Not much happened this past week, as Queen’s Gambit is off to the editor and I’ve been recovering a little… and I got sucked into a novel rather thoroughly. That’s done, though, so I’m poking about other things. I did get several pieces of art, though, and I’m going to share one today!
Crystal Rain finished an art piece of Brianna & Stella from Beesong Chronicles for me, and I’m really happy with how it turned out! The heels are a little much, but they’re not too prominent, and close enough compared to what cowboys had for stirrups, so I’m not bothered by it. I hope you like the picture!
Ancient Dreams 
what novel if you don’t mind telling
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A dungeon core novel called Blue Core. Not the best I’ve run into, a few bits that bugged me slightly, but I liked it enough to binge for two days. On the plus side, the main character is a good guy, which I find relatively rare in dungeon core novels. Word of warning, in case it’ll change your opinion, it has some explicit content.
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I actually just stumbled upon that one myself and started bingeing
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Yeah… I ended up binging everything available on Royal Road. Not perfect, but I’ve enjoyed it. Hope you do, too!
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It is funny, I also recently stumbled across Blue Core. Had some gripes with it, but overall was enjoying it. Finished the first and the second book in a couple days. Way too little sleep, but was worth it overall.
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I agree, I definitely had some gripes with it, but overall I had fun.
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One main problem is that Blue is by now (=day 226) is so powerful that he pratty much always acts from a position of superior strength. He doesn’t lack in knowledge either since his enemies still haven’t figured out that they shouldn’t say his name. His main limitation is power projection outside the country which will make fixing depletion harder otherwise on his own territory nothing aside from another Power, some weird exotic magic circumventing all defenses or lots of anti core weaponry can threaten him.
Which means it kinda lacks any tension currently.
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I don’t disagree at all. Now, sometimes the lack of tension about a character isn’t necessarily a bad thing (I rather like slice of life, and sometimes super-powerful characters are popular… the series I write with the most powerful protagonists are the most successful, after all), but yeah, it makes me wonder how the author is planning to make the conflicts feel like conflicts rather than curb-stomps.
I’ll admit, it’s also part of why I don’t tend to like isekai stories. Too often the characters know way too much about too many topics and can implement them easily, which bugs me.
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I do enjoy an occasional OP story, but it is a pretty common issue with isekai/reincarnation stories that they are so often paired together. They are stuck often have to be slice of life in some form, since anything else their powers can mostly solve on a whim.
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Yup. I’ll say that my ‘overpowered characters’ stories are primarily Ancient Ruins and Chosen of Chaos. All of the others are more measured, and intended to be challenged, but even with those two, I carefully gauged their power levels so that Sistina and Evelyn aren’t unstoppable, just horrifying juggernauts.
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