Would you like to read a CIA agent write a paid advertisement in homage to all his corporate overlords?
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/80417/second-summons-a-time-loop-isekai/chapter/1491245/chapter-1-sara-reece
I thought the transparently bastardized ("WcDonalds") or pointlessly censored ("Pep*i") versions of brand names were jarring and pathetic, but it turns out I lacked perspective. Having them all lavishly written out ("EpiPen") is worse. Mea culpa. Please forgive me, [weird pointless censors]-sensei.
Though don't lose sight of the fact his dude-with-tits protagonist is way more cringe than big business dickriding. I especially like how sexist it is. "A woman can be a strong protagonist, provided she literally has a prostate gland."
But don't make her too manly. Make sure she stops at around 13-year-old boy manliness. The worst kind of chuuni, Occident ver. "Scars are cool! Not getting hit? Wearing armour? Who would do that? What, you chicken? You want to win fights instead of lose them? Bawk bawk bawk."
The comments ate this shit up, which is how you know RR has been fully Eternal September'd.
As should be expected of any place that forces their writers to use trigger warnings. (Yes. Unironically.)
The reviews look extremely paid! I assume he got all his office mates in Langley to sign up and post them. Most of them couldn't even be arsed to pick avatars. A lot of these zero-effort accounts have one review.
Joined: Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Last Active: Friday, January 26, 2024
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looooool
But this one has an avatar! 🙃 It's a dog, a female dog...
I wonder if she/he/it went home on the weekend, and that's why activity stopped on Friday...
It was pretty easy to spot. It reads like a linkedin page even at a glance. There's one organic review, and it's awkward as hell, so you can see why they pay professionals. Being associated with that downmarket reviewer isn't worth the good review, especially if he's the only one at the party.
Maybe I will read a little. Train wrecks, you know. I have to find out how the marketing-department ball-slobbering is handled after what I'll loosely call the ""protagonist"" is isekai'd.
I don't care enough to find out what a "Contributing Editor" is, but I expect having two whole committees of them is not something that happens without backroom payments. Nobody who supports themselves through the writing can afford this.
Despite the overabundance of editors, they still can't spell "chafed" correctly. Too used to thinking about defensive chaff, I suppose. Can't spell "peeked" either though. "They galloped at a fast speed." Oh good, this was a fast 25mph, not a slow 25mph. Also not one of those slow 5mph gallops. Someone read too many bad translations. "sent him hurdling to the ground"
"In fact, she wasn’t even a decent person." "Sara didn’t think of herself as a bad person or that what she was doing was wrong." Whoops, saw behind the curtain.
Now you know how CIA agents justify their actions to themselves. They don't. They refuse to acknowledge justification is even a thing. Can be as indecent as you want without being bad.Technique: keep brooding until you forget what you were originally brooding about, call it good.
"Or, perhaps, that made her a decent person, and all along, she was meant to rule some kingdom and save people." Oh my god. Did you notice? Decent = entitled to world empire. You can't let these shitbags run a shoe locker.
Don't forget the part where the boy named Sara lies about everything to everyone all the time. Pure Satanist. Come to think, I suppose that's why "Sara" is alleged to be a girl. "Nobody could possibly be stupid enough to believe this protagonist is female."
"yes, I will be sharing my resources"
Ah, yes, very normal-person speak, and not at all midwit corporate bureaucratese. Such dialogue. Many prose.
Don't you realize gamers use [resource], singular? Why sound stilted and obsequious when you can sound stilted, obsequious, and illiterate?
"I have as long as the mission requires" At least he's taking the advice to write what you know, I guess...
Ah, I see. "As if to rip off a Band-Aid" literally every excuse exploited. "It tasted pretty good. Kinda like V8 if it was thinner." "It tasted like chewing on Tylenol" If that can't scratch the itch, he starts on historical black legends and stock market propaganda. Very normal medieval stock markets run by the king. With specific investment details, so you can do the accounting yourself. Yes, I go to distant magical foreign lands so I can hear about specific anti-DNC factions in Chicago.
My conclusion is that this story is written so the author can vicariously live through all the spy shit they thought they were joining the CIA for, instead of the spineless bureaucratic paper-shuffling it actually is.
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