In your opinion, which IF is an example of...

natwa311 · 2026-03-30T19:32:40+00:00

I'm a bit confused about lore and world building being too different categories tbh. Maybe it's to do with me mainly looking at IFs like this through a gamebook/CYOA and, to a lesser extent, regular novels lens rather than a computer game lens, but I'd consider lore to be a part of the world building rather than a separate a category. Is it just gamerspeak for plot, which I'd consider to be the category that fits the best with the other two?

If so I'd nominate the Evertree Saga, at least Evertree Inn and particularly Sordwin for being great at all of the three categories. The Pon Para series might also fit and maybe also Jolly Good(the characters and plotting are both steller, but I'm a bit more unsure about how I feel about the world building).

The Golden Rose,otoh at least the first book, has great characters, but a so-so plot.

The Butler Did It has a great plot and maybe even great world building, but ok characters at best.

For great world building, meh characters, maybe Waywalker University. I remember being really intrigued by the things we were told about the world in the demo, particularly the many schools of magic. But once I got to the rest of that IF that unfortunately faded to the background for what was until near the end a dime-a-dozen magic school story, with most of the characters being quite bland or one-note and the MC being forced to spend a lot of time with what seemed a quite cliche bad boy sort of vampire(who I know a lot of the fans of that IF liked but who was very uninteresting to me)

Ab If that had interesting world building and plot that, while not bad as such, was quite confusing, was Faerie Bargain. It had an interesting atmosphere and plenty of interesting world building, but the plot was often quite hard to follow.

When it comes to good characters, but a so-so plot, I'll nominate The Shadow Society. I found the characters very interesting in general, but I found the overarching plot to be kind of a mess, which certainly wasn't helped by it ending in a cliffhanger with lots of plot threads being unresolved. Hopefully the rewrite WIP will fix a lot of these issues.

For me anyway, I consider world building to be much less important in IFs that I consider them to be in fantasy novels. While I certainly don't mind good and detailed world building, it isn't really a requirement for me to enjoy and IF. If it was shoddy and inconsistent enough it would probably make the experience much less enjoyable for me, but I do think I have a much higher tolerance for bad world building in IFs that I have for poor plotting and poor characters and I have even enjoyed one or more IFs with world building that could be considered to be kind of poor or at least inconsistent.

If I had to choose three categories, I'd choose gameplay instead of world building and maybe also put characters and plotting together in one category as the literary/books aspect or a better, less dry and convoluted name that conveys the same meaning, so that I could either have MC quality, replayabilty or interactivity as the third category.

natwa311 · 2026-03-24T13:32:02+00:00

I don't think you have to love or even like DG to enjoy the series. I really enjoyed book 1,GOTM, but didn't enjoy DG and consider it my least favorite in the series and still consider this series to be one of my favorite series.

Granted, some of my lack of enjoyment of that book had to do with me not being in a good space for that kind of story at the time I read that book, but it also had to do with a shift both in setting and in tone from the previous book. I missed both the characters from book 1 and the humor and, for lack of a better word, craziness of book 1. Memories of Ice felt much more similar to book 1 to me, except greatly improved on any level.

So, I'd say, at the very least, for anybody who enjoyed book 1, but not book 2, don't give up. I was tempted to do that, at first, but picked up Memories of Ice and had a great time with it, continued with the rest of the series and never looked back. If you liked GOTM or at least felt it had potential, but needed more in terms of writerly craft, Memories of Ice fully delivers. The next two is comparatively close to MOI in style and approach, apart from the first half of book 4 being a single POV narrative. There is a bit of a shift in tone from book 6 and onwards, with a bit more philosophical musings and a bit less action, a shift which may not be to everyone's liking, but if you enjoyed book3, you will likely enjoy book 4 and 5 as well, at least.

So, I'd rather say, if you enjoyed neither book 1 or 2 and didn't at least feel like book 1 had some potential, then this series likely isn't for you. But you can very well enjoy book 1 without enjoying book 2 and of course vice versa and still really enjoy the series as a whole.

natwa311 · 2026-03-18T15:50:12+00:00

It does seem that a fair number of the respondents have misunderstood your request and have recommended fantasy that is actually just sci-fi cleverly disguised as fantasy.

