Shadiversity Can't Handle Critique of His Creepy Power Fantasy Book
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- Опубликовано: 28 ноя 2023
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"What do you think of this book?"
"I like the author's RUclips channel."
"Okay but what do you think of the book?"
"I... I... I like his RUclips channel."
Exactly. Even then I only kinda like his main channel. His secondary channel knights watch is awful and he is awful writer. The more I see the more I dislike shad
@@kat0na_cat Yeah, it's sad to see who he has become. I liked his channel when he first started but it very quickly went to crap after he had his surgery (I can't remember what it was for but it apparently corrected something to do with fatigue). It's great that he's apparently much healthier now and all, but that somehow started the transition to him making content that gradually exposed him as a narcissist with horrible ideas for content and bad writing. I get the feeling that most of his current loyal fans now are newbies and the vast majority of his original fanbase, like myself, have left.
Hard disagree with the idea you should never include rape and sexual assault in your stories, and I say that as a survivor. Thats a completely arbitrary anti-art and puritanical position. We don’t use that logic for things like murder or genocide. Readers should be smart enough to understand depiction does not equal endorsement
As a fellow survivor, I 100% agree. Just because assault is often mishandled in fiction doesn't mean it should be entirely avoided, writers just need to be better, & understand when it's appropriate to include. I'm not a fan of gratuitous eroticized highly detailed depictions of assault basically ever, tho.
Yeah, if it is useful to the story, it has a place. But I don't trust a dip like Shad to know how to write it properly and put it where it needs to go.
Honestly, survivors like us are probably the most qualified to write about it. Some people I know use writing as an outlet. If we weren't allowed to write about it, we'd lose an outlet of expression, and by extension, a tool of recovery.
Like all sensitive topics, it simply bears greater scrutiny and requires greater skill to use effectively.
SA can be used for a narrative purpose but any time it is included without sufficient cause i think its right to criticize its inclusion. If there is no storytelling around the event and recovery, how it shaped the character in future chapters... then its just gratuitous at best.
Agreed. I think you should be able to write about difficult/taboo subjects without people automatically jumping on assumptions about the author.
I don't actually mind the central idea of redeeming evil tyrant. It's about execution. Shad is incompetent while having ridiculously high opinion of himself.
I agree, you probably CAN redeem an evil tyrant but shad is just not a good enough writer currently to do that. It feels like he had a cool idea and bit off way more than he could chew
Exactly, I mean, darth vader is a perfect example of redemption. But Shads story just doesn’t work out imo
Pretty much. A good redemption story could be done. _Could_ be. But it wasn't done here.
Sounds like you're the one who has a overly high opinion of themselves.
People like you are just jealous that someone like Shad got the success he's gotten and you didn't, mainly because you want that and more but without putting in the effort that's needed to properly get it.
But then again, with how lazy and braindead many people are these days, it's not surprising that someone like you would just blindly believe any negative thing said about someone you're jealous of.
"Shad is incompetent while having ridiculously high opinion of himself."
Truly. It's known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Shad is a good example for it.
also note how detailed the negative reviews are, seems like they actually read it. The positive reviews however are super vague and generic.
Bingo.
Book good has letters😆
@@Sofus.,
Book good. Me Enjoy. Those Don't Enjoy. Hate Author. Buy Book! Support Author!
Yeah men Daniel green totally vague
Just go look at various right-adjacent people who hate on new star wars close to a decade now. Those are very detailed, long, extensive reviews, which are actually mostly bullshit, with a very scarce few reviewers who actually went hard into understanding the artistic/production process to explain the mess. So, it's not really an argument. I'm not defending star wars or anything, mind you, just that long detailed reviews are 9 out of 10 times are just nitpicking
I think one thing that triggers me is that the tyrant that "felt bad" for his action get rewarded with being young and gets to have super powers. wouldn't a better idea is to have the tyrant be stripped from all of his power and be overthrown by another tyrant forcing him to live among the same common people he ruled over, Living among them let him experience the same struggle as they have which causes him to feel bad for what he done in the past, eventually tries to be a champion of the people, take down the tyrant which is symbolic of killing his dark past and at the end he dies for the people he ruled over to get true redemption.
Damn you know your a bad writer were I can write something better
And it is not that you wrote something better but actually how a fucking redemption arc works.
Wait that actually IS better
@@ConnorLonergan not yet (; and yeah what I'm saying isn't even unique I'm sure it has been done before in better stories he does the opposite of of inverting tropes
Well, Shad can at least write coherent sentences.
