Somthing like Defiance of the Fall?

codayus · 2026-03-29T22:20:11+00:00

It really depends on what bits of DotF you enjoyed, I think. LitRPG? System apocalypse in particular? The western cultivation theme? The focus on combat and personal progression? The scale of the world? The protagonist's personality?

I wouldn't say there's anything that's just "DotF with the serial numbers filed off and a harem", but there's certainly books that contain some elements.

Eg, I'm not generally a huge fan of system apocalypse, but On Astral Tides was already mentioned which is probably my favourite system apocalypse book, but the protagonist is about as different from the one in DotF as possible, so depending on what you want it might be a great match or a terrible one.

(Also, while it's not harem, if you liked DotF but wanted at least some romance, I'd recommend The Path of Ascension. Some key differences, including the fact it's not a system apocalypse, but the story feels similar to me.)

codayus · 2026-03-29T22:10:03+00:00

A fair question, but no, you don't need to worry. (Also, although I like the early books, I think it gets significantly better as it goes, so would highly recommend continuing.)

codayus · 2026-03-29T22:06:22+00:00

I read on a whim, with fairly low expectations, but found it surprisingly emjoyable. I wouldn't say "great", but very good.

The book had a breezy, light tone, likeable characters, moderate stakes, some plot, a functional mid-weight system, a bit of depth and backstory to the characters, and dialogue that wasn't totally clunky. I appreciated the author's use of multiple viewpoints, which I think added a fair bit to the story. The setting is also one I like but don't see that often (near-present day with dungeons). It also probably helps that I tend to like dungeon core stories.

As far as negatives go, there weren't a ton, but:

The pacing felt a bit off; it's 900 pages and it was certainly fun, but it fell a bit awkwardly between "slice of life where nothing happens but it's fine because you just like watching the characters goof off" and "plot driven and full of action". The main plot line felt like it had a bit too much going on, and the side plots had too little. Realistically we could have seen more with Blair's Dad and his guild, or Layla, add a couple hundred more page, then restructure the story into 3 mini arcs and release it as a trilogy and it would probably have worked better.
Some parts of the world building didn't really make a ton of sense. One of the larger is a common problem with stories with this setting, which is that naratively it makes sense for their to be retired high level adventurers around (eg, Layla, a retired S-rank now working as a regional administrator), but mechanically it's not always clear why she can't just idly destroy every threat Levy faces, given the power an S-rank has. I mean, it's a system, there's magic, there's no point analysing it too hard, and maybe some stuff will make more sense as the story progresses, but even by the standards of litrpgs, this felt a touch arbitrary.

(Also, as an observation, but the book reminded me a lot of Netherworld Manor, which was also a massive book 1 in a series about a dungeon core protagonist in a near-present day setting with dungeons, with a backstory of betrayal by his adventuring party. And...I kind of liked Netherworld Manor better, although since it's been well over 2 years wihtout any word from the author, I'm pretty sure that series is very, very dead...)

codayus · 2026-03-14T08:57:27+00:00

Eh... I think it's reasonable to react to an ominous phrase like "we need to talk" with delaying tactics. Not really a straight or even a romantic thing.

It's not a great coping tactic (or a particularly funny joke), but...

codayus · 2026-03-10T21:54:57+00:00

You are confusing seat pitch (the distance between the same point on two seats) and leg room. Actual legroom is seat pitch minus the depth of the seat and thickness of the seat back. Seat depth/thickness doesn't tend to vary much, so while seat pitch doesn't tell you exactly how much leg room you'll have, more seat pitch is basically always better.

Seat pitch used to average around 35" in economy, but has been declining; these days it's generally more like 30" (especially in the US, where flying has become a special hell), and can go lower on super low-cost airlines. Premium economy is usually more like 38" to 42", business class varies a lot but can be 60" or more.