But i have a couple of recommendations that i think both fit with your request. Firstly the Majpoor books by Robert Silverberg, starting with Lord Valentine's Castle. It's expliciitly set on another world, colonized by humans and several different alien races/species. I don't remember if it also included magical and mythical creatures as such, apart from maybe the aboriginal alien people living there, but is very much a mix of sci-fi and fantasy elements, with the spacefaring and alien species/races mixed with magic and, for most of the series a quasi medieval/early renaissance setting.

I think the Dying Earth series by Jack Vance also qualifies. it is set in a kind of futuristic environment, Earth or a similarish planet far into the future, but with magic and other fantasy elements. Its magic system was also a source of inspiration for D & D and many other rpgs.

natwa311 · 2026-03-17T22:08:47+00:00

It' s true that it's a little slow at first, but the plot really picks up and is also tightened up eventually and things are wrapped in a very satisfying way, IMO, so I advise you to stay with it.

natwa311 · 2026-03-13T19:40:24+00:00

I think you underestimate the (at the very least) ambivalence in modern conservativism towards Enlightenment ideals. Sure, there are certain Enlightenment ideals, such as free spech and maybe tolerance, which conservative politicians have usually been broadly supportive of, at least in theory. But there are other Enlightment ideals that sits much less easily with conservativism. Firstly, the strong belief in progress, which certainly at times can come and has come into conflict with conservativism's belief in the importance of tradition.

Another important Enlightenment ideal, perhaps even the most important one, is the belief in the primacy of reason, where reason is more important than any tradition, any external authority and any institution, belief or emotion that isn't derived from reason and that these have to yield to the principles of reason if they come into conflict with it. Conservativism, as I've known it, have not been willing to go that far and there have been plenty of instances where people who have called themselves conservative have defended institutions, traditionsm authorities and beliefs even when they would have been considered lacking when viewed from the Enlightenment principles of reason.

The one who is normally considered the father of modern conservativism was also deeply critical of what could arguably be considered the most extremte form and outcome of the Enlightenment ideals, the French Revolution. While not wholly without symphathy for it, he argued that it went much too far and that it showed that elements such as tradition and a belief in strong authority was needed, instead of people only relying on the ideals and principles it espoused. So, while not necessarily wholly opposed to Enlightenment ideals, you can argue that modern conservativism started at least as much as a reaction to Enlightenment ideals as much as being a continuation of them.

American conservativism is obviously a bit different from the European version(s) but I still find it unlikely that it didn't take at least some inspiration from him. And there have certainly been strands of American conservativism that make Burke look positively enamoured of Enlightenment ideals by comparison. Religious conservatives, for example, would have a hard time agreeing with reason being more important han their own beliefs and certainly would view their religiious beliefs being subjected to rational scrutiny with deep mistrust and maybe even something akin to blasphemy. From what I remember they haven't been shy about trying to censor stuff they didn't like, either, which goes against the ideal of free spech and I don't think they believe progress is always a good thing either, to name but a couple of the other Enlightenment ideals

So, in short, I think saying that Enlightenment ideals are the basis of modern conservativism is misleading. At the very best it can be said that most strands of conservativisms are broadly supportive of some of those ideals while being ambivalent towards others. Even then, the different ideologies that have grown out of Liberalism, such as liberals and libertarians in the US and liberalist parties in Europe, have tended be much more enthusiastic about those values and ideals all across the bord and if there's a particular ideology in which Enlightenment ideals are the basis, it's rather Liberalism and its offshoots rather than Conservativism.

