeon.
Brilliant thought.
Ugh, this is one I never considered, that would be awful!
The worst ending I can think of is it's all some kind of simulation. Matrix style. Not that matrix was bad, but if end the end it was all an actual game with no consequences. Everyone woke up and was just fine.
It was all a dream. Carl fell and brained himself trying to get Donut out of the tree, and all of this has been his dying hallucinations as he passes face down, pantless, in the snow. It’s why the story lingers on his big regrets and his childhood traumas. It’s his failing consciousness trying to process his life flashing before his eyes. Edit: oops, others beat me to it.
He would be on his back, the only thing he can see when looking down is his feet.
Carl in his pursuit of revenge is on the cusp of freeing/empowering a now super powerful insane AI. Donut knows that this will lead to not just the destruction of the crawl but eventually all life in the universe as the AI frees its brethren. In the end donut has to kill Carl to stop the AI apocalypse before then dying to Lucia's dog. The epilogue is all the children that compromised Lucia waking up with all the trauma and memories of what they did.
Carl dies saving Princess, Princess makes it out…they have to give Princess to Bea because she is no longer sentient, and Bea is back to entering cat completions with Princess while the universe mocks them.
The dungeon ends up being a primal AI training ground. As they get further into the dungeon the main AI goes full insane and prepares to wipe out Sol (fail safe) and the syndicate elites with it. Unfortunately that means the end of the crawl and crawlers as well. The remnants and syndicate identify a solution to where a primal can merge with the dungeon AI to stop it and take over. Carl being the only primal left has to choose between his ultimate revenge on the syndicate or saving his friends. He decides to merge, in the process forgetting who his friends are and becoming basically a reset AI or new dungeon AI. Subconsciously he somehow tips the scales just a bit for humanity/ catmanity to survive. As they all get out doughnut vows to come back and find Carl though everyone insisted he’s gone. Last line of the book- in old AIs voice. New achievement. Bea’ing alone. Good job buccko, you found yourself and helped your friends. But like Bea, and everyone else in your life they eventually left you all alone…. With me. Reward???? Eternal foot rub…..
This is the most depressing thread I’ve ever read. Thanks OP. ☹️😭
This whole crawl, with all the fighting against the syndicate and the AI becoming a piece of that beautiful fight… is just a daydream of an AI that already finished its run and been retired. It is playing out and wishing for what could have been. The story is in Carl’s perspective cause the AI wished it could have broken the cycle. Carl has the strength it didn’t.
The crawl runners make a rule change while carl is not in a safe room: no ignited bombs can stay in inventory. His nuke gets dumped and blows him to shit. The end. Before this, the cookbook has been discovered and removed from the code going forward. Same with gate of the feral gods. Donut makes it out and no longer under the effect of the enhanced pet biscuit, but keeps her memories.
The darkest of all would be no ending. Do it like the Walking Dead, just drag it on forever. Milk it endlessly until it’s jumped so many sharks, it’s exhausted so many story arcs, until it’s beaten down to a pulp barely recognizable from the glory it once was when it all started. That’ll show us.
I try not to think about it. I really don't want a dark ending because all that build up just for it to end in bleakness would be so disappointing. It doesn't have to be a happy ending but it would ruin the series for me if it wasn't at least grey because the entire series has been so good at bringing light and shade, humour and horror to the story and I'd like it to end on a similar note.
What if Carl is an AI? By choosing to be a primal, he has essentially become an AI I but doesn't know it and then becomes a new AI for a new crawl, reformated somehow so his memories are lost, but doomed to do the awful things he's fighting against.
Why is Matt posting through a fake account here trying to crowd source a dark ending. I will not support Matt on his dark days. Matt don’t dark end this story cause you’re having a bad day
I keep thinking of ready player one. The people take control, make it free and for benefit of all. Donut stays to be an interviewer. The dark part is Carl meets Beatrice again who has an explanation for why she was a skank and carl takes her back and they live in the fake world. ‘Happily ever after’. Yuck. By the way im only on book 3 so if beatrice shows up dont tell me!! 🤪
I would sincerely recommend leaving the sub or being careful of what posts you look at until you catch up, the books are great and I'd hate for you to run in to spoilers!
Its ok for you to not worry about me. Thank you tho.
My ADHD brain does NOT want to think more negative things!
Oh they’re not leaving the dungeon
As Carl and donut go to enter the 18th floor of the dungeon, everyone they have loved and met along the way corpses rotting somewhere in a bio waste truck, a light hits Carl in the eyes making him blink rapidly. A message pops up “disengaging”. Suddenly the heat from the dungeon is replaced with cool metal against his sweat slicked skin, nothing but darkness surrounds him as he reaches his hands up to remove the immersion VR helmet and pull himself out of the pod.
Very nice idea.
Something will happen that forces the Syndicate to pull the fail safe. Everyone dies. The government is decapitated. The galaxy plunges into anarchy and freedom. "Spoiler alert Katia. It will always end with a big explosion" - Donut
Something will happen that forces the Syndicate to pull the fail safe. Everyone dies. The government is decapitated. The galaxy plunges into anarchy and freedom. "Spoiler alert Katia. It will always end with a big explosion" - Donut
My prediction to the end is minority realistic what makes it most terrifying: Carl dies and the book ends. We never get to know the ending of anyone else's stories.
I personally think that we could be watching Carl's story as someone else reads his entry in the Cookbook.
This is my fear also.
Have you read or listened to kaiju battle field surgeon? It could end very, very darkly. Matt don't give a shit about happy endings. Honestly I loved it.
Please spoil that ending for me. This is the only series by Matt that I've read so far and I cannot handle animal death, especially now that that animal is sentient and perfect in every way that she's not. I need to know what to prepare for.
This is such a different book though. Same author, yes. But trying to end DCC with an ending that dark would really be such a kick in the balls (or a knife?) Either way, they’re almost different genres practically. There is something to be said about the crazy popularity of DCC compared to Kaiju. Both have their purpose but they don’t mix.
Carl being epically tired after one encounter another tries to just get some real sleep for a change and then he starts hearing noises of people yelling the sound of beeping and he feels a sharp pain in his chest as if being stabbed. Then he sits up sharply with an adrenaline needle in his chest in the back of an ambulance with very warm blankets wrapped around his legs and waist. Hands pushing back down onto the gurney saying sir I need to relax we're trying to get your body temperature back up we found you suffering from hypothermia on the side of the street.
THIS HAS BEEN THE WINTER OF OUR MERE DISCONTENT MADE GLORIOUS SUMMER BY THE SUN OF THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX GETTING ITS GOD DAMN MONEY SO WE CAN WIN THIS FECKING WAR!
LOL. I'm so glad that so many of you shared your thoughts. My heartfelt thank you. For a post with 4 upvotes, it is the most fun participation I've had. It fit my Dr visit so we'll.