@@addison_v_ertisement1678 c'mon bud, chin up. You're all in these replies trying to pick apart criticisms that you don't even listen to in the first place. You don't need to white knight for Shad, it's okay.
I have family members that are a part of the fantasy art community in Straya and they were telling me Shadiversity's shitty behaviour is basically what led him to simping for AI art because he would get mad when artists wouldn't budge for their commission prices and he basically built a reputation of being a shit client so no one wants to work with him anymore.
Also he has a terrible reputation in the Historical Reenactment community too, from what I've heard from people within that community.
That's because he can't take criticism very well. He been in several spats with other creators.
He is knowledgeable there, but he comes off as "i am right, you are wrong" in every argument he has. There are better creators out there.
A crap right wing failed artist, who believes everyone else is wrong, and is obsessed with the past, has a tyrant fetish... kinda reminds me of someone...
@@darththeo promo for Skallagrim as a better alternative. He's a Norwegian-Canadian youtuber who has the exact same show format. He's also a leftist if that matters to anyone.
arrogant selfishness/mean-spiritedness also fully explains his politics
It’s because he thinks he’s a small bean with all the potential but he also thinks he’s a badass. He’s commonly wrong on his history and never is like “oh fair I’m wrong” he’s a katana owning discord mod with a bad several RUclips channel
Shad literally made en entire video about how everyone loves his book and anyone who doesnt *love* his book is a dishonest actor trying to lie and smear him
What a fucking class act, JFC
To be fair, he didn't say everyone who didn't like it was lying. He did say it wasn't for everyone and that he even understood why some people didn't like it. But you're right overall, creating a whole video about most people liking it is pretty sad.
deam. he acts a bit like some entiteled bitch.
btw, didnt he make reviews trashing the new starwars trilogy?
I mean they are bad, but so is his book.
and star wars sold super well.
and dint he calle Rei a mary sue?
and now he makes his self inser fanfic character a mary sue
just saying
if it's good enough for Jordan Peterson it's good enough for Shad! (coping and seething I mean)
Interesting that he stresses SOOO HARD multiple times that people should ONLY read the MOST RECENT reviews. It's almost like something happened, just recently, to completely change the negative perspective that had previously been there.... hmmm.... I wonder what that could've been...? 🤔🤨
@@Maerahnim actually new to the lore what did happen?
You know a really good story that raises the same question about if horrible people can truly change? Planescape: Torment.
If that’s not the best written game in history, I don’t know what is. Even the mindless zombies in the morgue you start in have more character to them than your average video game character.
There's also the fact that the player character literally has to die multiple times and undergo immense suffering in order to change for the better. The Nameless One is not someone you want to emulate or admire, but he is someone with whom you can empathize.
I'm three hours into my first playthrough of this game, and I now understand all the praise I've heard over the years.
Nobody says "I drew this art" when they make a commission. So why with ai? 😅
Because these tech bros are elitists who all hate those who criticized Silicon Valley and modern technology.
My sister does some AI art... describes it as 'in collaboration with Dall-E' which seems like a good way to phrase it.
its also insulting cause his brother jazza is an actual artist
As someone who read the book, (I didn't pay for it, I borrowed it from someone) its so much worse. The magic system is incoherant, and the main character makes up new powers on the fly ALL THE TIME, completely removing any form of tension or dramatic conflict. He is never shown to struggle, never shown to find things difficult, and despite other characters existing, that could have been really interesting, are all pushed to the side and abandoned. They are described as competent and powerful, but in nearly all situations they are sidelined so super cool protag Gary Sue can do a cool thing! It just makes them so forgettable, and tragic in a way. They could have been super interesting.
The bit that grinds my gears in the most is the "Redemption arc" because there isn't one. There are several points that are supposed to be like "He's changing, he's getting better" but it isn't really. He starts the book sullen, he never really defends the things he's done, more like a "Why is eveyone being mean to me?" You are supposed to pity him, but that doesn't make him redeemable, just a crybully. Even at the end, when he is directly facing the consequences of his past, a woman he abused, and a father who's family he murdered, there is no consequence. The woman is like, "yeah, you were my abuser, I'll get over it cause you're so cool." The father is even worse, cause he has a big dramatic "Waaah, I forgive you, cause you're amazing, and have changed, despite the fact I barely know you." He just... forgives him, and thats supposed to absolve him. I know that forgiveness is important for mormons, but the two of them are joking in the next scene! Like, honestly!
