Well, now... That. Is a situation.
Thankfully, I am alone, so I may afford to sort out my thoughts and prepare a plan of action. So... salient points.
Primo. This is isekai. I remember my previous life, so to speak, with crystal clarity. Up to and including a very abrupt death to a random drunkard side-swiping me with his car right into the curb head-first. Owie.
Secundo. This is otome isekai, with me taking the part of the villainess. A game I remember vaguely well. All the classic points being hit - a plucky commoner protagonist, seven (Seven? Isn't the usual a bit less? Like four or three?) capture targets, if we count two secret ones (Ah. Secret routes. Gotcha.) and some kind of... combat system that was based on ikebanas of all things. Something about ikebanas being the base skill for magicians composing spells.
Secundo insuper - magic! Real, accessible, and by all accounts (Including my own memories, natch.) something I'm reasonably apt with. Though the actual system is inane and I'm already having designs on it.
Tertio. I'm not, in any way, shape or form inclined to actually play the role of the villainess. If memory serves correct, Alyssa Gillespie (WAIT, WHAT!? This is a very ominous Silent Hill reference. Thankfully, mother's name is not Dahlia, or I'd be planning my country exit strategy about now.), who is, by the way, me, is the firstborn daughter of count Gerard Gillespie and countess Elene Gillespie nee Bradford (XCOM? Or just coincidence? Getting vigsome vibes here, to plagiarize a Buffy.) is supposed to be betrothed to Edward Cullen (OH HELL NAW. No way. Nuh-huh. That guy is tainted simply for having the name. Tainted. Nothing going. And yes, if the alternative is french-style revolution, I WILL. Because this is TAINTED.), the third prince. Or, as commonly referred to, the spare prince. Whom will be lured away by Protagonist, simultaneously having Alyssa exiled to Gillespie estates because of course firstborn of county wouldn't take well losing her fiancee to a jumped-up commoner.... And that is one of the better outcomes for Alyssa, really.
In the event of Protagonist going for the prince's best friend instead, Alyssa is supposed to be lusting after the same friend and gets forcibly indicted into the convent when things come out. Because prince breaking the engagement is one thing and prince's potential fiancee being found out "cheating" is quite another. Other storylines vary, but the outcomes are... less than desired. Murdered in both secret routes (By foreign spy in one and by protagonist herself in other, go figure.), exiled again, this time over political power struggle when the target is prime minister's son, and the last two... some kind of "languished in obscurity after being abandoned by prince". Prince ending up marrying foreign princess in those cases.
Realistically speaking, the cases where both prince and Protagonist marry up into neighboring kingdom is preferable version, Alyssa (Me.) being simply "set aside" in favor of more politically beneficial match and becoming an old maid because of this. Also, the pair of routes where Alyssa and Protagonist are on... passably speaking terms, at least.
Finally, quatro. Most jarring and... original part of it, let's say. Gillespies and Bradfords are actually closely related and intermarry at least once per two generations. And this had left both families significantly inbred. Not enough to court a hereditary disease like hemophilia or create a stable deformity inherent to the bloodline just yet, but... close enough to cause a number of fertility issues. I'm actually the fourth daughter, in spite of being firstborn. My three potential elder sisters were all stillborn. Thankfully, the problem seems to be tied to X chromosome on Father's side, so I do have two little brothers. But therein lies another problem. Alyssa Gillespie was not conceived. Instead, Elene and Gerard had hired an infamous "Blood Wizard" (Indirect clues indicate he is a bastard brother of the current king, by the way, lacking an ambition to take the throne due to his overwhelming passion for biomancy.) to ensure Elene carries to term next time. Blood Wizard made the problem moot by shoving a shoggoth seed into mommy dearest and putting a teaching spell on top of that.
So, yeah, actually I'm a stupidly overpowered shoggoth who had evolved into full sentience, grasped magic and can flawlessly shapeshift. My little brothers, thankfully, are entirely ordinary boys. But, back to our muttons - my shoggothdom means I really have no particular interest in marriage, let alone have a fixation on Edward that game version of Alyssa seemed to have.
Next. Time. What time do I have at my disposal? The setting is a Magic Academy. Which is a location I'm curious about, because ikebana-based magic means they have greenhouses with flower variety. If memories serve right, a number of spices are not known here as spices, but are available as flowers and herbs. If this works out, I might get some money going on, and money is a sort of convenient power for me. It is effectively faceless, unlike the favors trading system the nobles seem to have going on. It is early summer, however. I am yet to be entering the Academy. I am already enrolled, of course, the enrollment is an automatic process for anyone from the noble family. Really, the enrollment is for everyone having demonstrable magic... Which, ostensibly, is every last person out there, but in practice only expressly gifted commoners are being offered enrollment, while in case of nobles, it is assumed their talents will not lose to commoner. Which, well, is the reason why commoners entering the school tend to be stupidly overpowered in comparison to your average noble attending. Inconvenient, but maybe useful.
