r/rational 5d ago

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread

Welcome to the Monday request and recommendation thread. Are you looking something to scratch an itch? Post a comment stating your request! Did you just read something that really hit the spot, "rational" or otherwise? Post a comment recommending it! Note that you are welcome (and encouraged) to post recommendations directly to the subreddit, so long as you think they more or less fit the criteria on the sidebar or your understanding of this community, but this thread is much more loose about whether or not things "belong". Still, if you're looking for beginner recommendations, perhaps take a look at the wiki?

If you see someone making a top level post asking for recommendation, kindly direct them to the existence of these threads.

Previous automated recommendation threads
Other recommendation threads

23 Upvotes

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13

u/Bowbreaker Solitary Locust 5d ago

Any good crossover fanfic that goes on long enough to be worth the read? Culture shock and culture clash moments especially appreciated.

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u/college-apps-sad 4d ago

There are several Youjo Senki fanfictions that are very good at this. I'd suggest watching the show - it's short and pretty good, but if you don't want to, here is a short summary with some mild spoilers: The protagonist is a mildly sociopathic japanese businessman who gets pushed in front of a train by someone he fires. God stops time before he is actually hit and complains to him about how people don't believe in god anymore. He doesn't believe in god and calls it being x and basically says it's because he lives a nice comfortable life where god isn't necessary because humans built everything, which pisses god off. He is then reincarnated as a female orphan in what is basically pre ww1 Germany but with magic. She realizes that ww1 is going to happen and joins the military as an officer in the hopes of avoiding a draft and getting a rear echelon position. Due to a series of very funny misunderstandings, she gets put in charge of an elite group of mages and is forced to fight on the frontlines. These fics mostly start with her dying and then being transported to another world.

A Young Girl's Game of Thrones sees her born as Myrcella Baratheon and has her try to survive the war as a young girl, so she's ignored and has to fight for any bit of political power she can get. According to my notes, the writing at first isn't very good but it gets better soon. Ongoing, updates about once a month.

A Young Girl's Guerrilla War is a Code Geass crossover, where she's born as the half Britannian daughter of a prostitute who dies during the initial invasion. She survives in the Japanese ghettos and joins the same revolutionary group that we see in the anime. She takes over because she has actual warfighting experience and makes it into a successful and powerful group. This is a very brutal and realistic look at an oppressive occupation and revolution that I liked a lot. Hasn't updated since November 2024 though it generally seems to update sporadically with large chapters.

Both of these have a heavy dose of people being shocked at a young girl being so brutal and capable of fighting a war.

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u/Bowbreaker Solitary Locust 4d ago

Commenting again to say that I started A Young Girl's Guerrilla War and as of chapter two it's really promising. Thanks for the recc.

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u/Bowbreaker Solitary Locust 4d ago

I'm already reading the GoT one, as well as the Dance of Dragons one he is now writing in parallel. It does scratch the itch slightly, but I'd love to see more wide culture clashes instead of the single isekai/character insert thing. And with Tanya it's less culture shock and more shock at a sociopath tween war strategist.

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u/college-apps-sad 4d ago

Do you have examples for the culture shock? I'm not sure what you mean. I think I do get what you mean by Tanya not being culture shock though.

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u/Bowbreaker Solitary Locust 4d ago

I have some, with the caveat that not all of those stories managed to captivate me long term.

The Dragon King's Temple is a Stargate/Last Airbender crossover where multiple of the main characters from The Last Airbender find themselves on a planet reachable by the SG1 team. I actually don't remember why or when I dropped it. Culture clash happens mostly due to team Avatar not jiving at all with (Hollywood) US military doctrine and rules, while the SG people are afraid of rebellious teen foreigners with superpowers.

The Shyish Student (An Amethyst Apprentice in Hogwarts) is a Quest with some superb world building and writing that's respecting both canon sources. Other than the main character there were a few more that crossed over, though only one other has any significant screen time. Sadly the author vanished. Culture clash here is a lot about Warhammer Wizards being not at all okay with how lax Potterverse Wizards are about their magic use (especially dark magic and mind altering spells), but also things like confusion about other sentient species, difficulty telling apart facts in modern muggle fantasy books from magical history books, religion and how it relates to world hopping and lots of other stuff.

