38 KiB
[NSFW] The Erogamer: A Quest about a girl who becomes a pornographic game character
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Author: u/xamueljones My arch-enemy is entropy*
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URL: https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/the-erogamer-original.5465/
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Score: 79
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Created: 2017-07-20T21:23:25
Post:
Comments:
u/XxChronOblivionxX [+33] (an hour later)
Huh, I'd discovered this independently and thought at one point that it fit quite nicely into the ratfic genre. Cool to see others thought the same.
The thing that really stood out to me when I first started reading it was the depth of the MC's thoughts about the true implications of a power like this. The EroGamer power, as it's manual describes, has this casual and fundamental control over literally everything. History is rewritten, personalities shift and change, all to serve Cindy's little Erogame experience, and this is not lost on Cindy. It's surprisingly hard to describe this in detail, but people not shy about erotic fiction should absolutely give this a look just for that part.
One other thing about this is depth of Cindy's self-loathing for her original overweight and unattractive self. Like, she literally considered herself barely a person, and when she first obtained the power and put points into her physical attractiveness stat, she is viscerally desperate to get more XP so she can level up and get more. The centrality of sex in her personal self-esteem is, for me, the primary emotional crux of this story, as she receives this incredible and terrifying power that knows is unfair that other people didn't get it. Like, I am plenty sex-positive and definitely agree that it is severely overly stigmatized and shamed, but Cindy takes that much further.
u/FeepingCreature [+17] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (11 hours later)
THIS IS THE BEST RATIONAL PORN, POSSIBLY THE BESTEST INGROUP PORN I HAVE EVER SEEN.
I would pay full-book-price money for this. No kidding.
u/None [+5] (2 days later)
[removed]
u/FeepingCreature [+14] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (2 days later)
I mean, that's a bit like saying that Worm is irrational because Masters exist. It's an active force in the universe of the story, meaning the author is aware that it's a thing that must be internally justified. You're right that it makes for a somewhat less rational story though.
I did mean the label more along the lines of "/r/rational-themed" though. Lots of introspection and consideration of typical topics.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+16] Godric Gryffindor (23 hours later)
No matter how impossible something is, there's always something even less possible than that. It's like Godel's Theorem, only for false statements instead of true statements.
u/Ristridin1 [+5] (a day later)
I thought you argued against probabilities of 0% at some point? It should in principle be possible, but extremely, extremely, extremely unlikely that 91 is a prime (a huge number of people, as well as computers, would have to have miscalculated 7 times 13 many, many times, and any other calculation/theorem that would imply 91 is prime should have failed by some random fluke). Still, assuming this event has a non-zero probability, it should be less likely that 91 is a prime AND that the next coin I flip will turn up heads.
Granted, I don't even want to consider how unlikely it is that 91 is prime (probably somewhere around the probability that something is messing with our brains; the actual calculations failing by chance is probably several orders of magnitude lower). At the very least, it's a probability not worth considering for practical purposes.
Still, now I have to wonder, how do you decide (or how does one decide in general) between things that have a probability of being wrong, and things that are (hypothetically) 100% wrong?
u/696e6372656469626c65 [+9] I think, therefore I am pretentious. (a day later)
Ontology is not epistemology; you may never be 100% sure of anything but that doesn't mean the universe isn't sure either. In actual physical reality, a given statement is either true or it is false, and if it's false there's no such thing as a "falser" statement.
u/Ristridin1 [+3] (a day later)
Sure, and I'd love to say that the universe is sure that 91 is not prime (assuming that the universe cares about number theory)... But even if I grant that the universe knows for sure whether or not 91 is prime, that does not mean that I can know which of the two is true with an absolute 100% certainty. In that case, I can say that either the statement that 91 is prime is completely false, or the statement that 91 is not prime is completely false. And that statement could not be more true... provided that I am 100% certain that logic works the way I remember it. Which will start a circular argument that goes on forever. Again, there is a HUGE number of bits of evidence that 91 is not prime, but from (what I believe to be) a Bayesian point of view, I should still not allow myself to believe that with 100% certainty (even though in a normal conversation, I would say that the statement '91 is not prime' is true without further specifications. Allowing for theoretical uncertainty is one thing, but in reality, at a certain point it becomes impractical to always take this uncertainty into account).
