u/EdLincoln6

Weird hypothetical.

I've read a ton of stories where a baby reincarnated with their adult memories, meditated non-stop, and got super powers.

It's occurred to me the kid who tunes out his surroundings and has no interest in other kids his age could look autistic from the outside. I've even encountered a story flat started to do this. (But it quickly abandoned this idea in favor of a scene by scene imitation of Mushoku Tensei.)

If a Cultivator from Xianxia Land or a low level spider monster from LitRPGville were reincarnated as the baby of someone in your friend circle with his memories and spirit roots intact, what, if anything, would he be diagnosed with? How long would it take mild super strength and super durability to be detected? How long until he became a peewee soccer star? Assume slow prigression... instant omipotence is boring.

You are hit by an ice cream truck and end up reincarnated in a Cultivation World. Unfortunately, you don't have a cheat or plot armor and make it a couple decades before you get rekilled by an Arrogant Young Master.

Anyway! Fortunately, you are a serial reincarnator and get reincarnated as a baby in 1987 Seattle. And this time you have a cheat... you kept your early Qi Gathering Cultivation!

My question is... with mildly super human strength, speed and durability, enhanced attractiveness, and Sword Intent (whatever that is...)

*what professional sports would be you pursue to best monetize super strength?*

It isn't a super hero world, there are no super villains, and your durability only risees to the level of bullet resistance. You don't have superior skill at sports, just the physical enhancements.

So, I normally don't like OP MCs, but I have a soft spot for them if they are toddlers.

What are the best stories with OP small children as MCs?

Preferably NOT:
1.) Arrogant, cocky or snarky MCs. Arrogance or snark in a powerful character feels like punching down and makes them a jerk.
2.) Books where it turns out lots of kids are weirdly powerful or participate in hell training. That just blunts the impact of having the MC an OP Isekai.
3.) Books that ditch the child stage early.

Preferably:
1.) MCs with a single logical reason why they are special.
2.) MCs who interact with normal children.
3.) Adults who recognize how weird and creepy the MC is.

I'm thinking of an Isekai, but a "Superboy" style story would work to.

There are a couple, admittedly not super common tropes that really look like they should go to together, but I've never seen them combined.

One is the System Non-Apocalypse Super Hero Story. This is a story where the System comes, civilization DOESN'T collapse, and high level people end up basically becoming super heroes or super villains.

Another is the "Super Hero vs. Kaiju" story where super powered people fight monsters to keep the cities safe.

It would seem to me they would go together...A System not-quite Apocalypse could leave monsters all over the place. It could explain where both the monsters and kaiju come from.

Has anyone ever combined these two ideas?

Whenever the tropes of a genre get standardized, there is an impulse to deconstruct them. Obviously Rationalist Fiction arises from this impulse.

One thing I've noticed is that in a lot of ways, the modern Super Hero Deconstructions in Fantasy and Progression Fantasy are actually a lot *less* rational than the source material. (And the source material isn't known for it's rigid rationalism.)

For one thing, lots of the original super hero stories put some thought into what, exactly, would make someone do something as silly and dangerous as dress in a costume and fight crime. Batman had his childhood trauma, Spiderman had "With Great Power Came Great Responsibility". Lots of deconstructions just kind of have an MC who dreams out being a Super Hero just because.

In the all consuming desire to ask "What if Superman, but evil?" lots of stories put less thought into exactly why the characters are evil, and what sort of evil, then the old Batman and Spiderman stories put into the motivations of their villains.

Then there is of course the stuff that's labeled "Shades of gray Morality" but is anything but gray because everyone is uniformly awful.

Has anyone else noticed this?

One again, you know the drill...

You are chasing an Ice Cream Truck and get hit by a car.

Fortunately, you get Isekaid. And, you have one of the most OP cheats in the genre...you can Steal Skills! You can steal skills by eating the flesh of an organism that has the Skill. You can have up to 12 stolen Skills at a time. You can clear them out to replace them, but the process of removing a Skill has a one year cool down...

You are NOT Isekaid to a standard Medieval Fantasy or Xianxia world. That would be boring. You are Isekaid to a vaguely '80s LitRPG Urban Fantasy Masquerade world, in 1983 in St. Louis. It's a world where there *IS* magic and monsters, but their existence is kept a secret from the general public. (There is also a LitRPG System that everyone knows about.)
The system was last updated in the year 1400 BC, so available Classes match up with Professions people had at that time. Lots of people have Classes only tenuously related to their jobs, if that.
Magic leans towards the subtle and spooky...curse and summoning ghosts rather than fireballs ans summoning armies of skeletons.