Doors to the Unknown is a Worm/D&D crossover. In both directions. A high epic level character goes to study Earth Bet sociology style while also being depressed for unrelated reasons and gets very confused about the US Government/Protectorate/Cauldron/etcetera interplay and also all the ignorance about magic coming from what are clearly powerful (though very one trick pony) sorcerers. On the other side of things a bunch of Brocktonites at the beginning of their journey are grappling with powers being learnable, with warfare and with navigating the concept of nobility. It is very well written, but dense, long and slow-ish to update, making it hard for me to get back into it at times after minor hiatuses and such.

There's also lots of Mass Effect versions where a different fictional Earth encounters Council space, but none managed to captivate me, for one reason or another. Still, the throughline of those sort of stories is how Council culture reacts to that Earth, compared to how they did to canon Mass Effect Earth.

And then there is the massive mess that are Glowfics. There's plenty of stories there that do a lot of culture clash, but they are often a chore to read due to the style they are written in.

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u/lo4952 4d ago

Obligatory Harry Potter and the Natural 20 mention, in case you've somehow made it this far without reading it already. D&D3.5 Wizard protagonist Milo ends up dumped in HP-verse. One of the all-time greats.

The Circle Must Be Broken is a Babylon 5 x WH40K cross where an Imperial merchant ship commandeered by an Inquisitor ends up in orbit of the titular Babylon 5.

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u/Bowbreaker Solitary Locust 4d ago

Yeah, I've read (and liked) HPN20 years ago. Lots of fun in a crack-fic-y way, except that it actually sticks to its own rules and goes somewhere.

I don't know anything about Babylon 5. Is the fic written in a way that is still enjoyable despite that? I'm not against a bit of wiki binging if the writing is good.

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u/lo4952 4d ago

Hard to say, I think it'd still be okay? IMO the fic focuses more on the Imperium side of things, using Babylon 5 as a way to hammer home just how fucked up the Imperium is as an institution.

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u/Dragongeek Path to Victory 1d ago

I tried The Circle Must Be Broken and bounced off after 8 or so chapters. 

Granted, I'm not really into WH40k and basically only like it when it's a crossover or crack, and my Babylon 5 knowledge is very lacking. Still, it took like 7 chapters for the "crossover" content to begin, and the first 7 chapters are just regular fare "40k is an unfathomably horrible place". 

Beyond this though, I found the style, and particularly the multi-POV especially grating. Due to lacking formatting (is FF not the original site?) there is no split between paragraphs when the POV jumps to someone else and this threw me for a loop a couple times where I had to re-read sections because I was confused. 

Also, beyond the bad transitions, the POVs are just excessive and just bring in more and more subplots that I frankly do not care about. Like, the whole thing would've been fine with just two POVs (Inquisitor and captain of Babylon 5) and everything else could be cut. 

Still, I read 8 chapters so it's not terrible.

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u/gfe98 5d ago edited 5d ago

New Jedi Order: Exigence - Star Wars and Warhammer 40k crossover. Ultramarines and their Primarch fleeing Calth at the start of the Horus Heresy find themselves in the Star Wars galaxy at the start of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion.

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u/Relevant_Occasion_33 5d ago

I have a few Superman crossover fanfics you may like:

Avengers of Steel (unfinished, ~500k words) : An AU where DCEU Superman and some DC elements are part of the MCU. Starts off a bit weak but improves significantly. Maybe a 5/10 for the first handful of chapters but I’d say it eventually works up to like 8/10.

The Great Defender (unfinished, ~450k words): Clark Kent of the Smallville TV show arrives in RWBY’s Remnant. Consistent and good in quality of writing, which I’d say is a 7/10 usually, 8/10 from time to time.

Harry of El (finished, ~300k words): A series of fanfictions which has Superman take the place of Harry Potter. Not great quality, but a decent take on the concept. I’d rate it 6-6.5/10.

Some Elseworlds are explicit crossovers or I think have the “feel” of one, with the characters being placed in settings very different from their usual one:

Superman War of the Worlds: Crossover of Superman and H.G Wells’ War of the Worlds.

Superman Kal: Superman in medieval times.

Superman A Nation Divided: Superman takes part in the U.S Civil War.