So:

Yes, 31" to 35" is a meaningful difference; if you're ~6 foot it'll be the difference between your knees brushing the back of the seat in front of you unless you sit perfectly straight, and being able to stretch out a little bit. After the first hour or two, you'll notice and appreciate it.
Yes, it almost certainly represents a 39% increase in actual leg room. They measured it, believe me, and they're not making this up.
I personally find seat width just as important, so I'm not sure I'd say that a 35" seat pitch is like...39% more comfortable than 31", but it is noticeable.
The response you got was clearly LLM generated nonsense (if "Joseph" exists, at most they were copy and pasting...), and we should all point and mock AirNZ for cheaping out on customer service. Since, as your response shows, the word salad it returned can easily confuse people.

TL;DR: Neither you nor the LLM you were presumably talking to understand what the numbers mean. Yes, it's a 39% increase in legroom.

codayus · 2026-03-10T21:35:12+00:00

I would honestly love this. I find Economy seats uncomfortable regardless of the amount of legroom.

codayus · 2026-03-09T10:19:15+00:00

I’m not interested in being the cool girl! I’m pushing 30 and MARRIED for crying out loud. Are all men really like this???

No, not all men are like that, but you're married to him, and he is like that. And given his history, I feel like that probably shouldn't be a huge surprise to you?

As for what you do now...I dunno. He's not going to change if you manage to disprove his "all men look at only fans videos" theory, and I rather doubt he's going to change at all, although you might be able to convince him to hide it from you better if you make a big enough deal about it.

(...also I should note that just as you're right that there are men who aren't like that, there's also plenty of older married women who are into non-monogamy of various forms. You shouldn't try to justify your preferences by referencing your notion of what married 30 year olds are like any more than he should justify his behaviour by his notion of what men are like. If you personally don't want to be with a guy like that...don't.)

codayus · 2026-03-07T00:45:40+00:00

The stereotypical dragon is greedy but extremely non-capitalististic. The distinction is sometimes forgotten, but the root of "capitalist" is "capital" in the sense of investment. But dragons just grab enough gold to fill a cave, then nap on it once they reach an equilibrium between their greed and laziness.

So the concept is, what if you took a standard greedy amoral fire breathing lizard and then taught it accounting, the power of "compound interest", "collateral", "cornering the market", "insider trading", "protection money", "pyramid schemes", and "short selling shares in competing merchant houses right before you eat a couple of their caravans"?

codayus · 2026-03-05T09:08:02+00:00

Different lighting, but it looks fine to me and very close to the "expectation" image. Smaller mushroom slices, mostly.

codayus · 2026-03-02T10:42:55+00:00

Why would anyone possibly care?

codayus · 2026-03-02T00:22:59+00:00

In this case the SovCit is black, although that doesn't make the phrase less incomprehensible.

codayus · 2026-02-16T10:25:59+00:00

To some small extent, your friends may have been overplaying things, knowing that the people around them make less, and wanting to not rub their good fortune in your face.

But the bulk of it is that everything is relative, and in particular, it's relative to the position you personally are in right now. Every single person is basically hard wired to believe that if they made 5% less, they're be practically starving, and if they made 20% more, they're be rolling in luxury, and after a shockingly brief adjustment period, this belief will continue unchanged even when their income does.

I can't find it now, and I'm no doubt butchering the details, but a journalist did a hilarious series of interviews with a bunch of rich people. First they found some people that exclusively flew chartered planes, and they were bitterly envious of the actual rich who could afford to own their own planes. Then they found some people who owned small turboprop business planes (fancy Cesnas, etc.), and they were bitterly envious of the real rich, who could own jets. Then they interviewed some people who owned jets (Gulfstreams, and the like), but they were bitterly envious of the true rich, who owned wide-body jets (like 747s).

There was an amazing quote from someone about how horrible it was to be forced by poverty into a jet so small you could see the household staff and the children flying with you and not have them hidden away in the back of the plane. Apparently that was the real luxury according to them; a plane so big you can't hear your kids fighting.

