TWO HUNDRED NINETY: When Wishing Was Having, I
Edited (minor, epub updated): May 30, 2026
Additional Reading: This is a link to Grimm's Fairy Tales on Project Gutenberg. "The Frog Prince" (or Frog-King in this edition) is the first story. For reading before, during, or after the chapter if you're curious.
TWO HUNDRED NINETY
When Wishing Was Having, I
Plans for Storytelling Class
Jan 14, 2041
To do:
*Don’t humiliate yourself.
*Do figure out how to make a klerm sound
*Visual component?!?!
*Read “The Frog Prince” and get ideas
In the old version of this story, there’s no kissing.
Instead, as soon as the king isn’t around to make the princess treat the frog with dignity, she throws it against the wall of her bedroom. “Now, you will be quiet, odious frog!”
This assault breaks the curse, and the frog turns into a prince. He thanks her for unfrogging him, never explains what he did to make a witch mad enough to curse him in the first place, and they get married immediately.
Also, the prince’s loyal servant with a magical heart problem suddenly becomes a character at this point, but I have no clue what his deal is. I’ll think about him later.
It seems like a lot of literary people want to interpret all of this as the princess’s sexual awakening. Even though there’s no kiss, there is a bed. And the princess is so hot that it literally says she astonishes the sun, so I guess we can factor that in.
But why?
I could maybe talk myself into thinking that cruelty to amphibians symbolizes leaving virginity behind…if I had to temporarily, for a grade.
But that’s a lot of brain contortion. I’m sure Warin-doyis wants our stories to make sense without the audience having to try that hard. And I do have to present the story I come up with to the entire class.
With Lute there. I’m not giving him the ammunition.
What makes more sense?
Frogs. Princesses. Attempted murder. Stupid princes who don’t care about being murdered for some reason….
The frog never asks for a kiss.
It does ask to be seen as an equal.
Let me be your companion. Let me eat at the king’s table. Let me have exactly what you do. I am worthy of love. Don’t look at me like I’m something less than you.
That kind of thing.
The climactic part is when the frog asks to use the princess’s bed, instead of staying in the corner where she’s put him because she thinks he’s such a gross animal. And I don’t think he’s horny about the request either. He says he’s tired and he wants to sleep “as well as you.” He asks to be lifted up, from the floor to a higher place.
So it’s about breaking down the barriers between social classes, right?
Then it gets depressing.
The princess can’t stand it anymore. How dare a frog ask for her friendship? How dare it demand royal treatment?
It needs to die.
And I think it does. She silences the odious frog that’s asked for too much, and once it’s been shut up for good, that’s when the prince finally appears.
It’s almost like the story is saying the king was wrong.
He expects a princess to be respectful to a frog. But as long as she’s respectful to it, nothing good happens for her. As soon as she blows up and rejects the idea of sharing her world with someone from a different one, she gets a prince.
And the prince doesn’t hold any of it against her. He’s glad she attacked. Royalty should live together in palaces. Frogs who try to escape from their ponds should be smashed against a wall.
It’s a story about how people react when someone they’ve been looking down on asks to be seen eye-to-eye.
Only whoever invented it messed it up. Or they believed something I don’t. Or they never intended for people to get that message from it, but here I am.
A self-absorbed princess and a prince who might have deserved to be cursed, riding off into the sunset….I bet all the peasants hated them. Except for that random servant with the heart problem.
I’ll do a better version. Maybe something funny that’ll make Kibby laugh when she hears it.
If it’s the right kind of funny and Lute likes it, maybe send it to Boe?
Is “The Klerm Prince” too obvious for a title?
******
******
The Brute’s swing came in from the side, aimed at Alden’s left ear.
Catching the strike on his preserved backpack was intentional, but getting the backpack in front of that deadly fist in time felt like luck. Slamming his feet into the gouged dirt and throwing himself backward, landing for just long enough to launch himself immediately forward again, up and over the other boy who had already closed the distance—that was all intentional, too.
But bouncing around this much was a sign of desperation.
The Brute kept getting right up in Alden’s face so fast that he didn’t have time for anything else. They were twenty seconds into a three-minute duel, and Alden was trying his best to protect his backpack, his body, and run down the time for a draw. But three minutes was too long. Repeated close encounters with a Strength Brute, while using a shield this small, were bad for a person’s health.
I’m not going to make it doing this.
He’d stuck the knife Ignacio had given him into the elastic water bottle net on the backpack’s side before the duel started, preserving it all together because it was the best way to make sure he didn’t end up having his weapon stolen and used against him. He unpreserved for a second to grab the knife, then threw himself sideways. Then forward. Sideways.
Always just a finger’s distance out of his opponent’s reach. This wasn’t sustainable.
Try something else.
He needed this fight to slow down. To make it slow down, he needed to attack. To attack, he needed to be close. Being unpredictable was one way to stay close and not die to the next punch.
Maybe.
As always in a difficult duel, idea became action without being filtered through the usual thought processes.
Alden’s next leap didn’t throw him away from the approaching enemy, but straight toward him. Low. Backpack held up over his head hopefully.
The Brute stepped backward so that Alden hit the floor right in front of him instead of crashing into his legs.
This boy’s name was Rex. He’d spelled it “Wrecks” on the System name tag he’d worn the first week of class. Alden didn’t know much about him yet.
And he didn’t know much about Alden. Rex brought his fists down together. He should have gone for Alden’s body, but instead both of them slammed, a split second apart, into the backpack Alden was holding up.
Strength Brutes. Waving a shield in front of Heloísa was like waving a flag in front of a bull, and Alden supposed it must be the same for Rex. He didn’t quite believe he couldn’t get through Alden’s magic easily. He’d hit it hard already. Surely two more should do it.
He was an A-rank, punching normally, without any skill or spell boosting the strikes, so he was wrong about that. A strain like this would eventually be too much for Alden’s skill, but this wasn’t an eventually kind of situation.
Alden successfully stabbed Rex’s right knee, and tried to do the same to the left. If the Brute couldn’t run, then—
A hand gripped his gym suit near the small of his back, and suddenly he was flying.
I keep what I’m preserving safe. Safe until the last possible instant.
He hit the barrier that formed one of the long sides of their dueling block. He hadn’t lost his knife when he was thrown, but he took the brunt of the impact on that arm and felt the blade fall. He fell after it into the dirt. The realism setting was twenty percent. He was banged up. The suit had stiffened around his upper right arm and shoulder. His legs were okay, though.
Run.
He lunged upright, and immediately caught a foot in the chest that laid him out flat.
“Really, Rabbit?” Rex looked down at him. He was standing on one leg. He’d hopped across the block on one leg and then opted to kick Alden. “Yield.”
“I can go longer!” Alden said in a rush. “Run the timer out for the practice at least.”
The three minute timers were long compared to their usual one-on-ones. A reward of sorts, Alden guessed, for making it to this end of the gym and getting to enter the dueling blocks.
“No. I’ve got stuff to do.” Rex was a large dude. Tall and wide. He had a square head and a haircut that made Alden think of a bust of Julius Caesar his ninth grade history teacher had kept on a shelf. “Concede, or I knock you out.”
Alden believed it was a dick move to force an unwilling person to hit you more when you were already clearly the loser.
“I concede,” he said.
The System called the end of the duel. A victory for Rex, who nodded at Alden with a satisfied smile, then turned to look at what was happening in the rest of the gym.
Now that they’d both finished their first duel, they had to run through all the challenges again. Alden was looking forward to it even though a couple had been tougher than he’d expected.
“Your shield’s good for a B-rank,” said Rex.
“Thanks. It’s actually a preservation skill. In addition to shielding, it—”
“If we hit the blocks at the same time again, let’s hang back and wait for different partners, though,” Rex said. “I wanted to fight you once to get your measure, but I need more than a B for practice since they’re letting us handle pairings ourselves today. They hardly ever do that.”
There were so many ways to make that request without saying I’m not good enough to practice with.
Alden wanted to point out that he’d just stabbed the guy in the knee. He wanted to mention that he could have stood under a dome-shaped shield and yawned in Rex’s face while he banged his fists helplessly against it.
“Yeah. Fine. I’ll duel someone else.”
“Good. Thanks. Did you know my older brother’s in your Coursing class? His name’s Ram. He’s a second year.”
“Really?” There was a person with a strangely square head in there. On the all-Brute team. Was that the right one?
“It’s cool you got on a team.” Rex smiled at Alden, like he meant it. “I mean a real one instead of that B team that was trying to do runs last term. You’re doing good for yourself, man. Later.”
He’s not the worst, but I wish I’d taken out his other knee, too, Alden thought as he watched Rex jog around the edge of the gym toward the first starting line.
He went to fill his backpack with a little more sand.
******
******
Back to the baton-stealing battle. Instructor Ivanova had stopped passing the batons out now that everyone knew the drill. Instead, she’d just left a pile of them at the starting line.
Alden took a purple one and stuffed it into his backpack with the end sticking out like last time. Identifying who you would steal from, and who would think they could steal from you, was half the work. He tried to be a good sport by not standing around waiting for particularly powerful students to clear the challenge, but he did make sure he ran in on the side where Jupiter wasn’t surfing six meters above the floor on a lifematter bag, chilling up there while she chose a victim.
She had two batons already. This was her third or fourth run, though, and the challenges were supposed to get harder on repeats. His interface said he only needed two batons to pass, like last time, but she must be after a third.
Good for her, learning to surf the skies with her powers. He hated being attacked by her, though. She always seemed to be doing something quirky, and then wham, he was gruesomely impaled. Or the moldy funk in the lifematter bag was attacking his mouth.
They weren’t supposed to give each other lethal injuries in this challenge, but still.
He tried to keep an eye on her and keep moving while he looked for someone he could take a baton from.
Olive was available, with her illusions, wearing a fierce expression on three faces as she tried to corner Astrid. Astrid was looking a little tired, but Alden didn’t think it was Olive’s doing. Olive was trying out a spear in class today, instead of her baseball bat, and Alden was having trouble not comparing the way she held it to the way Marsha held her polearm.
Marsha had just run in, too. That was actually a good thing. She’d ignore Alden and distract Jupiter. The mutable haft was already ripping through the air toward the lifematter bag.
I know I can take Olive’s baton.
Even without the gremlin’s contribution, he could sense the real her when he tried. The illusions felt like magic. She felt like life.
He was sure Astrid was going to beat her in a minute. She would just figure out which Olives were the illusions by trying to fight them all.
The Morph Brute was sporting a short pink mohawk today. She would be hilariously outraged if Alden dove in and stole Olive’s baton while she was distracting the Adjuster.
He kind of wanted to do it, but…
I wish Olive didn’t get her feelings hurt so easily when I beat her.
There’s Max on the other side. I’ll go tangle with him. He should be extra challenging by now.
The faculty weren’t clearing the floor in this section, so there were environmental hazards left behind from previous runs. Everly’s super slick ice patch was right in the middle, and people were sliding around on it, either intentionally to escape attacks or accidentally as a result of them.
Max would have laid traps the first time he ran. If they were still around, he’d have them as well as whatever he’d decided to put down this time.
Alden headed that way, dodging behind Mehdi and Winston, who were very busy with each other. Max caught sight of him coming and nodded.
He does look confident. Should I try to sense where those traps are? I think I can do that, but he’s looking right at me and paying attention. Should’ve thought of this while I was still on the sidelines and come up with a plan.
This’ll be good for me to—
Something slammed into the side of his left thigh so hard it felt like a miniature explosion.
His suit froze in an instant. Complete immobilization on that leg and full-body movement reduction. He fell and rolled with little ability to control it.
Tuyet? Reinhard? Heloísa throwing something?
Before he could remember that none of them were currently fighting in this part of the gym, he saw a yellow baton rolling away from him across the floor.
Is that what hit me? Huh. Then it must have been—
Winston rushed toward the baton, grabbed it, and then ran for the barrier that separated the baton challenge from their next one.
“I was beating you!” Mehdi shouted. “I was beating you, and you know it! Come back here!”
He slid across the floor behind Alden’s head, grabbed the baton sticking out of Alden’s backpack, and ran after the fleeing speedster.
Well, fine then. This was a bad start.
With his baton gone, the gym released his suit, and he sat up. His actual attacker arrived on the scene seconds too late. She’d lost her own baton as well as his, just like that.
“Yikes!” said Opal, looking at him and laughing. Her wand was in her hand. “That didn’t go well for either of us. It didn’t hurt too much, did it?”
“No. Good aim if you were going for my leg.” He hopped up. “But maybe don’t take me out a few steps from a Speed Brute and an Agi next time if you want to get my baton?”
“Sure thing! Back to the start for both of us.” She kept her wand in hand as she spun. Her auburn hair was in a tight braid.
“Why did you use your own baton as a weapon?” he asked. “Wouldn’t something like a ball of lead or a spike…or just a rock…be better? I’ve got stuff you can borrow if you need to.”
She smiled back at him. “No, I’ll stick with the baton. Surprise factor! Sorry to take you down so hard.”
Surprise factor? That doesn’t make sense. A hunk of lead flying at me from across the gym would have been surprising, too.
Opal had undersold her levitation powers when she was passing out rice balls. The reason she was here wasn’t because she could make small things float, but because she could make small things she’d placed under her wand’s control zoom toward her at high speed. She could basically make bullets the size of shoeboxes, although instead of flying away from her, they flew directly at her and stopped when they reached her. She could also send things away from her, but that was a floaty process. The spell that brought them in was the one she used as a weapon.
It was interesting. He pictured her standing in the middle of a room surrounded by hidden objects she’d spelled in advance, and then whenever someone dangerous approached her, they’d get shot by a harmless-looking candlestick or bookend.
But it’s not practical that she used her baton. That means she had to float her baton slowly away from her or drop it somewhere to set up for the shot and then wait for me to run between it and her. It was at risk of being stolen the whole time. I don’t get it.