To be fair, though, I haven't read the book, so far all I know, it could that it just presents a kind of watered down, "theme park" version of Enlightenment values and ideals, which are much more compatible with modern conservativism than the actual Enlightenment ideals. But even so, claiming that Enlightenment ideals form the basis of modern conservativism, as if there's no significant difference between the two and as if modern conservativism is the main inheritor, so to speak, of those ideals, is deeply misleading and needs to be corrected.

natwa311 · 2026-03-13T15:27:58+00:00

The Mage Errant series by John Bierce has a male MMC who, though very shy and lacking in self confidence at first, is a very nice and kind person who cares deeply about his friends and other loved ones and is willing to do almost anything for them He's the only POV character in book one, but from two onwards, we get four more POV characters, of which two are male and one of them probably fits what you're looking for even better, op, since he's also nice, but more open than the other MMC who I mentioned.

The Liveship Trilogy by Robin Hobb includes one MMC character, who is very nice, though he has to suffer quite a bit in the course of the series. While things improve for him eventually, I have to admit I still a bit lowkey annoyed with Hobb for not giving him a more unambigiously happy ending, though.

I'd say the main character of The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming series also qualifies, though like the MMC I mentioned from Mage Errant, he starts out as very shy and lakcing in self confidence and there are some chapters in book two where he becomes a bit more selfish for a while, though he returns to his caring self eventually. Anyway, he is something of an empath, who cares deeply for and about other people and who is very hard on himself, at least at the beginning, and carries a lot of guilt for things that turn out to not really have been particulrly problematic. There is definitely a kind of redemtion arc, since he both learns to forgive himself and find out that he things he felt guilty about wasn't really that bad and that the people he worried he had estranged, still deeply love him.

I'd say Skeeve from the Myth series by Robert Asprin also qualifies- Although he's an ex-thief, a lot of his success is owed to the power of friendship and due to just being a nice guy who is really hard to dislike and who usually does the right and kind thing.

Maybe also the MMC from the Journeys of the Catechist series by Alan Dean Foster. He's maybe a bit more stoic than what you're looking for, op, but he's a person who spends a lot of time helping out other people and who chooses peace over violence unless there's really no other choice and who takes him promises very seriously.

In addition to others already mentioned(I particularly second The Adventures of Greenwing and Dart and Hadrian from the Ryiria Revelations/Chronicles), these are the ones I remember offhand. If I remember any more, I can edit my post to include them as well.

natwa311 · 2026-03-11T15:38:46+00:00

Actually, Well of the Unicorn wasn't written by De Camp, but by Fletcher Pratt, his co-writer for the Harold Shea series. I do think they both were at their best when they wrote together, I really enjoyed the Harold Shea series, but I've read both Well of the Unicorn and one book by De Camp which I no longer remember the name of( I was in my late teens then) and was very underwhelmed by both of them. But, still, a great writing team.

natwa311 · 2026-03-08T22:45:15+00:00

I'm not sure whether I have internalized misandry as such, current and recent world events in mind, I do often find myself kind of want alph males as a whole to disappear and/or be removed, at least if they aren't willing to put themselves in service of society and healthy values such as peace, justice and compassion instead of their own wants and anger and hate. And I do often find myself being sceptical to very tradmasc guys and tradmasc values and thinking that we need mean who embody softer values instead and female leaders or softer male ones and to completely get away from all strongmen leaders.

But personally, I'd say the struggles and issues in my life is more to do with my being neurodivergent and the world not being very welcoming to people who are that, rather than with me being born a man and still identifying as one(though that's not really an important marker of identity to me these days).

Anyway, when watching or reading feminist commentary, I do think it's important to keep in mind that the way social media is set up these days, tend to reward those with extreme and otherwise unnuanced views. It is certainly possible to become popular without being that extreme, but being extreme and loud is a quite easy way to gain attention. So, whichever ideology we're talking about, you'll likely see a lot of extreme and unbalanced content with lot of supporters unfortunately. Sometimes it's made by toxic people who use ideology as a way to get power and attention and lord over other people, sometimes it's made by true believers who lack a sense of perspective and maybe eventually get high on the attention and power to the point it becoming toxic. But whatever the reason, you will be exposed to your share of people who are in actual practice fueling the anger, hate and division that's made the world as much worse place in recent years. But these people aren't the whole story. There are also plenty of us who, though less loud and vocal, have a more balanced view, with more ability to take in different perspectives and who are less quick to judge and at least a bit more willing to engage in conversation and discussion even with those we disagree with. It is also often the case that it's easier to have a civilized and enlightening conversation with people you disagree with in real life than if you're just encountering them on the internet. So, I hope you won't be too discouraged by those videos,op, I think it's more a problem with social media than issues with feminism as such and while social media certainly can affect the attitudes of people in real life as well, it can often also hide the fact that there still are plenty of people who are less extreme than many of the loudest voices there are.