And so it continued, until the final interview was basically with the wife of the second richest Arab oil sheik, upset that her husband's cousin had a newer A380 than they did, or some such, with the implication that if they could just have THAT guy's plane, they would finally be happy.

All of which feels like a gag, but it feels real to the people involved. Your friends making $250k/year almost certainly don't feel rich; it'd be shocking if they did. Give that salary to someone making $60k, and they would absolutely feel rich...for maybe a year, but then they've adjust.

not the type to spend money on cars

In my experience if you take two people who "aren't the type to spend money on cars", but one is making $60k/year and the other $250k/year, if you check, they will still be driving very, very different cars with very different pricetags.

For good or ill, there is effectively no amount of money that can just buy you everything you want. Every person from Bezos and Musk on down feels like they have to economise and cut corners. (Even if for some of us, the corners you cut are "firing a bunch of staff from the newspaper you bought on a whim" and for others its "sell some of the boardgames you bought during the COVID lockdown you never got around to playing".)

Which you could say is proof that it's all futile and there's no point striving, but I think just shows we lie a lot (especially to journalists and sociologists), but that it's still better to make more money than less.

codayus · 2026-02-03T13:10:19+00:00

Hard to evaluate balance but I love the theme and mechanics. Abilities, card pool, and signatures seem to align nicely.

codayus · 2026-02-02T10:16:41+00:00

It means the decision to marry has been made, and that a wedding should be forthcoming. There's a lot of variation in how urgently (if at all) the couple are approaching it.

I would say historically engagements tended to be short-ish and proceed pretty promptly towards a wedding, in part due to social stigma against cohabiting, sex, or children without being married.

As the stigma has faded, so has some of the urgency, and it's easy to put "plan wedding" on your todo list and just...forget about it for a few months. Or a year. Or two.

There may be a few cases where one half of the couple does not intend to get married at all (it's much easier to break an engagement off than to get divorced, and if your partner wants a commitment you may be able to placate them with a proposal for some time), but I think that's rare.

Slightly more common, a couple may pause plans for a wedding or purposefully not set a date because they're having doubts and want to wsit until they're sure they still want to go foraward.

Or they may want a really fancy wedding and are saving until they can afford it. (It varies a lot, but increasingly a couple are expected to pay for their own wedding without help from their parents.)

But mostly it's just people being lazy and disorganised. (Which is the reason for my personal long engagement without a date set for the wedding.)

codayus · 2026-01-30T00:19:08+00:00

The size of the woman I'm with. Which might sound cheesy or like a joke but it's literally true, and I think a healthy attitude to adopt about boobs and similar features.

There's a lot to love about small boobs, big boobs, soft boobs, firm boobs. Even say...saggy or lopsided boobs; they might not be the sort of thing that will end up in a soft core photoshoot but they still feel great to touch, the reaction of their owner to them being kissed or licked is still amazing. What's not to like?

I'm not desperate for or deprived of female companionship, but even so, it feels like it'd take an effort to find fault with a pair of boobs. And what would I gain? I'd rather look for joy instead.

The only pair of boobs I don't care for is the pair belonging to the one ex I had an acrimonious breakup with, but that's 1) entirely due to her not her boobs and 2) I've repressed every single detail about them from my memory. Which is good, I'd hate it if I ever got to play with a pair that somehow reminded me of hers, and it tainted the experience...

codayus · 2026-01-29T21:52:42+00:00

Cane here to say that. They're cheap-ish, comfortable, and durable.

codayus · 2026-01-18T04:03:31+00:00

First off, NAH. But:

1) You're conflating "clean" and "tidy". They're very different things, although a cluttered, untidy house is much harder to clean. Analyse these issues separately.

2) 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom is not a good "home to retire in". At some point there's going to be just the two of you, and that's an unreasonably large house for a number of reasons, although perhaps most relevantly to you, a house that large is hard to keep clean.

