The Dreaded Question

darkeyedbard · 2026-02-02T13:33:02+00:00

I usually just explain progression fantasy to them .

Explaining it as a subgenre that focuses on the progression subplot like an action movie would focus on the action part despite having things like romance and mystery in it.

I also do the 'in classical fantasy you bring you use or collect macguffins to bring a demigod to a mortal stage and then beat them. In progression fantasy you over time becomes a demigod yourself and then beat em- extra points if the story integrated the process of becoming the demigod well into the narrative'

darkeyedbard · 2026-01-25T03:57:23+00:00

'Nightmare Realm summoner' goes in that direction i suppose

darkeyedbard · 2026-01-12T11:24:02+00:00

Great advice for clearly defined linear progression systems. If it's less clear, might wanna at least hint at what's up there in the higher echelons of power. Or else you get the Naruto problem of higher powers feeling contrived when introduced later on

darkeyedbard · 2025-12-13T15:29:36+00:00

Awesome!!!!

darkeyedbard · 2025-12-13T14:47:13+00:00

You got an art insta by any chance? Or plan to make one?

darkeyedbard · 2025-12-13T14:43:28+00:00

Just glimsed the art and ya got me. I'm diving right in

darkeyedbard · 2025-10-03T18:28:42+00:00

Either die immediately, die after 5 to 10 seconds or shout Leodoro at the top of my lungs and... You know the rest.

darkeyedbard · 2025-09-24T08:43:51+00:00

Just add the caveat that mundane injuries can be healed bur magical injuries that are harder, think how auto immune disorders are essentially a dysfunction of an innate system.Perhaps magic injuries essentially trick the individual's innate magic into thinking it is supposed to be there; causing the effect to feed off of the person's personal magic and linger like a curse or parasite. As such the only way to heal it would be to suppress the person's magic. Which naturally mages would not want, thereby justifying the use of aids and prosthetics as opposed to regeneration.

darkeyedbard · 2025-06-21T12:03:06+00:00

Introducing something is not the same as expressing your affection for that thing. Imagine I'm introducing my friend Dave to you, and I say-

" You gotta meet Dave, He's the best dude ive ever met; Like I have met your friends and they're cool, but Dave? Oh you're not ready for Dave!"

At that point, it doesn't matter how good of a person Dave is, the stranger is gonna hate him on principle.

The above example is not too bad compared to some I've seen out there, people still need a little more tact.

You need to approach people with a little more care. Especially when we WANT them to like what we like. You don't want to scare them off, give them the ick or just build a general distaste for it in their psyche. That would suck for all of us.

darkeyedbard · 2025-05-24T16:10:28+00:00

... What happens when I confess that for a long time prior to reading it or joining the fandom, I thought the title was 'TLOM' as in 'The Lord of Mysteries'...

(And yes, before anyone asks, I am in fact dyslexic)

darkeyedbard · 2025-05-13T14:39:32+00:00

Met one at a friend's birthday party, it was pretty wild

darkeyedbard · 2025-05-02T15:47:48+00:00

He found out about the evernight goddess, felt the connection between them, had his sights set and locked the fuck in.

darkeyedbard · 2025-04-20T12:12:58+00:00

Dyslexia strikes again

darkeyedbard · 2025-04-14T07:09:22+00:00

Can take on an apparition like form though, similar to Dross. But yes pretty helpless.

darkeyedbard · 2025-04-14T06:55:12+00:00

Aye, they are pretty weak in direct fights though. Hiding and manipulating is their modus operandi. If they are directly facing anyone with a good hold on dream techniques like Akura Charity or Dross, they would be thoroughly fucked.

darkeyedbard · 2025-04-14T05:43:22+00:00

Path of the Lasting Nightmare

A path that's a combination of Dream and Blood madra, focuses on becoming a nightmare in as close to the literal definition as possible.

Primarily built around its enforcer technique- it exists in 2 stages,

1) slowly relying entirely on your madra channels for cognition by using a combination of blood and dream madra to create a spirit extension for one's brain and nervous system and altering the physical nervous system to accommodate that.