As an aside, if we're arguing from the point of view of the universe being certain about something, we don't even know whether probabilities other than 0% and 100% are meaningful. Even quantum mechanics still allows for a globally deterministic universe (but not a local one, if we believe the results of the Bell test experiments).
u/LazarusRises [+1] (6 days later)
Wouldn't a statement that falsely identifies two atoms be twice as wrong as one that falsely identifies one?
And wouldn't a statement that falsely identifies the path of those atoms over the past two seconds be twice as wrong as for one second?
(Not having studied philosophy or epistemology, I don't actually know if either of those things would be 'more wrong.' I'll assume they are until shown otherwise.)
So until we know that the universe contains finite [smallest_bits] and finite time, isn't there theoretically always a wronger statement made up of false identifications of different combinations of particles on different timescales?
u/None [+4] (9 days later)
[deleted]
u/wafflepudding [+3] (15 days later)
I think the link was more to clarify what the joke was. If you just say "That couldn't be more wrong" without any sort of followup it might be considered mean.
u/serge_cell [+3] (a day later)
I'm not sure that is absolutely and always correct. In type theory falsehood represented by empty set:
https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/falsehood
That is the set with zero cardinality. However it's concievable to think about "sets" (not ZF?)of negative (generalized)cardinality, which would represent degrees of emptiness and degree of falsehood.Could emptiness of the set can be seen as minimal length of the term defining the set?
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (23 hours later)
I don't know how to formally define this, but in most people there is the conception of "levels of being wrong". For example, I would say "bananas are vegetables" is less 'wrong' than saying "the Earth is flat". One is a minor classification error while the other statement is a deep and fundamental flaw. At least I think that's what Cinderella is thinking...
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (a month later)
I would say "bananas are vegetables" is less 'wrong' than saying "the Earth is flat".
In some contexts it's not wrong. For example, in a game of "animal, vegetable, or mineral", or a discussion of linnaean taxonomy.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+13] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)
Man, if this hadn't been brought up here I'd never have looked. I'm still kind of conflicted about Cindy's characterization, but she seems to be rational in her decision to embrace her new life.
On the other hand...
But you don't see how adding an army of sex robots would make things better.
How can an army of sex robots not make things better?
u/FeepingCreature [+9] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (16 hours later)
Literally the next line:
But you don't see how adding an army of sex robots would make things better.
No. No, that's nonsense. You must just be looking at this problem from the wrong angle. To find oneself thinking "I don't see how an army of sex robots can help" is a certain sign of madness.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+9] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (17 hours later)
Yeh, she's definitely overthinking it.
an army of sex robots
What could possibly go wrong?
u/vorpal_potato [+13] (a day later)
There's a special place reserved in heaven for people who replace horrible unsolvable problems with horrible new problems. Some of them might even be solvable.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+15] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 days later)
AUGH. This is too genre savvy. And Charles is ABSOLUTELY too genre-savvy even if he's thinking in the wrong genre. And that's kind of awesome. Because:
But even I know that, if you have to think about whether an army of sexbots makes things better, you're thinking too hard.
SEE! I CALLED IT!
Edit:
"Obviously the real reason for the Prime Directive is so that the writers have an excuse for why all those primitive cultures are still there for the space people to run into, and why the space people can't solve their primitive problems instantly using their amazing space technology. Why are you looking at me like that? I've taken an English Lit class."
OK, this is officially more rational than most of the self-identified rational fiction I've read.
AUGH AUGH AUGH THE LIST OF PERKS.
u/xamueljones [+21] My arch-enemy is entropy (17 minutes later)
So this is a story on Questionable Questing (sorry but it requires an account to view) and it was mentioned a few days ago in a discussion about rational porn fanfiction. It was interesting enough for me to consider it worthy of its own post for anyone who may have not seen the link.