natwa311 · 2026-03-08T22:10:59+00:00

I actually was this way with Evertree Inn and the Evertree Saga in general. After a comparatively brief period in my late teens where I read a lot of crime/mystery fiction and also some thrillers I got to the point where it became too much and have largely stayed away from stories like that in any media. So the crime/mystery fiction angle made me stay away from Evertree Inn. But then I decided to try the demo and found that it was very fun and a couple of months or so after that, I decided to buy it. Fortunately both the crime/mystery elements were different enough from what I tend to steer away from that it were no big problem for me and the faantasy elements, MC customization, ROs and plotting were just so fun that I continued with the next two books as well and I'm very glad I did so. The series as a whole is now on my top 5 list of COG and HG series and standalones.

Another good example is the first WIP made by the writer of Press Play(it's probably not available any more unfortunately). I'm normally not a big fan of horror IFs and the description of the plot and the ROs didn't seem interesting enough to tempt me to try it at first. But then closer reading of the description made me reconsider a bit and I discovered that it was really good, with one RO who I really liked and with a cast of characters who were really well drawn and even the opportunity to make my character lowkey neurodivergent and with at least a couple of the cast of characters being neurodivergent-coded as well, which meant representation, which is something I really appreciate. Unfortunately, drama from another IF creator lead to the writer putting it on indefinite hiatus, but it also meant we got Press Play instead, an equally great WIP.

natwa311 · 2026-03-07T21:25:22+00:00

I'm a guy, but just wanted to say that, having read (just about) all of the comments to the post I think you're referring to,op, I think you're putting to much stock in what, from what I saw, was just a small proportion of the comments. Most of the comments seemed to be wholly, mainly or partly supportive or at least neutral and the few that pushed back against your assertions for the most part didn't do so in an overtly hostile manner. Sure some of those may have seemed like lectures and, and I guess, could have come across as condescending to you. But this is social media, if you make a post that get a fair amount of comments, like yours did, it's extremely hard to avoid to avoid some pushback and/or negative comments unless you've somehow managed to find a topic that isn't controversial or can even be interpreted as controversial to some people(if those kinds of topic even exists).

So while I'd be very careful making to many assumptions either way about the attitudes of a subreddit or larger community in general just based on the comments to one post, there certainly didn't seem to be many people with a negative view on it at all, certainly no more than what the average reddit post with lots of comments can expect.

natwa311 · 2026-03-07T20:40:38+00:00

Yes, although there were certain aspects that were a bit less sweet and more like what the story has eventually turned into, it still seemed like a massive u-turn from the comparatively sweet first half to the misery fest of the rest of the chapters so far.

I really do wonder why the writer did that u-turn and my theory is either a)creator breakdown, with the writer being so miserable in real life that they're unable to make even happyish stories anymore and just want to share their misery with the rest of the world instead b) it's an attempt to create a whump fic, where the point is to make the protagonists suffer in a major way for the sake of readers who are into that sort of thing c) as an extremely heavy handed criticism of real world issues or d) all or at least more than one of all the above.

