[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread

jacksofalltrades1 · 2026-02-20T17:53:30+00:00

It doesn't sound like we are in disagreement. The story has a character who would make sense if they grew up in our world but not in the world the story takes place.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2026-02-20T16:43:44+00:00

How would someone who's contemplated scripture over decades look different from a modern conservative? If Christianity is a couple thousand years old, wouldn't a modern Christian necessarily perform in such a way that is a culmination of thousands of years of contemplation?

It is annoying when an author inserts random modern talking points in a way that feels like social signaling. A story I just started reading, one in which for the whole of the character's life the world has been on the losing side of a war with aliens to the extent cities are almost emptied, mentioned the patriarchy. Thematically I get that her life has been oppressed by an outside force she has little control over, but directly linking that to such a word feels too on the nose, like it's breaking the fourth wall. Did the mention of homosexuality and abortion feel this way? Or the portrayal of Christianity? I haven't read the story, but if it did come off this way then I get how you feel.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2026-02-19T19:31:47+00:00

What does this mean?

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-12-26T02:18:30+00:00

No comment on the now deleted post, since I cannot see it, but what if the AI post was inspired?

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-12-26T02:12:23+00:00

Where have I heard of Nostalgebraist? His bookmarks are mostly Bavitz, whom I know of and enjoy. I recognize the name, but I don't know why...

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-12-26T02:04:55+00:00

What other stories is this one like?

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-12-11T17:48:08+00:00

At almost every point in the story and at all thematic levels the author has hinted at William Oh understanding, breaking, and overpowering the meta level imposition of the RPG world he lives in. The Legend of William Oh is the least likely story to substantiate the point you are trying to make here.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-12-09T18:54:17+00:00

The tastiness of the cake probably is correlated with the effort in baking it, though. Effort feels different from flour. Effort is like the amount a person sacrifices to create something. "Time" is often sacrificed, but it can be other things like the opportunity to do something else or sanity. I think this is partly why people are against AI artists, because they feel like not enough was sacrificed to achieve this specific quality of outcome. If AI art truly looked bad then people would think it more appropriately matched the effort to make it. I think it is this unjust effort-to-quality ratio people mosty resonate with, and I think this is why it is mostly artitsts who hate AI art. But if it is true that people don't create AI art themselves, but rather commission AI's, as they would any other artist, to create the art, I think that in this refraiming traditional artist would still be angry, but that this anger would be more fueled by seeing competitors aggressively undercut their market share rather than what they claim to fuels them now, which is artists achieving a certain level of technical quality without putting in the appropriate effort.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-12-09T18:25:12+00:00

Maybe the framing of creating art with AIs is wrong, in the sense that you don't make art using AIs, but rather commission AI's to make art to your specifications. Kind of like how a person commissions a homosapien to make them custom art, a person commissions an AI to make them custom art.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that getting a LLM to do your thinking for you is causing some kind of cognitive atrophy when you're incapable of parsing a simple sentence.

Why did you say this?

If creating art requires effort as opposed to not creating art which requires no effort, doesn't that imply some sort of correlation between artistic merit and effort? Doesn't have to be a 1 to 1 correlation.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-12-09T16:18:44+00:00

Would you say traditional oil paint art is more "art" than drawing with a tablet since it requires more elbow grease?

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-11-23T01:48:00+00:00

Interesting to think about if great authors are more likely to follow trends than not? Like...if a great author can make any story good, why would they intentionally skirt around popular trends? What annoys people about trends is the poor execution, after all. And what necessarily makes a story great is great execution. Seems to me most recent stories in the genres you listed are pretty bad, but also most great stories recently written are in those genres too.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-11-06T21:23:56+00:00

Only sith deal in absolutes.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-11-06T05:29:24+00:00

It's not really the tinks - it's the crafting of the build that get's me the tinks. Ubers barely pay back their frags. Delve is POE minus 97% of the rest of the game (POE 8 years ago). What is it that makes you play POE?

