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tithin posted:ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ
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Dec 26, 2021 16:43
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 16:08 |
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Student loan mage is fun. The parallels of a student who graduated into a doomed bleak hellworld but is so used to living in a civilization teetering on the brink that they don't even really notice are not exactly subtle, but the story never rubs your face in it and stays upbeat. "The pouch did not respond." is a line that really shouldn't be very funny but by the time I caught up with the current chapters it was making me laugh every time.
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Dec 26, 2021 17:24
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That latest TWI made me laugh hard in multiple parts.
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Dec 27, 2021 05:30
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Ytlaya posted:PracGuide: I'm kind of surprised we didn't see the dwarves doing anything during the recent battle (IIRC Herald brought some troops with him). Also a little confused why there wasn't more Named involvement - it seems like common sense to include some Heroic Named with an offensive like that (and it's not like they didn't still involved Named, like with Artificer's cool thingy). pattern of three
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Dec 27, 2021 16:54
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Plorkyeran posted:Student loan mage is fun. The parallels of a student who graduated into a doomed bleak hellworld but is so used to living in a civilization teetering on the brink that they don't even really notice are not exactly subtle, but the story never rubs your face in it and stays upbeat. Millennial Mage took a few chapters to get into. The writing style and descriptions are good. But not much happens to the main character at first and we get a ton of world building dropped on us. Once she gets out of the city the story really gets going. Tala is lucky, but much of what seems luck is a consequence of her unconventional style of magic. It makes her unapproachable and mysterious. Had she been a "standard" mage, the other mages would have looked at her and then dismissed her as the rookie cargo specialist. She does seem to get the attention of powerful people a lot. But I think that's compounding. Powerful people are taking notice of her because they see other powerful people do so. Minor spoilers about characters; No idea why the famous tailor would handle a simple request of a no-name mage in person. The Archon is interested because she made the star. But also because his student Trent is interested in her. Trent is interested because he couldn't see through her unconventional defenses, and later because she made a star and when he did see past her skin he noted the many, very high quality inscriptions made by Holly. Holly is interested because she seems strong enough to survive the experimental inscriptions and naive enough agree to risk her life. And because Lyn brought her. I don't know what attracted Lyn to Tala. When Tala met Lyn at the Caravan Guild Tala was just a mage looking for work. A bit weird with not having inscriptions beyond a keystone. But other than being a dimension magic specialist she was not remarkable. But her luck builds from the events set in motion by Lyn. RBA-Wintrow fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Dec 29, 2021 |
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Dec 29, 2021 18:32
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RBA-Wintrow posted:Millennial Mage took a few chapters to get into. The writing style and descriptions are good. But not much happens to the main character at first and we get a ton of world building dropped on us. Once she gets out of the city the story really gets going. My read of Lyn is Tala was NOT supposed to come through her teleport with any of her inscriptions intact (or naked). This was enough to impress with moxie or recklessness.
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Dec 29, 2021 19:20
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Thanks for the Millenial Mage rec. It's got some pacing issues (could do with more downtime once the caravan starts) but I liked it enough to sub.RBA-Wintrow posted:
Lyn assumes Tala is a mage since she has an intact keystone (normally teleporting removes it) and isn't accompanied by a mage. Lyn probably makes a bonus or commission for getting new mages signed up - she was willing to work late to get Tala signed up even before she knew her.
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Dec 29, 2021 19:31
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Millennial Mage: The amoral capitalist explanation for Lyn's actions are that she gets paid for signing on new employees, but only once they've completed a trip. This is roughly how recruiters are paid IRL (often the person has to stay at the job X months before they get money). This means that she's incentivized to overlook Tala's obvious bullshit and sign her on as a Mage, but she also has to make sure that Tala can complete the trip or the guild loses a bunch of money. Getting Tala to be Holly's test subject means that either Tala dies before the caravan sets out and they can find a replacement or Tala is very well equipped to survive the trip despite her inexperience.
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Dec 29, 2021 20:47
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TUTBAD 62: good loving God Bertrand made my skin crawl so much, especially when he brought mizuki a drink and grabbed her when she tried to leave.