More on topic, it is half to six in the morning, and I'm lounging in bed. It's not time get up yet, and won't be for a good while. Meaning I can afford to plan and remember things without having to scramble for explanations to parents or servants. Good.
Right. Might as well take a look around. Slithering out of bed in five, four... Heh, just kidding. Already up. Well, that's really convenient I can, in a pinch, just shapeshift a "dress" on me. But for now, let's not. The last thing I want is servants trying to undress me when I'm technically naked.... Wait. WAIT. Where the fuck are all the dresses? Why this dresser has only underwear inside? Good grief, there are no good elastics yet. Meaning everything is held on ties. Joy everlasting. Because I just KNOW I will sprout a bunch of tentacles to tie something up in the least convenient moment ever. Gotta work on that. Maybe internal velcro-like surfaces to.. Ah, yeah, that works. Gotta be careful with this, but fuck wardrobe malfunctions. I refuse to permit such base cliche. Hear me, universe? Such templates are forbidden.
So. Dresses. Apparently, there is a dedicated wardrobe room across the hall from my bedroom. I know I'm supposed to call servants, but... Actually, aside from being up way too early, why not? Let's not cause too much of a jarring departure from standard MO just yet, shall we? Pulling on the bell string produces tingling somewhere down the hall. Here's hoping they are in the habit of waking up early to do morning chores. It'd be awkward to see a servant obviously roused from bed otherwise. Actually, come to think of it, do I know anything about maids?... Hm, yes. The old one is Marie, and she's... apparently used to be dad's wet-nurse. Heh. And my wet-nurse. Weird. But whatever. I'd be worried if she were also mom's wet-nurse, but that is not a thing. Because little me asked. Parents were mondo bemused by my theory of universal wet-nurses.
Other three are, hm... Sally, Louise and Bridgit and they are effectively interchangeable other than Bridgit having a kraut accent. And no, that's not a slur. Apparently, the neighboring kingdom is literally Kraut Kingdom, and that's the place she was born and raised in. I seem to vaguely remember she has a tragic backstory explaining how she ended up a maid at Gillespie Estates. Something about her father being a successful merchant getting murdered by ostensibly highway bandits, but not really. One of the game sub-plots was to collect info on Baumhoffs and use it to blackmail Bridgit into spying on Alyssa. Which, depending on how you go at it, had far-reaching consequences. Because if you as Protagonist lie to Bridgit about Gillespies being responsible for Christoff Baumhoff's demise, she would stab Elena and make Alyssa go nuts and almost nuke magical academy with uncontrollable magic. That gets Alyssa an exile to Gillespie estates without right to leave, Protagonist gets dumped by Hiram Hohenzollern (Kraut prince, capture target. Honorable to a fault. Horrible, horrible fault.) and ends up being consoled by Kraut spymaster we only ever know as Klaus. Or as his codename goes, Morgenstern. Downright nasty bastard, the "my country right or wrong" variety. He is willing to do anything for the sake of Kraut kingdom. Including seeing up his prince to take the fall for his shenanigans. Oh, and then he ties up the loose ends by murdering Alyssa. Really, that one is one of the worse endings in general.
So, avoiding THAT is going to be a priority. Because if Protagonist gets to Bridgit and lies about Gillespies being involved, the end outcome will be an invasion by krauts, which will end with Cullens "voluntarily abdicating" and getting confined to an island exile as a family unit, Protagonist becoming a very twisted bitch in a very twisted relationship with twisted bastard Klaus and Hiram (The only decent kraut in this.) becoming figurehead viceroy of Champagne (Seriously? Kraut and Champagne? With english names? What is this, normans got owned timeline? What?!) and very unhappy person, because when all is said and done, he is genuinely in love with Protagonist and is forced to watch her becoming a monster to match Klaus. And Klaus would do his best to kill me, which, admittedly, is going to fail because I'm a shoggoth, but he would still try and I'll probably end up showing off too much because he is the kind of bastard that just won't quit, and killing him in return... Yeah, well. Actually, maybe it's good idea to preemptively murder Klaus because he will cause chaos in any route. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Hm, now the other option? If Protagonist tells Bridgit the truth, that her father was murdered because he was getting a little TOO successful for the tastes of his peers, Bridgit goes to Girard, admits to spying on Alyssa and asks to be relieved of duties out of guilt. And then she drops out of picture and Alyssa (Aka, me.) gets reasonably gently "set aside" when Protagonist ends up married to Hiram Hohenzollern and on the heels of that, Edward gets betrothed to Hiram's little sister Katherine. Both of which would turn out to be happy and successful couples, lead on a grand alliance between two kingdoms, usher in an age of economic growth and generally create the rosy future. This is, by far, the best outcome for everyone. Even Alyssa, who simply ends up as an old maid famous for her cats.