Basically it involves a woman who suddenly becomes a gamer character like the protagonists in LitRPG stories...except the game she is starring in is of the Not Safe For Work variety. Furthermore there are some very odd things going on with the game with unsettling implications. Also, no one acts as if they are NPCs in a game, but as if they are real life individuals in a strange situation.
u/vallar57 [+11] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (5 hours later)
a gamer character like the protagonists in LitRPG stories
More specifically, The Gamer. Even the title is a reference.
I liked it a lot, thanks for the recommendation!
u/MultipartiteMind [+4] (14 hours later)
(While not overly interested in the original fiction mentioned, when starting this more-interesting-seeming one I was seized by the urge to analyse the main character's choices from a preferably-rational pespective. Specifically:)
Episode 3: "Moving speed is slower than human running, but when you get close it sudden attacks with hight speed"[sic]
Reasoning process: "I have to attack it eleven times to kill it, it could kill me if it hits me one time, and if I kill it I'll be upgraded to a noteworthy threat in the eyes of those two scary powerful people who are currently completely overlooking me. On the other hand, it can't catch up with me if I run straight away from it while they're occupying each other!"
Option A: "Legs, do your thing!"
Edit: Also, a reference comes to mind.
Option B: "I have no choice but to fight!"
I find it difficult to follow the thought process that chooses Option B over Option A in that context.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+10] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)
The "Gamers Mind" schtick is probably responsible for that. Once you're in a "The Gamer" mode, you're already literally not a human any more. You're possibly not even the same person, in an existential sense... you have your old memories but you make completely different decisions than they would, to the point where the person you used to be may effectively be dead.
u/vallar57 [+3] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (15 hours later)
On the other hand, it can't catch up with me if I run straight away from it while they're occupying each other!"
He literally can't run straight away. He notes how he is in a "protected space" and doesn't know hot to exit it. So running away is merely delaying the problem while tiring yourself out.
His weird decisiveness on the matter is a result of "Gamer's Mind", but the decision itself is not stupid.
u/MultipartiteMind [+2] (16 hours later)
Hmm, good point (that he can't get out). At that point, had he already reached a 'wall' and been unable to exit? I don't remember that, but might have missed it somehow. If not, in his shoes I would have tried to get out under the assumption that I would unconsciously exit the same way I unconsciously entered.
Later: I blinked at a little at how he's repeatedly angsted about not having a teleport skill, then when he sees the skill book shop in Episode 35 buys summoning skills instead.
u/vallar57 [+3] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (17 hours later)
I agree that the protagonist isn't perfectly rational and does quite a few rather stupid things. Justified during the time when his INT sin't that high though, but not later.
But I think it's still good. The plot/characters/worldbuilding are good and funny enough to make a very entertaining story, and it's rational enough to not make me bang my hand on the wall at characters' stupidity and keep me from enjoying the manhwa.
u/None [+11] (3 hours later)
Questionable Questing - Error You must be logged in to do that.
u/None [+22] (5 hours later)
[removed]
u/vorpal_potato [+2] (a day later)
You're doing the Lord's work. (By posting porn fic on the internet.)
u/MonstrousBird [+2] (8 days later)
This is really awesome - do you know if it's still being updated?
u/MondSemmel [+1] (5 months later)
Neat. Has the author given their okay, though? Otherwise it's basically piracy.
u/Endovior [+8] (4 hours later)
Exactly that: you need an account to view NSFW materials on the QQ forums.
u/BlackSnakeMoaning [+11] (2 days later)
##1) This is not a rational smut story.
Why? Because:
1. the actions of far too many characters do not match their psychological profiles.
The most extreme case of this happens with the main character’s mother. At the beginning of the story she’s the parent of a teenager who doesn’t even know how to masturbate properly and is being ashamed of doing it. In the third arc, when she’s told that her daughter has turned into a smutgame character who plans to be selling sexual services for money and building herself a harem, the mother not only almost instantly becomes ok with all that but is also suddenly happy to take part in it by giving her daughter sex-related quests and requesting a sex slave for her own use as well.
This all is being explained as the Gamer! mechanics (the “Follow the rabbit” skill, the “improbability field” AKA the ERO stat, etc) influencing people and their minds, but instead of this explanation making all these out of character changes better, it only makes the Gamer! aspects of the story worse — it just cheapens the setting, making characters more 2-dimensional and shallow, like a poorly-designed and uninteresting AI.