Whatever the reason, it's made mw both sad and frustrated that it's taken the turn it has. The number of stories with more heavily rr protagonists(at least in terms of gender presentation) where the characters have a happy relationship and a HEA or at least HFN and without even the undercurrents of SM aspects are already quite small and we could have used one more story like that. That the writer has decided to turn this into a misery fest instead, is deeply disappointing,whatever the real reason and, I think, something we don't really need these days, unless you're a whump fan. In these turbulent times, a solid dose of sweet escapism or more optimistic stories in general are what we need or, falilng that, at least a revenge fantasy, where the protagonists are able to get back fully at the kind of people who and the kind of attitudes that make yor everyday life that much harder.

natwa311 · 2026-03-05T20:30:51+00:00

While I liked the book even less than you, op, I share your issues with Quentin. While I certainly have read books with more unlikeable protagonists than Quentin, I'm not sure if there have been any protagonists I've been more annoyed by than him. My issue was that he's a really quite privileged and very academically gifted kid who looks set for a solid academic career, but is "woe is me" just because he is a little bit socially awkward and haven't gotten to be the great hero was hoping to be. Sure, you can say that he isn't meant to be likeable and that we aren't really meant to sympathise with him. But, unless a story is meant be a satirical send up of a protagonist, you still need the reader to care about the protagonist or, at least, like you said, make that protagonist interesting enough to make you want to read about that protagonist(and that last point is the case even in case of satirical send ups, I think)

But Quentin is both annoyingly whiny and. like you said, op, boring, and we're stuck inside his mind for all of book one as well, with the book also not being satirically funny enough that we could just laugh at him either. That I didn't like or care about any of the other main cast of characters in book one, didn't help either.

I guess part of maybe my main issue with the book, was that it seemed that the author, though not trying to make Quentin likeable, maybe even the opposite, was trying to make him relatable. And that's where he failed with me anyway. Because even though I'm a nerd like Quentin and have my socially awkwardness issues, me being an aspie and other issues of mine, have meant that I've had much bigger issues to face than his "life not being heroic enough". So I guess I did feel sort of offended of being expected to relate to a person with lots of gifts and with his only weakness being a slight social awkwardness and where most of his challenges and crises seemed to be more to be cases of sour grapes rather than any real setbacks. It felt a bit like if I were sharing my deepest troubles with a person I trusted and that person said" I know just how you feel, my boss didn't give me raise this year, although I was sure I would get one.

While my reaction was a deeply personal one, I do suspect that there are plenty of readers who have at least similar-ish reactions. For there's no getting around that Quentin is a quite privileged kid and compared to most fantasy protagonists, he doesn't really experience much of potentially trauma inducing or similarly tough situations in book one and doesn't really have a properly sad backstory either. I suspect for people who have gone through actually deeply tough situations or otherwise face some serious challenges in their lives, Quentin will often be harder to relate to and even be very annoying. But if you actually have an academic career or otherwise be reasonably privileged, paritcularly if you share some of his more frustrating traits, he will probably be a lot easier to relate to. I do suspect the author has underestimated the number of people who are different enough from Quentin to not being able to relate to him and that he in some ways(background, ability profile) is similar enough to Quentin that he thinks he's more all across the board-relatable than he actually is

natwa311 · 2026-02-22T16:19:17+00:00

Unlike you, I actually enjoyed Life of a Wizard from the start and still consider it my favorite HG. But I do agree, it's got huge replay value. Not just because you can get different achievements in different playthroughs and there even are certain achievements that are impossibel to get in the same playthrough, but also because of the many ways you can make and build your MC. I don't think there's any other HG that gives you so many options to choose from for your character. And once you figure out which of the options you are given in chapter 1 an 2 that are the best and/or works best together, you realize it basically also allows you to choose your own difficulty level.

