《BE ALRIGHT》19
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Lisa's POV
I woke up to the sound of a knock on my door so I sit up when the door opens a bit and Kuma went in with a tiny party hat on his head; he immediately jump on my bed and the door closed. I furrow my brows and grab Kuma, I look at the thing hanging on his neck which is a bib, and words that say 'it's 27th today whether you like it or not' so I got confused and put Kuma down. I walk towards my bathroom to do my morning routines before walking out with Kuma. Once we're downstairs I walk towards the kitchen and saw a lot of food on the counter while Jennie's still cooking something.
"Morning" she says without looking at me so I just greeted her back and scratch the back of my head "happy birthday" she said turning around to put another pot on the counter
"My birthday was yesterday" I said making her groan as she rolls her eyes
"Dumbass, don't you know how to read? It's 27th now" she said turning around again to clean up before facing me.
"What are these? " I asked looking at her
"Foods can't you see? " she fired back then she cleared her throat and went out and when she comes back almost everyone from the security team is here even Mr. Kang. "Let's eat" she said in a monotone voice but everyone started greeting me a happy birthday making me smile.
"Sit beside me" Jennie said making my eyes widened and she just glared at me so I nodded and walk towards her side to take a sit. I looked at the food and widened my eyes once again looking at Jennie "what? " she asked "don't you like it? " and her face clearly shows that she's quite nervous that I might not like it so I mumble a quiet 'I love it' and looked at every Thai dishes around the table.
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"Did you cook all of these? " I asked looking back at her but Mr. Kang speak up so I turn my head towards him
"She called a Thai chef at 3 am to help her and teach her every famous Thai dishes" Mr. Kang said so I look back at Jennie and she just avoided my gaze but I leaned over to hug her and surprisingly she didn't push me back but she just stayed like that
"Thank you, Jennie Kim, I haven't had any Thai foods since then " I said and pulled back to smile at her and she didn't know what to do so she just nodded at me and we all started eating and I might've eaten too much cause these are great and I missed Thai foods.
---
"Get ready. We're leaving in an hour" she said so I just rushed up to my bedroom. I took a shower and put casual clothes on. When I went out Mr. Kang lead me down to the parking lot where Jennie's already inside.
"Jennie Kim where are we going? " I asked so she turned her head towards me and put it back towards her phone making me scoff "ya! I'm asking Jennie Kim" I said and she did the same thing making me groan and I didn't hear it wrong but I just heard her chuckle right beside me.
---
It took a couple of hours before we arrive right beside a beach
"Are we gonna swim Jennie Kim? " I asked while we're walking
"Are you dumb? It's too cold today" she said
"Then why are we on a beach? " I asked and she just brushes me off and leads me to a pretty fancy yacht. Well, I'm not that shocked cause Jennie Kim's rich.
"Lisa" she said sitting on a lounge chair in front of the yacht "here" she said and gave me a box when I sit down right next to her "I still have some gifts left for you but that's the first one" she said so I open up the box and saw a camera inside making my eyes go wide
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"No way! " I squealed and I heard her chuckle once again. "This is so beautiful Jennie Kim...But isn't it too expensive? " I asked looking at her
"I won't get poor just because of a camera" she said looking ahead while putting her sunglasses on. She stayed like that while I took a couple of pictures around. I stood up a couple of times to go around the yacht just taking some pictures while some security team stood still in their positions not minding me.
"Lisa come here" I heard Jennie said so I walk towards her and saw that she's at the back of the yacht already with some guards around. I walk towards them and my eyes widened again for the nth time today
"Jennie Kim look!! " I squealed and pointed the dolphins right in front of us
I can't help but be mesmerized by several dolphins around the yacht and I can't help taking pictures of everything. We take pictures for a couple of hours before the captain of the yacht decided to go back to the land.
I'm now resting right next to Jennie at the back of the yacht just watching the ocean right in front of us.