Additionally, the ease with which a character’s psychology can be changed makes all the long paragraphs of introspective monologues and dialogues even more of a waste of space, because one day the story can show them deciding on one thing, and the other day it can show their personalities doing a complete 180 degree shift because of some new RPG effect introduced out of nowhere.
2. generally, the Gamer! mechanics is used as a broad excuse for justifying bad writing tropes.
3. the main character somehow decides that the only way for her to lose her virginity should be to someone who rapes her \ doesn’t ask her for her consent.
Saying yes would be… sad. Like you'd been demoted back to the person you were two days ago. The Cinderella Sheen who would've had to beg a man to fuck her, maybe pay a male prostitute. You don't want to be raped, you want your first time to be sex that you want, with a man that you want. You just don't want to have to ask. Okay. Okay, badbrains, that's not sensible but at least it makes sense. How about if a man clearly wants you for your body, and buys you a nice dinner, and plies you with compliments, and seduces your clothes off. And then, just before he's about to plunge into you, he asks you if it's okay to continue? Then you have to stay quiet and look away, blushing. He has to continue anyway. That is the only way you are allowed to lose your virginity. It can't be given. It must be yielded. ... Because you deserve not to have to say yes before you lose your virginity. After you had to wait to live for so long, you deserve this much, that little thing. If you do say yes, something is being taken away from you, something that you wanted, and that's just too sad. You'll be fine about asking for sex afterwards. Just… not saying yes to losing your virginity.
4. the obesity apologism — the main character prefers to wallow in self-pity instead of trying to research what a proper diet should be about or to hire a dietitian who would help her with the diet and explain it to her. She also has serious misconceptions about dieting and causes of body weight problems.
She's tried to lose weight. She can't. If she starves herself to the point where she can't concentrate, she can lose ten pounds, not any more, and it all comes back in two months. ... There's no candy in her house. None. ... She's always, always hungry and she doesn't dare eat enough to ever not be hungry. ... Sometimes her willpower breaks and she does eat a cheeseburger or a candy bar, feeling sick and ashamed and like that one act makes everything else her fault. But why shouldn't she? She's never going to lose weight anyway. She's never going to be happy, no matter what she does. Unless, unless, unless something from outside everything she knows, breaks all the rules, and, gives her, a miracle.
5. the main character intends to solve the obesity problem of others by forcefully changing their bodies without their consent because “people can’t make informed non-consent in this case due to their suspicious nature”. Instead of trying to come up with some less obtrusive and more efficient solution — like making them trust her more first or spreading awareness about healthy eating habits and whatnot she jumps right to something ridiculous and starts fervently arguing in its favour.
6. one of the supporting characters decides that raping the main character and making her like being raped is clearly the only way to make her realise that her solution to the obesity problem (see above) is a wrong one.
7. the whole alien roleplay thing becoming too serious out of nowhere.
##2) This is not a good smut story in general.
Why? Because during the 170,000 words of it there were only five sex-related scenes with too much meaningless internal monologue text.
##3) This is not a good gamer story.
- Halfway through the story the perspective abruptly shifts from the main character of the story to one of the NPCs, and the whole time the perspective stays on him there are no gamer elements mentioned.
- the SUB and DOM character stats almost never get mentioned or have any influence on the plot.
- the Ero stat, being too OP, first gets artificially frozen by an explanation of how the main character stops her thoughts when she feels like they would bump it past the mark of 20, and then by a deus ex machina that passively reduces the value of Ero stat by half.
- the Gamer!notifications are not interspersed evenly throughout the story, instead they are collected to be given out in large exposition dumps, making reading them a chore instead of something fun.
- there are many promising sex-Perks mentioned later in the story — but before the main character becomes able to purchase them there will likely have to be some additional 200,000–300,000 words of plot development. Not to mention that many of these perks would likely completely screw the setting. So far the setting has several available reset buttons but overall just doesn’t seem to be a flexible enough open sandbox environment. We’ll see, I guess.
