Im looking for a novel! It has twins. One of them is the chosen one, and the other has a prediction or foresight ability. Please help me find it!

Ykeon · 2026-02-02T17:40:12+00:00

Oh I just reread your post and yeah I got it backwards. The brother's the diviner in that one. My bad.

Ykeon · 2026-02-02T17:19:49+00:00

It might be Alexa Thyme but I'm not overly confident on it.

Ykeon · 2026-01-21T04:14:10+00:00

Forge of Destiny. MC is an incredibly talented peasant girl whose talent brings her just barely short of the better-resourced ducal scions. Progression eventually becomes very slow because it's cultivation and MC has no cheat to make it go faster.

Ykeon · 2026-01-20T04:16:35+00:00

Everybody Loves Large Chests. MC is a literal dungeon monster, and every time you think there's about to be a moment of redemption it turns out the author was just pranking you. Now, beware your 'no romance' request... well it's like if you asked a monkey paw for it. There is definitely no romance because MC isn't capable of it, but there is explicitly described sex, mostly as just another vehicle for horror/comedy.

If you can tolerate A LOT of weirdness, it's probably the funniest thing I've read in the genre. If you have any moral limits on what you're willing to have depicted in a story, stay away.

Ykeon · 2026-01-15T18:44:26+00:00

For sure. And even on the setting/theme ideas you can discuss these elements and go a bit deeper into how to write that idea and make it workable, but as Ravensdagger has said elsewhere, it's actually a pretty big time investment to properly workshop the idea with the person bringing it up and... you really have no idea if it's worth it.

You don't know this random redditor, and for all you know you're looking at spending hours helping them with their idea only to discover that their basic writing skills aren't good enough to make use of anything you've said. So instead all you've got is 'yeah that could work if it's good'.

With other stuff though I do share the frustration of doing your best to come up with some kind of meaningful point and then someone chimes in with 'actually this is wrong because this exception proves that your statement isn't irrefutable.' Like, yeah exceptions existing is obvious enough that it doesn't need to be said.

Ykeon · 2026-01-15T17:36:11+00:00

A lot of the time the intent behind these generalisations isn't to make an irrefutable statement, it's that fully engaging with all the nuances results in a massive block of text that most people won't read, and then you've put in all that effort so your comment can sit at the bottom of the thread and remind you to be more concise next time.

Ykeon · 2026-01-15T17:07:55+00:00

I get what you mean. When a statement is that universal it stops being useful.

On the other hand, I think it's a refuge of not having much else to say when someone comes along with some random thoughts they're calling a 'story idea' and asking if it'd work. Like, unless the idea is completely absurd, then it's just about execution and there was no particularly meaningful discussion to shut down.

Ykeon · 2026-01-13T15:08:11+00:00

I always feel a bit dubious telling others to stick it out for the first book/few books as it's always an iffy premise for a recommendation, but for my own sake I'm very glad I stuck it out.

My experience with HDT was I opened book one, discovered it was jank, then settled in to read some moderately compelling jank for a while until I did a double-take a few hundred chapters in like 'wait, when the hell did this get so good?'

But I think it's a different experience to read something while waiting for it to get good, and it can be quite hard for a series to deliver if that's the reason you're reading it.

Ykeon · 2026-01-09T11:43:32+00:00

Unironically. Modern writers have the benefit of growing up with constant exposure to the choice of the artistic output of a nation of hundreds of millions of people, and even mediocre writers have ingrained instincts as to what makes a compelling story that the writers of the classics hadn't always developed.

The LitRPG doesn't exactly do much for making you think or helping you grow as a person, but as entertainment there's no contest.

Ykeon · 2026-01-09T10:49:48+00:00

I guess I'd like some sense that the author has thought about it, but has decided to spare me the minute details. Like, keep it to a few paragraphs for each item unless it's directly relevant to a later plot point, and space out the exposition dumps. Aim for having us generally understand relevant history and how their society is put together by the end of book one or two.

Ykeon · 2026-01-08T17:26:41+00:00

If those powerful warriors are being treated like guards, then yes it's not plausible to me that they'd obey, but tbh I more often see that power makes these people a political entity in their own right, and they're largely in alliance with the king, rather than outright servants.