Did she want us to both have to start over at the same time? Is she planning to practice on me or something?
He regarded her warily.
I can take her baton if I do it right at the start.
She took another yellow baton from the pile, and he picked a green one. They looked at each other.
“I’m not running in until I see you out there,” she said, shrugging. “Or unless we start on opposite sides. I know my limits. Don’t worry, though. I don’t really need to beat you again. I’ll go for someone else! Bigger fish. Promise.”
“You don’t have to. Now that I know how you’re playing, I can protect myself from you better.”
He ran out, and got back to it. He half expected her to break her word, but he had an intense game of chase with Max to distract him for the next couple of minutes. It ended in what was effectively a mutual loss.
Max caught him in one of the treadmill traps, but Max was limping. He was unlikely to make it to the next section with both batons when he was in that state.
“You stab people in the legs now?”
“It might just be a today thing. Are you going to take my baton and let me out of here?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
Alden let out a short laugh.
“Oh no! I lost it again!” The voice from near the starting line made him turn his head.
Opal was leaning over a fallen Olive. And Sanjay was running for the finish holding three batons, wearing an expression that said he couldn’t believe his luck.
“That’s a ridiculous mistake to make twice. She did the same thing to me.”
“She’s insecure,” said Max. “That’s the second time she’s ‘lost’ a baton just against Olive.”
“That means she’s insecure?”
“She’s really good in this section. Hunting people who are fighting other people seems to work for her. She’s pretending that she’s trying something new out and making it harder for herself by using the baton as her only weapon…kind of like you switching to a backpack and a knife as if you want to take a beating from everyone in class.”
“You’re insulting me because you fear me.”
“But you still want to get through this,” Max said, ignoring the gibe. “She’s deliberately risking the baton because she’s comfortable here. She can even show off and take out high ranks, instead of struggling in the other sections. She got Jeffy earlier. I’m sure she knows better than to keep doing it all period.”
Max gave Alden a hand and pulled him off the treadmill. “You owe me.”
“For what?”
“Letting Winston have a baton so easily earlier.”
“Fair.”
******
Eventually, Alden yoinked a baton from Haoyu while Haoyu was taunting Lexi right next to the barrier, and he got to hear both of them swear at him as he practically stumbled victoriously into the next section.
They were calling this one the lily pad game. Light that looked like rippling water covered the floor. Columns about six inches across rose from it and disappeared in random patterns, existing for only a few seconds. They had to cross without touching the ‘water’, but the lily pads were usually awkwardly far apart, awkwardly high, or awkwardly occupied by another person. They were allowed to shove people or jump on them if they needed to.
Alden thought Bobby would be proud to see how well he was using bits of sand and all the jumping practice they’d done together to navigate this fun little maze without needing to fight anybody.
He made it to the third challenge almost too fast, considering how much he enjoyed the lily pads, and his arms ached in anticipation.
Mountain rescue. His interface told him to carry a hundred kilo bag up a climbing wall. It had only been fifty kilos last time.
There were grips. The wall didn’t mimic earthquakes. The section he’d been assigned to climb was easier than what they had at North of North, but it still wasn’t easy. He used the backpack straps to hold the weight, and got it done with only one fall.
“Good work, Alden!” Ivanova called from down on the floor as he stood on top of the climbing wall and dropped the lifematter bag back down.
The instructor was a former Super Olympic speed climber. He expected she’d be giving good notes on this one after class.
He had a minute to take a breath up there while he looked at the fourth challenge. It was just crossing regular old floor…while Instructors Plim and Foxbolt shot at people from the sides. Despite the difficulty of it, it was a pretty spectacle.
Plim was using two jets of water, strong enough to take anyone without a special talent off their feet. And Foxbolt was an Adjuster who worked with illusion spells, like Olive. Unlike Olive, she could make her illusions have significant real effects beyond the visual.
Sound. Physicality. Heat.
She was really stingy about how she used it against them. Alden didn’t know if that was a choice or a necessity. She particularly liked fireworks, and usually, hidden in each burst of light, there were a few sparks that you couldn’t afford to run into. Because they’d burn through you like lava through wax.
He decided to focus on dodging Plim’s jets and trusting to luck and the bit of protection his backpack gave him for Foxbolt. He was sure she wasn’t adding danger to her illusions at all half the time.
That turned out to be the right decision, but it still wasn’t a smooth trip. The water jets seemed mysteriously attracted to him. Both jets came at him, to the relief of several people who’d been beleaguered by them. Everly gave him an apologetic look as she made it to safety.
She’d leveled up at the end of break. Instead of new spells, she’d taken foundation points with an emphasis on her speed and strength. He thought that choice was really showing benefits for her during a class like this.
Plim washed Alden out twice, while cheering for him, before she let him make his third run in peace.
The final thing before he was allowed to duel again was the most innocent-seeming task of all. They only had to sprint across the width of the gym fast enough to beat a timer.
Some people weren’t having much trouble with it. Like Everly, who was already gone.
Others were lying on the floor, trying to catch their breath or swearing vengeance against whichever instructor had come up with this. Alden suspected Klein, even though the man wasn’t here today.
The time they’d been given to beat was the average of their ten best times crossing this same distance during previous gym classes.
The problem was that they were often at their fastest while they were really fresh at the beginning of class. Or while running for their lives, fueled by adrenaline as a painful-looking death bore down on them. Or, in at least one person’s case, when they were racing their most hated rival, who happened to be a higher ranked speedster.
Winston was screaming as he tore across the gym, like he was trying to make Finlay hear him from Li Jean. Plenty of people were wet from getting hit by Plim in the previous challenge, but Alden was sure Winston’s drenched hair was all sweat.
They were allowed to use their powers of course. The people making it through this one easily either had new points or a new trick to rely on. Or they just hadn’t been going their absolute fastest in many of the previous classes. Whether that was because they hadn’t needed to or because some of them had been slacking, Alden didn’t know.
He did know he had often pushed himself as hard as he could for speed, so this was a beast of a task for him. He stood there, wanting to completely catch his breath before he even tried.
Sand on the floor, launch off of it as hard as I can, dive for the finish.
That had worked last time after a few attempts. Getting the jump right made a difference. Using My Body Becomes My Assistant would help with that, but he had thoughtfully been provided with two timers. One for if he was using wordchains, and one for if he wasn’t. So the time he had to beat would just get faster if he chained up, and besides, this was Thursday.
He’d decided to use wordchains on Tuesdays and during Coursing runs. Thursdays were for natural practice. Stuart said knights used them but didn’t like to rely on them, so Alden was going for that kind of balance.
“If I could just strap explosives to myself, I’d blow myself toward the other end,” Njeri moaned.
“That would kill you,” said Astrid, who was holding the other girl’s foot to help her work out a cramp.
“But I’m tired. As long as I reached the end before I died…”
She had Alden’s sympathy. Seeing her in that state made him sure he needed to rest for a couple more minutes before he tried it.
******
He considered his success on the first attempt that round to be close to miraculous. His foot hit the sand just right, and he landed so well for the next jump. His outstretched fingertips were brushing over the far edge of the finish line as his timer hit zero.
He sprang up and whirled, wanting to shout, “Did you see that?!” to the room.
But Winston was two feet away, staring at him with a beet face that was sweating buckets.
“I am focused on my future,” he gasped in Alden’s direction. “I don’t care about you beating a time I could beat in my sleep.”
“You look like you’re going to rupture something.”
“I’M EXCELLING.”
Maybe the teachers should lower his time a little. Considering.
Another person sprinted over the line as Winston turned away. Her short dark hair was wet, too, but it was just water in her case. She didn’t look exhausted.
“Hey, Maricel. Since we’re both here at the same time, do you want to duel in the dirt block? Looks like it’s free for us.”
She had been really quiet all term. Great in class from what he’d seen. He’d wondered if all the publicity might have slowed her down, but Fragment’s tutoring must have been intense. He couldn’t recall her failing or screwing up at anything she’d done since she got back. She’d busted down the obstacle course ahead of her team in Coursing in a way that looked reckless, but it had worked. So that might have been strategy instead of a mistake.
She looked at him now like she was surprised to see him. And then…like she was vaguely uncomfortable. And then she refocused.
“Sorry, Alden. But for these three-minute duels, I’m only fighting people who might give me trouble.”
His eyebrows shot up before he could stop them.
“I mean to say…”
“I enjoy making duels a challenge, too,” he said. “You couldn’t be here for a while, so there’s stuff I’ve learned that you haven’t seen yet. If you want to make it harder for yourself and you want me to put up more of a fight, there are options.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean to sound like you were no good, but…with all that’s happened. You understand? I…I shouldn’t have said most of the things I said to you during the first weeks of school. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I don’t want any of the same things anymore.”
None of the same things. Okay…I can go along with it. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I’m not like that anymore,” she said, her shoulders going back. “I’ve got responsibilities. People are looking up to me. So I’m not someone who can be casual with you about things like this. We can have some fun practicing together. But only when the instructors assign it, all right?”
Jeez. I know she’s not trying to shit on my morning, but this whole conversation feels more insulting than Winston just did for some reason.
“I only asked because we both happen to be standing here.”
He regretted that he sounded offended, but the regret was wasted. She didn’t even seem to notice.
“Good. Thanks! I know you’re great for what you can do, but I think Ignacio’s about to get here.”
Alden ended up waiting around for a while and then dueling Jeffy.
The Aqua Brute was tired from trying to sprint and hyper about the amazing things he thought he could do by swimming “in water in the air,” by which he meant he wanted Shapers like Instructor Plim to make high-speed water tubes he could travel through.
Alden lasted almost the full three minutes against him and considered it good practice, but it was kind of like he was fighting and Jeffy was fifty percent daydreaming and fifty percent remembering to tackle him.
“Traveling by Shaper highway would be fine,” Alden said when they left the block. “But I don’t think it’s the best possible use of your water moves.”
“No. I think the government wants me to find SAL ships. That sounds easy though, so it won’t take much time. The Artonans are almost finished with the ocean arches, but maybe they’ll build something else out in the water and I can help the divers? Being an Aqua Brute’s pretty important.”
Alden smiled. “It is, man. I’m glad you know it.”
He was so glad Jeffy was happy with his affixation. Everyone deserves to be.
“What happens when you get hit with a Shaped stream of water with the life jacket spell on? I know you tried.”
“Yeah I tried! It’s kind of like it jumps for you. Do you think we could use it in Coursing? That class is next.”
“I know that class is next. I’m going to be there, too.”
Comments (297)
Actually, the frog is the *villian* in the original version of "The Frog Prince". The frog is not an innocent victim, but a manipulative extortionist. He uses a moment of a young girl's desperation to extract an unfair contract for physical intimacy, and then uses her father’s authority to force his way into her private bedroom. Basically an allegory for unwanted sexual targeting and the horror of forced marriage... The fairy tale part of that story is that princess finally resisting violently pays off and she gets her prince charming (which would never have happened in the middle ages).
The modern lesson that the frog is an innocent victim who shouldn't be judged by his looks, treated equally etc, is just that - a modern retelling.
Does this gym stuff matter? He is so obviously unsuited for combat, and handicapping himself so hard, that growth seems impossible. Theres all these people crapping on him constantly—and with the pace as it is, he’ll graduate in 1000 chapters. Not really sure what hes getting out of this, and why he has no pride
That's a lot of consecutive, very interesting takes. What makes you think that growth seems impossible? Even with the relatively short amount of time that has passed in the story, Alden has figured out a lot of new things he can do with his skill, and he pretty regularly finds even more things about it. Most recently, with the fact that the entruster matters in how effective or strong his skill is. What makes you think Alden has no pride? He absolutely is proud of his achievements, both with his skill, with his magic, and his overall decisions for his choosing season. To your point about graduation, well, I'm half convinced the story will end prior to that.
It occurred to me after reading the most recent chapter that there is a parallel between how Marciel treats Alden and how Alden treats Opal. It's not that Opal's a B, but that Alden doesn't see how working with her can increase his capability. Like if you remove the rankism piece, it's the same.
I'm not seeing the prejudice you are, if that's what you're pointing out. I don't see any similarities in Alden's relationships with Opal and Maricel that aren't also common to, like, Sören. Alden acknowledges Opal's threat and intends to keep an eye out for her sabotage. He and Max use precious floor time to discuss at length her approach to the game. They come to a good understanding of her real threat level and are not discounting her at all. Alden embraces social contact. He ate the rice ball. None of that is true of Maricel toward Alden right now.
strange speculations while I check to see if there are more chapters: after the recent disaster and creation of the Superlative classification: social pressure in support of anybody with powers has suddenly become much stronger and more overt. Note the change in focus for so many previously-friendly students to a need to power-level their skills and boost their attitudes towards their skills at the cost of friendships and support. Is it merely social pressure and reaction to students seeing actual value in their uncomfortable skills? Or is it social engineering in the same vein as pushing every Artonan to try for Knighthood even if it makes them choose suicide at a young age because the knights are sufficiently valuable to be worth it?
Not sure if every Artonan wants to become a Knight. Stu mentions how everybody at LeafSong /says/ that they want to be a knight. It's just that people don't actually /do/ it. It's one of those things that they recognize that the occupation is admired, but not emulated.
U-Type theory: u-types are what happens when someone who's got enough chaos potential to be permanently altered by mild chaos exposure, but not to immediately become an abomination, get hit with exactly that while under a contract's oversight. Part of their authority goes wrong and turns into some weird magical mutation that can't be reversed, and the contract immediately responds by affixing them to arrest their decline. The skills they receive upfront are low quality and poorly matched to any real world use case because the contract spontaneously generated them without consulting a wizard, just for the purpose of better containing and managing their new weird part. The extra help they're offered with their affixations if they don't blab is actual contact with a wizard, or at least sway over the contract to give feedback on what kinds of skills they'd like to have available in the future, while being constrained by the need for everything to relate to their mutant superpower. They go up ranks more often than others because while they don't have an authority sense, their mutation constantly tries to fight their affixation.