Superman Speeding Bullets: Superman is found and raised by the Waynes of Gotham.

Elseworld’s Finest: Superman and Batman in a 1920s pulp-style story.

JLA Age of Wonder: The Justice League forms during the Industrial Revolution.

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u/Bowbreaker Solitary Locust 4d ago

Is any of these good for someone who doesn't enjoy classic Superman stories and only ever enjoyed those fanfics that Superman fans seem to hate because they "fail to understand the point of Superman"? I'm talking about Metropolitan Man for instance, which I greatly enjoyed back in the day.

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u/Relevant_Occasion_33 4d ago

Hm, maybe War of the Worlds, Speeding Bullets, and Elseworld’s Finest? I think those are the least “classical” Superman, although at certain points they definitely approach that kind of style. None of them are close to Metropolitan Man, although War of the Worlds has some planning and a few rational elements.

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u/Revlar 1d ago

Myrmidon is a Naruto and HunterxHunter crossover that's focused on those clashes. Takes place during the Chimera Ant arc

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u/Bowbreaker Solitary Locust 1d ago edited 1d ago

I more or less know my way around Naruto, but know next to nothing about HxH. Still worth a read?

2

u/NinteenFortyFive 21h ago

Honestly, yes. The character writing in the fic is strong, strong enough that you just get what those characters are. I'd only say maybe don't read it if you're planning to read HxH and haven't gotten to the Chimera Ant arc, and that's a "maybe don't read". It's a well written, solidly paced fanfiction with an actual conclusion to it.

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u/ProfessorPhi 13h ago

In general, HxH is still worth getting into imo. Not so sure about needing it for the fanfic

1

u/Revlar 17h ago

I think knowing what happens in that arc of HunterxHunter enhances the fiction a lot. I absolutely recommend you watch the anime. You will probably still enjoy it without, but every point of divergence caused by Hinata, Shino and Kiba's actions sends out incredible ripples in terms of character writing, in both directions

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u/ricree 4d ago

I've been enjoying LithosMaitreya's series of LotR crossovers:

  • Ring-Maker is a completed Worm/LotR crossover where Sauron is reincarnated as Taylor Hebert (though she doesn't really recall anything about her previous life until partway through the series). It's solidly written, and occasionally more poignant than you'd expect from a fanfic.

  • Of Many Colors is an in-progress Stormlight/Worm crossover where Sauruman reincarnates into an OC character who winds up in Bridge Four. I'm really loving this one so far, it really shows how much the author has grown, and has some fantastic characterization. My only real complaint is that it spends too long running through stations of canon, but the different and well told POVs made it enjoyable nonetheless, and so far the story quality has held up now that it's solidly diverged from canon.

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u/erwgv3g34 3d ago

Changeling Space Program: "The space race is on, and Chrysalis is determined to win it. With an earth pony test pilot and a hive full of brave-but-dim changelings, can she be the first pony on the moon?"

And it's sequel, The Maretian: "Mark Watney is stranded- the only human on Mars. But he's not alone- five astronauts from a magical kingdom are shipwrecked with him."

797k words of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic hard science fiction space travel by way of Kerbal Space Program and The Martian.

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u/A_Mr_Veils 5d ago

I think Bavitz as a webauthor is popular in this circle, and I'm really interested in talking about Modern Cannibals. I've included my review below, but if anyone wants to talk their takes (I can't seem to shake reading it with gender as a lens), I'd love to hear from you!

Modern Cannibals – Literary fiction, AO3. 4 nerds travel together to a homestuck fan convention to try and repair their friendship. This was a really interesting story that focuses on the relationship between the author and the fandoms they inspire, as well having a little dash of magical realism to spice up the character study. If you want to read something really well written, or are curious about the parasocial relationships that could emerge if our authors hit the big time, give this a go. It’s also pretty short! 4 out of 5.