Also, side tangent, Shad never really portray his MC as a bad tyrant. Aside from the abuse, they never address all the violence he did to be a tyrant. His politics are never questioned, his actions as a leader never are addressed. All his followers are like, "things were so good when we were conquered." The thing that gets me about this is that if he wasn't seen as an abuser, I don't think Shad would have had any problem with him whatsoever. Shad would be fine with a man who full on desolates massive chunks of the world, and war crime all over the place, providing he was nice. That's all it would take and he'd be fine with it. Makes me sick.
It sounds like this "redemption arc" claim was come up with after he received some feedback on his MC. Could that be a possibility?
@@xuxuang8574 I don't think so. I think he set out to write the story with that in mind so he could be all "morally complex" and "grey and grey morality."
@@xuxuang8574 Nah, it was the core concept of the book. It would have worked perfectly ok without the SA content (obviously, provided it was written competently). So it was at the very least not a deflection to criticism. The concept itself isn't awful, but it needed a better writer.
Obviously this is speculation on my part, but I suspect that his Mormon religion factored into wanting to tell a story of a terrible man being literally reborn in the light of a God and comes back washed clean of his sins. I think that's legitimately why he didn't feel the real need to show the full redemption arc, or dive into the nuance of if rehabilitation for such a person was even possible. He knew enough about fantasy fiction that he knew he should INCLUDE a redemption character arc, but it really seems like in his mind, it was enough to say that he regretted it, effectively did the novel's equivalent of accepting the Lord, and came back purified.
Call it a hunch, I wasn't ever Mormon, but I was Christian (thankfully in the most liberal type of church) and this smacks of Christian symbolism like crazy.
Haven't read the book, it sounded lame when shad was talking it up like 8 years ago.
From your description it sounds like he wanted to write rand (WoT), but didn't have the skills to write a remorseful tyrant.
So . . Shad's basically a monarchist?
I originally found Shad when he just was talking about castle design and architecture. When he revealed he was worse about issues than most medieval aristocrats would have been, I can't express how disappointed I was.
Sounds like he got so engrossed in that time line that he decided to adopt their views too.
Same exact fkn thing happend yo me!!
What happend to the guy who would talk about machicolations?!
@@shanewilson7994 There's a chicken and the egg question regarding many history buffs.
It's annoying that I can't use "big stick energy" anymore.
Yeah, around the time he started turning his friends into employees in the videos he started getting really childish. The big thing for me was in a video about mall-ninja weapons, where he said something like, "don't be such a virgin" (and then highly recommended getting married before sex). I tried a few more videos after that, but they just kept getting more childish and more right wing.
As a romance author, this reminds me of the annual “can the Nazi or SS soldier be redeemed by the power of true love (and Jesus, there’s almost always some conversion storyline there)” conversation we have when someone creates some new variation of that premise. And just, do you, but be prepared for the backlash 🤷🏽♀️. (I also admittedly find it curious that people are so willing to include nonconsensual sex in books or shows, but consensual sex? A bridge too far, but that’s neither here nor there.)
oh but you see, consensual sex is icky and just sexual gratification with no narrative value, whereas sexual assault is an exploration of MATURE themes, you know, not the thinly veiled sexual fantasies of edgy teenagers.
It's a hard sell but not impossible to pull off imho. There's Piccolo (Dragon Ball), Peacemaker, Prowler (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Saul Goodman, Zuko, etc. Sure, there's various degrees of evil and some are easier to redeem (and admittedly not so 'romance' either lol), but it works. Darth Vader's redemption works because it both completes Luke's story arc and ties into bigger themes, but at the same time it doesn't try to justify his past crimes.
Daylen gets an entire trail where his crimes do get justified or played down. That's the real problem I think. Shad doesn't believe these actions are inherently evil, they're only evil when done to a good person. When Daylen gruesomely murders Blackheart, that's a good thing in his mind because revenge and justice are the same, but not when Daylen's head is on the chopping block. Then he talks himself out of a death sentence. And when something evil does happen to a good person and a baby comes from that, well that's not all that evil then.
There's not a lot to redeem when your concept of good is still very evil.
@@maximeteppe7627 Like I'm an aspiring author and part of me wants to have good healthy sexual stuff in the story like ya the Main character fucks. But everytime I get near it it feels dirty. (But also I have the taste not to have sexual assault actually happening in my story.)