Makes sense, and Boe said his skill wasn’t created to be of use to the Triplanets. It really does seem like the Contract just shoves whatever skills needed to patch up a mutated person, like puzzle pieces. The mutation also grows, and they need to be patched up for the rest of their lives. Maybe U-types turn into demons if left unchecked. Boe might be banned from ever leaving Contract worlds, and can’t fight demons with Alden.
When Wishing (for a chapter) Was Having (a chapter)
Cry
So current random theory of the day while we await the next chapter. I think chaos might to some extent be sentient. Or at least echoes of sentience. We know that wizards can exert influence on the universe and potentially cause it to change. They can leave parts of their authority behind in wards or other rituals after their death. They are often reckless or self serving, doing things they shouldn’t. So my current theory/conspiracy (honestly mostly speculative) is that a wizard or group of wizards bent a massive amount of authority trying to do something. Potentially trying to pierce through dimensions or teleport like Stuart theorized. The wizards in the process were ‘destroyed’, But their remnant authority remained. That authority was warped and began trying to change the rest of the universe. But since the authority doing it was fractured all the changes are random and chaotic. The more it spread the more the collective authority grew and mutated. Ramping up like a disease. We know that Alden described being in chaos like being ‘watched’. And it required constant reaffirmation to resist being corrupted. (A pseudo entity actively attempting to use their warped authority to override a person could match those aspects). The object shaper Will from the Submerger incident could supposedly hear the chaos whispering (or some form of awareness) when near Matedero. That could have been entirely in his head but I think it’s compelling if it wasn’t. The wizard overseeing Gorgon got in trouble for actively talking to a “demon”. And the mind manipulator being that brought Stuart’s parents together was also intelligent. So ultimately my theory is that there is a sort of hive mind of authority causing chaos. It can spread passively when allowed, but can also be tapped into by wizards. Some seeking understanding of chaos, and others power through using its network.
In order to defeat chaos you would quite literally need to remove it entirely from all existence. Otherwise it would just spread continuously. And sealing it way would be questionable because there will always be wizards reckless enough to try and interact with it. Or even create it themselves
I don't want some undercooked soup, I want it hot and tender.
Can soup be tender? 🙃
Aww, again :(
Approximate becomes more approximate approximately by the number of approximates Sleyca chains.
I hope patreon fixes this issue that causes comments to be in a random order, rather than new comments at the top
are you on iphone? on android (april 10 update) and desktop/browser everything is in order for me? sometimes clicking a notification seems to surface that thread to the the top, but overall the order is by newest
I'm still up working on the revision, but I don't have a lot of oomph left. I like to end on the oomph, not the brain static. I expect I'll have to go to sleep soon and then finish it in the morning.
Bittersweet certainty, sigh
Ugh….I just know that as soon I start doing something really productive, the new chapter will drop…that’s why I like Friday chapters the most.
I think it's going to be several more hours, CB. I'm probably going to have to sleep in about an hour, and I don't think I'm going to finish before then. So you will be doing something really productive while I sleep! I hope the start of your week is a good one. Maybe the chapter will hit as soon as you're ready for a break. :)
Lonely spoon, soup-seeking, approximated
Maricel being an S-hole is disappointing. :(
I’m imagining Alden making an Iran Lego style rap dis-tracks about those es-holes while I wait for soup
more like Lute
I am getting the feeling this chapter will be more approximate than not
They're all more approximate than not. Since Sleyca hasn't announced a delay, it seems likely it will be up tonight, though.
Almost here i hope!
Poor Marciel. So many personality shifts. I bet she’s under Sway influence. Wasn’t there some clues that a powerful Sway was behind the attack on Matadero?
I doubt it. She just feels responsible for what happened with the sub and flooding incident. Aiden is a friend from before when she didn't want to be a hero now everyone's telling her she has to be responsible and become the best hero she can. Playing with her B rank friend just isn't how she maximizes her training in her mind. She's fallen victim to rankism.
Twas the night before Sleyca, when all through the house Not a reader was stirring, not even a klerm The Bromeliad was chilling with a slueth of bears surrounding the top In hopes that Esh-erdi would see the truth drop The young avowed all snug in their beds While visions of gym danced in their heads And the Mother planet watched with bated breath Of young wizard Alden who made a pact with a friend And little Stu so brave and astute weaves a friendship so deep That the Art'hs who worry can't even see Of the two who dream of ventures unseen Look to the gold as the place to retreat From worries at home which ache at their strings The Maker and Bearer who ought to be heard Stay quiet in worry for a first of their kin Unbeknownst to we who wake the whole night The two whom we ship will make their light shine brightest of all And on the eve of the end oh how our tears will fall.
I loved this! Maybe "And the Mother planet watched, with a loving air / the young wizard pact of her new favourite pair".
Ok, folks buckle up. Here's the project Gutenberg version (likely translated from a later edition of the german): >>> But when he fell down, he was no Frog but a King’s Son with beautiful kind eyes! >>> He, by her father’s will, was now her dear companion and husband. Here's the 1st edition recent translation by Jack Zipes: >>>But the frog didn't fall down dead. Instead, when he fell down on the bed, he became a handsome young prince. Well, now indeed he did become her dear companion, and she cherished him as she had promised, and in their delight they fell asleep together. No mention of a witch. Closest mention to his curse appears to be "[Henry] had been so distressed when he had learned his master had turned into a frog" No mention of how this event occurred. Quotes taken from the preview of the Jack Zipes translation of the FIRST edition: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691160597/
edit: If it were modern story, the prince's people would be distraught over his all-consuming obsession with living as a frog furry, and overjoyed when the princess smacks/seduces some sense into him. What would the original audience assume was the cause if none was given? I'm not a historian, but I've been told actual “witches” and belief in “curses” was quite common back in the day. Especially before the arrival of Christianity, but things didn't change much after.
Honestly I usually don't post comments in the patreon but i feel like so many people seem to be misunderstanding maricel, she's not an esshole all of a sudden, she's a teenager overworking herself to the bone in a desperate attempt to improve after the matadero incident. I don't think she's trying to be mean, she's just become withdrawn after all the pressure that has been put on her by the press and by herself.
Agreed. She’s not an esshole. She’s been a mental mess from the moment she got selected. At first by intensely rebelling against being an Avowed and now by intensely embracing being one. Right now she’s trying to deal with the (inappropriate) guilt over not stopping the attack, by becoming an overachiever. She’s also trying to distance herself from Alden because he could blow her cover — he knows too much about her former extreme desire to not be avowed, plus the details of her connection to Jacob before the attack on Matadero. Externally, if he said the wrong thing to the wrong people it could bring her current persona tumbling down. It would be hazardous for her to be seen associating with him. Internally, he reminds her of the person she doesn’t want to be anymore, the person she was when they were starting a friendship. He holds too many of her truths. Could she, should she be nicer about how she’s avoiding him? Yeah, but she’s a teenaged hot mess and doesn’t have the skills for pushing him away gracefully.
I remember the throwing against the wall. In my memory she felt really guilty about killing/almost killing him, so she kissed him as an apology.
Somehow I missed the notification for this chapter. I thought maybe I wasn't subscribed anymore :)
I’m actually super curious what the Artonans arrival did to science fiction, fantasy, and other art mediums. Trying to imagine an Anime industry post Artonan influence and tech due to Gaffers post below
I mean, we have an in text example of what I assumed was romantacy. The book where the Artonan arrival forced werewolves to reveal themselves that Alden says he read. I assumed romantacy as the genre because of how often vampire werewolves novels are romances.
On the one hand, I should take a break so I can enjoy a bunch of chapters back to back, on the other hand... a sleyca update is kind of the highlight of my week...
I mean if we had self-control around fiction, we'd all just wait for a published version. Yet here we are.
Let's have some more Boe-friendly content here, people! Indian Balloon Frog: https://bsky.app/profile/averagefrog.bsky.social/post/3mjowgg6dxk2w
For me this week I somehow wound up obsessed with Cecile Corbel's "La Valse des Ondines" and now I have a new appreciation for harpists like Lute. It's a lovely instrument.
Hey, these rule. I love this list and the work you put into it. You simply have to rename “Sympathy for Cracks.” I read that name and couldn’t finish the list because I was laughing. And that may just be me being childish. Like, “Sympathy for Fractures” if you want to be using Artonan language? Or leave it in, it’s not my list. If Lute ends up having “Sympathy for Cracks,” I think Alden would never need to worry about saying something embarrassing in front of him ever again
I actually chose cracks deliberately because that's a music term for a flubbed note. Also, you seem to have commented this as its own comment tree instead of a response to mine. Lute mentioned that the middle and bottom of the skill list had skills with music terminology in their names, after all.
Alden’s missing the opportunity to translate anime in his storytelling class…move aside Klerm Prince, it’s time for Jeffy and Alden as Goku-ratch and Vegeta-rian
Goku-ratch digs deep into his Earth heritage and warrior rage, hardened by seeing his best friend, Klerm-in, killed in front of him. He screams and powers up for his ultimate water move: “THIS… IS TO GO EVEN FURTHER BEYOND….. EPIC EARTHLING LEVEL 3!!!!!!”
Thoughts about the nature of Hyperboles: we know they're the step above s's, and we know that they're not able to talk about why they've got the rank up. My theory is that hyperboles actually receive uncapped skills (custom developed ones, for the u-types), because they've hit a critical mass where their authority is capable of growing too rapidly to realistically keep pace by just affixing new skills of adequate quality, and it'd be a waste of potential to just give them foundation points and spell impressions. They're bound to secrecy so they don't tell people about the fun toys that're being withheld from the other avowed. On a different and totally normal note I've gradually accumulated a collection of about 25 guesses as to skills that might be available to chainer s ranks. As for where they fit into my theory about hyperboles (I'm pretty sure anyone who actually picked up all the s-chainer skills would be one by then) with the Palace's promise to make new skills just for you if you actually picked up all 30ish of those skills, either one of those skills is secretly just the starting point of an uncapped skill or if you finish their list they'll just give you new ones to use. The funniest possibility would be, I suppose, 'mass bestowal' itself being an uncapped skill and everything else merely being very hefty addons to it, but I don't think Artonan society would let them get away with that when it barely even lets them have their own proprietary class.
Ooh I like that theory! It opens an avenue for Hyperbole characters to recognise what's going on with Alden's skill in the future. Or, if it's ever necessary, perhaps an avenue for Alden to be officially declared a Hyperbole, so that he can get perks his B rank wasn't getting him. I want to see the 25 chainer guesses collection!
How much does Max know? His super power is being an evil genius, and we see in this chapter that has understand the motives and weaknesses of even the newest students in their class. He knew Alden was his main competition the instant he found out he was a rabbit. He knew Alden could beat Winston if he tried (with maybe just a little help from Max). He likely knows Alden is sandbagging. How far does his insight go?
I think Max definitely knows something is up with Alden by now. Max most certainly keeps track of his classmates' initial and current abilities. He would know by observation alone that Alden habitually handicaps himself, does not show his Skill's upper limits, never exhausts it completely, and does not discuss it. It seems reasonable that he would know or suspect that Alden can preserve many things at once, for example.
I feel a lot of people angry about Alden sandbagging and not showcasing his ‘true’ potential aren’t realizing that, even at his true level, he’s still B rank. If he was giving his all he may have a more varied tool kit, but he’s still gonna get bodied by S ranks and a lot of As!
We don't actually know how Alden would perform if he showcased the full current potential of BoB. And in fact, this chapter itself hints that he'd likely be able to hold his own surprisingly well: "He wanted to mention that he could have stood under a dome-shaped shield and yawned in Rex’s face while he banged his fists helplessly against it." Seems to me like Alden himself believes that BoB could *very* easily go toe-to-toe with an A-rank Strength Brute in what's effectively just a direct test of power/strength. And that's simply using his skill in it's most passive form possible. I think what most people are meaning when they say Alden is 'sandbagging' (at least this is what I've meant), is that Alden is persisting with using seemingly unnecessarily sub-optimal strategies in many of his duels (to the extent that this was even explicitly commented on in this chapter by Max). Maybe Sleyca has some hidden reason for Alden wanting to use what was essentially mundane knife combat in an MPE duel with a Strength Brute, but I have to be honest, on the face of it it seems like a really poor use of that time, and I'm not at all surprised that Rex asked if they could avoid each other for the next round. At the end of the day Alden doesn't have to go around beating up every S-rank in the class for people's perception of him in duels to meaningfully change (as was already made evident through multiple people's very positive reactions to how he last fought vs Winston). However, while he's persisting with what are rather self-evidently ineffective approaches to dueling (even when only compared to what he's already showcased being capable of in gym itself), it does come across as a little self-contradictory of him to be complaining about not being treated as a challenging/useful dueling partner by those who are looking for something else. To me, that's the crux of this whole 'criticism' towards Alden from this chapter: he has the proven ability to be a more challenging dueling partner, is actively choosing not to be, and so doesn't really have much of an excuse for feeling upset at the likes of Rex when they aren't overly enthused about dueling him further.
My guess is that Alden ranks up during or at the end of this arc. My reasons are vast and varied.
Are they multiple, long-considered, and/or personal?
You have all convinced me that Alden is in fact the frog, the prince, the princess, and the servant. Just waiting on the king, or the golden ball.
I mean, he *is* a plaything. Someone's favorite plaything, even!