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Dec 30, 2021 18:43
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Millennial Mage: Maybe Lynn’s motive is much simpler than weave been thinking. Lynn is Holly’s friend. Maybe she introduced Tala to Holly as a favor for Holly. She even says that she knew Holly would be very interested in Tala’s inscriptions.
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Dec 30, 2021 19:15
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LLSix posted:Millennial Mage: Maybe Lynn’s motive is much simpler than weave been thinking. Lynn is Holly’s friend. Maybe she introduced Tala to Holly as a favor for Holly. She even says that she knew Holly would be very interested in Tala’s inscriptions. People can do things for more than one reason! And I think that's probably what happened in this case.
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Dec 30, 2021 23:46
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since she's more powerful than the average mage, despite her lack of training, they basically can afford to pay her less than an actual full mage would be worth, because presumably someone like that could get a job with the wainwright's or something because they could make more not being a glorified battery with their dimensional experience but for tala is basically a perfect situation, she gets to get paid journeyman rates since she spent all her time at college lifting weights. Lynn isn't terribly forward about the whole situation but it's clear that everyone wins in this scenario.
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Dec 31, 2021 01:37
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Larry Parrish posted:since she's more powerful than the average mage, despite her lack of training, they basically can afford to pay her less than an actual full mage would be worth, because presumably someone like that could get a job with the wainwright's or something because they could make more not being a glorified battery with their dimensional experience im honestly doubtful the story would take such a turn, but it would make sense if holly had a standing offer with lyn to funnel unusual/weird magelings to her as fodder for her experiments also regarding the bolded, its pretty clear that the story is extremely unsubtly hinting that the best place for tala is the harvesters guild, but i doubt they would take even someone like her fresh out of the academy since her master-less experience would get her killed in that line of work
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Dec 31, 2021 03:11
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yeah, their society seems to have largely forgotten the idea of the magical warrior, and that's what Tala definetly is. it seems like she purposefully designed her inscriptions to basically make her the proverbial immovable object, relying on gravity for things she can't just survive. im sure that's where things are going to end up, because if she gets elevated to Archon I'm willing to bet the caravanners will get a bunch of offers they can't refuse for her indenture. either that, or someone high up will use Tala for something expensive but still cheaper than hiring out that ends up burning up her debt either way. if im understanding the way the setting is supposed to be, anyway. good story, there's nothing I love more than something with enough socioeconomic depth to really look at.
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Dec 31, 2021 03:33
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Larry Parrish posted:yeah, their society seems to have largely forgotten the idea of the magical warrior, and that's what Tala definetly is. it seems like she purposefully designed her inscriptions to basically make her the proverbial immovable object, relying on gravity for things she can't just survive. im sure that's where things are going to end up, because if she gets elevated to Archon I'm willing to bet the caravanners will get a bunch of offers they can't refuse for her indenture. either that, or someone high up will use Tala for something expensive but still cheaper than hiring out that ends up burning up her debt either way. if im understanding the way the setting is supposed to be, anyway. my personal theory is that the reason tala notices there are disproportionately few older mages is that once you pass a certain level of power as a mage you get drafted into a secret foreverwar humanity is running against the "god" magical beasts
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Dec 31, 2021 03:37
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Larry Parrish posted:yeah, their society seems to have largely forgotten the idea of the magical warrior, and that's what Tala definetly is. That combined with how the instructors at the academy apparently don't know anything about how any of the academy stuff works or why it's protected from monsters made me think that there was a whole lost-knowledge thing going on where the cities made it so that there were no longer humans living in the conditions required to produce Mages capable of coming up with the city system, and so they're living through the decline of the human "empire" without even realizing it. The more recent chapters kinda kiboshed that idea though.
