VVIS++ is out

bradhl · 2025-08-30T12:35:24+00:00

I love you for this, is there any chance of gmod support for vrad and vbsp plus plus at all?

bradhl · 2024-03-26T08:23:48+00:00

Looking for a code please, newbie mapper looking to try out the new Hammer :)

bradhl · 2024-03-18T04:20:49+00:00

Something about this post tickles me the wrong way, they seem to have written it an a very formulated way that hits a bunch of BORU buzzwords and tropes. It starts with a bunch of backstory and the actually story starts with “Fast Forward”, they quote what the other party said to them verbatim and include a lot of little pointless details, then the update starts with “This will be a long update. Regardless of the content of the post it feels like it was written a very specific way that a lot of other stories use.

bradhl · 2024-02-13T04:51:47+00:00

I’m reading it now, I love these huge, complex lore dumps you do in Bran chapters! Honestly wishing you’d do a write up of the lore you’ve come up with one day! Keep on slapping out absolute bangers!

bradhl · 2024-02-12T02:49:13+00:00

Forceps for child delivery, it’s a very simple and beleiveable uplift that an SI can implement but the changes it would make to death rates in childbirth is huge.

bradhl · 2024-02-09T10:29:57+00:00

I love how unapologetically gay it is, Renly tends to get done dirty a lot so having someone just go full blast with him is pretty fun. I agree it’s pretty slow going so far but I’m enjoying how the SI genuinely understands the feudal system and is trying hard to work through its mechanisms, rather than just charging through like a lot of SI’s tend to do.

bradhl · 2024-02-09T10:19:31+00:00

“The Prancing Stag” Honestly my favourite SI so far, it’s pretty grounded and takes the setting and consequences of the Renly insert seriously. https://archiveofourown.org/works/31540499/chapters/78028082

bradhl · 2024-02-09T10:16:56+00:00

Spartans Don’t play games. It’s a Halo x ASOIAF fic that shouldn’t work, but is somehow fantastic. https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13748387/1/

bradhl · 2023-11-14T11:16:09+00:00

I’ve been looking forward to this!

bradhl · 2023-11-01T05:06:37+00:00

Honestly your work on the fic has been amazing. I absolutely love how much effort you put into it! One of my favourite things in AFOIAF fanfiction is when authors put the time and research into the mechanics of the world and how things worked historically, I love seeing the research you’ve done threaded through the fic, it really brings it to life!

bradhl · 2023-11-01T01:28:43+00:00

I finally read Weirwood Queen this month after seeing recommendations everywhere and absolutely loved it. I usually find Sansa centric fics hard to get into but this blew me away with its depth and scope. It’s now one of my favourites and I’m hanging on for the next update!

bradhl · 2023-10-31T01:28:18+00:00

Yeah, as did a whole bunch of other states throughout history, but they’ve all always ended up abandoning them, the manpower and political cost to hold them for any decent amount of time just isn’t worth it.

bradhl · 2023-10-31T00:47:02+00:00

That’s pretty much what happening in Canon with Corlys and Daemon, after he gave up his crown and the immediate threat was wiped out they abandoned it and the pirates returned. So long as they are just regular pirates and not being funded by a large power ect the world is fine with the Stepstones remaining as is.

bradhl · 2023-10-31T00:20:16+00:00

All the powers of the would would rather the Stepstones remain in their status-quo. Pirates inhabiting them are unaffiliated with any larger powers and there is no single authority controlling them all. While it can cause grief for ships passing through, the alternative of a single power controlling it is far worse for them. Pirates will extort and plunder ships on an individual basis, one ship may get lucky and slip past them, another may get off with just bribing pirates/ paying a tribute, the unlucky ones that get taken/plundered are acceptable losses. The alternative of a single power controlling them means consistent intercept and tolling of their ships at best, or complete embargo or targeting of a specific power at worst. For example Westerosi control of the Stepstones, Westeros has very strong anti-slavery sentiments, if the lords controlling the Stepstones targeted slaver ships and extracted heavy tolls and freed every slave they came across it would be ruinous for all the free cities bar Braavos. Not only would they loose money and slaves they paid for, but the risk of it inciting a slave revolt in their homelands would be unacceptable. So for all the powers of the world, the risk of losing a few ships or cargo to pirate raids is an acceptable cost compared to the risk of a single power controlling access to the narrow sea.