I do think Alden should've added another level to his fake profile by now and praticing what kind of things he could build with double preservation would be undeniably useful. Also some of the defogging sensory stuff could be an extra passive he adds to the skill. If anything its more suspicious if he accidently reveals all the extra stuff that grants when they still think its quite low level. That being said im baffled by the number of comments that suggest he should just whip out his auriad and start casting in class and explain it away as having a high ranking friend who can just grant combat spells to a rabbit as though that wouldnt draw just as much attention / begging followers as saying hes a wizard. Also spells are slower than skills and Alden doesnt know any particularly powerful spells and are far weaker and slower offense wise than say his sling, maybe some utility spells like the blinding light might be useful but they are hardly going to make him less wood like to the likes of Marsha, he isnt actually that much of a hidden powerhouse yet. Its kind of a shame he put flicker on his profile as its hard to see now how he will ever explain burden of enchantment and surprise people with interesting stuff like invisible poncho.
Yeah, some of the comments lately have me convinced that many of the readers have either forgotten that it's not just a bunch of teenagers that Alden has to keep secrets from or they're just really, REALLY bad at being discreet. Alden doesn't even like the attention he gets currently, and yet some seem to think he should risk his secrecy and safety for the sake of...impressing his peers? Even the argument that Alden should be training with his wizardry along with his skill during MPE doesn't work because the sort of foundations Alden needs to work on there don't require a combat environment at all. As the Artonans might say it, in regards to wizardry, Alden is still letting his roots find purchase in the soil; he can grow to weather the wind and rain later.
I can hardly wait for the story-teller teacher's reaction to Alden's story. I wonder if it will be close enough to evoke the "Elder's Croak".
Wait...it might be risky if Alden's story resembles the Elder's Croak too much...a human knowing what's under a "respectful silence" would be suspisious
First off! I am going to do a full standing backflip because I am so excited to see Alden do literary analysis. I’m going to be happy to read his feelings about being a frog to the Artonans (beneath them à la Bash-nor) *and* humans (beneath them in rank).
Second! All-caps Winston affirmations are very funny to me. I’M EXCELLING is as delightful as SKY MOVES to me.
TFTC! Poor Alden, being underestimated by his classmates. He could beat them all if he wasn't shackled by societal conventions
Mostly he's shackled by his own decisions, 4 simultaneous different ways of sandbagging in this instance, some of them make sense for his future, some of them not so much. Still, even with that, he still could have beaten this guy if he didn't over extend.
You know this was a banger chapter from Sleyca when it's inspired this much thought and discussion.
It felt kind of like a fizzle to me the first day. I didn't realize it was actually a time delay explosive! We all needed to just process for a hot minute before diving into deep analysis. Sleyca over here slaying it yet again.
Sleyca, I have to know. How long has this Frog Prince theme been cooking? At first I thought maybe you read some Grimm for The Elder's Croak, and thought of it then. But then I realized Boe mentioned poison dart frogs even before that. Alden has been making frog jokes for like, 120 chapters!! You have been playing the long game and I didn’t see it coming one bit Seriously, Chekov's Frog has me in freaking awe right now
Klerms/frogs are a theme since Alden met Stuart and saved klerms
I did competitive epee fencing for a few years. During open practice, it’s super common to have matches against people with wildly different skill levels. Only wanting to go up against people who are as good or better than you isn’t just rude, it’s bad practice. The sport has a lot of diverse styles. To do well at tournaments, you need to test each of your strategies against dozens of very different opponents. If someone is less skilled than you are, then you adjust what you’re doing during PRACTICE. That's what makes it practice. The fact that you are trying to learn and test yourself. Not try your very damndest to win against everyone all the time. Alden is practicing fundamentals. It’s the super powered equivalent of focusing on footwork. Actual athletes do this sort of thing all the time. So what if they lose against someone they could have beaten? As long as the skill you’re working on improves, then you are getting in a good practice. Lots of the other (good students) give themselves handicaps all the time. The knife guy can imminently pincushion half the class. But we see him not use his knife cloud skill when he thinks that he and his partner will get better practice that way. Is Alden Sandbagging? Yes. Does that mean he’s getting bad training? No. Does that mean that he’s being disrespectful to the other students? Also no. He spent the entire class focusing on a core part of his skill set. Other students should respect that and follow his example. Because believe it or not, winning all the time doesn’t actually mean that you’re improving.
Exactly this. I did Brazilian jiu-jitsu for a while when I was younger and similarly to you if someone was just better at wrestling than you they might offer to start in a position that puts them at a large disadvantage so that not only could they practice some skill or just defence in a position they're bad at, but also to allow the less skilled wrestler to practice their offensive skills on a opponent that they would likely never be able to get into a position where they could dictate the flow of the roll (match). Seriously I feel like a talk about being a good sport and remembering that this is at the end of the day a gym class not a battlefield would go a long way with this group in particular.
I am loving the analyses of the Klerm Prince. There's some really good takes. I have a different take: Alden is neither the klerm nor the princess. He is Iron Henry. He is a servant by oath, with loyalty to his prince, a prince whose curse has (or very soon will) keep Alden from him. Alden's heart is bound by affixation, fear, and circumstance. Stu is of course the Klerm Prince. Taken from a well (uninhabited world), he is brought to the castle (rapport) and given the trappings of nobility at the behest of the king (Primary). But despite his desire to become truly one of them, he is rejected. Only after being cast away and broken will he rise as what he was meant to be. Alden comments that Iron Henry seems to come out of nowhere for no clear reason. And he's right! Truly, to a casual Artonan listener, the sudden arrival of a a random Human as the closest companion of Hynton Stu art'h is going to be a real wtf moment.
I actually really love this story as a symbolic tie-in here. It seems so... basic, like it's just the first story in the Brothers' Grimm compilation; it's the first place you'd look if you wanted to introduce some folk tale to your alien sci-fi story. And yet, the parallels are really deep. I don't know if Sleyca planned it or not, but it's good. Of course we tend to focus on the frog as being the main character. But the title of the Grimm version is "The Frog King; or, Iron Henry". It's suggestive that the random servant dude who shows up out of nowhere is actually also a main focus of the story.
I really love that this story has so many facets and appeals to so many people for different things. Slice of life, super hero battles, overcoming mental hurdles, lore, power systems, etc. I happen to love literally all of it (thank you random YouTube videos that Alerted me of its existence) but coming to the comments to see everyone’s reactions is just as good
There's YouTube videos?
Alden Thinks He Is The Klerm (He Is The Princess) A literary analysis by PhoenixPax
So, yesterday I read the Grimm story and found it to be pretty darn WTF. For the rest of the day, no matter how I tried, it didn't hold together with any logic from any angle that I could understand. Then I went to bed, slept on it and woke with my subconscious holding up a 'duh' sign with a very unimpressed look. Let's buckle up. This is going to go places. I'm sure whatever direction Sleyca choses to go with this arc will be wonderful, but in the mean time, I'm going to take the Grimm fairy tale apart and put it back together again so it hopefully makes better sense to folks steeped in modern Western culture. Then I'm going to apply it to Alden. :D
What did the anesidoran florist say when somebody stole their largest bouquet? Buy my flowers!
I hope Alden beats Maricel in a competition soon and decisive, or maybe inadvertently outshines her in popularity in his usual Alden way (not caring and not even trying). She turned into a esshole worse than Winston. Winston is just an attention hog but on some level knows it and a correction seems possible. But Maricel went into full “I am THE saviour mode“, nothing good will come out of that.
Winston is an A rank.
No major differences between Chap 282 Beanshot Royalroad and Patreon, mostly just spacing adjustments.
overly long comment about a minor detail incoming: “Only whoever invented it messed it up. Or they believed something I don’t. Or they never intended for people to think too deeply about it, which seems likely, but here we are.” ^this is quite possibly the most something has ever bothered me in the story to date. it’s indicative of a complete dismissal of the reasons the folktale might have survived and been the first folktale included in *the* grimm's fairytale book. the first sentence is a lazy conclusion to draw, the second is a bit dismissive, and the third is such a bad take it’s insane. it’s so unlike alden to be so immediately dismissive of something that clearly does have encoded meanings. even if he’s a 16 year old teen who isn’t too interested in literature analysis, as a character i think he’s super capable of doing better! the most immediate obvious example is the elder’s croak. he took it at face value immediately and really put a lot of thought into it. so he can definitely acknowledge that folktales encode cultural information! yet he dismisses the frog prince completely immediately. i think that if he's listened to one folktale and been able to acknowledge that there was a point to it and a reason it was told to children, and then gone and thought extensively about a second folktale, the conclusion he should have come to should have been "this probably was told to children for a purpose also" and not “it's likely the author didn't intend for this to be thought about very hard”. the brothers grimm didn’t even actually write the fairytales they collated. they were collected across the region from various people and households. so the frog prince definitely doesn’t just have one author who believed one thing and intended one thing. he’s also been watching klee-pak and kwoo-pak for months. he's definitely able to acknowledge that things have meanings even when they're not immediately obvious to him due to cultural differences. he didn’t grow up in 1700s europe, so obviously there are some major gaps in the cultural context he needs to understand why the frog prince is the way it is on his first reading. but he also didn’t understand the punishment closet on first watch, and he still had a more open-minded approach to that confusion than “i bet the creator wrote it wrong, believed something i think is wrong, or this means nothing” alden thinks super deeply about things, as we’ve seen during his choosing season, and he usually takes the time to consider the perspectives of people he disagrees with. if not their perspectives, then “why are they the way they are?”. and if not that, then he at least acknowledges his emotional reactions as emotional reactions and not completely logical ones. some examples: he knows he’s extra mad at olget on first meeting because he’s of cupcake-flusher-hating-orphan-background and it’s not necessarily as bad as he feels about it, later on he takes a moment to seriously think about how a shallow wizard might see the world and explain why olget thought he was having a really hard day, when he gets mad at emban in Scrape he acknowledges that it’s partly because a lot of what she said felt like it was about him as well, instead of passing judgement on “number 2” when boe calls him, he says “That must be hard on the people who care about him”, when boe calls him after the bash-nor incident he knows he’s being rude because he’s upset. he’s someone that often takes the time to think about things before dismissing them out of hand like this. i do think he’s able to understand cultural context as a factor for why people believe the things they believe, even when they believe something different from him and he has an emotional reaction to that. it’s also a super arrogant way to think, and alden has never before read to me as an arrogant character. im still struggling to reconcile the inherent superciliousness of "no one was meant to think about this as deeply as i, the deep thinker, am thinking about this" with the alden we've seen for 289 chapters. he dismisses the opinions of academics on the topic (valid) without even considering how they reached the conclusions they reached about the story (NOT valid). i think it's completely fine if he decided it really was a fairytale about class differences and not about virginity, but it is noteworthy that ppl considered it to be about virginity - attributing that to brain contortion instead of trying to seriously engage with why that happened is so silly! he misattributes the hotness thing as a result (dumb teen but still)(her being so beautiful she astonished the sun is meant to signal to audiences of the time that she is the good and virtuous character, because beauty was associated with virtue), i just think the analysis deserved more consideration than "they think it's horny bc there's a bed". and in addition to that arrogance, the very first reason he considers for why the story would have ended like that under his interpretation of the cultural information it encodes is that the author did so accidentally. presumably because it’s hard to fathom that someone born in 1700s europe and subjected to ideas about the poor/those not considered equal to you from infancy might decide to impart advice to their children that he, proud member of the 21st century influenced by modern ideas and an alien species that provides for all members of its society, doesn’t agree with? going back to “or they never intended for people to think too deeply about it, which seems likely, but here we are”, his whole adaptation hinges on it meaning something!! stories mean things!! they mean things and you should think about them deeply EVEN IN THE EVENT that the "author" (hundreds of years of oral tradition!) did not "intend for people to think too deeply about it". i don’t care what the results of his deep thinking are as long as they’re reasoned in a way that makes sense. i am literally only concerned with the fact that after he decides that the story is about how people react to treating others as equals, he goes "they clearly made it end like that by mistake" and then follows it up with the even worse take of "actually after deciding it's about class differences ive decided it's actually about nothing" switching tracks slightly toward the significance of folktales, which i think you probably already know because i think i remember reading a comment about you having studied something literature-adjacent, so sorry if i’m readersplaining here: folktales and oral tradition are extremely vital for imparting information and for understanding the cultural attitudes of the time and region. they’re steeped in cultural information and context. you cannot take the frog prince out of 1700s europe, just like you can’t take the elder’s croak out of 2000s triplanets. the opinions i’ve seen around the sexual themes have been less about the princess losing her virginity and becoming a woman and more along the lines of little girls marrying older husbands and having to deal with the scary and gross frog when they’d rather be dealing with a prince. the brothers grimm and some academics were very fixated on virginity as a theme for most grimms fairytales, it’s true, so i think it's reasonable to go "idk i think the brothers grimm were really fixated on the virginity thing and i dont think it was about that" and then go on to say that actually you think the story was about class differences and the wealthy justifying not sharing resources if you dont immediately follow it up with "i think the story has this meaning because the author made a mistake". please consider cultural context!!! i know you’re capable of it, alden!!! i really like the take that it wasn’t sexual in nature at all and is in fact a response to treating someone you see as lesser than you like an equal. but not only does alden not consider that that sort of belief might be related to the attitudes of the time and region, he also decides that it probably doesn’t mean anything at all in the same breath. like, i was following along with the interpretation until he decided the curtains were just blue! it wouldnt have survived and been the first grimms fairytale in the collection if it didn't have meaning that was meaningful to someone, somewhere, at some point in time. and finally, if you dont seriously engage with the reasons that a fairytale is an effective fairytale, and just write a story you like instead based on how you think stories should go, you are not writing a fairytale. i’m not sure what the exact context is for warin-doyis’s class, but i presume there’s at least a little bit of a necessity to engage with the audience’s shared knowledge/belief/symbolism system. fairytales are a whole genre. there are reasons that components are recurring across multiple cultures and multiple tales. it's not "write a story with metaphors in it". he can't successfully write a folktale for artonans without trying to seriously engage with motifs that artonans associate with specific concepts, and if he does do that then it's even more infuriating that he did that with artonans and not humans. i realise that alden giving serious thought to child arranged marriages in 1700s europe would make the tone of the chapter weird. my main argument is just that he shouldn’t dismiss it, not that he should think about it on page. another angle is to consider a klermish folktale that was never quite as widely thought to be about that in the first place. i’m not suggesting you pick a different folktale, but if you are interested, the georgian fairytale, "the frog's skin", seems suited to a knight metaphor too: https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0402.html#wardrop or the russian variant of it: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12851/12851-h/12851-h.htm#illus02 which contains moments like this: Ivan Tsarevitch came to his father: "How can I marry the frog?" complained the son. "Is she my equal? Certainly she is not." "Never mind," replied his father, "you have to marry the frog, for such is evidently your destiny." i don’t presume to know your characters better than you do! but that one paragraph bothered me so badly and i’d love to hear your perspective if it was intentional characterisation.
