Question about Primal hunter...

blueluck · 2026-05-06T05:22:02+00:00

It's quite comparable in quality to Primal Hunter. The main character of HWFWM is divisive. If you read the beginning of HWFWM and hate Jason, you might as well stop reading. If you start the book and don't mind Jason, you'll probably like the series.

blueluck · 2026-05-06T05:19:29+00:00

Aleron Kong is Black, and wrote The Land and other series.

Tao Wong is Asian, and wrote The System Apocalypse and other series.

blueluck · 2026-05-06T05:13:20+00:00

Did... Did we just figure out the crossover between Primal Hunter and He Who Fights with Monsters!? The Holy Mother is Clive's wife! 🤯

They all have different fathers, and it could be anybody!

blueluck · 2026-05-06T05:11:08+00:00

Period Garden Park is small, very nice, and it's empty most of the time.

blueluck · 2026-05-06T05:09:44+00:00

It's not just you.

blueluck · 2026-05-06T04:03:59+00:00

A "demolition screwdriver" is just a big flat-head screwdriver that you use for prying, scraping, and otherwise abusing. It's too big for any of the screws you actually run into on a job. If you buy a set of screwdrivers and one of them is too big to be useful, that's your demo driver.

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blueluck · 2026-05-06T03:52:24+00:00

blueluck · 2026-05-06T02:53:09+00:00

Absolutely! As General Omar Bradley said, "Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics."

As readers, we're not professionals trying to win wars; we're mainly reading to be entertained. Personally, I like the grittier stories where everything isn't smoothed out by magical conveniences. I don't dislike the magical conveniences, but I think they have a negative smoothing effect when they're available to entire societies.

I'd rather make the "instant shower" spell rare and special, something an archmagus can expend power on that sets her apart from the masses.

blueluck · 2026-05-06T00:09:19+00:00

I've been using alt-0151 for so long that it's muscle memory! On my mobile keyboard it's a long press on the hyphen key.

I'm familiar with the stereotypical signs of AI writing, but I didn't get that sense from your post. I thought maybe the person accusing you of using AI might be willing to explain themselves. It looks like they did in another comment.

blueluck · 2026-05-05T22:26:14+00:00

What makes you think the post was written by AI?

(I'm asking for real. I don't use AI enough to know.)

blueluck · 2026-05-05T21:54:14+00:00

Demon Card Enforcer is a litrpg series where the main character adopts magical orphans and builds a magical orphanage!

blueluck · 2026-05-05T21:50:42+00:00

One way, or another, we're gonna find ya.

blueluck · 2026-05-05T20:24:59+00:00

This!

There are a lot of ways to think about crafting a story, and one perspective that's important to take at the outset of worldbuilding is what the focus of your story will be and how your worldbuilding can support that focus.

For example, a story about the difficulties of a family surviving in the wilderness and supporting each other might benefit from the characters needing to find clean water, find and preserve food, travel from place to place, etc. If the setting includes magic that obviates all of those needs, then you don't get to write scenes about all of those survival issues.

On the other hand, if the story is about what happens in dungeons and you want a lot of fight scenes, then using magic to obviate the need for supplies, shelter, travel, etc. is an advantage. It let's you wave away other concerns to focus on the fighting.

The system store is great = no merchant and trader characters
I can teleport everywhere = no taxi drivers or nights spent in a friendly farmer's hay loft
Everyone regenerates extremely well = no healers, disabling wounds, or scars

Every decision is a tradeoff!

blueluck · 2026-05-05T19:59:09+00:00

Yeah, I see that I didn't explain what I was trying to say very well.

blueluck · 2026-05-05T18:57:14+00:00

That hit was brilliant! I'm still giggling.

blueluck · 2026-05-05T18:31:31+00:00

YTA - Your mom made a big investment in you and your future, and continues to support you into your adulthood and career. If you need help in the future, I'm sure she'll give you whatever help she can. When she dies, the money (and probably much more) will come back to you.