##4) This is not a high quality story, even though it does have good potential.
Bad writing issues:
too much meaningless text, internal monologues, and faux-important philosophical debates.
sometimes you don't understand why some people become English professors if they'll just go around trying to stop people like you from coming up with awesome metaphors.
the way the writing directions and style are being decided through forum votes doesn’t seem to work well for this story, making it look like an alpha draft-version of the work. The plot and pacing are also all over the place.
many bad-writing tropes in the story just get explained away as gamer!influenced reality-warping. Instead of fixing the bad-writing issues it just harms the gamer! aspects in addition to it. Same problem with the “software bugs” in the gamer! mechanics.
bad BDSM — the Charles arc gives a good example on why people where so negative about the bad BDSM stuff in Shades of Grey.
at times, cheesy writing — “The hunger and the darkness and the predator inside him”
several pages on hair.
##5) Despite all this, the story has its good moments, so can be worth reading.
Among other good things:
- nice idea (if a poorly executed one): about temporarily becoming an NPC in someone else’s game;
- nice joke: the “'Little Death' Note” perk.
Oh, and the tags so far are: BDSM (sub, dom, bondage, sadism, masochism, rape play), bad BDSM, blowjob, voyeur, masturbation, public masturbation, edging.
Overall, this story has potential (especially considering that it’s not finished yet), but it feels like a draft version that still needs some significant editing and improvement.
u/Subrosian_Smithy [+6] Nudist Beach (2 days later)
the main character somehow decides that the only way for her to lose her virginity should be to someone who rapes her \ doesn’t ask her for her consent.
Mmm, I don't see why this in particular makes the story irrational. Rationality is orthogonal to values, and she just happens to have very 'warped' values after living with obesity and sexual repression.
u/BlackSnakeMoaning [+4] (2 days later)
It wouldn’t have anything to do with rationality if she’d just been honest with herself and said something like “I have a rape fetish \ fantasy and so I want my first “real” sex to be arranged accordingly”. But what she does instead is come up with this convoluted chain of reasoning that, as far as I see, doesn’t make any sense, only to justify her sexual preferences to herself.
How and why would saying yes — and clearing things out with the partner about the sex being mutually consensual — be sad? Why would saying yes mean that she’d been demoted back to the person she was two days ago? How would saying yes mean that she was asking her partner to fuck her? Why is it the only way she is allowed to lose her virginity? And so on and so forth with the rest of the parts I’ve quoted and some more that I’ve left out.
she just happens to have very 'warped' values after living with obesity and sexual repression.
It’s not her values that are warped, it’s her chains of reasoning. Fixing which to work in a logically valid order is a major part of being a rational person.
u/AugSphere [+6] Dark Lord of Corruption (2 days later)
She's far from a rational person. But that's not a requirement for the work of fiction to be rational itself. It's not pleasant to read, all that tortured logic, I'll agree with that much.
Now, the fact that she has a reality warping power does make usual rational fiction traits a bit vacuous. It's easy to claim that the world has consistent cause and effect and nothing happens solely because 'the plot requires it' when you have a ready-made in-universe excuse for any contrivances.
u/Kishoto [+3] (4 days later)
Happens to a smaller, but no less important, degree in Worm with the literal manifestation of Conflict Balls in all capes.
I like how I'm pointing that out as if we haven't all already beaten that particular point to death :)
u/BlackSnakeMoaning [+2] (3 days later)
[both main characters are far from being] a rational person. But that's not a requirement for the work of fiction to be rational itself.
Then I don’t know what else to say, because one could shoehorn pretty much any character personality and set of made decisions into a “rational” story through an excuse like that.
Suddenly both self-aware and unintentional examples of Insane Troll Logic, Salad Philosophy, and What an Idiot tropes stop being disqualifiers for a work’s assessment as a rational one. And the rational! genre itself becomes much more of a buzzword than a genuine tool for finding works that would match those criteria that’ve made people interested in the creation of this community in the first place.
u/AugSphere [+3] Dark Lord of Corruption (3 days later)
There is nothing particularly wrong about having various types of characters inhabiting a fictional world of a rational story, even idiots or insane people, as long as their idiocy and insanity doesn't come and go at the whims of the author and causes and consequences of those character traits aren't being ignored (granted, in this concrete case the fic does arguably cheat to an extent by having the game mechanics mess with characters' minds). That said, most people who create or consume rational fiction don't like it when POV characters are consistently incompetent or obnoxiously irrational. You'll not see too much of that, I expect. I wouldn't worry about the definition getting diluted too much.
