- It took me years to write it, won't you take a look?—John Lennon / Paul McCartney, "Paperback Writer"
Ketrin is an ongoing erotic Web Serial Novel by Leem, alias Troper Lee M, which he has been writing sporadically since 1999. As of October 2014 the story comprises fourteen novella-length installments, with at least one more to follow. The story combines his interest in Rudyard Kipling's original Jungle Books with his fetish for petrification and immobility.
To quote the story's listing
on Web Fiction Guide: "Raised by wolf-like telepathic lupinoids in the jungle, the wild youth Ketrin finds both love and hate when he attempts to re-enter human society. Meanwhile, lurking in the shadows is an evil that threatens to destroy not only the jungle and all of its human and lupinoid inhabitants, but perhaps the entire world."
That listing is accompanied by an extremely lukewarm Editor's Note and an equally lukewarm review. An earlier review on the now-defunct Pages Unbound site praised the story's prose but found it overly preachy.
Ketrin (together with three related stories) can be found on the Ketrin's World website. Comments and trope suggestions welcomed.
Tropes Present in Ketrin:
- Almost Out of Oxygen: Several of the heroes get sealed into a narrow tunnel by rockslides and begin to suffocate.
- And I Must Scream: Subverted, insofar as being paralysed doesn't drive victims insane, though some of them have occasion to wish they could scream with ecstasy.
- Back from the Dead: The Maiden somehow resurrects Shadow the lupinoid after he is killed by a striagon (a big, psychotic, tiger-like beastie), because she knows his wounded companion Sherinel won't make it without his support. Later on he comforts the dying Night (another lupinoid) by telling him "I've been there. It isn't so bad."
- Cool Gate: The "holes in nothing" which appear and disappear as the plot demands.
- Dreaming of Times Gone By: Any human or lupinoid who ingests lupinoid milk or blood will dream ancestral lupinoid memories. This is meant to pass on survival knowledge from generation to generation.
- Dude, She's Like in a Coma: This is certainly Mavrida's opinion when she finds the young hunter Lendrin apparently making out with the paralysed Suvanji. That's not the whole story, though... that hasn't been told yet.
- Eye Colour Change: Whenever somebody acquires telepathy their eyes permanently turn purple.
- Fantasy World Map: Drawn, or rather scrawled, by the author, and expanded and updated in successive instalments as the characters move further afield.
- Inevitable Waterfall: Deliberately averted. Some of the characters do have to swim down dangerous rapids, but they avoid the channel that would lead to a lethal drop.
- Literal Cliff Hanger: When the rotting bridge he and Ketrin's lupinoids have been crossing collapses, Sherinel is left hanging onto a cliff edge by his fingertips. Doesn't actually happen at the end of an instalment, though. He gets rescued by two strange wildlings.
- Mark of the Supernatural: Purple eyes indicate possession of lupinoid telepathy and ancestral memories. Obviously shared by all lupinoids, and also any human who drinks lupinoid milk such as Ketrin, other wild humans, or mixes their blood with anyone belonging to the aforesaid categories.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In his flashback in Part Eight, this is Lendrin's reaction when he first succeeds in killing a lupinoid. He's obviously a bit slow on the uptake, though, because it's not until the third time that he's too overcome with guilt to continue.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Almost all of the good guys end up with lupinoid companions.
- No Ontological Inertia: Paralysing crystals (slightly fudged for plot purposes).
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: Sort of. Ketrin is worshipped as a god while paralysed and this includes both men and women having sex with him. They don't consider it rape, and he's having lots of orgasms, so... Also, Lendrin embraces Suvanji while she's paralysed (it's not clear how far he goes with her), but apparently that's because she was seducing him telepathically.
- One-Word Title: As a Only One Name Protagonist Title.
- Only One Name: Ketrin, the Protagonist.
- Plot Tumour: More than half the characters and situations in recent instalments weren't even conceived of at the beginning.
- Protagonist Title: One-Word Title as the protagonist has Only One Name.
- The Quest: After Ketrin goes missing Sherinel goes looking for him accompanied by some lupinoids of his pack. Later on Mavrida has the same idea.
- Romancing the Widow: Mavrida successfully manages to avoid relationships for years after her husband's apparent death. Then before she knows it, she manages to end up in a threesome. (And then, just as she thinks her new relationship has brought closure to her mourning, she discovers that her long-vanished husband is (almost but) Not Quite Dead.
- Shout-Out: Obviously to Jungle Books, but there are also some subtle and not-so-subtle nods to ElfQuest, Wolf's Rain and the French Wild Child comic Pyrénée.
- Slurpasaur: The giant 'gwanna' that gives some of the good guys a hard time in Part Ten is a Shout-Out to the "dimetrodons" in the 1959 film of Journey to the Center of the Earth (though as a nod to Real Life reptile biology it also has septic saliva like a komodo dragon).
- Taken for Granite: Paralysing crystals keep people alive indefinitely in a doll-like state. Also, the mysterious Maiden claims to be a statue.
- Telepathy: Lupinoids are naturally telepathic, and can pass on the ability to humans "cubs" through their milk. Later on some other humans figure out how to acquire it as well. Once acquired it allows thoughts and sensations to be shared voluntarily between any other telepathic human or lupinoid.
- You Have Failed Me: When Mavrida defeats some of the sorcerer's henchmen, she suggests that he will punish them for failing and that only the Maiden can protect them from his wrath.
- You No Take Candle: Ketrin and Suvanji and Pyrri, but only briefly, because the author gets fed up writing it. Therefore, his and their grammar improves swiftly, handwaved as either rapid learning or some kind of telepathic osmosis.