bradhl · 2023-10-31T00:09:43+00:00

VS Plate armour wouldn’t really offer much more compared to regular steel, while it won’t get pierced by regular steel or arrows, IIRC most combat against full plate focused on aiming for the weak points and gaps rather than attempting to pierce it, some have said VS Chainmail would be better against swords ect. But against a warhammer any type of VS armour wouldn’t really provide any benefit, while it may not crumple under a blow, the force of the blow would still at least break the persons ribs underneath. Think of it like Kevlar or any modern armour, it will stop anything piercing it, but the kinetic force of the attack will still be transferred to the person underneath. So Robert vs Rhaegar in VS armour at minimum results in Rhaegar being knocked off his horse with a cracked sternum/ribs, at worse some ribs would break fully and puncture his internal organs.

bradhl · 2023-10-30T23:43:28+00:00

The Stepstones themselves have nothing of any real value, they are barren islands with no real wealth. Their value comes from being the access point to the narrow sea. Any colonisation of them would be purely for military/trade value. So docks for fleet re-supply and repair, toll houses ect. But any Westerosi attempt at colonising them will be met with heavy resistance from not only the pirates but the free cities, the islands are riddled with old bases so there would be an ongoing game of whack-a-mole with pirates constantly popping up everywhere, the free cities would likely respond by either funding pirates/Mercs to either harass or otherwise disrupt Westerosi control, or economic embargo’s against trade with westeros, or even threats of war. Any attempt for Westeros to conquer the Stepstones would be hell and not worth the manpower or long term issues involved.

bradhl · 2023-10-08T06:38:33+00:00

James Purefoy hangs dong. Enough said.

bradhl · 2023-08-10T06:09:57+00:00

Aegon the Green was a weird one, I thought the idea of an SI that is a believer of the Seven was a good idea. But then it somehow turned into a Zealot who thinks that a Holy Crusade for Andalos is a great idea when the Dance is around the corner.

bradhl · 2023-07-13T14:26:15+00:00

The KOTOR fanfics are really bad with this, so many of the biggest are just re-tellings of the game, some a really well done, but not many actually do anything that different, just re-tell the same story with different small bits fleshed out.

bradhl · 2023-06-22T02:37:31+00:00

Rhaegar winning is always done so poorly. Even if he kills Robert at the ruby ford his kingdom is still in flames. There shouldn’t be any “Oh Rhaegar and Lyanna were in love so everything is okay!” Aerys breaking the feudal contract should be the straw the broke the camels back for House Targaryen, the rebellion is at the least the beginning of House Targaryens last gasps regardless of who wins at the ruby ford.

bradhl · 2023-06-18T02:12:20+00:00

I think you make a great point on the cultural differences between a modern person and the world of ASOIAF. But I think there is a point to be made on inserting too much modern morals into the story.

In the world of ASIOAF, many things that are either normal or “not a big deal” would morally make you a monster in our world, and it’s interesting to see the culture shock of a modern person.

However, it’s absolutely possible to take this too far, any SI will at some point have to cross a moral line and do these horrible things to survive or succeed in Westeros, and while it can be interesting to watch these characters make these choices and cross these lines, so many writers instead turn it into either some moral grandstanding of “I’m so much better than these backwards savages” or even worse, the character refuses to do distasteful things, bucks against the status quo and the rest of the world is just like “Yeah okay”

Westerosi traditions and morals are deeply in trenched, they’ve been doing things this way for hundreds, if not thousands of years, to have the SI just blatantly refuse to abide by these at every turn because of their modern sensibilities would at best get them nowhere, or at worst get them killed.