@@crazyscotsman9327 Write where you’re comfortable. If that’s a fade to black, where the sex is implied but not shown, do that. YOU have to be comfortable with it, especially in scenes like that. This isn’t about not pushing yourself, but readers tend to be able to tell when the author thinks something is “icky.” It doesn’t read right. As you get more comfortable, your baseline may change, but there’s a wide range of ways to show healthy intimacy without the open door way I write. My best to you on your journey!
@@TheRonnieaj on a complementary note, I feel like in the West we overfocus on conflict as an engine for storytelling, when actually it’s change ( and change requires some unstability or tension, which often manifeste as conflict, but doesn’t always have to).
An intimate moment, even conflict free, can be worth showing if it changes the characters and the relationship.
So, are we supposed to believe the AI artist didn't use bots for his positive reviews? Or at least ChatGPT?
I rolled my eyes when he described himself as "passionate about AI art." How can any human being be passionate about AI art, except perhaps in its condemnation?
@@0Fyrebrand0I don't know. Maybe you'll learn ince you actually talk to people with different opinions than you.
@@0Fyrebrand0- AI is another tool. People whined when photography became viable, saying it would eliminate portrait, landscape, and still-life painting. There are still painted portraits, landscapes, and still-lifes.
@@julietfischer5056 Photography still requires you to make your own image. It takes work and skill. Typing prompts over and over again to get watered down, stolen artwork does not. There's a massive difference.
@@abigailfowler1843- You can type your prompt, then use art tools to tweak the image.
Or use the image as the basis for what you want. I'm thinking of arranging the elements and then making an actual drawing or painting from it (or using the tools from art programs).
He's not actually listening and representing an SA victim and depicting the horrors of SA, he's either fantasizing about R, or fantasizing about saving someone from R. Both of the latter options show the author's malign intentions.
Having read the book, it did seem like the latter, but I'd also add in that there's a definite presence of the Virgin/Whore dichotomy there as well. Also some weird shit thrown in about how the SA victims at the trial at the end who didn't have children with him seemed more angry than the ones who did.
Imagining yourself saving someone from R is bad now?
@@dallacosta2868 Considering said character was previously a prolific Rist (But he's better now) and has s*x with the people he saved and than implies it was good they were R worded. Don't write about R if you can't at least make it more realistic and understand how victims actually react.
@@zenbear9952You are introducing other bad details just to make this other detail look worse. How are those things related?
@@addison_v_ertisement1678 Ok here there is a scene where the depositions of his previous victims is happening and I kid you not all the ones that got pregnant were thankful that they had children from the experience and thats what helped them stay alive in this horrible world. Also he has a romance with one the people who he rescued who was ALSO a previous victim of his. Like wtf yes imagining yourself as this character is probably bad and if you don't think so than there is something wrong with you
Berserk is one of the few stories where the rape of a character was integral to the story. Guts, Griffith and Casca are all victims of rape and the story shows just how brutal and invasive it is.
Interestingly enough, one of Shad's favourite comic series INVINCIBLE literally had the main character deal with it. As a victim. It's mind-boggling how little he uses his brain in that area.
@@VelaiciaCreator Oh yeah, Shad had videos of talking about how fantasy monsters would fight and what weapons they would use, and yet he, is more willing to ripoff and cheat other artists than to even go back to his old videos to get inspiration.
@@SilverCity-lr5ru The recent "weapon test" videos are rather telling. I rolled my eyes when I saw the "black arrow" test video in my feed. Like dude, you're telling me you managed to find a lost technique on forging from a fantasy novel? He's not even giving Tyranth the proper amount of time for the projects, resulting in very shoddy work.
@@VelaiciaCreator heh Shoddyversity
I watched Berserk and somehow missed that.
What a juvenile approach to writing an interesting premise. There are so many ways you can convincingly write a villain redemption story without going balls-to-the-wall and making him a magical space rapist mega-Hitler for your *debut novel*. It's like he thought up the premise in high school and never once decided to pull back just a smidge.
The concept makes a lot more sense when you replace "Light" with "God", and think about how he is reborn and washed of his sins. It's just a clumsy attempt at showing Mormon doctrine.
I mean, if I had to describe the book in just a phrase it would be "Suicidal Ambition". It's something that could work, Darth Vader, John Wick, Frank Castle, Hellboy, Spawn... In the hands of experienced authors all these concepts *can* work. But Shad Brooks is clearly a brand new author who just doesn't have the chops to really tell this kind of story.
