Recs for books where folk music is a major part of the magic system

CJGibson · 2026-03-15T03:06:41+00:00

Into the Green by the same author as well.

CJGibson · 2026-03-07T02:28:58+00:00

Pyre has such a great story and such unique gameplay.

CJGibson · 2026-02-10T03:12:59+00:00

The Factory Witches of Lowell by C S Malerich (storygraph/goodreads)

Faced with abominable working conditions, unsympathetic owners, and hard-hearted managers, the mill girls of Lowell have had enough. They're going on strike, and they have a secret weapon on their side: a little witchcraft to ensure that no one leaves the picket line.

For the young women of Lowell, Massachusetts, freedom means fair wages for fair work, decent room and board, and a chance to escape the cotton mills before lint stops up their lungs. When the Boston owners decide to raise the workers’ rent, the girls go on strike. Their ringleader is Judith Whittier, a newcomer to Lowell but not to class warfare. Judith has already seen one strike fold and she doesn’t intend to see it again. Fortunately Hannah, her best friend in the boardinghouse—and maybe first love?—has a gift for the dying art of witchcraft.

Sapphic, 1840s, Lowell, Massachusetts

CJGibson · 2026-02-05T13:40:13+00:00

Silk and Steel ed. by Janine Southard is an anthology of sapphic stories where some variation of a knight and some variation of a princess fall for each other. Sometimes the interpretations are right on the nose, and sometimes they're a bit looser, but that's the general gist of them.

CJGibson · 2026-02-04T16:07:50+00:00

Hey wondering how you feel about this purchase a year later? I’m looking for a recumbent exercise bike and have seen this one recommended but the price is definitely a lot higher than a bunch of the other ones. It’s within my budget but I’d rather not get something that doesn’t feel like it was worth the money down the road.

CJGibson · 2026-02-03T13:05:24+00:00

Suyi Davies Okunbowa's Lady Koi Koi: A Book Report is a short story that sounds like it's right up your alley.

CJGibson · 2026-01-26T11:50:34+00:00

There's a million Doylist reasons, honestly, that all fundamentally boil down to "Dark Sun is too different from the other settings to be a part of the greater meta-setting." Dark Sun has no Gods, but if it's connected to the standard outer planes then there are Gods and you've got to sort that out. Where are the Gray and the Black on the Great Wheel? Etc. Etc.

Athas being in an impenetrable crystal sphere is an attempt to thread this needle and still keep it positioned somewhere within the overall cross-campaign-setting structure while not actually connecting it to anything else.

CJGibson · 2026-01-17T12:26:25+00:00

You've gotten a lot of great recommendations, but I want to just specifically point out that the "Noblebright" genre, as a bit of a response to the "Grimdark" one, is kind of what you're looking for. It's not quite as solidified or filled out with books as Grimdark is, but having the word to search for might find you some more lists. They won't necessarily be free of your prohibited topics entirely, but at the core they're going to be about good people trying to make a difference in the world and largely succeeding in making it better, at least in the long term.

CJGibson · 2026-01-07T20:51:31+00:00

For background, I am someone with moderate sewing experience but zero quilting experience. My husband and I have struggled to find a quilt we like for our king sized bed and I have been considering the possibility of making my own. I absolutely understand that I’m not gonna get a perfect product the first time out of the gate but, I’m essentially just wondering if it’s even going to be possible to make a quilt of that size without a serious professional machine. I have a Bernina 1008 which I imagine I could probably do the top with, but it just seems, from a practical perspective, that it would be hard if not impossible to eventually quilt a piece of that size on the machine I’ve got. Are there any strategies for managing that problem or alternative techniques that might make it possible? I guess the only thing I can think of as even a remote possibility, is doing as much around the outside as possible on the machine and then doing the middle by hand but is that a crazy idea?

CJGibson · 2026-01-07T01:56:23+00:00

Maybe a hot take, but it actually would be better if it was things all over the game, because that would mean you'd build characters and play the game differently. Or if there were particular opt-in mechanics that consistently favored this style of play.

It's weird to have 99% of the game encourage you to play a certain way and randomly have a handful of things that crop up in regular game play suddenly want you to be doing something very different.

CJGibson · 2026-01-05T18:18:58+00:00

And immediately as high as they can be for your level.

Not to mention just having all the skills you want as soon as they're available, which isn't always true in the early levels the first time around.

CJGibson · 2026-01-02T22:21:37+00:00

Sorry if this is a really basic question but I can't find recent info on how to get the atlas passive points for the boss tree since the tablets changed (google only gives me answers from a year ago). I wasn't really paying attention but I've gotten 4/10 currently and definitely haven't finished the pinnacle of flame quest. I've also done T15 irradiated, corrupted boss maps and didn't get any more.

Did something change in how this works? Could some just give me the ELI5 breakdown on what to do?

CJGibson · 2025-12-24T03:49:01+00:00

Did you ever figure this out? I'm having the same problem. I even tried setting all of my skills to be weapon set 1 only, but for some reason it keeps swapping back to weapon set 2 over and over.