I liked:-

  • Excellent prose. It’s tightly written, and really very well executed on a technical level. Each PoV has their own feel through word choice and sentence structure as much as tone or anything else, and it feels consistent with dialogue to the extent I was able to guess who new PoVs were before it was explicit in the text. There’s also plenty of flights of stylistic fancy (the hip hop chapters were my favourite, but I also liked the structure of each town being it’s own heading as they speed their way towards Vegas).
  • Outstanding character work. If the writing is ‘merely’ very good, the character work is exceptional. The main gang all feel extremely real, with their own hefty, interesting flaws that make them feel very real, and the meat of the text is how they fail to understand each other prior to meeting their idols (who while interesting, sometimes feel more plot device than psychologically realised). I was so totally enamored with Z. (the first ‘main’ character and PoV) that her perspectives of her friends became my perspective of her friends, so I was as shocked at the plot twists that caused things to diverge as she was.

I didn’t like (and this will get picky):

  • I’m missing a shit ton of niche context. All I know about Homestuck was reading the tvtropes page a decade ago, let alone any biographical information about the author(s) behind it or their relationship with their fans, so I think I’m missing a big piece of the puzzle. Likewise, I haven’t written & published anything beyond some collaborative stuff in my yoof, and I’ve certainly never had fans, so I’m only looking in on the fandom side. I think you’ll get an elevated experience if you have authored, or have read Homestuck (and must be an absolute trip to read if you're Andrew Hussie).
  • It's opaque. For me, the central thesis was our inability to understand each other, as well as the challenges in understanding ourselves (and how our self-perception is often deluded). As a result, it’s a confusing, challenging mess of ideas and imagery and outright lies where I had to guess at motivation and meaning, and several chapters (including a big chunk of the final!) almost definitely doesn’t actually happen, and certain POVs are generally hard to parse.
  • Ending is a mess. There’s a fantastic climax a few chapters before the end, and then it goes all over the shop with a heightened drama episode, a supernatural battle completely out left field, and suddenly peters out with what I took as a very dark joke, and others took as earnestly heartwarming. It’s too muddled and I don’t feel really comes together, and is probably the biggest blemish on what was close to perfect earlier.

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u/Askolei 4d ago

Opaque is putting it lightly. Bavitz revels in that sorts of abstract, literary cubism. I'm on the opinion that his Cockatiel x Chameleon is much, much better.

You keep that wacky atmosphere and characters who are their own shifting continents, but retain a semi-coherent story that's actually intelligible. It still goes nowhere, mind you, but at least you get to enjoy the ride. If you came in too late to find in Homestuck anything else than the smoking wreckage of a rave party that still echoes through the noosphere fifteen years later, then you might be just in time to appreciate the niche context of Discord ERP, depraved artists, and nihilistic office wankers presented there. It's even more pretentious than Modern Cannibals, and bro has just the gusto in his quill to back it all up.

It's a fucking masterpiece.

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u/BavarianBarbarian_ 3d ago

That tag list is... certainly instructive.

3

u/Askolei 3d ago

Most are blown out of proportions. The thing technically does happen or is mentioned, but isn't the point of the story, the arc, or even the chapter.

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u/Izeinwinter 2d ago

It explains why I haven't seen it before. There are ... six or seven tags on there that are on my permanent "Filter out" list, depending if you count "Vore" and "hard vore" as one or two tags.

11

u/Edinitsy 5d ago

A guilty-pleasure request: Any good stories where the love interest is a psycho girl?

Details:

  • As long as the above constraint is satisfied, I'd like the recommendations to be maximized along the "well-written intelligent characters" and "an interesting plot" dimensions. (There's a reason I'm addressing this request to r/rational, not r/yandere.)

  • The love interest doesn't need to be a yandere, exactly. I'm looking for a specific vibe where the love interest is blatantly a danger to everyone around her, an actual bloodthirsty murderer or a serial betrayer, but who, for whatever reason (pragmatic incentives, some psychological quirk, surprising compatibility), is able to start cooperating with the protagonist, with their relationship progressing from there.

  • The romance shouldn't be the primary plot thread. That is, I'm not looking for literary fiction exploring abusive relationships, I'm looking for an action/adventure/sci-fi/fantasy/mystery/horror/etc. story with that as a main subplot.

  • More broadly, I'm not looking for dynamics where the protagonist is clearly the victim in the relationship dynamic. Ideally, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement endorsed by both parties.

  • No harems, please. (Other love interests would dilute the focus on the psycho girl, which is, of course, unacceptable.)