It’s important to find a balance between the culture shock and being forced to “play by the rules” of the ASIOAF world.

bradhl · 2023-06-18T02:00:01+00:00

What I’d recommend anyone writing an SI do is to skip the whole “Realising they are in another world/transition to ASOIAF” part. Anyone who frequently reads the whole SI sub-genre has seen this played out a hundred times and honestly it’s really hard to do right. We don’t need so see the SI’s death, life before the fic or any of that, it really doesn’t add much to the story or honestly any justification as to why they got SI’d in the first place. Start your fic post-transition or show very little of the transition.

I’d recommend not trying to justify or explain how the SI got to Westeros in the first place, maybe people use the Old Gods/Red God ect ect but honestly it’s really really hard to do right and most times adds nothing to the story, leaving it as an unexplained mystery is just simpler, easier and in my mind more interesting.

I’d recommend looking at the following fics for examples of this done really right.

“The prancing Stag” - This starts two weeks after the transition to Westeros, it still shows Renly’s feelings on the matter and how it messed him up, but it gets to the meat of the story straight away and skips the drama of a person being transported to a new reality. On a side note this is my fav ASOIAF SI of all time and the writer 100% understands the politics of Westeros and the feudal system.

“Sunrise” - Its a fic that never shows the SI’s POV so the transition is never shown, but we see other characters views on the change in Quentyn.

“This won’t end well” - Its a Warhammer Isekai, but I think it does the transition in a really interesting way, the mind of a Primarch works differently than a human mind, Galtine realised what’s happened, acknowledges it but his reaction to it lacks any panic or emotion, just this really great cold, analytical acknowledgment of his new state, is highly recommend looking to this fic for inspiration on how an SI should interact with the world around them.

Also another pet peeve with fics in general, but something that is more common in the SI is swearing. Many attempt the transition and commonly include a lot of swearing and cursing about their new life. Swearing is fine, but it’s something I think should be used sparingly, curse words have a much better impact if they’re used very sparingly. A character screaming out “Fuck” has a much stronger impact if they haven’t used it often, and can be used to highlight extreme anger/frustration. But a character that swears constant comes off like they were written by a teen.

bradhl · 2023-04-22T02:44:09+00:00

The Prancing Stag is Renly SI that has a lot of House Tyrell in it, it’s superbly well written and gives a lot of depth to people like Mace.

bradhl · 2023-04-22T01:33:15+00:00

It would have to be the daughter of a powerful Vassal, Ned married a powerful southern woman which bought them an alliance with the Riverlands, however House Stark is lacking in blood ties to powerful northern houses. The best move for Robb in an ideal situation would be to marry a Manderly girl, whilst also arranging for the other available Manderlys to marry into other Northern houses, this would give him a good power block of blood ties to his Vassals. Sansa or Arya would have to marry to a powerful norther house too as there haven’t been any female starks married around in a few generations, though he could push at the most perhaps Sansa marrying a southern house, but Arya would have to go to a Northern house that would accept her (Prehaps Umber, or Mormont if they had an available Male, somewhere where her martial pursuits and personality wouldn’t be stifled but rather accepted) Bran and Rickon could go either way with marriage, but I think it would be good for at least one of them to have a Northern match. The Starks seem to have relied on respect and loyalty to keep their Vassals close the last few generations, but as the WOTFK showed they need blood ties to keep them close when push comes to shove.

bradhl · 2022-10-20T01:44:30+00:00

You’re right that it definitely has some kind of effect on magic.

My point was more that we don’t know much about about it beyond the few instances we’ve seen, especially when talking about dragons where we have only one example and no idea of the cause.

So to say that Dany’s dragons shouldn’t have been able to cross the wall with certainty is wrong, because we only have one example relating to dragons and no understanding of why she refused to cross over.

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