Loooooooooooonnnnngggg
Bunch of dumb essholes. Alden’s skill list is extremely alarming: wire traps? Saving and reordering momentum? Throwing very heavy things like they weight nothing? Flick hammers? Freeze traps? Slings and other leverage multipliers? He is A-level be versatility only, anyone who does not see it just flying brick
Like usual, everyone on the Internet but me is wrong.
Yeah well, everyone in the universe but me is wrong.
I'm just really sick of reading about gym class.
Bad news for ya buddy…
I'm suspecting this is only a prelude to (or great practice for) how Alden will be seen by Knights when they know his secret
As the frog who’s going to be dashed against the wall?
"...he had an intense game of chase with Max to distract him for the next couple of minutes. It ended in what was effectively a mutual loss. Max caught him in one of the treadmill traps, but Max was limping. He was unlikely to make it to the next section with both batons when he was in that state." I am struggling to see how Alden actually got stuck here. We already know that he's familiar with using the momentum of heavy bags in the past to get himself out of this kind of trap - and that's literally what he's got on hand today. Even if that backpack's only half full of sand that's easily 50+ pounds of weight to throw around (and likely closer to 100 if it's nearly full). It's been interesting reading other people's comments regarding frustration at Alden still getting pummeled in duels, and I have to admit I am sympathetic to where they're coming from - both narratively, but also logically. We keep getting told powerful Alden is, and yet we're shown him not only losing in duels to the point that others are (justifiably) actively avoiding him due the demonstrable lack of challenge for them, but also getting stuck in exactly the kind of traps which *should* already be in his wheelhouse to easily overcome. There is a meaningful lack of progression there beyond him simply sandbagging. On a slightly related note; since the start of this new school term it honestly comes across a little like Alden isn't treating the dangers of Goldbush and knighthood with the proper seriousness they are due. We have innumerable reasons to understand that this is a *very, very, very* dangerous path for him to take, one which he will *more than likely than not die very young pursuing* and yet how is he preparing for this very real (and very imminent) danger? Is he making use of who is clearly the most suitable instructor on hand to help him creatively develop and understand his skill (Instructor Plim)? - no, he's actively avoiding her out of fear of her being *too* insightful. Is he making full use of his *extremely limited* gym dueling time to practice things that can only safely be performed in that particular environment - e.g. in becoming meaningfully proficient in by far the best form of self-defense that he's come up with to date (the fast-twitch weight manipulation he used to beat Winston) ? No, he's already moved on from that and is playing around with sand and a backpack - something that he could easily do in his own time at North of North, and something which is furthermore so clearly unoptimal to the situation that Max even calls him out for it. And so while I absolutely love Alden, I have to admit that I don't feel much sympathy for *some* of his frustrations outlined in this chapter. Why *should* Rex or Maricel treat him as a useful dueling partner for their own needs when he demonstrably isn't? Rex even explicitly said that he wanted to duel him in order to get his measure, and then he clearly found that measure to be lacking for his own growth and so asked not to duel him again that session. Alden isn't entitled to the other student's own (very limited) time in gym, and to pretend otherwise or get hurt feelings when they don't entertain his current experimentation comes across as a *little* self-centered of him. This is also made substantially worse by the fact that he *could* be providing a challenge to those other students, such that they both get something meaningful out of their duels - but instead he's actively choosing not to. To use the Klerm Prince analogy, it'd be like the frog being given a seat at the dinner table, but then refusing to use the cutlery and choosing to slurp his soup straight from the bowl (or choosing to speak with his mouth full, etc), and *then* getting upset when others don't want to continue sharing their meals with him. Not all criticism is bigotry, and just because Alden is the main character it doesn't mean that his view-point is the only one that's valid (or that it's always necessarily well reasoned to begin with).
I wrote a bit of a composite comment about this earlier this morning, but just wanted to say to you specifically real quick since I am checking the comments atm.... Alden has to be careful, because exposing himself comes with a real risk of being kidnapped/killed. Goldbush is a danger for the future. Gaining too much of the wrong kind of attention is a danger for *right now.* Alden *is* practicing seriously ... He's just practicing to be a support for someone with a much, much better offensive skill. Winning a 1v1 fight isn't important to him atm. *Surviving* a fight against someone/thing who should overpower him *is.* In that same vein, it is entirely understandable that some of his classmates would be frustrated fighting him, because atm he isn't a serious opponent, he's an evasive punching bug. That could still be valuable training, but is isn't what most of them are expecting when they think of duels. The duels are only 1/6th of what is happening in this gym class, with the other aspects being various forms of obstacle course, prioritization, and self improvement. Alden *is* doing well at the 5/6ths of the things that aren't a 1v1 fight. He is exercising his Authority in class, as seen in his thoughts re Olive/Max and using his authority to sense their abilities.
“When wishing was having” sounds a lot like authority sense to me. I wonder how Alden will rewrite the story. Artonans love their storytelling. Anyone else think Alden’s rewrite of The Klerm Prince will somehow go viral on the Triplanets?
To me, that sounds more like the introduction to a fairy tale. A long time ago, when wishing was having [...]
So, question. Are the "Ranks" potential, or required intervention? If it's the first, then secrecy of the requirements for >the word for people that get a number< doesn't make sense. If it's required intervention due to chaos exposure, then it does, as it would encourage deliberate intervention farming. Or are these two separate things? Is Rank literally just ease of use, meaning the higher ranks more readily express their abilities and can thus be Contracted earlier? This would imply that lower Ranks have far more potential despite their starting floor.
It’s been implied that ranks / levels are more or less the overall amount of your bound authority, though there are lots of things that might influence it somewhat (chaos potential, authority qualities like “wholeness” per Gorgon’s boon, whatever oddnesses force affixation in U-types, etc) Not sure what you mean by required intervention. Per Joe/Mother, when your free authority exceeds your bound authority by too much, “a scale tips”. At this point the Avowed (and presumably Knight) needs the free authority affixed to avoid their current bound authority/affixation cracking and presumably causing an abomination.
Did Maricel get a visit from the government mind healers. Aka brainwashed
No. Maricel became the poster girl for the Model Globie at Anesidora. With all that attention on her, I presume she has a lot of pressure to excel. So, in her mind, she cant 'play' with Alden anymore, since she has to stay 'focused'.
One (meta) thing that got me about this chapter. People's thoughts have always been indicated by italics. The first section of this chapter is clearly Alden thinking about the Frog Prince, but is in a non-italic font. Made me wonder for a bit.
I thought it might’ve been system notes. But I wasn’t sure either (Would’ve been really funny if he spent his early parts of gym mumbling about the poem out loud)
I'm gonna defend Maricel here bear with me. Was she rude? Yes. But I think it's fair for her to prioritize her development, and she doesn't think Alden can help her excel, he hasn't given her a reason to think that. We know he has hidden abilities, but the class doesn't and they have to operate within their knowledge. As for insulting a classmate, rude but not important, do you think Michael Jordan cared if he insulted someone while he was trying to practice and get better?
I mean being rude while seeking to get better is not a requirement lol. She could’ve just said “hey sorry, but I’d like to practice against someone else.” But she basically just said “I can’t even be seen with you”. And the complete isolation and disassociation from other people, cannot be a healthy way for her to live right now
Man. I love the various tiers of stakes in this story, and how so much can change in a chapter. Like... Right now theoretically Kibby and company should be almost home, Alden's advancement is months away but could be pushed up if something triggers the growth of his authority, evil grandma is searching for someone just like him, Stew could decide to go full night or his parents could put him into lock down and that's not even counting the wider possibility of another attack or issue with chaos on earth.
Looking at Terrestrial Biped's timeline, it looks like the Thegund cleanup should be finished between February and October of 2041. So yes, soon there will be more Kibby.
The social features of this app are unusable. Ever since the forced update a month or so ago, I can't click notifications to go to comment replies or likes. Has anyone else had this issue and been able to resolve it? The only way I can think of is downgrading to the oldest working version and hoping for the best, so if anyone has already trial and errored that to know the exact version, please tell us
Your Patreon notifications used to be useful? Wow. I'm amazed. Patreon notifications have never been useful for me except for new chapter releases. And even. Then not always if I'm be being honest.
I really want Alden to earn some actual respect. All the other students think Alden only beat Winston because he’s arrogant and that might be true. Even if he doesn’t beat one of the combat focused S ranks, it would be so rewarding to see him have a close match or scare one of them. At some point he needs to see how effective he can be if he tries his hardest. I’m thinking he tells Esh’ Erdi about his ability and his plans to travel with Stuart and they can help him train or something. I know it’s a slice of life but so much emphasis and time is pit into these combat classes yet Alden doesn’t seem to care about excelling, only not failing. I know the story isn’t about his power and we just got a bunch of good emotional moments but the author keeps alluding to how powerful Alden will be eventually, but we might not ever see it. It will take a year of IRL time for Alden to even reach his second affixation at this rate and he’s just going to be chilling at school getting pitied. He’s still figuring out the basics of how his power works after three years of writing. It feels like a lot more change in Alden’s life is coming in the near-ish future but I’m kind of worried it won’t be.
The thing is, Alden is trying to learn what works for him. If an idea he has succeeds in winning a duel, then that's good. If an idea needs refinement, he'll change things up and try it again. If doesn't work, well, that's what gym is for. Once he gets something that works, he puts it into the metaphorical filing cabinet in his head and tries something else. Alden is not focused on winning (although it's nice when it happens). He's trying to learn his skill. Max is clearly aware that this is what Alden is doing, BTW. Not much gets by that guy.
The parallels between Alden and the frog in the story are so strong. He rescues the "golden ball", is brought to sit and sup with the Artonan royalty, and may not be recognised as royalty himself until someone takes a shot at him and is surprised at his resilience.
Alden at least has the advantage of knowing an Artonan who actually keeps his promises rather than a princess who loves her privileges.
I love how Winston's reaction so strongly implies that Alden looked absolutely amazing nailing his trait-assisted leaping across the self-racing section. Alden said nothing to you, Winston! Alden just won against his own average best time, any comparison to Winston is purely in Winston's own head.
Well, now I want a Walden painting of Winston being amazed by Alden’s run and jump.
Petition to rename Maricel to Mar-esshole until she remove her head from her ass :3
Until she removes her head from her ess?
I think Alden could announce the he "leveled up" and start sandbagging a little less in class.
He can't. When he actually levels up he will need to excuse himself from everything skill related for a while. He can't do that if he's also been faking it.
Just a few composite thoughts after rereading the chapter again this morning, and all of your comments The rank-ism honestly doesn't seem worse than it was before, it just seems like Alden is noticing it more. In some ways it seems less, like with Winston. Winston is still a rude jerk, but he actually seems to feel somewhat threatened by Alden making it across the line first try. He got to this obstacle way before Alden, but he is still getting surpassed and left behind by the B rank Rabbit despite his head start. People who respect Alden still do, and people who care about rank and don't know him aren't any more dismissive. It's not the teenagers or Anesidora or the school that is changing, it's Alden. He's starting to want equal treatment for himself. The only one who changed the way they see him is Maricel, and that isn't Alden-specific. She was also mostly ignoring her own Coursing teammates. It probably upsets Alden more, but it isn't focused directly on him. A lot of people in the comments seem frustrated that Alden isn't using his spells or excelling in the duels, but we should keep in mind the duels are literally 1/6th of what is going on here. We have batons (secure an important objective in a chaotic situation), 3 separate obstacle courses, beat your own best speed, and then duels are *last* and instructors probably structured it this way for a reason. And Alden is doing good at everything *else.* He has limited offensive options, but still managed to pass all of the obstacles twice while not taking the easy option of targeting Olive. As far as him using spells and passing them off as spell impressions go, I don't think it's as simple as a lot of folks seem to believe. He still needs his Auriad for most spells, and chances are one or more faculty members know what those are and that an avowed *should not* have one. It's a huge risk to be seen using one. But he's still practicing his Authority sense when he uses it to notice which Olive is real, and he wants to use it against Max but that is also a huge risk. We shouldn't expect him to go all out practicing in a duel, because his role is Support for someone who has a *much* better offensive power. And even if he could practice some stuff more here and it might save his life later when fighting demons, it's not like being caught out as a wizard doesn't also run the risk of getting him kidnapped or killed. I'm very much looking forward to what Alden's version of The Frog Prince becomes. Several other people mentioned the possibility of getting snippets of his thoughts each chapter of the arc until at the end we see the whole story (and his telling of it), and that turned me from being disappointed we only got a small snippet this chapter into excited to see the buildup and eventually payoff, because Sleyca is really good at that. Tl;dr Don't be so hard on Alden or the other super teens guys! The rank-ism hasn't changed much, just Alden's perception of it. And he is only losing in duels because he has a larger goal. Everything seems to be building to something big and I am HERE for it.