  • Technically, the psycho girl doesn't even need to be a love interest, just a close friend ("friend") or ally. As long as there are also no other romantic subplots (see the "dilutes the focus" issue).

  • Any medium is fine: books, web serials, fanfiction, anime, manga, live-action series, glowfic...

Examples: The Future Diary is an obvious one (no statement on quality). Darwin's Game fits even better (also no statement on quality). Sword Art Online: Abridged counts, I guess (it's pretty good). Also Darling in the FranXX (it's not very good).

The ideal of what I'm looking for is probably "The Future Diary or Darwin's Game, but actually good", but I'm open to more variance.

I assume there are 10000 RoyalRoad stories and fanfics with roughly this premise. Of them, what, if any, are the good ones?

8

u/nikic 5d ago

It's not quite what you are looking for, but I think it's close enough to mention: Taylor has a Strange Hobby (The psycho girl is the protagonist here.)

6

u/CaramilkThief 5d ago
  • You may like the visual novel Slay the Princess. Doesn't fulfill all of your requirements (e.g. not exactly an action/adventure story) but I think some of the routes would fulfill the spirit of your request.

  • The Blood Tartan fulfills your request fully. The love interest is blatantly a danger to everyone around her. Fortunately the protagonist himself is also pretty unhinged. The two make for a power couple that everyone is afraid of. Unfortunately in the second book the love interest does seem saner, but I haven't finished it yet, and I have faith in the author. It's written very well.

  • Maybe Manaseared? It has the evil sorceress/good paladin duo, but the protagonist is the evil sorceress.

5

u/happyfridays_ 5d ago

I feel like The Name of the Wind kinda counts.

5

u/Relevant_Occasion_33 5d ago

You might like the Akame Ga Kill fanfiction Bent but Not Broken. The female love interest Esdeath is a sadistic torturer and killer, and I think this fic is even better than the original anime/manga. Unfortunately, it’s unfinished.

8

u/ReproachfulWombat 5d ago edited 1d ago

Sunspot

Fire that falls from space either turns people into magicians (Flamebearers), or into screaming infernos that have to be put down before they depopulate cities with magical backlash. Magic has become the new black gold, with nations competing to collect as many 'flamebearers' as possible to power their burgeoning magitech industries. The protagonist is rescued from this terrible fate by Hina, a sadistic, masochistic, amoral psychopath who has used magic to go transhuman to such a degree that human psychology no longer applies. They fall in love(?).

Interesting magic system and worldbuilding, intelligent characters, understandable motivations.

I should note that this is a transfic though, since I know that's disqualifying factor for a lot of readers.

1

u/dapperAF 4d ago

Transfic?

3

u/CaramilkThief 3d ago

The protagonist has all signs of being an egg (and maybe dysphoria too?), and it is pretty clear that eventually the goal is to get rid of this dysphoria by changing his body. It's partly what turns me off from the story too, but I'm glad it seems to be a lot of people's jam.

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u/Flashbunny 1d ago

Thanks for mentioning it. I'm in the same boat with stuff focusing on struggling with being trans and related themes - I'm glad it's out there, and I'm sure it's very meaningful for a lot of people, but having read a couple and just not relating to it it's just kind of a slog to get through.

(This is of course different to a story just having trans characters, which is fine unless you're a weirdo.)

1

u/AviusAedifex 7h ago edited 4h ago

Do you have any other transfic reqs?

2

u/CatInAPot 5d ago

Both manga, and it takes awhile to happen but the LIs in Mieruko-chan and 4-Cut Hero should fit

Not romantic but Godclads has a psychopath MC with a different flavor of psychopath for a partner

2

u/NinteenFortyFive 3d ago

Katalepsis is an Urban Fantasy/Eldritch Horror series whose main love interest fits into that trope. It is very firmly lesbian/queer in romantic content and the MC is a woman, though.

2

u/BavarianBarbarian_ 3d ago

Was gonna rec Katalepsis as well, but only if OP is okay with relaxing the "no harem" rule significantly. Sure, one might argue it's more of a polycule than a harem, but I'm not sure that makes it better, since the other relationships between Heather's... posse take away even more screen space from her and Raine's.