In general, I think you're treating the distinction between rational and not rational fiction as a sharp dichotomy, when it's more of a gradient in practice. This particular fic is not perfectly rational, sure, but it's much closer than what one would expect given the premise. One can argue about validity of criteria for things not happening 'because plot requires it' and what drives characters' actions when things like 'improbability field' and other game mechanics are in play, but at the very least the fic favourably compares to what people have come to expect of the genre, as far as rational writing goes.
u/BlackSnakeMoaning [+2] (3 days later)
There is nothing particularly wrong about having various types of characters inhabiting a fictional world of a rational story, even idiots or insane people
Yes, I realised my previous comment must’ve looked like I was arguing against this, some time after having posted it.
So for the sake of clarifying my position I’ll elaborate a bit and say that I agree with this. Stories containing irrational (and even insane) characters can of course still qualify as rational ones. But the main character(s) should be striving to be making intelligent decisions and striving to be improving in doing that. Generally, I myself would be penalising stories with extremely irrational or unintelligent main characters, but admittedly that’s more of a personal preference — usually stories like that are just boring or badly written, even if you could, technically, call them “rational”.
More than that, a story with only rational characters would be an unrealistic straw Vulcan fantasy (if the setting was present-day Earth or something like that, at least). And even a story with a perfectly rational main character would be a mary sue fantasy (because the human mind is still built on top of an irrational wild animal). So it follows then that, as a general rule, good rational stories would be both about making intelligent decisions and overcoming one’s own faults and overcoming the obstacles created by other irrational agents (who, in contrast to the main characters, don’t necessarily have to be striving to act intelligently, etc).
So my problem with this story’s main characters is that not only are they very irrational, not only do they not realise that they are being irrational, but that also they don’t try to improve themselves and their decision-making (which would at least make them realise that there were problems in their reasoning) and that they arrogantly believe that their faulty opinions and decisions are the right ones.
The main character, for instance, has a “Good Student” skill that makes it possible for her to learn and understand pretty much any subject she’s actually studying and to keep her attention completely focused during the study sessions. It’s even shown in one scene that she’s extremely appreciative of the abilities this Skill grants her. Yet the only things she’s had studied so far were some Calculus topics, and some history books. Nothing about psychology, logics, sexuality (including BDSM, about which she’s been learning from tumblr blogs, lol), philosophy, ethics, and so on. I realise that writing about a character which has studied all this can be difficult, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the lack of all this in the story is yet another thing that invalidates it as a rational story.
but at the very least the fic favourably compares to what people have come to expect of the genre, as far as rational writing goes.
I don’t think “favourably compares to expectations regarding porn stories” is good enough to call it a rational story. So far there hasn’t been a problem about recommending non-rational stories in this sub — people do that all the time, just adding something like “it’s not a rational work, but ...” in front of their recommendations. There is no need to blur the lines and gradually make that word meaningless.
u/AugSphere [+4] Dark Lord of Corruption (3 days later)
But the main character(s) should be striving to be making intelligent decisions and striving to be improving in doing that.
So my problem with this story’s main characters is that not only are they very irrational, not only do they not realise that they are being irrational, but that also they don’t try to improve themselves and their decision-making (which would at least make them realise that there were problems in their reasoning) and that they arrogantly believe that their faulty opinions and decisions are the right ones.
Most people here consider that to be a feature of rationalist fiction, not necessary for being considered rational, I think. There are people in real world who would be stupid enough to behave the way POV characters of the fic behave in similar circumstances (rather a large fraction of overall population too, I'd expect). I would heavily prefer it if they were smarter, since that would be more interesting to read, but the fact that they're not isn't inauthentic in itself.