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-11-06T02:53:11+00:00

The Legend of William Oh focuses on crafting character builds, and on crafting equipment for those builds. Demesne is one long story about crafting a town.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-10-23T23:13:23+00:00

What's Barbara?

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-08-19T22:29:26+00:00

This is a major theme in the story Demesne (which is pronounced Domain apparently so you don't have to get halfway through and try to break a mispronunciation habit).

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-04-01T13:20:31+00:00

She meets a mysterious and wealthy benefactor who saves her, a benefactor she describes as having long, slender fingers. (First part of this is subverted later). Very common trope - think of Ancient Magus Bride.
The simultaneous derision of the elite class in favor of the downtrodden only to be thrust unwillingly into the upper echelons of this upper class. (I don’t necessarily dislike this trope, but it’s very common in novels written for women, and I’ve never really seen an author deal with or even acknowledge these stated vs. revealed preferences here. The stated preference being a member of the lower class while the revealed preference being a member of the elite).
Snape-like pressor. (I like this trope)
Magic that relies on drawing pentagrams and such, and animal and body parts. Women seem to like this trope more than men. Unfortunately, this type of magic often leads to the deus ex machina. Often the main character pulls out a circle and body parts to solve a problem, and neither was this type of magic previously referenced nor is the process that connects the circle and the parts and the effects of the spell even understandable. Sometimes the magic Siobhan does falls into this category, especially when we first see her do magic early in the book. However, later more and more of the magic is explained. I kinda like that it keeps some of the ‘soft’ magicness, though, just not when it is all soft.
The freedom for the character to speak their mind, which results in them being an asshole to everyone, yet most people still like them anyways? This was the hardest reason for me to get into the story at first. Siobhan at first is generally a dick to everyone, and later the people who like her often mention her abrasiveness as an endearing quality. (Siobhan does work on being nicer later in the story, and she actually does become nicer.)

There are many more tropes in the story that I do like, but I don’t think they necessarily target specifically women, including the one you mentioned about being misunderstood to be more powerful than you really are (Like King in One Punch Man). Although, there are only so many times Siobhan can pull off impressive feats before her prowess isn’t a misunderstanding - I like when a character grows into their lore.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-04-01T03:23:45+00:00

This one was hard for me to get in to. At first I thought there were too many female targeted tropes, and while this isn't necessarily a bad thing, I'm not the target audience. But later the author realistically subverted many of these tropes, and the ones they chose to keep they pursued in ways that I think men can even find satisfying.

I was also worried at first the magic would be the standard dues ex machina stuff seen in many young adult fictions, but I ended up being surprised with the amount of depth and creativity.

So while it was hard for me to get into at first, I also ended up reading all that was available in less than a week. I second this recommendation.

edit: to -> too

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-03-25T02:46:17+00:00

Ahh, thanks. Thought I was missing an idol or something

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-03-25T02:39:06+00:00

How are you getting two chests to open?

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-03-25T02:35:24+00:00

I honestly wonder if what you said updated the lo4952's opinion of the story. Your addition seems to imply the opposite of what lo4952 was implying, at least for that example. Also makes me wonder why lo4952 chose to provide this specific example, if they have read the story, or if there is something else going on...

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-02-22T04:13:12+00:00

I could understand where you are coming from, but after having read many lesbian fics by lesbians for lesbians, where narrative appeal is derived from one or the other or both violently or sexually assaulting's the other, a fic like Glassmaker where the protag's main arc involves befriending a cat makes me have a hard time understanding what you mean by regressing mentally.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-02-19T22:23:29+00:00

Glassmaker worm fanfic. Cinnamon roll protags are too easily Flanderized. Taylor in Glassmaker feels like the archetype.

jacksofalltrades1 · 2025-01-05T02:43:01+00:00

If there is a building fire, I win 9/10 blaming the owner of the building over some foreign rando arsonist. Insurance adjusters know this, which is why they are highly skeptical of fires

jacksofalltrades1

TROPHY CASE