I think it's more likely that Alden's still detecting Olive using his "can I eat that?" gremlin power, like he did in the first gym obstacle course, but that's a side note. Agreed on all substantive points. 😉 Edit: D'oh! I'm wrong, and it even says so. Thanks for pointing that out. There's a bit of Alden's growth that I didn't think we'd quite reached. 😁
The frog prince is such a great metaphor for Alden right now! That’s so fascinating. Also yay! More gym stuff!
Thanks for the chapter!
Alden chose to avoid fighting certain people in the first zone, is that really so different from the people choosing to avoid him in the last zone? Is not wanting to fight someone you think is too weak for you morally worse than not wanting to fight someone you think is too strong?
He knows he can defeat Olive. Why pick on her some more?
A random thought occurs to me based on Everly getting a recent level: it’s probably about time for Alden to fake a level, isn’t it? Maybe not right now, but it’s something he should at least start thinking about. Having Stuart on board will be really useful for that, because he can help Alden choose and learn a spell that could be a plausible affixation reward. It doesn’t even need to be a very Rabbitty spell, since the commendation provides an easy excuse for Alden to have access to unusual rewards.
He already has a level in the bank, probably earned another after everything happened, but the System isnt going to offer it to him right now because it knows Alden is going to refuse.
I get it, but the way the disaster made Maricel refocus makes me so sad. She was so focused. And she didn’t take things for granted as much as I feel she has convinced herself she did. But there must have been so much guilt. I miss the girl who was going to tear up the ocean floor and walk home.
Man, this chapter is making me remember being a teenager and I didn't need that much cringe this early in the morning 😓🥲 Edit: The memories of being a teenager are cringe, not the chapter itself
Typo or editing mistake: "Should could basically make bullets"
Just thinking idly about how the frog prince applies to Lute in some ways much better than to Alden. Lute is definitely considered to be an unworthy, lower-class, and odious whiff by those around him until he wakes up one day and is a shining S-rank. Aulia is the haughty princess who doesn't quite treat him like she treats the "better" members of his family; the final straw is not hurling Lute against the wall, but asking him to clean up the mess after Hazel throws something against it. If Jessica is the kindly king insisting Lute be treated well, that's unfortunate, because the story doesn't tell of his fate. This is probably a different thread, but Jessica is definitely the most tragic figure in the story and I hope her terrible misjudgments don't always outweigh the love and devotion she's always had for her son.
I don't think I agree with calling Jessica devoted. She spent Lute's entire life not taking his dream seriously. Then he becomes avowed and his dream shatters, and all she focuses on is getting Lute chainer. And while I do think Chainer may genuinely be the best class for Lute, I don't think we had real indication that Jessica had any real understanding at why it was the best class for Lute. At best I think Jessica is parenting Lute more for her own interests than for his, and at worst she's a manipulative shit.
Thank you for the chapter!
Alden's classmates are pissing me off. Frog prince indeed.
The frog prince... he isnt a human until he demands to be, until he risks himself. Women are closer to nature in a way, and nature tests the living to prove they should be there, and it isnt gentle about the way that happens. For better or worse, many women are also not gentle about their tests, and in a world with less protections, women Had To Be. But the frog, The frog prince is just an animal, until he puts himself at risk, experiences the consequences of that risk, and stands up a human.
Rex's parents did him no favours. Assuming that Rex is his actual birth name.
It's not quite a 'celebrities child' name but damn, imagine giving your kid a dogs name.
TLDR; Alden is a frog.
<> I don't get it. How did Mehdi so easily grab Alden's baton if it is part of his preserved backpack and sand. If he's treating it as something to protect wouldn't he be preserving it?
I think its implied that Alden lost or dropped preservation. Given that the gym only "released his suit" once the baton was gone this adds to the situation that Alden had already "lost" at that point and there was little to no reason to resist.
Very realistic how all those kids are jerks, except Jeffy because he's precious.
Max is surprisingly decent as well, given his introduction.
Is it just me not knowing what a SAL ship is?
Superheros at large, like the submarine that caused the flood arc
Can't wait for Aldens version of the story, let's replace the egotistical princess with a kindhearted prince who'll accept the klerm prince for who he is, reach out with his authority and make the klerm transform. : )
Tbh, I don’t know how much I can really blame Alden’s classmates for not wanting to fight him. After all, Alden doesn’t seem interested in giving them any kind of fight that they would find useful even if he were the same rank as them - he’s always incredibly focused on testing to see if certain gimmicks have the potential to work in his own imagined chaos scenarios, which is not only not at all something the other kids know about, it’s not what they’re practicing for. And on top of that, because Alden never does anything more than feel out the viability of a different strategy practically every day, he’s comparing one off ideas to the skills the others have spent months honing. Even if figuring out what his current gimmick was something they were interested in working on - which they aren’t - it’s the whole ten thousand kicks thing. None of Alden’s tricks can measure up to honed skills, but he keeps trying, and his teammates have gotten tired of him never managing to catch up to them beyond one-off “flukes,” which I can’t say is realy unreasonable to attribute to his rank, even if the reality is closer to him goofing off in class with regards to the skills they’re practicing. Basically, Alden is kind of being the superhero equivalent of daydreaming and thinking about random off topic things during group assignments that don’t interest him, and now people are less inclined to partner with him for those assignments.
I disagree, they *are* supposed to test things out and explore new ways to use their powers, that's how they level up. Alden is always focused when he fights so I completely disagree with your last sentence. They are less inclined to partner up with him because Li Jean got into the heads of all the S rank that they are the strongest and have nothing to learn from people weaker than them on paper. The two we saw have become Marsha-like.
Timeline wise how close are we to Alden’s next affixation?
5 to 7 months I believe if my calculations are correct
I wish Alden would go all out on an S rank and kick their ass. At least ONCE before the Artonans take him for knight duties
He'd need someone extremely powerful to be his entruster in order to match an S rank. (For the next 3 or so affixations)
Not specific directly to this chapter, but I was contemplating how an Avowed might give their unbound Authority some exercise and wondered if wordchains would work? Do wordchains cause a temporary change to the chain caster's Authority? Apologies if this has been discussed somewhere else that I missed.
It's a good question, but I don't think so. Even "normal" humans and artonans can use word chains, so I can't see them being used to exercise Authority.
RIP. Maricel isn't a straight S-hole, as she's not letting the power get to her head, but rank difference is there now. Waves messed her up bad. Before she wanted to just get strong to go home, but now... she had a friend who died. If she were a little stronger she could've saved him. She could do the same for her family if they were struck by something similar. Survivors guilt. Still sad to see since she's basically abandoning the friendships for training, much like Finlay actually.
I think it might be a little worse than standard survivors guilt. She might be thinking that the whole disaster is her fault because, instead of following the rules, she kept secrets for a rule-breaker. The experience might have pushed her into becoming an extreme rule-follower, both of the laws and the social norms.
Hehe, Sleyca bends the plot a bit to make Mariciel's behavior towards Alden correspond to the fairy tale about the frog and the princess ;)
Are you saying he needs to throw her at the wall the next time they sparr?
The rankism really hurts. Alden seems to be handling it well, but if it were me I would be crying in the locker room by now.
What do the ranks even mean at this point. Like why is S rank stronger than a wizard with authority sense? Can a B upgrade to A? Isn't the whole point of wizard exercises to increase authority and control, shouldn't that also increase rank?
Man.. Reading through the comments, I might just be the only one who is getting annoyed by constantly reading about how Alden is weak, and beaten in 95% of his duels.. I realize Super Supportive is a slow burn, but at some point he have to evolve aswell, not just through talking about evolving or short bursts of success.. I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to believe this weak b rank rabbit magician is more suited to be one of the heroes of the universe than any of the s ranks there
Maybe not more suited but saying also suited to be a hero. Besides, his goals were always to be the support not the heavy hitter. Even now, everything he’s doing is with Stu in mind as the person he is supporting.
I talked a bit on discord about Alden's current dynamic with the class and also what's going on Maricel, and I figured I'd put my analysis here too: We're seeming some interesting dissonance between Alden's goals and his classmate's goals. At this point Alden is focused on fighting demons, specifically on Goldbush & with the goal of being useful to Stuart, so he has very little interest in learning to fight people. This combined with: - Alden hiding his powers - his skill not being offensive and requiring a lot of creative application to work in that sort of environment makes him not a great partner for a lot of students to duel. There are definitely people not approaching practice with a great mindset either (they are younger and haven't been through nearly as much) so it seems more reasonable for Alden to be critical, but I do think people like Maricel/Marsha/Rex not wanting to fight Alden when he's basically been sandbagging so he can practice his own goals is perfectly reasonable if they actually want to learn to fight. Then, quoting Maricel: > “Of course. I didn’t mean to sound like you were no good, but…with all that’s happened. You understand? I…shouldn’t have said most of the things I said to you during the first weeks of school. I’m sorry. I don’t want any of the same things anymore.” > None of the same things. Okay. I can go along with it. “You don’t have to be sorry.” > “I’m not like that anymore,” she said, her shoulders going back. “I’ve got responsibilities. People are looking up to me. So I’m not someone who can be casual with you about things like this. We can have some fun practicing together still. But only when the instructors assign it, all right?” This is the worst of what Maricel said, but I read this more as her being very self-centered right now (as we have seen in the previous chapters), and also partly the fault of Alden hiding so much from his classmates. Can we really say Alden would be a good fight for Maricel if he is fighting with a preserved backpack and a knife? The whole statement comes out wrong, especially when Maricel brings up responsibility, because we know as readers that Alden is taking more responsibility for others safety than he needs to (this being a major theme) as well as his more recent decisions to be a knight fighting chaos. But none of this is known to his class: all most of them know is he survived on a chaos moon for 6 months (they have no clue what he did) and earned a commendation somehow. I might be wrong, but I think only his roommates pretty much even know who Kibby is, so Alden really does not come off as taking a lot of "responsibility" to his classmates. This is even more the case for Maricel, who Alden confided in at the start of the year that he wasn't as motivated to actually be a hero anymore after Thegund. I think she also knows basically nothing about the dangers he faced during the Sinker Sender since shes been very absent and the last time she saw him Alden got teleported out earlier than anyone else. All this to say, from Maricel's perspective, Alden is a nice kid who is mature and went through horrible things, but is not trying to be a superhero in the same way Maricel is right now, and she wants to make that clear to him. Finally, we haven't really been clued into what Maricel's actual goals are at this point. We know she's changed, but we don't know specifically how. I think that her saying "I don’t want any of the same things anymore" is actually our main clue at how Maricel feels right now. My guess at her mindset is that she entered Anesidora longing for home, but that got her no where. She started to be happy when she got into hero training and making friends at school, but she still sympathized with her old "friends" from intake who were also struggling. Then, the sinker sender attack happens, her friend trying to escape dies, and she learns the main people who shared her view of wanting to escape the island are SAL. Who are now purportedly responsible for killing her friend & a massive terrorist attack on the island. She's cared for by the school and had her actions spun in a way that seems heroic, which seems to now actually align with her goals / what she's saying. And I think she's very lost, and has thrown herself into becoming an ideal sort of hero to cope. I think this helps explain why she might not be responding to Alden - the last thing she talked to him about was how to escape the island, and she might not even necessarily agree with trying to do that anymore. That was one of the biggest things she originally confided in Alden for, so with that gone, she no longer has that sort of "unique" connection to him, and hes just another classmate even if he's nice.
Agree with everything you said
I like the way Sleyca portrays the bigotry of kids. They express it in the highschool b.s. ways, but it's also so clear that it is trickling down from the adults. The schools having a big fight over S ranks really confirmed that in their educational world, rank is more important than work ethic, competence, and attitude. It would take a strong personal connection (like Aldens friends) or a principled disdain for their teacher's worst habits (like Max) to be able to tune that out. Definitely gives some context to why Artonans generally view humans as precocious children. I don't think we've seen an Artonans mention Avowed rank once, while humans have all but created caste systems around it. Makes us look pretty primitive.
Artonans are extremely hierarchical and rank their wizardship themselves. The summoner profile might list rank or not differently but the general strength of an Avoowed definitely is communicated somehow, in terms of knowing who to summon and how much to compensate them.
Someone leveled?! Sleyca, what do you think this is, a LitRPG??
Was just thinking for avowed how easy it is for them to casually bind
Reading through these comments, am I the only one that is getting kind of tired of Alden just getting destroyed every gym class? I get that he’s training or whatever and is switching it up constantly, but I don’t think Alden has ever actually gotten good at anything yet. I actually found myself agreeing with the others, which isn’t great. Not because of the rankism, but why would these kids who are trying to push themselves, waste time punching Alden’s “gimmick of the week” when they can be training with people who can actually simulate super strength and speed? All of Alden’s feats so far have been these one-off flukes that he can’t even replicate. Even his ‘victory’ over Winston was tricking the guy into clotheslining himself, something Alden even admitted to never being able to do again. I don’t know. Might just be me, but his lack of real progress and chapters like these where they really highlight just how bad he is at this are frustrating. Like he should at least have developed some sort of style or niche of some kind by now, so that he’s not absolutely useless in this kind of environment.
That's because Alden is now holding back in two extra ways his classmates know about, for four total layers of sandbagging, rather than just keeping to the two they didn't know about before. The two new layers make sense, but imo keeping the old ones around much longer doesn't. He can double preserve if he really wants to, or find ways to explain getting new 'spell impressions' because of his artonan connections. He's injecting a bit more realism into his training via sandbagging (won't always have chains, will sometimes have an inconvenient thing he needs to preserve come combat time), but I think it's still dangerous to leave half his tools (spells, the ability to double preserve) under wraps. People fight how they train, and right now he's training like he's a fraction his real self. If he keeps it up it could get him and his squad killed come the day he needs to use all that strength.
