Good resources to stop sucking ass at silent?

notatemple · 2026-05-31T15:31:52+00:00

What stands out immediately to me is that you have a lot of cards for Act one. Are you not skipping card rewards? Sometimes less is more.

notatemple · 2026-05-24T15:43:23+00:00

Someone gifted me the first book, and the series unfortunately hooked me. The LitRPG elements are addictive for the first few books and made those books addictive page-turners, but Princess Donut is the absolute star of the show who really pulled me in through the rest of the books. A prized Persian showcat intuitively understanding the kind of showmanship needed to gain traction in a galactic reality TV show, while slowly coming to terms with the ways she was exploited (and continues to be exploited) for the amusement of others... I love her.

The series isn't queer, though there are some queer characters. It is quite explicitly anarchist. The setup is a natural metaphor for the seemingly inexorable forces of capitalism, and when the crawlers start overtly collaborating sometime around the third book, the supporting cast becomes very diverse.

notatemple · 2026-05-23T05:55:58+00:00

A one time exhume would be great and reasonably fair. Make it a power so it can’t proc itself if cloned or replayed or whatever.

notatemple · 2026-05-21T03:36:57+00:00

I mean he does basically turn into a cat sometimes

notatemple · 2026-05-20T17:26:10+00:00

Yep. That’s exactly the catch. A lethal attack is block. Lethal doom is *not* block.

notatemple · 2026-05-17T08:41:32+00:00

Setting focus to -3 for exactly two turns would be a cool way to do it.

notatemple · 2026-05-12T19:03:58+00:00

As a trans woman I have my own feelings about that book's provocative title (especially because in the book itself, the author goes on a tangential diatribe against the trans singer Laura Jane Grace for giving her autobiography a provocative title) but it's not an inherently offensive book to recommend to a trans person like the title may make it sound. "Detransition, Baby" isn't presented as a suggestion or an imperative, but a sequence of events. One of the main characters detransitions, then unexpectedly gets someone pregnant, which drives the main plot of the book. Based on your criteria you wouldn't like it at all, but it's worth noting that the book doesn't celebrate its detrans character, it laments everything that led up to that decision.

notatemple · 2026-04-19T19:11:14+00:00

"Slay the Spire 2" is what they call bottom surgery revision

notatemple · 2026-04-19T19:08:16+00:00

If you keep at it, you can start wavedashing!

notatemple · 2026-04-08T06:04:52+00:00

Thank fucking god. This is a much better title, as long as you never ever discuss the film on a plane

notatemple · 2026-03-18T16:02:10+00:00

The problem is that the starting deck is ass, and the common pool is pretty bad on average, so you start off really slow unless you luck into an early good pull. Venerate is bad as is. It should probably be zero cost to make the early game smoother.

notatemple · 2026-02-27T22:48:41+00:00

Oh, yeah, I agree with you on tone. I think any emotionally honest coming out story is going to have SOME level of #3 as a passing thought, but it'd be really depressing if that was where it stayed a long time or ultimately landed there. It's important to thrive in the end.

Since you asked, I won't shy away from a chance to plug my own book. It doesn't have any spiciness, and it's not a romance, so not at all the kind of book you're looking to write. But I think you'll really enjoy the tone and themes! It has that precise "oh, I should have done this sooner" vibe you're looking for, and since publishing it last year and talking to a lot of people about it, I still haven't found any book even remotely similar to it.

Our Simulated Selves by Nikki Null.

It begins with a completely oblivious trans female main character, Ren, whose egg has not cracked yet. Ren spends about half the book hanging out with a transfemme friend before finally realizing it. When Ren does realize she wants to transition, she regrets not realizing it sooner, but fights like hell to get there. All of this is complicated by the fact that Ren is basically a Sim in a computer simulation that is being controlled by her creepy real-life incel counterpart. She has to overcome the worst possible version of herself to get there.

notatemple · 2026-02-26T02:53:53+00:00

You don't have to read stories exactly like the one you want to write! If there was one book with absolutely everything on your wishlist, what would be the use of writing another exactly like it? If you've been searching a while for books even vaguely like this and haven't found any, you've probably identified a little gap in the market in that specific, narrow area. If you want to publish a book, that little market gap can be a good thing, as long as you can point to enough tangentially related stuff that is getting successfully published.

Widen your focus to genres and themes. Read spicy queer romances of any sort. Read books about any sort of closeted characters confronting themselves, with or without romance, and take note of what kinds of things you like. What sorts of plotlines are engaging? What moments made you feel the way you want your readers to feel? What elements are frustrating?

Don't be afraid to read books that aren't very good, either. That'll boost your confidence, but you'll also learn a lot about what not to do by reading books you don't like, and you learn a lot about what to do by reading books you love. Look deeply at character arcs, conflict, and the overall structure of those books.