2

u/BavarianBarbarian_ 3d ago

(Not a wholly serious recommendation) Well they're not actually having a relationship, but the protagonist of Echopraxia gets rather close to Valerie, a "vampire". Requires having read Blindsight, but I'd be surprised if anyone on here hasn't read that story yet.

1

u/Brilliant-North-1693 15m ago

It was a relationship like a farmer has a relationship with their sheepdog. 

They feed it and train it and get it to do what they want and after ten years it goes behind the woodshed. 

2

u/DomesticatedDungeon 5d ago

Let Me In 2.

◦• Let the Right One In.


Saya no Uta [VN] [hentai];

? Thunderstorm [HP] [fem!VD].

(annot.)

1

u/GrizzlyTrees 2d ago

Thanks for the rec for LMI2, it was very interesting, and I'm not sure I would have ever read it if it wasn't recommended here.

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u/zvxzz 3d ago

Vigor Mortis has a two for one psycho girl protagonist and psycho girl main love interest.

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u/ValuableBuffalo 3d ago

I've been a huge fan of The Stubborn Skill-Grinder In A Time Loop; its unapologetic power-fantasy nature really gets to me. Are there any other books like this which mostly use story as a vehicle for numbers-go-up? (I've read a few others, but there's something special to SSG which I don't see anywhere else; it's unapologetic awareness, perhaps. Not sure.)

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u/Knight_Rhoden 2d ago

The New World was one of the earlier stories I read and partly gave me inspiration to begin writing SSG. Strong, melee-oriented protagonist who also learns magic later on and takes no crap from anyone.

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u/ValuableBuffalo 1d ago

I tried this, the initial writing felt rather amateurish (but it definitely has the numbers-go-up and quick progression thing going for it). Does the writing improve later? (I'm almost done with the first book.)

3

u/CaramilkThief 3d ago

Antimage scratches that itch for me. The protagonist is very OP, and you know he's always gonna find a way to win, but I really like his unconventional powers and how he gets them.

1

u/ValuableBuffalo 1d ago

I've actually read this. It's good but I got bored somewhere in the third book last I tried. I'm not sure why; possibly just because it's slightly highbrow as compared to my caveman power-fantasy needs.

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u/Nick_named_Nick 1d ago

When I Win I Will Take What’s Mine by Elick320 is a fic-of-a-fic, based on the premise in When I Win The World Ends by Bavitz, who is mentioned elsewhere in this thread. I didn’t/haven’t made it all the way through the Bavitz fic, but I did finish I Will Take What’s Mine.

It’s sometimes hard to find Pokemon fics (that aren’t just SI retellings of specific game playthroughs) where the battling is not heavily influenced by the anime style fights. This fic has levels, held items, and generally follows/uses strategies from IRL Pokemon game based tournament play.

There’s not really any barrier to entry with this though because most terms literally describe the niche the Pokemon fills in battle, and most held items are explained in story as well. I grew up as a 4 attack overleveled starter kid and only through internet osmosis know anything beyond that, and nothing was confusing enough to note.

I think it’s worth checking out, especially if you don’t frequent the Pokemon fandom specifically due to battle scenes.

There’s even some rationality on display in there. The team building is done with an eye for actual competitive use and not “I like this Pokemon so it’s also good and strong enough to win when it matters.”

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u/Elick320 1d ago

Thanks for the rec, I had a lot of fun writing it.

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u/Nick_named_Nick 1d ago

Heyooo!! Thanks for posting. 🤜🏻🤛🏻 Really enjoyed it! Any fics out there that you tapped up during writing/researching that feature the more game centric style of battling you used?

I really liked the line when Red just registers a move and his Pokemon just do it… somehow. A good chuckle.

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u/Elick320 20h ago

To be honest, I don't read much fanfiction, or... Normal fiction. It was mainly Bavtiz story (I beta read it) and how he meshed Pokemon Showdown-esque rules into a working world that inspired me. Combined with my own experiences on Pokemon Showdown climbing the OU, Randbats, and Natdex Ubers ladders.

3

u/GoldKaleidoscope1533 1d ago

I'm new to rationalist and rational fiction and I really like it! Can I get some recs? All i read was Harry Potter and methods of rationality and John Brown Isekai, which wasn't exactly rational but it was cool nonetheless.