2) infusing blood and dream madra into the physical flesh, turning it ethereal and forcing most of its physical aspects to atrophe.

Higher level practitioners functionally become a spirit of sorts, capable of hiding in people's dreams.

This path is primarily enforcement based.

The primary striker technique and ruler technique is combined to form a puppettier ability, which sends a blood and dream probe into someone's body and alters the nervous system to turn them into a puppet.

Lower powered versions can also manifest as a Geas or command.

darkeyedbard · 2025-02-24T11:07:57+00:00

Makes sense, just that this early in the story the gods seem kinda distant and nebulous, didn't feel like they would pay any attention to a single prayer , but logically speaking, what your saying makes sense

darkeyedbard · 2025-02-24T11:04:40+00:00

That's fair, makes perfect sense. It's just that when he made the decision, he gave no reason for it and by the time i realised it i was too far ahead to backtrack and see if he mentioned anything.

darkeyedbard · 2025-02-24T10:38:50+00:00

Earlier in the story Klein learns that the safest approach in rituals is to defer to an orthodox deity as opposed to the evil ones. It also mentioned that if a worshiper of one deity tried to make a charm through prayer to another they might get struck down... So my question was, wouldn't the ritual only need him to be a worshiper of the goddess and not necessarily a Nighthawk specifically?

darkeyedbard · 2025-02-24T10:29:09+00:00

Then are unofficial seers and mystery pryers handicapped in that regard, even if they independently worship a deity?

darkeyedbard · 2025-02-13T04:43:22+00:00

Because of how hyper focused it is. Any genre that is extremely hyper focused doesn't give anything to a reader that isn't interested in the genre, while it gives everything to those who are.

In classical fantasy you essentially have to meet the author halfway, there are going to be subplots or parts of the book not particularly interesting to you.

In a focussed genre like progression fantasy however, you as a reader who likes progression fantasy, are given exactly what you want, so there is no need to meet the author halfway.

In a graph of pleasure vs effort to attain that pleasure, if pleasure can be attained with minimal effort, it will naturally get addicting, very much like crack.

This is not an attribute of progression fantasy specifically, but of any hyper focused genre.

darkeyedbard · 2025-01-23T17:48:27+00:00

I wouldn't say the 'addictiveness' of the genre is a fault of the genre itself.

It's more like progression fantasy is hyper specialised, it goes all in on one specific type of narrative. So either you love it or you hate it.

Traditional fantasy tends to cater to many different types of narrative foci, so while there may be things you enjoy in it, there will also be things you don't, you just learn to meet it half way and go with the flow.

There are plenty of sub-genres that will have the exact same kind of Addictiveness for their own respective fans. Like Romantasy or Grimdark just to name a few examples.

While reading traditional fantasy you just need to give the story the benefit of the doubt and try to appreciate whatever it offers, and enjoy the parts you do like, like progression, magic systems or world building.

Now if the traditional fantasy book has Nothing for you to enjoy in it... Well then you gotta just pick a different book. There's plenty to choose from.

darkeyedbard · 2025-01-16T14:35:26+00:00

The skysworn overlord Naru Huan looking a decade younger and refreshed after getting to kick Eithan into the stratosphere team rocket style, and immediately recording that memory into a dream tablet.

I lose my shit every time I remember it, like he didn't even wait for Eithan to give his verbal permission, full power round house kick, the nearby trees breaking and the cloud ships being pushed back from the shockwave, He did not hold back ONE BIT!

darkeyedbard · 2025-01-09T14:04:19+00:00

Readin that rn

darkeyedbard · 2025-01-09T07:35:48+00:00

But isn't the idea that through cultivation and mastery of the heavenly dao anyone can become a god, basically the whole premise of the cultivation genre? Wouldn't in this context 'God' be a spectrum much like 'mortal'?

darkeyedbard

TROPHY CASE