"Jennie Kim" I said still looking ahead while she just hummed in response for me to continue "why did we go in the ocean when we can just see dolphins in an aquarium"
"Do you know that you're paying the aquarium to train and keep the freedom of the water creatures there?" She said making me look at her
"What do you mean? " I asked making her look at me as well
"I forgot that you're really dumb" she said making me pout but she put her gaze back on the ocean "we can go to an aquarium but I don't want to. I'd rather pay much more money to see the dolphins out freely on the sea" she said pausing for a bit "didn't you think of how much the creatures in the aquarium suffer.. I mean not because they are being mistreated but because they don't have the freedom like the other fishes out on the sea" she said making me think as I nod. She's really smart
"But thank you for taking me out Jennie Kim" I said still looking at her but I saw how her eyes rolled back a bit not being rude or anything but because she might've felt unwell "are you alright? " I asked holding her back a bit and she just nodded but she put her palm on her head making me more worried so I scoot closer to her "Jennie Kim what's wrong? " I asked once again
"I'm just having seasickness," she said, we've been on the yacht for a couple of hours already... Maybe that's why
"You didn't tell me you have seasickness... We should've just stayed at home " I said making her look at me
"Don't be dumb Lisa... I won't die because of seasickness. And it's your birthday so I want you to be happy " she said making me smile but I tried hiding it and stopped my heart from pumping too much.
"Rest here Jennie Kim" I said patting my shoulders but she immediately rolls her eyes and this time in a rude way "ya Jennie Kim! I'll just feel bad if you won't" I said and this time she didn't argue and put her head on my shoulder while I put my arm around her.
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The Violet Crown
The story follows the perspective of a logical but chaotic fire mage in a fantasy-medieval world that is entirely hostile to mages. The main character confronts memories of his past as the man who sold the world for power, all while facing similar conflicts in the present while facing off against an oppressive Elven kingdom that spans the continent, led by two identical religious leaders gifted with the ability of foresight.
8 161Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
8 153AS LONG AS IT'S INTERESTING, ISN'T IT FINE TO LIVE AS A DUNGEON? (Hiatus)
[This story is now in Hiatus and I dont know if I'll come back to work on it again.] The story of a girl with a flare for creating a show that’s willing to let a lot of things slide so long as it’s interesting. She is summoned as the core of a newly birthed dungeon. With the power to create and destroy, what poor thing will her curiosity draw her to next? What interesting things will she show us? Note: This is just something I'm doing in between doing things. Please expect shoddy quality, a poor updating schedule, and significant rewrites. Thanks.
8 224I'm Always Talking to Myself
My name is Zach. I’m a typical bland featureless protagonist type. The kind of guy who has purposefully few defining characteristics so that people can project whatever they want on me. Like Luke from Star Wars or what’s her name from Twilight. Most main characters are like me. Kind of flavorless blank slates because we all secretly doubt that we’re Harrison Ford, but pretty much anyone could be Mitt Romney. Yep. Yes indeed, I do spend basically my entire life running an internal dialog to no one. Usually I’m imagining that there are people listening. Like maybe philosophers from Ancient Greece, or researchers from another planet who act suspiciously like the characters from that Instagram comic with the aliens. Stupid Instagram comedians stealing my internal monologue and turning into a wildly successful enterprise which I would imagine has a vibrant merch dropshipping arm and hundreds of thousands of daily dopamine hits for loyal followers. I basically spend all of my time explaining random things to imaginary people (and aliens, and animals, and household items which have inexplicably gained sentience and frankly have some concerns about this whole existence thing). Honestly, it’s both highly entertaining to me, in that it makes me think about why we humans do all of the bizarre things that we do, but also horrifically exhausting and kind of makes you feel like you’re either, worst cast, losing your grip on reality, or best case, becoming Abed from Community. Anyway, I’m sure that I have some distinguishing characteristics, but, in the interest of hypnotic suggestion I’m choosing to omit them until I’m pretty sure that you have subconsciously come to identify with me, or until I feel like it. (By the way, in case I forgot to mention it, a higher power called Aww Thor or something told me to say that this is a slice-of-life comedy adventure and that it's set in a fantasy world with isekai and LitRPG elements.)
8 75Schwarz -‖- Der Wille zur Macht
Schwarz -‖- Der Wille zur Macht Villainess, noble girl, princess. Reincarnation is a fickle matter, unpredictable and capricious, uncaring and unforgiving in nature. Stranded in unknown lands, in a different time and age by the mysterious forces of magic, Aurora is reborn as the sole heiress of the ancient noble House von Schwarz, destined to enter the game of kings and queens, armed with pride, deceit, and an adorable doll.
8 167My Naughty Babysitter
A story by Naughty-Spice • Remade.• Republished.• Completed.💋
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