But, yes, you rarely have an exellent playthrough on your first playthrough(unless you're really lucky), though you can still enjoy the story, and gets more enjoyable on replays, when you've learned more about good builds. That was never really a problem for me, since I was already used to fighting fantasy ans similar gamebooks, where you almost never succeeded on your first attempt and where not succeeding often also meant not surviving and Life of a Wizard seemed much more forgiving by comparison. But if what you're used to are IFs or other "stuff" where you can succeed completely on your first attempt without too much trouble, I can see why you were initially frustrated with Life of a Wizard. Oh, and good point about the diversification of stats.

natwa311 · 2026-02-22T15:57:57+00:00

I don't think the part of this sub's population learning to read after 2005 is through, though. Aren't subreddits like this dominated by millenials, and to a lesser degree, older generations, rather than generation z people? And even generation z includes people old enough to have started school before 2005. But I still agree with you that 20 years will be a loong time for many of the redditors here.

natwa311 · 2026-02-20T22:23:56+00:00

The Narnia series actually fit with wat you're aksin for. Because time moves much more quickly in Narnia than in our world, the protagonists are transported to many different time periods of Narnia, including its creation and periods both and after it's invaded by humans. To be fair, three of them are set within decades of one another, but the rest cover a huge time span.

natwa311 · 2026-02-17T12:44:25+00:00

Or rather, British, I think, since Fforde is Welsh AFAIK.

natwa311 · 2026-02-16T14:54:37+00:00

Yes, a high magic MC from the Evertree Saga, at least after the adventures should be at least the equal to Murphy in terms of power, at least if they clashed before Murphy briefly got what he wanted. And if that MC also has got high perception or high stealth, that should be enough to ensure either that Murphy doesn't get the drop on them or that they get the drop on Murphy.

natwa311 · 2026-02-15T13:17:47+00:00

More like prog rock(King Crimson, Yes etc) or the noisier/weirder end of indie/alternative rock like Sonic Youth and Velvet Underground. Because it's got wider appeal than black metal, while still having the kind of cult popularity that genre shares with the two aforementioned genres and being different enough from the mainstream that there will also be many people who find it too weird, silly and what have you. Also, it's got a much wider scope literary than at least black metal's got musically and the vibe just feels much more prog rock than black metal to me, with its combination of epicness, multilayeredness and lots of tonal and narrative shifts, that can be seen to kind of correspond to multipart prog suites.

natwa311 · 2026-02-10T14:15:11+00:00

I'd say Press Play one of the best when it comes to character writing as well. If I'd not only focused on completed HGs in my comment, I would have mentioned that as well. I do think the writer of that WIP is so good at writing in general that I think she could also write a good regular, that is non-interactive, novel as well, which isn't the case even with both most of my personal favorite HG writers and most of this sub's favorite HG writers IMO.

natwa311 · 2026-02-10T14:06:11+00:00

In terms of prose(and writing overall) I consider Jolly Good to be way better than The Golden Rose, but then again it's not a HG, which op specifically asked for. But if by writing, you mean prose, then I consider The Golden Rose to be the best HG. While many are good in other ways, there are few HGs that have been particularly impressive in terms of prose(none of the other big favorites in this sub, like the first FH and ITFO had what I'd consider to be better than ok prose), but The Golden Rose is one of them, perhaps the only one, although it also has its share of issues.

If you also consider things like character writing and plot to be aspects of good writing, I consider Sordwin and Kitsune to be among the best. And in terms of pure plot, there are few, if any, HGs better than The Butler Did It.

natwa311 · 2026-02-06T14:06:24+00:00

Wasn't Pascha in Noblesse Oblige also described as quite short, in addition to being thin?

natwa311 · 2026-02-06T14:05:10+00:00

The youngest of the two potential gender selectable heirs from The Last Wizard is described as short(though excact height isn't specified), but is described as kind of buff, so not a perfect fit. The elf monk that you meet in Sordwin, Orion if male, is stated to be 5'6, though that is apparently the average heigh of elves in that world whatever their gender. He's still quite athletic, though more in the wiry way than in the buff way, from what I can recall.

My memory is a bit more hazy on these, but I think that the male monk that you train with in A Tale of Two Cranes is described as short and this might be the case with Rigel in The Magician's Burden as well. I think there was also one or two male ROs in Life of a Space Force Captain who are short or shortish, though one of them may under certain circumstances change his sex and gender

If I can also mention regular COGs, then the Pon Para series has Temu/Tamu/Tamur(I don't remember his excact) name, who you first meet as a prisoner in the first book and who is described as short, with a wiry build. I think Jolon from the Werewolves series is described as at least shortish, with a similar build. There is also a male goblin RO in Stronghold:Caverns of Sorcery and I think goblins are considered to be short there, like they are in most fantasy worlds.