I’m glad Alden’s finally noticed that Maricel has become a jerk! I felt so insulted for him when he mentioned that she was outright ignoring him after the whole submerger thing. It’s one thing to avoid a friend but repeatedly ignoring their presence? That’s not something a “friend” does!
I don't see how she's a jerk, Alden is bad a influence for her.
look at mariciel over compensating. she will burn out eventualy
Maricel…..sigh 😔
How dare a lowly S rank talk to a future knight like that!
Reading the comments it seems like one aspect of the ranks that everyone seems to have forgotten is the age gap. Alden and Max are a few years older than the A-ranks, that are in turn older than the S-ranks. We are so used to classes where our peers are our age that we are overlooking what a difference a few years made while we were teenagers. (And even then the ones whose birthdays fall at the end of the school year doing better in sport gets attributed to "tallent" istead of age.) But in this case the magical powers invert the physical differences and higlight their lack of maturity.
Except Lexi though.
Alden 'the Rabbit' Thorn may be feeling quite frog-like leaning into his movement trait and contemplating the double class-shifts to wizard and knight to come, but I keep remembering his first skill use on a living being was to protect a klerm. Stu is as much or more the klerm prince as Alden, except he's currently stuck as a prince spending his free time saving klerms instead of transforming himself. Knights choose to go from princes to frogs, which puts them outside of their birth class. They become vulnerable, they feel ugly, their wizardly voices get fixed to their chosen mode of croaking. Eventually, if they persist, they can transform themselves again, rejoining wizarding society and finding beauty in themselves, to the considerable relief of their votaries.
Beautifully put. It is interesting all the frog/klerm themes. And that the Elder's croak is kind-of the opposite from the Frog Prince
What a plot twist with Maricel! But it feels like its on me as a reader, it was well done. I dont understans why she didnt leave for Li Jean since ahe is so focused on leveling and not at all on friendships. I am still not over Finlay leaving, especially since he said he wouldnt! Ths chapter played wirh my feelings so good, Im kinda glas teenagers are being assholes, like they usually are. It felt a fantastical how cool they were in the first term. Some realism is back! And paired with symbolism, so nice. I am glad the entire chapter was not about frog prince and not about Stu. Alden's life feels more full this way. I even got an action piece! I liked the fairytail as well, it was interesting how Alden interpret it. I dont understand this story myself, I dont see the sexual subtext as well - a bed + princess = sex?? I like Aldens thoughts, and i dont think the princess is wrong for having standards. "No dating losers " is valid! I thougth the princess is Stu and Alden has to rise up to be his equal. I mean the bromance is really strong. I bet sleyca found meaning for the servant side character as well. We are into a new arc in earnest, hurray!
I think this perhaps implies that Instructor Fragment got through to her and heavily suggested she don't go to Elites. Which Maricel then complied with. Which would then underline her shortsightedness, adherence to external ideas/views, and lack of a complete understanding of herself.
Great chapter, thank you! Found it very refreshing to see Alden getting the "proper" B-Rank treatment.
I’m a bit surprised at Maricel being this way. Interesting.
So excited to hear Alden’s “the Klerm Prince”
When wishing was having - is this not the special power Alden was given by Gorgon? Hopefully we learn more of it during this arc. I never liked the story of the frog king - spoiled beautiful daughter gets beautiful prince after despising and killing him when being an ugly frog. I hope Sleyca and Alden rewrite this story in a nicer way.
Esh-erdi rewrote part of the elder's croak, so maybe this is leading to a parallel between the two of them. Lind-otta has already remarked on how similar Alden and Esh-erdi are in certain ways
I hope Aldens story telling uses the same kind of listener engagement that he had with Esh and the Elders Croak. Constantly interrupting his own storytelling to croak at the listeners and inviting them to join him in croaking will be funny if the whole school starts croaking as well as gocoraching
From the very beginning, I was annoyed by Marisel and the way she interacts with Alden. But at first I justified it by her difficult situation. But the difficulties in people's lives cannot allow these people to treat you badly. How much time has passed! How long has Alden endured Mariselle's disrespect and forgave her everything… You can't do that. At least if I were Alden, I wouldn't consider Marisel a friend anymore. And I would have talked to her just as disrespectfully.
I think Alden, and we, got a first impression of her that she dont want to show. When we meet her the first time she was lost and did not know who she wants to be. But after that she has told us that she wants to be popular. And popular S rank heros dont have human emotions such as doubts or home sickness. Combine that with some unspoken rankism from her current friends and Alden become a uncomfortable liability. He knows that she is "acting" and he is "weak".
I knew Maricel was corrupted by the rankism and other nonsense. I just wasn't prepared for how much of a bitch it made her.
She can barely hold a conversation with anyone anymore, high rank or no. It's a frighteningly bad indicator of her mental state and I don't see how it's sustainable, something has to give.
Can’t wait to see the look on everyone’s face after they learn he is a knight
Yeah, this has been coming for a while. The rankism has never been very subtle, but it has mostly been unimportant until now. Alden was in trauma recovery mode. He survived half a year on a death moon, broke his body trying to escape, and broke his soul in recovery. What’s the big deal about a few clueless teenagers being rude? But now he has a friend who knows everything, who sees him and fully acknowledges him as an equal, and now it’s throwing sharp contrast onto how everyone else treats him. It is going to be truly fascinating to see how people react when all of a sudden they *can’t* casually dismiss him.
Alden is performing very well even with no boosts. It will be interesting to see how the people new to him react when they face him all chained up, having dismissed him for 'only' maiming them/not beating them without said powerful wordchains. Especially if he uses a more effective weapon/shield from time to time, or finds ways to make less effective ones more effective in preparation for goldbush. I think some of them are in for a rude awakening. This is putting aside stuff like him 'affixing' new spells (courtesy of Stuart), learning new wordchains, or discovering more aspects of how he can use his skill.
The thing that really makes me sad for Maricel here is that if she’s trying to focus and become a lot more powerful, the version of her that we met on the very first day strikes me as being a lot more capable of that than the Maricel we’re seeing today. This Maricel only has vague feelings of guilt and responsibility to drive her forward. I do not see in her the drive and passion to declare that she will one day lift the seabed from the bottom of the ocean and walk home.
I believe she's lost because she's realised her family don't want her back, she's a shaper now, and her best friend is jealous - all the things she loved back home where all she wanted was to love them and care for her grandma are completely out of reach, destroyed by the "gift" of the system picking her. At first she didn't realise this and wanted to walk home, bringing the sea bottom up if.she had to. But then it became cl at to her that she could never have it back. Her sweet and quiet home life, she can never have it back. It's a very clear example of the cost of the interdimensional warriors contract and the way humanity rips away all the teens and sticks them on an island together. So what happens is your whole life is ripped apart and you realise you will never have it back? You then need to pick new goals. And then the sinker sender went rogue and she felt guilty and then the adults took over and put her to work so she could find her feet again... And this is where she is at right now. Apparently feeling the weight of responsibility and no longer valuing the connection with Alden. Whether that's a temporary thing or a lasting change remains to be seen. She's a teenager and her whole life and her old friends are rejecting her out of jealousy, the future she wanted got ripped away. she has to reimagine her new future, it's normal for there to be wobbles. I feel sorry for her.
Sleyca is a little too good at writing teenagers. I'm cringing because I know I was just as obnoxiously self-absorbed at that age
Soup! Not-soup! I don't know what everyone means by soup I just fell into it. I looked up possible meanings and the main one I found is character soup. Character soup is when there are too many characters and they all get jumbled up in your head. When I adopted soup I don't intend that to be the meaning. When I say soup I am saying this story is warm and comforting.
Soup sounds a bit like Super Suportive: Souper Souportive. Soup soup
Yikes, the rankism has reached the pity stage. Maricel just treated Alden like a child playing tag while she has big grown up things to do. Klerm Prince indeed. Amazingly consistent thematic throughline here! I imagine the next part will keep the theme.
I wonder if she'll insultingly change her tune AGAIN when Alden starts showing more and more power.
So here we see, Alden's main superpowered advantage over his peers is not his secret knighthood. It's seeing a therapist.
Who could have fore****SEEN**** that giving magical powers to kids would make them absolutely insufferable.
The problem is that in a superhero class, the dueling is seen as the true test of progress and abilities. The one who can take out the most clasmates is the best student. But this does not reflect reality. And Alden's skill isn't really offensive and he doesn't have a lot of foundation points. So he can't really beat A and S ranks. He could draw with a dome shaped shield, but not win. That is the reality for him at the moment. And thus, the kids in his class won't take him seriously, since he truly isn't a a threat.
And the things he can do that make him a threat he stopped doing for this term to train.
Jeffy is still the best of the bunch though, he can’t care less about rank, just focus (well, try to focus until a drop of water distracts him) on what he likes, swimming, possibly in big floaty tubes.
Jeffy has a heart of gold, can't wait for his first Artonan party.
Typo: "Should could basically make bullets" -> "She could basically make bullets"
Brilliant title for the story arc, masterful structure, achingly poignant and lovely thematic resonance throughout. Echoing klerms, this is wonderful. Looking forward to hearing these klerms' echoes continue as the arc progresses, and to hearing Alden's croak in his eventual presentation to his storytelling class. 😀 Great stuff.
I really like how the frog theme floats through the story until this frog king / klerm prince story. I hadn’t seen this coming. Brilliant!
I bet all of this won’t feel as bad to him when he is eventually stronger than them.
welp. I'm disappointed in Maricel, so this chapter's a downer for me; but I'm not super surprised. Overwhelmed & overworking kids mess up. I hope she & Finlay can find their way forward without losing important friendships and what's left of their childhood, but... it's a problem with the system they're pulled into & how it treats impressive globies. Alden is again lucky he's a B and gets overlooked. The print of her telling Alden she has to many responsibilities to take him seriously though? ow. Not worried about Alden in this arc, just looking forward to what he figures out and works on, how that process is for him. Also how he'll end up making so many people eat their assumptions lol
The dissonance between him having to fight demons on a chaos planet in a few months and him being crushed by amateur teenagers is astounding. I know and understand why he hides his power and all that. But still I can’t help but expect his lack of serious training at full power to bite him against demons…
I think it will be significantly longer than a few months before they go fight demons. Stuart needs to affix, recover from his affixation and then train with his new skill. Even if he started today it would be a while, and Alden also has an upcoming affixation too. Does anyone remember if Stu's older brother, who recently returned from Goldbush (is that what it's called?) was on his first deployment? That would give us a rough time frame.
Thanks for the chapter! Despite having just had a conversation about how he would likely have access to a wide range of tools in whatever situation he finds himself in, Alden refuses to practice with the things he might actually be using. Though maybe I'm just greedy to want to see those wrapping paper swords we were teased so long ago.
I want to see the knight uniform plus possibly a sword and shield as promised by the mother when he becomes a knight. If the mother could be an entruster, imagine the entrustment strength on the shield with the authority she has access to
I'm increasingly feeling that Celena North's organizational culture has received a fatal blow and is slowly withering away. If even Maricel is affected...
Li Jean program made them think that ranks are everything and that they don’t have time to lose being nice to the lil B-astards. Rankism on full display.
I'm surprised to realize that The Frog Prince works on multiple levels for Alden. And there's even a lily pad obstacle for him to excel at just to drive the point home. Now I'm going to spend an hour asking myself who the princess is in this story. Marciel is an obvious choice with that little moment backstabbing, but I dunno. I'd swear she's almost afraid of him because he knows her best of anyone. What if it's Winston kinda pushing him to actually try to win sometimes by virtue of being such a pain? What if it's foreshadowing Stu's family doing something and Alden being forced to use priveledges to get back? Much food for thought. EDIT to add: Also thanks for sharing the link to the story. Old fairy tales are weird.
Further thoughts: (A) Max is just great. Him being able to so immediately perceive that Alden is deliberately making things harder for himself to pursue his own goals is just so welcome in this chapter when everyone else is looking down on him or ignoring him. But also generally Max has had so many unfortunate setbacks from getting rejected the first time round, to getting stuck with Winston as a roommate, to getting stuck with a bad team during the first obstacle course challenge, to encountering the flash mob of protesters, etc. And he keeps chugging along, kicking butt, and being terrifyingly observant. I hope we see his perspective someday or at least he and Alden do hang out in Adjuster club. (B) It's too bad Marciel didn't want to fight Alden also because it couldve been cool. He's got a backpack full of sand and he has ground related powers. There's potential for some fun hijinks in there somewhere. Heck maybe instead of fighting, they should've just taken the opportunity to play around like their own version of the lilypad obstacle. Ah, what could've been.
On a fun note, Alden could totally multiclass into rogue with the new knife build. Add In his spells and you have full arcane trickster
He did consider specializing in traps at one point.
Ah, thanks for the chapter. I enjoyed it, even if I felt awfully awkward for Alden. That focus on 'levels' is going to isolate people from each other, I fear. Like Maricel - she's trying to fit in with her new friends; I'm pretty sure it's not any more sway-ing than normal teenaged cliquishness.
I wonder if the these new classmates are going to be the ones that pry at the story behind Alden's commendation directly. The class he started with knew him before learning about it, and he had time to prove himself to them, as he'd wanted. But these new kids? To them, he's kind of novel, but not really impressive, and they haven't built up the sort of respect for him that keeps his original MPE classmates from bringing up a topic he clearly doesn't want brought up.
I keep trying to figure out Maricel’s deal, and it all feels wrong. She’s become hyper focused on improving, but has less reason to improve then before. It’s not like she got her recent fame because of power, so why would anyone looking up to her be let down if she’s not strong? Plus, a teen having that sudden hyper focused on anything feels unnatural. I’m still half convinced that this is a sways doing.
It's guilt, and a bloody-minded desire to seize an opportunity with all her strength before it goes away.