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Dec 31, 2021 05:15
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Plorkyeran posted:That combined with how the instructors at the academy apparently don't know anything about how any of the academy stuff works or why it's protected from monsters made me think that there was a whole lost-knowledge thing going on where the cities made it so that there were no longer humans living in the conditions required to produce Mages capable of coming up with the city system, and so they're living through the decline of the human "empire" without even realizing it. The more recent chapters kinda kiboshed that idea though. my pet theory is the cities are literally engineered to produce high magic zones to fuel Archons etc, and the moving away from the gods etc is just a side benefit
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Dec 31, 2021 07:39
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Larry Parrish posted:my pet theory is the cities are literally engineered to produce high magic zones to fuel Archons etc, and the moving away from the gods etc is just a side benefit millennial mage: i'm getting a real strong cultivation vibe off of this story specifically in that there are tiers of power and the protagonist is always going to be learning about concepts one stage above what they "should" be learning at their level. eventually we'll find out that most high-level
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Dec 31, 2021 09:22
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Don’t think this got linked here, it’s another official fan fiction chapter for Mother of Learning: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/49033/mother-of-learning-the-au-chapters/chapter/810755/abyss-of-time
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Jan 1, 2022 10:18
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Just read through what's available of TUTBAD. It's very good! I hope it doesn't go edgier.
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Jan 2, 2022 14:35
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The word of the day from Ar'Kendrithyst Patreon: 'Assassin-itis'
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Jan 2, 2022 21:50
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If you like Millenial Mage, it reminds me a lot of A Practical Guide to Sorcery
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Jan 3, 2022 20:32
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Nice! I'll check it out.
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Jan 4, 2022 01:41
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:If you like Millenial Mage, it reminds me a lot of A Practical Guide to Sorcery I found the MC of A practical Guide to Sorcery to be much less likable. She’s basically a criminal, but frequently makes deeply stupid decisions that should have resulted in at least one of her less than legal endeavors being found out, but they never are. It’s not a bad serial, but it rubs me the wrong way. LLSix fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Jan 4, 2022 |
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Jan 4, 2022 03:22
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LLSix posted:I found the MC of A practical Guide to Sorcery to be much less likable. She’s basically a criminal, but frequently makes deeply stupid decisions that should have resulted in at least one of her less than legal endeavors from being found out, but they never do. Fair enough, but MC making some stupid decisions and not getting punished was one of the similarities I see between the two of them
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Jan 4, 2022 03:56
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Humanites are just the worst.
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Jan 4, 2022 10:30
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Humanites are just the worst. And the Pod is one of the worst of them. In a chapter filled with hypocrisy this line stood out: "We aren’t animals. We aren’t monsters. This isn’t what I taught her, Pri, any of you." - says the one who was involved in torturing the queen and pressed the torture button herself on at least one occasion.
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Jan 4, 2022 20:12
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Kyoujin posted:And the Pod is one of the worst of them. In a chapter filled with hypocrisy this line stood out: Yeah its pretty great. The humans just haven't really bothered to try to actually learn about our protagonist bugs on anything but the most cursory surface level and its really biting them in the rear end at this point. It makes a lot of sense too considering they're a military detachment of a fascist space empire, but goddamn that conversation with Jennifer was good.
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Jan 4, 2022 20:21
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Yeah it really was a fantastic chapter. The build up to revealing that every single activity or conversation that ever took place with the colony - Svera was there. The humans classified the colony as eusocial but never really gave them a thought what it really meant and it shows. I like how that followed on a bunch of chapters where the queen was not the POV character but this reminds us she was always there. War Queen is my favorite serial I'm following at the moment and I hope it keeps up this quality for the long haul.
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Jan 4, 2022 22:51
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I was reading the one Royal Road serial about an old lady mentally traveling back in time to when she was (I think) 13, and it's generally pretty decent as far as those things go, but I lol'd at the part when she just blows away her friend with the profound brilliance of an Evanescence song. IMO it was kind of a mistake to have the protagonist be several decades into the future before going back in time, because it necessitates that she mention a bunch of hypothetical future events alongside actual events, resulting in some really goofy predictions, like Evanescence being looked back on similarly to the Beatles or something in 2050 or 2060.
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Jan 5, 2022 08:38
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Ytlaya posted:I was reading the one Royal Road serial about an old lady mentally traveling back in time to when she was (I think) 13, and it's generally pretty decent as far as those things go, but I lol'd at the part when she just blows away her friend with the profound brilliance of an Evanescence song. IMO it was kind of a mistake to have the protagonist be several decades into the future before going back in time, because it necessitates that she mention a bunch of hypothetical future events alongside actual events, resulting in some really goofy predictions, like Evanescence being looked back on similarly to the Beatles or something in 2050 or 2060. i think it's more just a case of the author really liking evanescence. they were a pretty big band for 5 years. but it's a pretty poor choice of reference- even limp Bizkit is a more enduring choice of band from that era, lol. on the other hand my tia is basically the schoolteacher version of that character's old self, and she really loves evanescence. maybe it's a late middle aged white lady thing.