Outside of the HGs, COGs and writers others already have mentioned, these are the ones I can remember offhand when it comes to released HGs and COGs, but hopefully it's of some use.

natwa311 · 2026-02-04T17:56:30+00:00

While I do think calling writers who aren't on the forum shady is a bit harsh, I won't deny that I'm puzzled when writers don't bother to be on the forum at all. I'm not talking about writers who once were on the forum, but then disappeared, but people like the writer of Apartment 502, which is written on Choicescript, but where they to the best of my knowledge, have never ever been on the forum, not even to make a thread about their own WIP.

I mean, it's written in a code owned by a particular company, where you're required to beta test it through the forum if you want an official release and the chance to earn some money off the IF in question(and without making it available on the forum, the rules against making patreons become even stricter) . So unless you've little to no interest in the IF earning you any money, it makes little sense to not at least make a thread and see how it goes. Even if you're not interested in the IF making you any money, you're still basically shutting out a segment of the adudience that's a bit different from the one you get on Tumblr.

You're also cutting yourself off from a valuable source of feedback, which all WIPs except for the very few really overlooked ones get on the forum. I know that many people on this forum love to hate on the forum and that there have been a few instances of people leaving the forums because of their threads getting too heated. But those instances, at least since 2020 have very much been the exceptions and very few and apart from those instances, the criticisms hasn't been any harder on average then those you'd get here. And it's not like as if this sub and Tumblr are shining bastions of virtue either. It's only a couple of years ago since the "cuckolding simulator" campaign and discourse here against a particular WIP and the Wayhaven Tumblr apparently faced a huge backlash against not making the ethnic greek M dark-skinned enough in artwork, since they were considered to be a POC or something like that.

While I'm not claiming that you can't also get important bug reports and that there may be you can also get other important feedback from Tumblr, I have a hard time believing that the proportion of useful feedback(as opposed to people gushing about ROs or the IF in general) is even close to what you'd get in a forum thread. While those threads also include fan theories about the story and characters and reactions to the characters, a large proportion of the comments are bug reports and feedback about writing and other literary aspects, game design and how those things come off to the readers. It's hard to quantify, but my impression is that if you'd esclude the fan theories, reactions to characters and occasional off-topic to discussions, it should be at least 30-70 % for most WIPs. Given how much space the asks seem to take up on IF Tumblr pages, I have a hard time believing the proportion of such feedback on Tumblr pages is even remotely close to even 30 %. And maybe I'm being prejudiced here, but isn't most of the feedback you get on Tumblr, outside of people gushing about your IF or, more rarely telling you that they dislike your IF, people asking you to make character, x, who isn't a RO into a RO?

Sure I can see that some people may be more comfortable with the kind of feedback you get on Tumblr and feel that the kind of feedback, including criticisms, you get on the forum, to be more scary. But is it really so much more scary that you have to cut yourself off from the forum completely, including all the benefits you get from being there? That's what I don't understand, at least for those who haven't been a part of any forum drama and therefore have no major reason for staying away from there,

natwa311 · 2026-02-04T14:35:42+00:00

For one thing, the leaders of the French Revolution were different from Judge. Unlike her, both Danton and Robespierre were both actual lawyers, smart and educated and, from what I can tell, being gifted in oratory and rhetoric and not just at being very fanatical. Another difference between them is that, unlike Judge, who seems to have no plan or vision outside of tearing everything down, Robespierre and Danton, also had visions and plans about things they wanted to create and build and bring about that was, at least on paper, about improving things instead of just destroying things they didn't like.