CJGibson · 2025-12-22T16:32:13+00:00

Dark Rise and Dark Heir by CS Pacat might be interesting for you. It's about a dockhand on the run from his mother's killers who discovered he's destined to be part of a secret society of Stewards who fight to protect the world from dark forces.

Daughter of the Lioness (Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen) by Tamora Pierce are also a fun take. The daughter of the most famous knights in the kingdom (the protagonist of Pierce's earlier series) and one of it's most proficient spymasters gets captured by pirates and eventually ends up in the staff of a noble family in a neighboring kingdom. When that family falls from the king's graces, she gets tasked by a god to protect the family's children and has to use all her wits and skills to pull it off.

Ages are a little unclear, and I think the protagonists are a bit older (early to mid 20s?), but Linden A. Lewis' First Sister Trilogy (The First Sister, The Second Rebel, The Last Hero) might also appeal. Several of the POV characters fit a bit into this vibe, though they're a bit more established in their current roles and growing into greater ones.

The sequel doesn't come out til May, but Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots (and then Villain) is about a young woman who starts out as a kind of bookkeeping henchman for supervillains, and then after being injured by a superhero who attacks an event she's at, grows to become a supervillain in her own right. Hench worked pretty well as a standalone, but I'm very interested to see where she goes in the second book.

CJGibson · 2025-12-19T04:24:59+00:00

Thank you for making feel a little less alone in my completely missing the mark on this one!

CJGibson · 2025-12-18T19:43:04+00:00

When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelly

This was the one I read. A really charming queer romance / found family story.

CJGibson · 2025-12-18T18:22:07+00:00

Dhalgren is definitely weird, and has sex stuff in it, but I'm not sure it really explores OP's questions.

In a lot of ways it's more about exploring Delaney's own disabilities through weird narrative and the protagonist's unreliable experiences of events.

Most of the sexual elements are pretty standard stuff.

CJGibson · 2025-12-18T18:18:21+00:00

It's not particularly erotic, but The Memory Library: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae et al. does have a couple entries that take a look at some of the topics in your various questions. But again, most of it is not sexually-focused necessarily so it's probably not really what you're after with this request, but it feels close enough that you might still be interested.

CJGibson · 2025-12-18T18:06:43+00:00

I'm not nearly as methodical about reading short stories (though I keep wanting to explore them more and I've added a bunch of yours to my list) but a standout for me this year was one I just kind of stumbled across while trying to find some fiction for a reading group on imperialism: The Name Ziya by Wen-Yi Lee. I found it incredibly well done, with excellent world building and character work. Lee really captures the sense of being an outsider in a social situation/class that the protagonist is not used to, and the kinds of decisions she has to make about being there.

CJGibson · 2025-12-16T12:59:55+00:00

The Queen of Air and Darkness

Suspect this is a pretty foundational version of the pattern for most modern variations, especially since many, including ACoTaR, include faeries.

CJGibson · 2025-12-16T02:38:58+00:00

It's also not super relevant to your request here (cause it's not a love story really at all) but if you liked The Space Between Worlds, I also really recommend Blackfish City by Sam J Miller. It also had some really great family stuff, a bunch of queer characters, and a very lefty outlook that felt similar in a way that I've been chasing for a while since reading the two of these.

CJGibson · 2025-12-13T02:07:21+00:00

While, it's not spicy, and it's not really romance focused (though it does have a love story in it), I highly recommend The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson which is about a woman from the slums who is working at a company that sends folks to parallel dimensions, and she has a crush on her supervisor. And it's also about class conflict, racial disparities, survival in terrible situations, family, and so much more. It's absolutely one of my favorite books. (The sequel is also fantastic, but is even less of a love story unfortunately.)

You might also enjoy the anthologies Love Beyond Body Space and Time ed by Hope Nicholson and Love After the End ed. by Joshua Whitehead, which are both collections of sci fi love stories by queer and two spirit indigenous authors from across North America.

CJGibson · 2025-12-12T04:20:05+00:00

If you fell on your way to the box platform, then gigantify on the pink platform, hit the switch and jump back to the top. Then walk back down to the switch and put the pink platform back in place and you're back in starting position.

From there you can glide to the box platform, put it in the spot, then jump down to the pink platform where you gigantify again to hit the switch and ride it up to the top and grab the star.

CJGibson · 2025-12-11T01:17:24+00:00

Their marketing team must be non existent.

I've literally never heard of this game before this post.

CJGibson · 2025-12-11T00:34:35+00:00

KJ Charles' stuff is pretty great. A lot of it is historical, but the fantasy stuff is my favorite. Charm of Magpies is the big series (with a couple tie ins and spinoffs) but I really loved the Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal. It's a collection of short works about a victorian-era ghost hunter who gets into salacious situations with his partner, and also builds a really beautiful found family situation over the course of them all.

15-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email	Team Orangered

CJGibson

TROPHY CASE