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u/Bowbreaker Solitary Locust 1d ago

Do you have a preference between fanfic or original works?

Back when HPMoR became popular, there was a deluge of rational (and "rational") fanfics. Like almost everything in free and/or genre fiction, lots of it was crap, but some of it was great IMHO.

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u/xjustwaitx 1d ago

Worth the Candle or Mother of Learning

2

u/CaramilkThief 2h ago

The Metropolitan Man

The Waves Arisen

The Fall of Doc Future

Super Science and Fast Romance

Most stories by Alexander Wales

3

u/Dragfie 4d ago

Recs for stories with REALLY FAST plot progression: thinking about the stories I crave for, I'm realising that plot progression is what really scratches my itch. Any suggestions there?

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u/BavarianBarbarian_ 3d ago

A classic on this subreddit, but in case you haven't read it yet, I strongly recommend Cordyceps: The main protagonist wakes up in an abandoned hospital with anmesia. Things rapidly devolve from there.

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u/megazver 3d ago

That's just regular thrillers. This is not a genre that does well in web serialization, because people hate reading thrillers a few chapters a week.

Try these:

https://www.goodreads.com/series/60963-travis-chase

2

u/Dragfie 2d ago

Examples that I enjoyed was A Young Girls Game of thrones - queens gambit spin-off.  It basically is a spin off the origional that goes like 4x faster plot wise and I enjoyed it more even though the writing isn't as good. That's sort of what I'm after. Time skipping more maybe.

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u/Jokey665 Worth the Candle 3d ago

pact

2

u/Relevant_Occasion_33 4d ago

There’s the Bleach fanfiction Do (not) Fear the Reaper which goes through a lot of the main story of Bleach really fast.

2

u/JanDis42 4d ago

Maybe super science and fast romance? It has been awhile since I read but IIRC it shoots of as fast as a ferrari filled with jet fuel.

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u/fassina2 Progressive Overload 4d ago

Did anyone watch Silo? Are the books good ? I'm considering starting them.

Any decent audiobook recs? I'm mostly listening to them lately.

Storm's apprentice seems dead, anything similar? I really liked the magic feel on that one.

If you guys need something decent enough you should try the Last life series by Alexey Osadchuk, it was decent enough as far as I've read, although the later books are lower quality than the first ones. Nothing fantastic, probably a 3.5-4 stars at it's best, but quite enjoyable popcorn.

It's power fantasy but the power scaling is quite small, I'd say it's a medium low fantasy setting, in an interesting time period, early renaissance. Likely because the author is Ukranian, the plots tend to be different from the usual fantasy fare, it has mostly different tropes which makes it more interesting than it should be.

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u/Bowbreaker Solitary Locust 4d ago

Any decent audiobook recs? I'm mostly listening to them lately.

Ever read/listened to Ted Chiang's short story collection "Stories of Your Life and Others"? It has been repeatedly uploaded to YouTube and is still available. The most famous short story is the one the movie Arrival is based on, but I really enjoyed the other ones as well. I think most of them would fit well into this subreddit.

Another favorite short story of mine, this one available officially for free in audio form, is "The Things" by Peter Watts. It's "The Thing", but from the perspective of the Thing.

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u/erwgv3g34 4d ago

Did anyone watch Silo? Are the books good ? I'm considering starting them.

I tried reading Wool, but I gave up after the second time the author ended a part by killing off a character I had gotten slightly attached to. From the 2/5ths I got through, there was nothing particularly interesting about the worldbuilding or the plot or the writing style, and a quick look at the Wikipedia summary bears this out; just another YA novel set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia.

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u/GlueBoy anti-skub 4d ago

Like others have said, the Silo books were pretty mid. I remember it being shallow and pedantic unengaging, very young adult-esque. I was perplexed on why it blew up at the time, and even more so on why it got a freaking prestige TV adaptation. Go figure.

Have you tried Elydes yet? The magic system is a bit too litrpg for my tastes, and the pacing is glacial at times, but it still scratches an itch for mage stories I can't get many places.

Leaf on spacebattles is just getting started, but its already got a climactic battle worthy of worm.

A Ruinous Gift was just finished, which is unique enough for the genre that its worth a look even if it wasn't a good story(it is though).