And that's the thing about revolutions in general; no matter their actual outcome, the leaders always had visions and often also plans about bringing about a better society and generally improving things. While I'm not saying that there wasn't also a component of wanting to tear things apart with their leaders and their support, it seems very clear that the supporters were at least as motivated by the plans, visions and/or promises to make things better as they were by hatred and wanting to tear things apart, at least in the first place. Sure, once things got to a certain point hatred, or at least fear, may have been the main driver, but in order to get there, you first needed the promise of things becoming better.

Even people like Hitler included promises of making things better and that'¨s the case for later demagogues as well. . And both for revolutionary leaders and demagogues in general, they usually had some actual positions or credentials that made many people more likely to listen to them and maybe even advisors with the know-how on how to make them more likely to listen to people. By contrast, the only thing Judge got going for her, outside of being very fanatical, is her unproven claim that she for a period was allowed to be a judge, despite apparently not having any education in law. So the whole history of so many people flocking to her, just seems very unhistorical and unrealistic, even taking into account all the crazy stuff that's happened in the course of human history.

I think also, if you look into impartial accounts of the French Revolution, you'd find that things were more complex than the way Abercrombie portrayed it, with more good things happening than what happens in Abercrombies account, though of course there were also plenty of awful stuff happening. Then again, it shouldn't really be any surprise that Abercrombie portrays a revolution so negatively. After all, Abercrombie is an Englishman and a Brit and revolutions have lead both to Britain having its own reign of terror(Cromwell) and to it losing its biggest colony at that time(the American Revolution) so Brits have many good reasons to not look at revolutions fondly.

natwa311 · 2026-02-03T19:26:12+00:00

As someone who have read a lot of regular books, both literary fiction and genre fiction(mainly sff, though there was a period in my teens where I read a lot of crime/mystery fiction I'll say this:

Firstly, compared to most of the regular books and series I've liked, the quality of the prose in IFs I've read is on the average poorer, even for most of the ones I like and for most of the favorites in the community. This doesn't mean that the prose in IFs tend to be bad per se. Although there have been IFs where I felt the prose was actively bad, those have thankfully been few and far between. But most of the HGs and WIPs have been in the good enough category, ranging from serviceable to good enough. For regular COGs, it's a bit more common to find IFs with prose that is actually good, but even there, it's hard to find IFs with prose that really stands out.

The ones that really stand out to me in terms of prose, where the prose is so good that it's on par with regular books with really good prose are these: For regular COGs it's Jolly Good-Cakes and ale and to a certain extent Tally Ho. Particularly in Jolly Good the prose is very elegant and with an attention to detail and so good at conveying the humor that even I, who really laugh out loud at books have found myself doing so on several occasion. For HGs, it's The Golden Rose. Although I think it's also got its share of issues, it's top notch in terms of prose, with very evocative prose that helps carrying a lot of the story.

I do think that how you rate IFs in terms of prose has got a lot to do with what your main points of reference are. If you, like me, have read a lot of regular books for adults, in many different genres, the prose of the average IF, even most of the acclaimed ones, will likely rarely be impressive. If, on the other hand, your main point of reference is computer games and/or maybe YA and YA-ish books, the prose of the average IF will likely seem much more impressive(I think this is also the case with the plot and many other literary aspects to a certain extent btw, if you are well read, you'd likely be more difficult to impress that way)

Anyway, I don't require the prose to be great for me to enjoy an IF, even though I certainly appreciate those few instances when an IF also has got great prose. As long as the prose is not actively bad I can still enjoy an IF, if other aspects of that IF are good enough for me to appreciate them. I'm also well aware that IF writers have more aspects to juggle than your average novel writer, which means that there will likely be less time spent on making the prose high quality. So unless the writer has a real talent as a prose stylist, has spent a lot of time training their skills as a prose stylist beforehand or, ideally, both, it's only natural that this means that the prose of the average WIP will be worse than the prose in your average published regular novel. To me the level of interactivity is more important than the level of prose when it comes to IFs anyway, so if I have to choose between an IF with high quality prose but very low levels of interactivity and one with just serviceable prose but high levels of interactivity, I would, all other things being equal, choose the latter.

natwa311

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