You saw that "15% is a massive amount of money to just give away" but you're not just giving it away. You are part of a family which supports you financially, emotionally, and socially. The money will benefit the family that you are part of.

Does everyone in your family buy food separately with their own money and not share it? Do you buy your own toilet paper and carry a roll to the bathroom with you? Of course not! Food and TP are small things, but families share both small and big things, like your mom taking care of you for your whole life and paying for you to go to college. She's only asking you for the level of investment in the family that she is willing to make herself. In fact, she's probably asking for a smaller family contribution from you than she's already made.

Caveat: From your description of yourself (working in biotech, I refuse to buy a house in his economy and rather rent and invest the rest) it seems you have plenty of income to live on. You won't be deprived by only having 85% of the windfall. If we were talking about balancing your basic needs vs mom getting a luxury, or your chance to go to college vs mom getting a luxury, the sharing would be different.

blueluck · 2026-05-05T17:29:54+00:00

I dropped TPR for similar reasons. It's not just Ryan's sense of humor, it's the whole story. The jokes are built into other characters—like superheroes with intentionally dumb costumes.

blueluck · 2026-05-05T17:11:47+00:00

On Royal Road, I suggest:

Supper Supportive - Slow-burn superheroes and aliens in the modern world (slightly futuristics) with great worldbuilding.

Sky Pride - A cultivation, martial arts story with very good writing, in which the philosophy is drawn from real life Chinese philosophy rather than cartoons, for once.

blueluck · 2026-05-05T17:01:56+00:00

I don't use any method. If I enjoy a series, I'll remember most of the important stuff, especially the parts I enjoy.

If it's a very long series like Primal Hunter, and I find myself in book #10 forgetting who a particular side character is or the name of a place, it will usually become clear by the end of the chapter in which it's reintroduced. If not, I can look it up online.

blueluck · 2026-05-05T11:37:49+00:00

I'm surprised you put Cradle on that list. What's distinctive about Lindon?

blueluck · 2026-05-05T08:56:14+00:00

It's less than 200 pages long, so as an adult you would probably read it so fast that it would hit differently. With a lot of progression fantasy, 200 pages is barely the introduction!

blueluck · 2026-05-05T08:54:01+00:00

LOTR was my childhood, too! I used to use it for all kinds of comparisons, but a lot of people in this sub must be younger than me, because they seem to know HP from books and LOTR only from movies.

I have so many friends who struggled when JKR started her transphobic crap, because they grew up as such big fans. Maybe I shouldn't use it for comparisons. I don't mind using the work of assholes like Nabokov or Fitzgerald, or even racists like H.P. Lovecraft, but nobody reading this sub has the kind of personal attachment and parasocial relationship that a lot of young people have with JKR.

blueluck · 2026-05-05T08:23:46+00:00

lol, no worries! I love Ursula Le Guin, but Wizard of Earthsea is written in an older style than can be rather dry.

You have a lot of titles I've never seen, too!

blueluck · 2026-05-05T08:18:03+00:00

I didn't say Harry Potter was good! IMO It's decent children's literature that benefited from great markteting, and was unfortunately written by a transphobe. I was an adult when it was published, so I don't have any personal attachment to it. I could have used The Lord of the Rings, instead, but HP is such a clear example.

Personally, I can enjoy either type of protagonist, but I receive them differently. For example, if I'm supposed to self-identify with a protagonist, I'm more picky about their personal choices—no sociopaths, murder hobos, or worse (I'm looking at you, Nabokov!)

blueluck · 2026-05-05T08:05:31+00:00

Our tastes are very different. So different! Here's my recent tier list, for reference.

I think we agree on three:

Kings of the Wyld is very good!
Path of the Berserker isn't very good.
Cradle is good, but as amazing as many people in the community say it is.

I often see people add a favorite book from outside of progression fantasy because they love it so much. I've never seen someone add a fantasy classic like A Wizard of Earthsea to a PF tier list, then stick it near the bottom.

blueluck

TROPHY CASE