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Jan 5, 2022 09:40
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The best future prediction is her casual mention of the Worm movie, in fact, I think it was in that same chapter because she mentioned being able to play "Tattletale's theme" on the piano.
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Jan 5, 2022 10:03
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Argue posted:The best future prediction is her casual mention of the Worm movie, in fact, I think it was in that same chapter because she mentioned being able to play "Tattletale's theme" on the piano. I just cringed backwards through my wall reading this sentence
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Jan 5, 2022 10:12
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I freely admit to reading their other story, AnimeCon Harem, out of a mixture of complete boredom and fascination that it was so highly rated. It's good for a jack off book, if you like those. Anyway it kind of does the same thing with the references, even though I only get the most basic ones because I'm not big on the weeb stuff. So I guess it's just that dudes style, of sufficiently specific references designed to make you cringe.
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Jan 5, 2022 10:22
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Kyoujin posted:Yeah it really was a fantastic chapter. The build up to revealing that every single activity or conversation that ever took place with the colony - Svera was there. The humans classified the colony as eusocial but never really gave them a thought what it really meant and it shows. I like how that followed on a bunch of chapters where the queen was not the POV character but this reminds us she was always there. Does anyone else thnk that the bugs were uplifted by another alien species? The talk about their gods smells funny, especially with the mention of artifact they have hidden in that city the mender is from. And the scientists freaking out over stingers, I believe, not even being the same species but still being sapient/sentient, which I'm guessing implies that someone meddled with them in some way.
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Jan 5, 2022 13:54
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Covenant is a fantasy story set in a world where the folklore and mythology of the major Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - are literally true. In this fantastic world, professional alchemist Sarai bat Binyamin sets out on a voyage of adventure and discovery - assisted by her loyal crew - as she seeks the Kingdom of Prester John in the world's first airship. I don't think I've posted it before. It's good.
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Jan 5, 2022 14:18
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Last Beneath the Dragoneye Moons chapter: if Elaine ever comes across the trolley problem, she's screwed. Also, Deeds, not Words went in a weird direction with the main character getting married to someone his (new) age, and totally not being a pedophile, but also yeah he's kinda a pedophile. Narmi fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Jan 5, 2022 |
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Jan 5, 2022 17:39
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Larry Parrish posted:i think it's more just a case of the author really liking evanescence. they were a pretty big band for 5 years. but it's a pretty poor choice of reference- even limp Bizkit is a more enduring choice of band from that era, lol. on the other hand my tia is basically the schoolteacher version of that character's old self, and she really loves evanescence. maybe it's a late middle aged white lady thing. Yeah, that's the impression I got, but it's kind of funny to think that the music you liked when you were younger will be considered a world-renowned classic in the future. I can understand being like "I really liked this band that becomes pretty popular in the future, check out this song" but the protagonist is like "this becomes one of the biggest bands ever, with music that shook the world" and a song she plays (with the lyrics written out, which are pretty typical pop song lyrics) has a profound, life-changing impact on her friend, which just paints a pretty funny picture. And this also occurs after a scene that is pretty clearly casting aspersions on other 90's music that the author didn't like (when the Hot Topic girl is trying to recommend music to her friend). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Jan 5, 2022 |
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Jan 5, 2022 20:33
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Narmi posted:Last Beneath the Dragoneye Moons chapter: if Elaine ever comes across the trolley problem, she's screwed. Wait for the next chapter - what happened will be clearly explained. But yes, Elaine + Trolley problem is a significant issue for her.
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Jan 5, 2022 20:48
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 16:08 |
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What's interesting to me is that Elaine does get to make moral judgements as she likes. She just gets body slammed by magic if she fails to answer one correctly. But what is correct depends on her personal morals, so it can be a moving target and she has to be on her toes. Big Patreon spoilers. She can commit mad war crimes with no penalty if the victims are sufficiently beyond her moral event horizon. I like this. Shows there is not a true black and white answer to ethics. It's more about living up to her own ideals.
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Jan 5, 2022 20:58
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