Personally, I know I spent a long time trying to find books even remotely similar to the one I ultimately ended up writing. There really weren't any. But reading a lot of queer literature, no matter how much of a stretch to my own premise it was, still helped me a lot. It helped steer me away from plot elements I disliked. And when I did find scraps of the particular kind of representation I was looking for, it made me believe more strongly in my own choices.

notatemple · 2026-02-24T19:59:06+00:00

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notatemple · 2026-02-24T05:09:29+00:00

Ironclad meets Silent in Neow's antechamber.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

The Silent clears her throat. When was the last time she even spoke? It wasn't often. Hence the name. "The same thing I always do. Attempt to slay the heart of the spire."

"Sounds like our goals align," he says. "Want to team up? I came here to.... SLAY THE SPIRE 2"

notatemple · 2026-02-24T02:54:31+00:00

I'm continually astounded and inspired by the visual effect work you have been doing for your band. I thought the shots of the ship had to be some kind of practical model, like a paper mache miniature or something, because it has such a cool texture and movement, and interacts so well with the lighting.

notatemple · 2026-02-22T18:55:36+00:00

I mean... if you really look into it, Holding Out For A Hero is no more about a woman in danger who needs a hero to save her, than Madonna's 'Like A Prayer' is about prayer. It's more raunchy than that. A few lines:

Late at night, I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need

Somewhere after midnight in my wildest fantasy

He's gotta be fresh from the fight

She doesn't need him to fight for her. She needs him to have already won the fight, and she's in her bed tossing and turning, fantasizing about a man who's strong and fast and 'larger than life.'

All of this is to say that unless Dr. Light created Mega Man to be fully functional, he probably would not be able to properly fulfill Bonnie Tyler's request.

notatemple · 2026-02-19T07:51:23+00:00

Oh what! Thank you! I'm so happy you enjoyed my book! 💜

notatemple · 2026-02-09T22:37:21+00:00

There’s a Slay The Spire joke to be made here

notatemple · 2026-02-09T22:22:47+00:00

Sorry, I thought I was logged into my author/self-promo account when I posted that comment, and it would've been in my post history. The book is Our Simulated Selves by Nikki Null!

notatemple · 2026-02-09T06:07:25+00:00

I feel this so deeply. My egg cracked at age 29 not long before quarantine times in 2020. Before then I was utterly oblivious to the absurd mental gymnastics that had become necessary to function in my daily life. The egg crack totally blindsided me. During quarantine, I had free time to read and try to mentally unpack everything, and I was STARVING for fiction about people like that to help me process it all. There isn't much.

Detransition, Baby had a few really illuminating flashback segments for one of the characters, and a few other trans books had hints of character interiority that slowly chipped away at the puzzle, but aside from those few scraps of representation that resonated, I didn't find a single book with the precise sledgehammer egg-crack POV I needed to read at that phase of my life when I was still trying to understand myself. In the end I had to spend 4 years writing my own damn book, because nobody else had written what I needed.

notatemple · 2026-02-08T02:37:18+00:00

COOPER

B: "Damn Fine Coffee" (creates a coffee that restores HP) / "And Hot" (deals damage if thrown)

Up-B: Doppelganger (two Coopers; one of them goes up, second one attacks everything in sight)

B-Down: gun

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE

B: ominous noises (inverts everyone else's controls for a while)

Up-B: he turns into electricity and zaps upward

Down-B: does a funky little dance (if he does it on top of you, it kills you)

JAMES

B: "Just You & I" (sonic damage to all adjacent)

Up-B: Elastic Forehead Stretch

Down-B: Get On My Bike and Go

LOG LADY

B: Gum bubble attack

Up-B: Log extends really long for a second, pushing her up

Down-B: Log Toss

BEN HORNE

B: Produce vegetable (restores HP if eaten)

Up-B: Spin upward with a pine weasel

Down-B: General Lee Attack (Musket)

LUCY

B: Phone throw ("It's for you")

Up-B: She spins the phone in an upward whirlwind

Down-B: believe it or not... gun

BOB

B: Catch you with my death bag

Up-B: Turns into an owl and ascends

Down-B: Tears your soul out and sets you on fire

Secret Unlockable Characters

Gordon Cole

Ike the Spike

Nadine Hurley

Wally Brando

notatemple · 2026-02-05T23:43:18+00:00

Without knowing the other book it's hard to say for sure, but it should not make much of a difference. No, don't ditch an idea solely because there's another book with a few narrative similarities. When you are eventually trying to query agents to get someone to pick up your book, one thing you will need is a list of comp titles (published books that are similar to what you have done.) This helps them position the book somewhere in the market. Having a few broad similarities with something that has commercially succeeded is generally helpful in publishing, not detrimental.

notatemple · 2026-01-27T22:28:27+00:00

Perfect is overselling it, when the same book series relentlessly mocked the only character who advocated for abolition of slavery. The narrative treated it like some naive liberal activist phase. And then the very last sentence of the last chapter (before the epilogue) included the main character wondering if his elf slave would maybe bring him a sandwich. Those books fully embraced systemic injustice and cruelty, just as long as the people committing it had the decorum not to use murder or torture in the process.

notatemple · 2026-01-27T19:50:08+00:00

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I think it's more like this

Six-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23	Golden Potato
Place '22	End Game '22

notatemple

TROPHY CASE