My questions are...
a.) How good would you be at impersonating a regular child?
b.) How would you make use of a Skill Stealing ability when you are an infant? Or would you wait? If so, how long?

Engine of Reincarnation raised an interesting question. The MC was reincarnated as an ogre thing in one world, and a squirrel thing in another. He mentioned he had no idea how the size of these creatures compared to humans.

If you got hit by a truck and reincarnated as a bear-bat thing in a world with the same laws of nature, but completely different life forms, how could you determine if you were bat sized or bear sized? What experiments could you perform? Assume you have no access to modern technology, and can't bring any physical objects to this new world.

My boyfriend suggested the size of water droplets and rain drops as compared to your body could give you an idea.

There is this concept in Xianxia that animals can Cultivate, attain sapience, and ultimately learn to take human form.

Has anyone thought through the implication of this?

You could have a bear living it's best seafood connoisseur life and then one day...Boom! It starts wondering what the stars are and what the meaning of life is and suddenly it wants a mate it can talk about it's feeling to...good luck with that. No one is there to teach it anything about how the world works. It's parents are likely long dead and regular animals.

Also, I don't see any reason this couldn't happen to a pet. Suddenly one of your hunting dogs turns into a person...what do you do? (Yes, some stories have used this as a launching pad for harem fic, but let's not even think about that...)

Usually we either meet Spirit Beasts that are pre-sentient, or else have been sapient for centuries. The only story I can think of that explored the inner life of newly sapient Spirit Beasts was Beware of Chicken.

Similar issues arise in Monster Evolution stories.

If the MC is an Isekai a lot of these issues don't apply...but there would still likely be issues integrating into human society after living in our world and living in the wilderness of this new world, but no idea what cities in the new world are like. There are a few Monster Evolution Isekais where the MC gets a human form, but the MC always seems to become the Goblin King for some reason.

Has anyone other than Beware of Chicken explored the weirdness of Spirit Beasts becoming sapient and getting a human form?

Has anyone written a story about an ex-monster who gained a human form trying to integrate into society as a regular person?

I'm reading a book about a guy who is a dragon...but I finished Book 1 and he hasn't taken on his dragon form once. He has a roommate who is a were-raven...but has taken bird form once. I'm getting annoyed. Why bother making him a dragon?

Can anyone suggest any English Language original, non-VRMMO Progression Fantasy stories where the MC shifts shape regularly? It could be a Monster Evolution where he gets a human form but still frequently returns to monster form, something about a were-something, or something about a D&D style Druid.

I've encountered a few stories where a liche gets reincarnated as a teen. Sylver Seeker, Dead Mount Death Play.

Usually the MC is insufferably smug and determined to get back to his former status.

Has anyone wrote one where the reincarnated liche is excited to have a pulse again?

I've encountered a few stories with "Kitchen Sink" universes that included Magical Girls. What exactly would make someone a Magical Girl as opposed to just a young female spellsword? Or would a young female spellsword be considered a Magical Girl?

If you had a LitRPG with a Magical Girl class, what would the defining characteristics of that class be?

You get hit by a bus. You wake up in a crib...you know the deal. You try to call up your status screen and get the following:

Will: 11
Agi: 1
Str: 1
Dex: 1
Per: 7
Vit: 3
Cha: 22
Res: 2
Reg: 8

Mana: 121/121 (Recover 88/day)
Health: 6/6 (Recover 24/month)
Stamina: 2 (Recover 16/day)

Skills: Isekai Welcome Package "Universal Translator".

The next 10 months pass very slowly. Finally, after many hours. you learn to walk, and get a notification:

Skill Acquired: Walking! Plus 3 Free points. (If you don't place them points will be randomly assigned in 12:24:59:45...)

When your parents leave you alone on a blanket, you quietly get up and go to the bookshelf. You look for any book about magic. You find three:

Cultivation for Dummies: Which Is most of You Meatheads

Divine Magic: Sucking Up to Insecure Eldritch Beings for Fun and Prophet

So Ye a Wannabe Wizard, Wanda!
(In bold on the front of this one is: WARNING: Wizardry Can interfere with Cultivation)

Rangers and Bards: We Don't Know Why Getting Good With a Banjo or Bow Gives You Magic Powers, It Just Does.

My questions:
1.) Where do you put your stat points? Or do you wait?
2.) Which book do you grab first?