I don’t think “favourably compares to expectations regarding porn stories” is good enough to call it a rational story. So far there hasn’t been a problem about recommending non-rational stories in this sub — people do that all the time, just adding something like “it’s not a rational work, but ...” in front of their recommendations. There is no need to blur the lines and gradually make that word meaningless.
That is a fair point. Perhaps it really doesn't deserve the label in the end (although for me the reasons would have more to do with the way game mechanics make sure the story is technically rational pretty much no matter what happens in it, which makes the distinction meaningless). I should point out that it's not tagged with [RT] or [RST] right now, so it's not as if there is an explicit claim that it is in fact rational from the person who linked it, even though a lot of people in the comments seem to think it qualifies. Favourably comparing to expectations should be enough to be posted here, even if the story hasn't quite achieved the standard of rational or rationalist fiction, especially given how popular the post is, but I agree that it's not enough to claim it's rational.
u/Subrosian_Smithy [+9] Nudist Beach (2 days later)
How and why would saying yes — and clearing things out with the partner about the sex being mutually consensual — be sad? Why would saying yes mean that she’d been demoted back to the person she was two days ago? How would saying yes mean that she was asking her partner to fuck her? Why is it the only way she is allowed to lose her virginity? And so on and so forth with the rest of the parts I’ve quoted and some more that I’ve left out.
Because she has warped cached thoughts about sexuality, and it's hard to update those beliefs on an emotional level, even if you know intellectually that you're incorrect.
u/Dragonheart91 [+3] (4 days later)
I really appreciate your well though out criticism.
u/i_dont_know [+1] (6 days later)
That is an incredibly in-depth and well-written review, and I think I agree with every point. There were some very enjoyable parts, but as a whole the story kinda falls apart at every level.
u/ArisKatsaris [+4] Sidebar Contender (3 hours later)
I strongly recommend this story.
It's very surprisingly very good!
u/abcd_z [+5] (12 hours later)
Heh. I like the Fate Stay Night references when she activates her Conceptual Hair ("Style, on") and shortly thereafter when she reads the skill descriptions.
u/vorpal_potato [+3] (a day later)
I couldn't sleep last night, so I decided to read a bit more of this story. Then she found out that "I am the skull of my hair.". O_o
No regrets.
u/abcd_z [+3] (a day later)
It is a little odd, though, that she's familiar with Tsukihime but not FSN or Death Note.
u/Grasmel [+3] (a day later)
Something to note: there is invisible text in some parts of the story, it shows up when marked. Be on the lookout for blank lines, sudden changes in the protagonists mindset or characters like #&%!@ - hidden text may be nearby.
u/None [+4] (20 hours later)
See this? It's staying up. It makes sense and everything.
u/Subrosian_Smithy [+7] Nudist Beach (2 days later)
Well that's not passive-aggressive.
u/None [+5] (2 days later)
Actually, when I clicked through I was surprised at how utterly unsexy it reads for what it is. Weird.
u/Kishoto [+3] (4 days later)
Yea, there actually aren't that many actual sex scenes, it's weird.
Plus the loss of her virginity was unpleasant to read, at least in my opinion. Her predilection to rape fantasy could've been handled better.
u/CrazyCrab [+2] (4 months later)
This is the best piece of (rational?)fiction I've read in some time. It's a pornfic, but if you don't mind reading something of that genre, I highly recommend it. It's got:
- intelligent characters
- altruistic protagonist who wants to optimize the world
- it's sexy
- it's got references to things rationalists often talk about
- it's deeper than you would expect and it's deeper than you would expect after taking this into account
I am about 7 chapters in and it's caused me strong emotions - I laughed very loudly and wanted to cry (idk why, no negative emotions) at the same time. It's written in a format of a forum quest where the author writes a story and after each part they prompt readers for ideas. You need to register to read it there
u/monkyyy0 [+3] (14 hours later)
this is lacking in rationality its been <4 days and she had some major mental changes that she hasn't examined nearly well enough
u/Endovior [+15] (15 hours later)
This is Rational fiction, not Rationalist fiction. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most people aren't actually all that good at self-analysis.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+11] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (14 hours later)
She's not a rationalist.