Great chapter. I always have liked the gym classes, and really enjoy Sleyca doing fun new challenges for the students. Also real bummer Alden decided he needed to work on the basic aspects of bearer right when he met new students. Who don’t know he can do crazy stuff with his skill as well as the original group. Then look down on him even more as a result
Side thought, I’m convincing myself that Opal might be the “evil” parallel to Max. For all the ways Max has made himself overtly calculating and tricky, he still seems like someone wanting to be a hero. Opal seems to prefer “oh I’m harmless” until you turn your back on her. Then she takes cheap shots. Night and day vibes between the two B ranks
I wasn't entirely sure where this section of the story was heading a couple chapters ago but now the themes and going-ons seem a lot clearer and I'm totally sold. Looking forward to this numbered arc and its exploration of these struggles for acceptance, respect, etc. All wrapped up in some nice action/setpieces as well.
I hope Alden doesn't try to get respect. Beat-downs are the only way.
Thanks for the chapter, Sleyca! Man I'm glad Alden is resilient and has more important stuff to keep his mind off of things, because it feels like everyone was being a jerk to him today. Rex was a casual rankist, Opal decided to tag him out for seemingly no reason, Winston was being his usual self, Max said Alden owed him one, and even Maricel as the rotten cherry on top of an ugliness sundae. Such a sad development. I'm really worried about Maricel; it feels like she doesn't have any anchors except for Fragment and her ambition to get back to her family. She's ignoring or over-looking all of her Anesidoran peers. It's very myopic of her and bad for her mental health. I can't wait to see more, thanks again, Sleyca!
Max said Alden owed him one, not the other way around. Also, I think he was joking with Alden and it probably wasn't a negative experience.
I am so annoyed on Alden's behalf.
I’m enraged.
I'm so looking forward to Alden "coming out" as a knight to his class lol
What happened with Maricel's family? First she doesn't want to go see them for Christmas, now she doesn't want to walk across the planet to be with them. She's focusing hard on improving because people look up to the fake version of her the media made, but what about her own motivations?
Hard to say. We know she got kinda famous for being the "good globie" that reported the "evil globie" that caused so much destruction. She has also said the second time we saw her that she usually want to fit in, do what everyone expects. And everyone expect the good S ranker to try and get stronger. Not having second thoughts and missing her family. Looking at that negatively we can say that she is someone that put on masks depending on how society expectations. Alden, and we, meet her when she had no masks on. Or her previous masks where still the dominant ones and thought her cool. But for Marciel that is now a weakness that can destroy her social standing. Combining that with some unspoken rankism from her current friends and Alden is an uncomfortable liability that she would prefer not to think about.
Im so excited for the inevitable alden shows off payoff
Wasn’t expecting that from Maricel but should have been expecting that from Maricel. It really, really played well with the Princess and the Frog OG read that Alden gave us from the start. Obviously, consciously, Alden is applying it to the Artonan’s (who I hope will be the counterweight and surprise us), but it is absolutely the rankism on show here too. Alden is just asking to be treated like another student, and this is his reward. Opal, isn’t. She’s not willing to expose herself to the assault, and stays in her frog place of comfort. We all know that at some point, in this assault, the system is going to turn Alden into a Prince. Then an … S-preme leader, then the number 1 all time great (it got away from me). And this heightening of their rank views mean as a reader it’ll be all the more satisfying for me when they have to reevaluate him because he outranks them. It’s always been a thrill for me, the progression, and I’ve enjoyed it when it’s been far more of a caricature build up than here. But, still. It feels like their class camaraderie and the original term where people were willing to see Alden do stuff and be impressed by it and by Max has hit the wider B view of the school, and now his cohort as just picking it up. Alden was great for intro, but now they’re ‘serious’ and it’s time for A rank battles. I know it’s not forever (as they mature and Alden gets soul-swole) but it sucks to see. It’s been a long time since Lexi and Haoyu’s interlude where they remark on Alden’s ability and aptitude. (Also, Maricel specifically is lying to herself, I get that. She’s under pressure that she can’t ground shape herself out from under, but she’s still a reflection of the wider atmosphere and culture that she is adapting to as a globie, so I think it’s still symptomatic of a bigger theme for Alden going forward, post Knight reveal, but still Klerm shaped)
I don't agree with the idea that the rank-ism rubbed off on the whole class, those who know Alden and weren't somewhere in the butthead - asshole spectrum already likely still respect him. Mehdi and Winston largely ignoring him was already par for the course, and we only really saw 1 new person be dismissive of him, Rex. The only change in attitude we saw was Maricel, and she has her own thing going on (note, this is not a justification, it's just that her dismissive attitude doesn't just apply to Alden. It also applied to her own teammates who she left behind in Coursing) Also Max still respects him, Haoyu and Lexi were just distracted by their own competition, and Jeffy was just being Jeffy.
In an alternate universe Maricel is the protagonist of her own novel where she's had to overcome all sorts of adversity as a globie-become-hero, and this B-rank friend she made back in the beginning is just one of the things she needs to gently shut down and sacrifice for the greater good.
Now that's a spin off I'd love to read
It’s official. Alden is a saint for putting up with all this and still using only half his power and none of his spells. I wouldn’t have lasted two minutes in this class without blurting out all my secrets. Alden is such a patient understanding guy. He needs a hug after this class.
Both Alden and Stu need all the hugs tbh. They’re going through so much, but they manage to stay strong regardless.
Someone get a Sway to check Maricel, stat
Mina
Honestly a very good chapter in delivering on realistic character development. I'm looking forward to this arc a lot. We just got done resolving a huge conflict point so I hope we take our time here and focus on building ones and I hope the resolutions we do get are targeted. It really does feel like the right time for a more melancholy arc. I will say, though, that I don't want it used to push Alden even more towards the triplanets. I love the characters at CNH and want to see more of them with Alden, but I think it's needed for them to actually struggle in their relationships with each other more than Winston being a wad and awkward teenage romance.
Damn, O.G. Frog Prince is actually SO PERFECT as a soup ingredient. We've got: - Yet another croak opportunity - Frogs for a story that's already full of frogs and frog-like creatures - The trials of cross-species acquaintanceship - The "lower-class person asking to be recognized as an equal" theme Alden recognizes here, to go with all the Anesidora rankism & Alden's aspirations to be accepted as a knight - Servant-class people being treated as irrelevant until someone important suddenly remembers they exist (*cough* ordinary-class Artonans *cough*) - Making a deal and then regretting it (not that Alden would know anything about that) - Alden failing to read sex into a context where everyone else sees sex (I am 50/50 on Alden's take being the correct one here) Sleyca nailed it with this one.
I hope he tells the story to Boe without telling him what a klerm is, just waits for him to figure it out.
Thanks!
Alden treating the Story of the Frog like an analogy to his relationship with the artonans. While he is getting smashed into the proverbial wall by a bunch of rankist students trying to ignore his existence. Brutal. And dang even Opal is out there trying to act like a higher rank show off by picking people off with baton bullets. Half these people should not be considered “hero” candidates lol. Heck some of these people made WINSTON seem tame
I’m looking forward to the Kibby/Lute-approved retelling.
It feels like that Instructor calling Alden the weakest for being a B has kind of set the tone for the most recent couple of chapters. I honestly wonder how long Alden as an emotionally mature completely rational teenager will deal with almost everyone around him trying to crush his ego. Also maricel is so funny, she really let her fame get to her head. Im important now and cant waste time with the b rank and better yet I should tell him that to his face lol, he has no feelings.
If nothing else she has truly checked out with what her current actions are actually being perceived as. Completely in her own world
Thank you Sleyca!!
Damn, marciel really dissapointed me here. I felt my stomach drop when she shut alden down like that.
Thanks for the chapter. It was not very late.
I'm glad Alden is so resilient to how much these super teens suck, but man. What a day.
Thank!!!
Amaze!
Honestly, I'm pretty worried about Maricel. The more we see her and the more her characterization becomes clear, the more she seems like the kind of person _heavily_ influenced by social expectations. She fell in with a group of nonconformist globies in intake and got so wrapped up in that headspace she declared she'd build a land bridge. Then she found acceptance with Tuyet and Everly, and wanted Alden to not mention that again while she put on her 'perfect Amnesidoran teen' mask. Then the span happened, and she got cast by the PR people as the 'Model Globie' and she's spewing high rank talking points about her duty. It honestly feels like she's trying _so hard_ to fit in that she's just suppressing all her own emotions and trying to fill whatever role people give her. I dont think that ends well for her.
I think she might feel trapped, and that's what's driving her behavior. Assuming she still wants to get back to her family, she's caught a poisoned windfall. She's been thrust into the public eye as a model globie. If she can maintain that image, it might be a golden path to becoming her birth nation's darling and the exact hero job she's here to earn. But that image is fragile; a single chink could destroy it. If something negative *does* come out about her, it's much more newsworthy than it would be if she'd just been a quiet little hero school S-rank. One slip could ruin her prospects forever. So she has to maintain the facade with utter perfection. Worse, the mask is ill-fitting. It's not just that it isn't her; it's the opposite of her. She *isn't* obedient or law-abiding. She hates that she was sent to Anesidora. She would fight the fucking world to go home if she had even a prayer of winning. So she's contorting herself to fit into this box, and it's such a painful process that she has to ignore almost everything she's feeling and that's happening around her. It's horror. What the publicity is doing to her, and what she's doing to herself as a result, it's horror.
Man, old stories are so *weird*. Alden does a pretty good job calling out everything that makes the original Frog Prince story feel wrong and unsatisfying to a modern reader. The past is a foreign country, as they say. I was dead-on about Alden reading his status among Artonans into it! It matters whether the frog is transformed by being treated as an equal, or by rejecting its equality. Really, that prince ought to be pretty mad about how the princess treated him, and have zero interest in sticking around with her...
Frog is a shallow manipulative extortioning greedy slimy asshole rapist. Kill it! And the king too. Totally weird how it was a human though.. Guess he was just desperate
“I…shouldn’t have said most of the things I said to you during the first weeks of school. I’m sorry. I don’t want any of the same things anymore … People are looking up to me. So I’m not someone who can be casual with you about things like this.” “People expect you to be cool,” Alden said in English. “So many people. You obviously know how to be, but then…you aren’t.”
Thanks! Hmm seems l8ke things are getting competitive and... tougher
No Maricel not you too!
Maricel is very much not doing okay.
Gotta say, that Grimm's Princess and the Frog is really genuinely bizarre.
It’s classism: if you are a frog peasant, stay in your lane, you do not deserve to be seen as equal to your betters, and if you try you will be splashed against a wall. Princesses belong to Princes and frogs belong to wells.
Annnnnd I've gone from loving Maricel to hating her. Well done.
Sad to see Maricel become an esshole. I'm also kinda disappointed that we got a taste of the storytelling and then went back to gym, but I trust it's building to something good in both classes. This chapter has me hoping Alden gets to whip out his spells in gym sooner rather than later, perhaps with an explanation that they were spell impressions given to him by the Art'hs to defend himself. Would be incredibly satisfying for him to suddenly start blasting some of these folks.
Given the chapter title and the structure, my money is on "a bite-sized chunk of Frog Prince content each chapter, thematically tied into the other events of the chapter, building up to the actual telling of the story as the arc payoff." I'm into it.
Wow everyone is having a self absorbed day apparently. Moderately depressing one to read apart from Alden seems to have a good grip on his abilities.
Olive feels like life. Her clones feel like magic.
Can anyone remind me the Maricel chapter or the quote itself that's being referenced? I have goldfish memory
Maricel said a *lot* of things she's probably now regretting. In ch 73 she says that if they won't make her a hero, she'll train until she can lift the earth from the seafloor to make a landbridge and *walk* home. In ch 97 she asks about whether a person can escape Anesidora via summoning and asking to be sent back to a different location. In ch 129 she reveals that the previous request was on the behalf of Jacob, serial escape attempter (who at that exact moment is on the boat with the Submerger). She told Fragment about his latest attempt, but admits she could have reported him sooner. All of those things were probably picked up by infogear. Any one of them, if publicized, could blow up her image as model globie. Her disowning of all that stings in part because that first one was the reason Alden basically instantly liked her. It's almost like she's saying "You were wrong about who I am and I reject all the things you liked about me."
Lil typo: >>> Should could basically make bullets the size of shoeboxes
Maricel nooooo! You were the chosen one! You were supposed to make Anesidora a better place, not go native and become an S-hole!
“It’s over Alden! I have the high ground!” {said as Maricel is standing on some floating dirt} {Yes, I'm mixing the metaphor}
Alden is going to get whiplash from all the incredibly varied expectations going on regarding his training. Yeesh. I hope that when he loses his patience with all the bullshit that he devotes one gym class to getting his classmates' egos back in check by way of some no holds barred victories-- or else he's going to wind up dueling the same very small circle of people ad nauseam.
I mean, he couldn't do that even if he wanted to. He's only holding back in the sense that he could probably make his shields last longer, but he'd probably lose to all the same people (except the ones he could stalemate by using his power on a dome, like he mentioned for that one A-Rank Brute). He's still just a B-Rank, and it'll be a pretty long time until his abnormal growth rate compensates for that.
Oof. What a rough class and such a difference to how Stu talks and acts with him. Poor Alden
Wow, Alden's really feeling the rank-ism today.
It really is rank isn't it ;3
I was so excited at the storytelling class notes and so sad they gave way to the gym, lol
I was excited for storytelling too, but even the story is feeling elitist. Holy dog piling
Thanks for the chapter Sleyca! Rest well! Though what is going on with Maricel, she isn't being mean on purpose but she's looking down on Alden. She wasn't like that before.
She’s always been pretty self-centered, IMO. But timid self-centered comes off differently than arrogant self-centered.
TFTC 💕
it's here!!
Soup !! Yay
Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Thank you for serving soup!
yay
SOUP
Wallahi