Too much information bro.
I did name the chapter "Let`s take a stock" for a reason.
In all seriousness though, you might be... less then entertained by my story, if that`s a problem. I tend to write densely.
P.S. Not bro. Wrong gender for that.
@Cytotoxin
I’m giving up half way trough. I liked the idea for the story and really wanted to read it but I can’t. You overdo it. The character sounds pretentious, especially when giving her opinion. And I don’t mind the information as long as you didn’t dump random words in there that aren’t commonly used in daily lives and expect everyone to understand them. I’ll give you the most basic example. The idea the whole story is based around. The sloggoth. You didn’t explain it. You said a seed was put in the mother and that’s it. Then later mentioned that you can shapeshift. At least give the definition of a sloggoth from the Lovecraft wiki. A story gets annoying when you have to google words every paragraph. Tho my opinion could be biased since I’ve been annoyed from the moment I read whatever the words were instead of just first, second and third.
@Ves Shoggoth.
I`m sorry. I`m using my own vocabulary. This is how I usually speak.
Yes, I tend to use primo, secundo and so on when I`m enumerating things in my head. This is just how I think.
Yes, I use all those words on consistent basis.
No, I`m not sure I could simplify even if I tried. To me, none of the words used are anything out of common, I`d be very hardpressed to pinpoint ones that give you trouble without something drastic, like grabbing you for betareading so you could compose a list of all words that gave you issues.
@Ves @Ves
Bruh. Instant gratification much?
Also, why should the author write her story and lower her level of prose because you can't use a bit of imagination and cultural tolerance?
And 'pretentious'?
Uhhhhh, she kinda the f*cking villianess, bruh.
Smh
@l_nimbus
Hey... I’m just giving my opinion to the author. I’m trying to write something and if I succeed and put it online eventually I’d like to get opinions so I do the same. If the author doesn’t like my opinion she can delete it or ignore it. It’s her story after all.
And about the instant gratification thing... I guess after reading enough stories some thing just start rubbing you the wrong way? There’s so many of them online that sound so much like they’ve been written in another language and then put trough google translate. After forcing yourself trough 2-3 chapters of really bad stories you start giving up early on ones that you don’t like the look of.
Again, if I’ve offended the author then soz. Wasn’t the intention
@Ves I honestly don`t have much I can offer to alleviate this. Further chapters will have whole lines spoken in different languages too. There`s a decently sized conversation in French in chapter 7, for example. I`m afraid that if finding things out is troublesome, you won`t enjoy my story much.
@Cytotoxin
Oh well. You win some you lose some. Have fun with your story and hope it turns out how you want it to at the end ^.^
@Ves All according to keikaku.
@Cytotoxin Is everything still going according to cake?
@Yza https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=keikaku
@Cytotoxin I was referring to the phonetics not the actual definition
@Yza Please don`t. Phonics is not an actual language.
@Cytotoxin I like it author, i really hope you didn't cave in to all these comments and changed anything for the future chapters. Seriously, this is fun to read for me. Idk why people found it so hard to read tbh. The style felt new, and really able to reflect what kind of person mc is with all the inner dialogues. I always give a voice to the characters in my mind, and this sure was a fun one for me haha! This feels different, which is a definite plus for me, but i guess some people just like it the way they are used to reading novels...
@N0xiety
That or that they do not have enough perseverance, I personally do not care how it is written, I only look at the genres and the main argument / prologue (the one you see on the index page, I do not remember the name), by the way, nothing As drastic as reading RAWS with the google translator, it is simply horrible (I saw 200 short chapters with the RAWS, I want praise).
@_ciro_ I am honestly impressed. I have tried to read things that looked google translated. I can’t be certain that they were. But even that I could barely read 10 - 20 chapters of.
~praise for you<
@_ciro_ Just thought of this but what was so good that you had to struggle in such a way to read it?
@Ves
It was not the best if that is what you are wondering, I just can't stand leaving novels (or series) in half, when they had already intrigued me, on Royal Road I keep pestering an Author to continue writing his novel ( https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/23839/healer-prime ), although he only made 4 chapters and 1 prologue, in addition to not uploading a chapter 14 months ago (I know he connects because I see it in his profile, he does not respond my messages the damn), I was caught by the plot, the main character (he is quite unique) and on top of that I was left with the intrigue of the last chapter.