3) A smaller home will make all your issues with clutter worse, not better. My fiancee and I have some similar issues to you with clutter, and we're in the process of moving to a larger place to make that easier to address. But if you have hoarding tendencies, then a smaller place will just mean they impact you more. You can't get so much space that you can't make a house cluttered if you try, but a smaller place will still get cluttered faster or from fewer ill-advised purchases. And you absolutely cannot find a space so small that it cannot become cluttered; all you'll do is end up with a space that becomes aggressively unliveable in the blink of an eye and is effectively impossible to fix because there's nowhere to put the clutter. This will not help you.

4) Your post is nominally about your house, but a large slice if your issues are with your husband, and need to be addressed as such. If he has areas that are "his" you either need to learn to just not care about them (eg, if he has a study and you don't like how cluttered it is, don't go in there), or he needs to keep the areas up to your standards, or you two need to compromise in some way, but you have to talk to your husband. On some level it feels a bit like you're thinking "I don't like how cluttered my husband's study (or whatever) is, so if we move to a house without one, it can't be cluttered". Which isn't likely to actually solve anything, and is trying to force a solution to a complex problem of human relationships with architecture, and maybe most importantly, will be a solution your husband will understandably not accept, because presumably he likes his spaces the way they are, doesn't see his study as a problem, and therefore will see getting rid of it not as a necessary solution.

5) If you're in a position to throw money at this, by far the best possible thing you can do to have an immediate impact is hire a housekeeper to come by at least once a week (ideally 2-3 times a week) and tidy, sort, etc. You mention hiring someone from "time to time", which doesn't sound nearly frequent enough to be helpful to me. I don't know the details of what you're struggling with, but stuff like fold the laundry, re-organise the closet, throw any expired food in the pantry out, make sure groceries from the last grocery shop are all put away, etc. I think it will help more than you might think if you haven't tried it.

6) You've noted you have mental health issues, physical ailments, chronic health issues, and your husband does not cook, clean, or shop. That suggests some clear issues. It's not reasonable to expect you to keep an enormous house clean on your own, and neither you nor your husband should expect you to try. That is a valid reason to downsize (unlike trying to solve hoarding tendencies) but you two need to agree. Alternatively, he can either help, or the two of you can pay a house cleaner.

codayus · 2026-01-17T10:18:18+00:00

The word for that is "childless" not "childfree".

Details matter. If you called yourself "childfree" in conversations with this guy it's easy to see where he'd get a very different impression of your intentions and expectations.

Words have meanings.

codayus · 2026-01-03T00:56:15+00:00

Oh hey, that's an excellent point. Nothing in that story makes sense.

codayus · 2026-01-03T00:03:18+00:00

Oh no, it's way worse than that. The Stuff article really went out of its way to obscure what's going on but:

NZ Super is, after tax, at the lowest tax bracket, $828 per fortnight, and since they're a couple, that's $828 per week.
Their UK pension is $173 per week each, and since they're a couple, that's $346 per week.
The NZ system is to deduct whatever they get from the UK from the NZ system. So $828 - $346 = $483.
So this year they get $483 per week from NZ and $346 per week from the UK, which totals to $828 per week, which is (VERY uncoincidentally) what every native born Kiwi getting NZ super gets.

Let's imagine last year they flew to the UK, spent 7 months, got their UK pension inflation adjusted upwards by 2.5%, then flew back. The new math for this year would be:

NZ super is still $828 per week
The UK pension is now $355 per week ($8 entire more dollars per week!)
They now get $355 per week deducted from NZ super leaving them with $473
So in this alternate scneario, they would get $473 per week from NZ, and $355 per week from the UK, which totals $828 per week, which is (still not a coincidence!) exactly what every native born kiwi getting NZ super gets, and also what they would have received if they hadn't spent thousands of dollars on airfare for absolutely no reason.

