The Cracked Mug v 2.0

[erikakaiser]

The patch I'm playing with makes Monochromon's shop minigame have a cap of 2048 instead of 3000+ (I forget the exact numbers but it's a bit over 3000, like 3100) and dear GOD does it make it apparent how ridiculous getting 3k+ bits from a bunch of little bastards refusing to pay full price for meat is

[erikakaiser]

Between the weather beginning The Long Dark, work being busy, and having a major stressor in my home environs, I am battling some depression

[erikakaiser]

late night junk journaling!

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[erikakaiser]

Straight white women please write better books

(A coworker recommended Fourth Wing and it's,,,,, bad)

[erikakaiser]

opening up a .pdf is genuinely one of the worst experiences

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"save time with a document summary" it's........ an agenda??? it's already.....a summary.....plz

[erikakaiser]

Straight white women please write better books

(A coworker recommended Fourth Wing and it's,,,,, bad)

to be more specific, because obviously I am not going to "this book is terrible" dump on the coworker who recommended it to me (I will instead mildly say the writing style isn't my favorite but I liked X, Y, and Z specific things even if I have to bullshit it a bit -- I refuse to yuck anyone's yum when they show me their favorite thing)

this book has some of the worst writing I've read in a while!

it's EXTREMELY popular, which is a bit maddening to me, but here's a really good example of a specific complaint I have that the writer does constantly:

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people who live in this world would not talk like that! She's trying to pass off the main character's tendency to lore-dump at the fourth wall as a quirk, like she just loooooves to recite textbook knowledge when she's nervous, but 1) that's insufferable and 2) it's extremely clunky, like this is in either the first or second chapter:

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BRUH

I'm also just exhausted of straight romance where the attraction is boiled down to "oh god he's SO hot" and nothing else:

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These are "adult" characters (twentyish), but the prose just reads like YA where the characters are somehow even more awkwardly horny and get to say "fuck."

this isn't even getting into the worldbuilding, which I have about nine thousand problems with but primarily the cool dragon school itself is extremely dumb. This world is one that's been at constant war for like 100 yrs or something, definitely at least several decades, so it makes NO sense that the cool dragon school lets students kill each other and has such a high fatality rate. The first challenge is to cross the Parapet, designed to be deadly and dangerous on purpose, and if you can't hack it you just fall to your death. These are twenty-year-olds who can continue bloodlines, carry on a family trade, or quite simply go become infantry or other types of troops if they can't hack the cool dragon school! why would you kill so many of your young people! I've seen the book compared to The Hunger Games, which notably did kill its young people, but in a highly specific way that was THE ENTIRE PLOT, and not just a side-effect of trying to become a Navy Seal

it's so fucking stupid

also they "conscripted" the children of traitors, who they executed in front of said children, INTO THE COOL DRAGON SCHOOL, where they get to kill people and, if they survive, they get a dragon and magic powers!! why would you do that to a bunch of young people who fucking hate you!!!

sdgiohsdfo;hosd;ighsd;ofhfgd

anyways 0/10

[erikakaiser]

oh the main character has long hair that goes silver at the end

she is constantly described as frail and fragile but she's so clever, guys*

*this is never shown except her legitimately poisoning her sparring partners several weeks in a row so they get tummyaches and she doesn't get beaten in sparring practice, oh and also she can recite textbook knowledge I guess

she bonds with the super special black dragon, of which there is only one and he's one of the most powerful dragons, and ALSO she is the FIRST PERSON EVER to bond with two dragons, so she also bonds with a little golden dragon

every time she's in the vicinity of the shadow daddy male lead she literally cannot function even though for most of the text she hates him and thinks he wants to kill her, because straight people cannot write enemies-to-lovers in any sort of compelling way

[erikakaiser]

her dragon is mated to the shadow daddy's dragon so they're all bonded together and he has to protect her

exhausting

oh hang on let me find the description of her outfit while I'm at it

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[erikakaiser]

straight people please read weirder porn or something, I am desperate for "enemies to lovers" that isn't just a) two people shrieking at each other I am supposed to believe is 'banter' or b) the woman hates the man but can't function around him because he's so hot, until finally she realizes he's not that bad actually

boring. not freaky enough. try again.

[erikakaiser]

her last name is sorrengale. soaring............gale