@_ciro_ I get the feeling. I look at some stories and just think “why start if you’re just gonna stop at a random point? Why not write the whole thing and then upload it? “. That’s what I’d do but I’m still in the planning stages. Can’t just not creative enough. Especially with planning a ‘goal’ to work towards as an ending
@Ves Because the difference is that in one you have ideas that the readers give you and in the other you have to imagine the story all by yourself, although if I would do the first 10 chapters or something, because it is very evil to leave the readers and not even hanging advise why.
@_ciro_ That’s why I was thinking. If I ever manage to write a story, even a short 20-30 chapter one. I’ll post it slowly, a chapter or two a day. Then I might change bits or add things to make it longer depending on feedback and post it again separately for people who want to try and read. I know I’d hate it if I’m on chapter 30 and suddenly learned a whole chapter was added between 21 and 22 :D
@_ciro_ I’ve got many ideas but my favourite one is this easygoing story. Still with magic, action and so on but not the constant “there is a greater threat so you must own up to it”, “that person is in pain, help them, then solve all the problems in their clan” and so on. It’s either gonna be a cultivation novel or a magic novel. Depends on how I decide it would go. It’s gonna be about a normal guy from a town/small city. He doesn’t know what to do with his life (like a lot of teenagers) but knows he wants to live a looong life. He’s gonna try out different things throughout his life but he’s gonna have one and a half goals - build an everlasting library with magic and everything and maybe become immortal. Haven’t decided if I want him to be human, another race or even a beast that can take human form but it won’t focus much on romance. I know the ending will be with him either just dying of old age or deciding to spend a lot of his time in something similar to magical sleep or hibernation for years While protecting his precious library. Or that can be the start of the story with him welcoming future heroes and trying to write a story about them or randomly deciding to try and be a dungeon master if it’s a magical book.
There’s so many ideas but it’s so hard :’(
Soz for posting this in comments. Only realised half way trough/close to the end
@Ves
568/5000
The truth is that if I am sincere I would prefer that it is not human (it is your story the same), because I can think a lot about similar series and it is a bit saturated although you took a different final point, on the other hand I recommend that you do not cut yourself in killing, because makes novels become frustrating (the reason I generally don't watch novels where that fits Japanese).
On the other hand, if I am sincere, what I want to see is a transmigration from an Eldar (Warhammer 40K) to a fantasy world, and beware that I said transmigration, so his body would be that of an Eldar.
@_ciro_ I don’t understand the part in the top.
And I get that feeling as well. I don’t mind a slightly unoriginal story. It would be hard to be completely unique. I like the animal thing too. I’m thinking of wolves, particularly white wolves, or foxes (something like the multi tailed foxes from moths with illusionary abilities which can turn human and have high affinity with flames, the name of which for some reason alludes me currently).
I don’t mean completely no killing. Can’t exactly have fighting and no killing. I mean no senseless go around and kill everyone and everything kind of thing.
I lived transmigrations. Still like them mostly. It’s just so hard to find a good one. A lot of them start in such a way that put me off from the get go. The lack of a reason for that particular person to be transmigrated in many stories puts me off too.
Not sure if you’ve read ‘the wandering inn’. That one has a clear reason. The rest of this is a spoiler so no need to continue reading the message.
~ A king does a massive life sacrifice to power a formation to summon a class of children to fight against the enemies of his kingdom. I believe the main reason was that being summoned this way grants them the overpowered hero class. He miscalculated tho and sh*t went wrong. Anyway, what he doesn’t know at the time was that he summoned way more people than he knows. He did a massive sacrifice and only summoned 20-30 people. Others, were randomly transported to other parts of the world, many of which ended up dead or controlled by forces they don’t understand at the time. Our MC is one of the lucky (or unlucky) ones to get transported in the wild, in a part of a continent where the closest living space was a non human town, which acts as the border between the human and non human lands on this continent. I kinda love how we actually get a reason for her being there, not just a “random stuff you won’t understand happened so you’ll never know so I won’t mention it”.
@Ves I follow that novel the truth, in terms of killing I meant that it is not stupid, if you want to give it an emotional growth regarding that, but the truth is that sometimes you just have the need to kill a character and they do not because they are stupid, an example is superheroes, if killing the most troublesome villains (I mean those who after a while run away and cause problems again) there would be much less problems in their societies, so little do I say about killing all, but don't be stupid.
@_ciro_ Ah. Good old batman. Who cares about all the people living in constant fear of death because villains come loose every other day. At least he’s heroic. And we get to see all the people he manages to save. Don’t mind the casual psychological trauma mr Batman. Everyone is a ‘man is steel’ ;D
@Cytotoxin Keikaku-dōri
@Cytotoxin This should be a prologue or something
@Cytotoxin in cali it's suffer for them, they, while dude =boy and gf,gal pal, dudet = girl
@Cytotoxin glad to know I'm not the only one that uses these in my head