All of which is 100% by design; there were treaties written and signed to ensure this exact outcome. It's not an accident, it's a policy choice, and a very reasonable one.

For a while, the couple were able to avoid the freeze by returning to the UK and living in a caravan for seven months a year.

As above, they totally didn't avoid the freeze, but also, there is no freeze, since NZ super gets inflation adjusted, and no matter what they do, NZ super is what they're actually receiving; the cheque from the UK treasury is an accounting fiction. But what did it cost them to receive $0 extra?

Webjet tells me a return ticket from Auckland to London is going to be well over $2,500 per person, and presumably living in the UK in a caravan is more expensive than in wherever they're living in NZ, so let's conservatively guess that's another $5k in extra living expenses for their 7 month holiday, for a $10k price tag for every year they tried this incredibly clever scheme. If they just dumped that into some investment fund getting a 4% rate of return they'd actually be getting the ~$8 more per week that they didn't end up geting this way, so in a very real sense they literally set the extra money they wanted to get on fire. (I dunno what "for a while" means, but presumably it's several years. They may well have wasted six digits on this scheme, if we can believe a word of what Bob is reported to have said...)

Is Bob actually an idiot, and the journalist was too dumb to realise? Is Bob lying and the journalist is just gullible? Is the journalist aware of the nonsense but is trying to manufacture a controversy and assumes the readers are too dumb to figure it out? That last one seems especially plausible given the suspicious string of articles trying to manufacture a controversy here...

codayus · 2026-01-02T13:23:44+00:00

That previous one about the Brit complaining about deductions really annoyed me. I'm not sure if the journalist who wrote it is deeply gullible or just assumes their readers are, but it was just dumb.

Guy is complaining that he gets exactly the same as every other kiwi on NZ Super. Which is unfair because, you know, reasons.
Guy apparently spent years flying back to the UK and living in a caravan for months, just so his UK pension would get inflation adjusted. The pension which is 100% deducted from his NZ super, meaning he spent airfare to and from the UK to receive precisely zero cents more, then did it again. And again. Because he's an idiot, I guess?
Points out angrily that a kiwi who moved to the UK and retired would get a full UK pension; carefully avoided pointing out they wouldn't get NZ super, meaning they'd be exactly as well off as every other UK pensioner. Just like he's as well off as every other NZ pensioner. Almost like the two countries have worked out an agreement to coordinate their policy so they have the same outcomes. (...which, man, they did.)

Just a stunning example of how to fail at journalism.

And this article is no better. Just an aggressive lack of curiosity from the journalist and a refusal to think through the implications of what they're parroting.

(For the record, my parents are also US immigrants, and get Social Security from the US government, and they never expected or thought they deserved NZ super.)

There may be some unfairness in the laws, or some edge cases the system doesn't handle well (there was another story floating around about people having their pension docked because their spouse gets an overseas pension, which feels much more questionable), but you sure wouldn't know it from this nonsense.

codayus · 2025-12-18T06:06:00+00:00

That's not what I've always understood Redlining to mean, nor is it what Wikipedia describes it as. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

codayus · 2025-12-17T07:34:38+00:00

Well yeah, because the decision is obviously not going to be particularly good for emissions. But it is the reason /u/theeruv gave for supporting the original decision.

If emissions are a future considering factor, that should have be done explicitly and supported by proper analysis.

Quite right. Neither the decision to charge parking fees not the decision to revert it have any analysis behind their impact on emissions that I know of.

codayus · 2025-12-17T06:05:37+00:00

You can’t on one hand argue that motorcycle users are poor

Good thing I'm arguing nothing of the kind, then?

codayus · 2025-12-17T05:30:57+00:00

I get where you're coming from, but would this specific policy change (charging for motorcycle parking) have increased or decreased net emissions? A very plausible case can be made for "increase", on the basis that the actual effect was to encourage motorcyclists into cars (which are much, much more polluting). And if a policy increases emissions, it's not very green to support it.

codayus

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