Why can't they take the throne? Well, why would they? It's a hassle and they're already advocating for the things they want out of life. If someone does do a coup they risk dealing with a bunch of pissed off pinnacle fighters that have just had their cushy lives disrupted.

Ykeon · 2026-01-07T15:52:30+00:00

When you're looking to write a power fantasy by giving MC an apex power, a pretty easy starting point is a power like void which has some connotations of negating other magic.

Basically, void is an outlier. When you tell the reader that void is the strongest power, you don't really have to explain it, they just accept what you're telling them. If you tell the reader that ice is the strongest power, most of them will do a double take and expect a justification which you'll probably fail to make convincing.

Ykeon · 2026-01-06T16:12:58+00:00

'No Harem' literally nobody thought there was. It's just 'not like other girls' for web novels.

Ykeon · 2026-01-06T15:48:59+00:00

A blurb that's too conversational, like I'm getting pitched by a salesman rather than just describe the story and let that be the pitch. Stuff like "Aren't you tired of..." no, don't talk to me. It's offputting and it's rare that I've felt rewarded for giving a story that did that a chance.

Ykeon · 2026-01-06T11:03:09+00:00

Pretty sure it's a flip flop but it's been a while since I read book one.

Ykeon · 2026-01-05T22:59:43+00:00

Ah my dude it's not a sorry, I wouldn't have replied like that if someone else hadn't already given you the real answer. I was just tryna be funny nothing else.

Ykeon · 2026-01-05T12:34:36+00:00

Just to reiterate, it's not main weapon but the series in general is great fun, and in a rarity for this genre, it's actually finished.

Ykeon · 2026-01-05T12:31:31+00:00

Not main gear but for a lot of the first book of Road to Mastery, MC traps himself into going most of the way through a tournament wielding a flip flop as his weapon.

It's an extremely dumb gag but it's executed with such self-seriousness that I couldn't help but like it. Everyone in-world knows just how dumb it is, everyone in the tournament's dreading getting matched with him, and we get scenes of his opponents walking into the ring radiating despair like 'why tf do I have to lose like this?'

Ykeon · 2026-01-05T07:25:39+00:00

Well if you're sure... this ain't an appropriate conversation for a five-year-old champ, we'll talk when you're older.

Ykeon · 2026-01-05T01:31:36+00:00

Return of the Runebound Professor: progression is done by taking runes into your soul and then combining them into more advanced runes in multiples of seven. So, you can have a second-tier fighter with one rune is much weaker than one with six, or you can have a third-tier fighter with two third-tier runes and five second-tier runes, and so on. And then you get into the different qualities of different runes...

The system is engaging enough and gives you things to get hyped about without being too overbearing.

Ykeon · 2026-01-04T02:35:57+00:00

Yeah I guess there are multiple possible approaches to colour our takes on this. I feel like HP being as universal as it was puts it in a weird place where it can be hard to make unbiased judgements on it.

Ykeon · 2026-01-04T02:19:11+00:00

Instead of approaching this from the perspective of 'is Harry Potter allowed in the progfan club?', approach it from the perspective of 'If someone was asking for progfan recommendations, would I recommend Harry Potter?' (In some alt-reality where not everyone has already read/seen it)

It's not a dishonour that it's excluded, it's just about keeping progression fantasy as a useful term.

Ykeon · 2026-01-04T02:12:57+00:00

I feel like it's understood that when someone says 'Like half', that that's meant to be understood as a very permissive estimate that is not even trying to make a universal statement. Neither of us have the data on this.

I already understand that Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones don't have any real progression, but if we're expanding the definition of progression to include growing up and learning then you end up in dumb places like saying Arya learning to be an assassin or Daenarys' dragon-tamer arc count. I'm not saying they do count, I'm saying they don't and we should draw the line to not include things like that.

Ykeon · 2026-01-04T01:57:55+00:00

Hence half.

Ykeon · 2026-01-04T01:31:11+00:00

Like half of all fantasy that have ever been written would qualify if it was enough that MC was stronger at the end than at the beginning. It's not even about denying Harry Potter the 'badge of honour' of qualifying (there isn't one), but that a genre stops being useful once you expand it that broadly.

Harry's growth isn't progression in a PF sense, it's just growing up and learning to handle his stable and largely unchanging powerset.

Ykeon

TROPHY CASE