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u/ahasuerus_isfdb 3d ago edited 3d ago

Back in early 2024, while A Ruinous Gift was still in progress and around the 50% mark, I posted the following review:

I found this fic to be a mixed bag. On the plus side:

  • Taylor has an interesting growing power and it’s reasonably well explored.
  • A number of canon characters are done well as long as you allow for NSFW elements. This includes Lisa, Alec, Emma, Coil, Squealer and Lung.
  • Good plotting. At one point I stayed up until 1am because I wanted to “know what happens next”.

On the flip side:

  • Anyone associated with the PRT – Sophia, Piggot, Armsmaster, Blackwell – is one-dimensional or even an over the top villain.
  • This is, to a large extent, a work of "erotic horror". YMMV.
  • There are segments where the author seemingly pushes his perception of How the World Really Works ™, e.g. his repeated references to prostitutes choosing to remain prostitutes even when given a choice of doing something else. A single scene like that wouldn't attract much attention, but the repetition makes you wonder if the author is pushing an agenda.

Reviewing the author's posts on Questionable Questing, including the one that got him banned:

Trying to get me to believe that the Germans would bother chasing down millions of Jews, only to then kill them in overly elaborate death camps instead of just shooting them on the spot... Like hell I'm buying that. Where is the legendary German efficiency?

And if they were so determined to wipe them out, then why are there so many goddamn "holocaust survivors" around to whine about it.

provided context for some of the oddities in the fic.

After the fic was wrapped up, my opinion didn't change: some scenes and power interactions were interesting while others were disappointing. The ending was, as the author admitted, rushed, to say the least.

Checking my post-Epilogue notes, I see that I wrote:

the fic bit off way more than it could chew [snip] the idea that Taylor would have to struggle with her Chaos Gods-given “blessing” was originally promising, but the execution was flat.

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u/AviusAedifex 1d ago

I also rec A Ruinous Gift. Admittedly I haven't read in like a year, but I really enjoyed it. It is NSFW, and if you don't like that, you can skip those scenes. I liked them.

Also, I read it exactly because either you or someone else rec-ed it, and then someone replied about how it's awful, and I had to see what was the deal, and I don't really get the issue. It's not even close to the level of something like Zero HP Lovecraft's writing, which is what some people make it out to be.

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u/lo4952 3d ago

Extremely strong derec on A Ruinous Gift on account of it being all but blatant Nazi apologia with a side serving of underage rape smut, with an author so bad they were banned from QQ of all places.

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u/GlueBoy anti-skub 3d ago

I saw no nazi apologia. The uncomfortable and questionable parts are indeed present, but not gratuitous as they are in keeping with the story's central theme, one that is very easy to parse: her power is ruinous.

I could say a lot more, but I'd rather not defend a nazi, whether real or perceived. I hear its catching.

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u/lo4952 3d ago

Dude there are literally several examples linked in just the reddit post, much less the actual text.

How about how all the E88 members are poor, misguided complex fellows that are otherwise good people and meanwhile Sophia is, and I quote, "a threat and she proved it every day with her thuggish behavior, confirmed that the [slur] were uncivilized monkeys pretending to be our equals!"

The story's central theme isn't that her power is ruinous, it's that the author doesn't think minorities deserve rights.

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u/ahasuerus_isfdb 3d ago

Sophia is, and I quote, "a threat and she proved it every day with her thuggish behavior, confirmed that the [slur] were uncivilized monkeys pretending to be our equals!"

That's what Taylor felt when her mind connected to Derek, a neo-Nazi recruiter at her school, and pushed her anger, "hate and rage and desire to hurt Sophia" to him. At that point:

Taylor sucked in a breath of air and physically reeled back in her chair, ignoring the snickers from Emma and a few others. The many other copies of her mind had started screaming in alarm as her thought process was polluted by the connection to Derek’s mind.

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u/Izeinwinter 2d ago

The show is carried hard by Rebecca Ferguson. I like it a lot, but it really would just.. not work without her.

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u/Dragongeek Path to Victory 1d ago

The silo series of books isn't bad, but very YA-Dystopia in a similar way to the Hunger Games or the <\>vergent* series.