Yeah, I agree. I've done it, or at least I'd like to think I've done some decent redemption stories, a few examples(probably most of them) would be a few Peanuts fanfics with Lucy. I know... I know... fanfics, gross. Aside from a few novels and novellas[I need to finish], I spent about ten years writing for Literotica and needed a break from it, and it was easy and a way to get my writing up to par.
I prefer villains to have passions and hobbies outside of being evil. It makes them scarier because they are "human" and the monsters are among us. That kind guy that just helped the lady cross the street? Yes, he is planning to cleanse the world of half the population. Might be nice to you, but at the same time the reason you haven't seen your friend in 2 weeks.
I used to watch his channel some years ago, then I started to get annoyed by his opinions and his constant complaints about stuff I don't care about and his right wing takes. Suddenly I noticed similar whining behaviors from other youtubers who I placed in the same kind of scene. Now I just follow Matt from Schola Gladiatoria and Skallagrim. Very cool and mature individuals.
pretty sure he’s directly responding to Westside Tyler here, who’s recently put out a 3 part series critiquing Shad’s book, and had a couple streams making fun of Shad’s AI takes. too many coincidences. That being said, if it is true it’s a response to Tyler, that makes it even more sad cause the dude just broke 2k subscribers on youtube
I mean the timing of video release is very suspicious. The other reviews that got more exposure were from 6-8months ago while Tyler's was a couple of weeks ago.
I love it when people rip apart bad books, thanks for the recommendation!
Imagine writing a fantasy protagonist worse than Thomas Covenant the Unveliever. Oh wait, we dont have to imagine anymore. Thanks, Shad.
I just commented on that. Couldn't even get through the first book.
Yeeep, stopped reading a short way into the first book of that series, around when the protagonist decides what his first action in the fantasy world will be.
Oh god. I had that book in my back pack the first visit I had with a shrink. He took one look at it and said "If you're depressed, that is not the author for you." He was spot on. lol
Thomas Covenant is actually a really good example of how SA in fantasy can be well written and approached with some measure of care. I’d go so far as to say the R in Lord Foul’s Bane, rather than Thomas getting isekaied, is the actual inciting incident of the entire narrative, and much of the plot rests on how the characters react to that event.
@@atreides213 Counterpoint, it was entirely unnecessary, gratuitous, and cruel. There are plenty of not-rape ways to have told that story.
I remember watching his videos a few years back. I don't think he was nearly as publicly fragile as he seems to be nowadays.
Part of me wonders if I just missed the signs, or if there was some drop-off point where his popularity started to swell his ego.
Usually it's both
I have a suspicion that he's getting divorced. Just a vibe, but I feel pretty confident about that.
@@drummerguy438 I'd divorce my spouse too if they started taking my face and pasting it over oversexualized AI prompted images. All that tells me is they aren't satisfied with me.
Popularity definitely got to his head and made him more stubborn and arrogant, but while he definitely has had some of these views all along and didn't express them, I do think it's gotten worse over time. There's a marked difference between early videos and current ones, and his secondary channels are far worse.
@@drummerguy438 Maybe, but they're also quite Mormon so that would be a pretty exceptional circumstance. Most of the more conservative ones tend to just suffer it out.
You must be a hell of good writer to redeem an evil character. Or more realistically make everyone including the reader willing to move on with the evil character being alive relatively unpunished and doing good for now on. If it's your first book, you must have a giant ego to think you can pull it off without living experience.
Similarly, you have to be a particularly good writer to write an overpowered character who is sympathetic and relatable. It's all too tempting to create a shallow power fantasy by placing such a character into fights and having them win all the time, or to abuse their power to control others and get their way, because who is going to stop them? At the bare minimum you should adhere to the Spider-Man adage: With great power comes great responsibility. I would take that a step further and say, with great power comes isolation, emotional detachment, and loss of what makes you human. A much more interesting character arc would be a struggle to connect with others and regain one's lost humanity, to avoid causing inadvertent harm to those around you, and to deal with the moral quandary of how much one should intervene in the affairs of others.
dude, check Paul Atreides. Frank Herbert in my opinion was a very good writer and Paul is nooot getting redeemed at all even thou we know he really wanted to avoid what happened.
@@Diogolindir I read all of Dune. But yeah, Frank Herbert wrote the whole thing so we would stop thrusting charismatic leaders because at the end of the day they they don't have our interest at heart. At best they want some "greater" good whose means to achieve that might or might not hurt you personally.
@@grandsome1 Im currently reading God Emperor and darn...
it wasnt his first book, though. it was the first published one. (dont take this to imply anything positive about it, havent read it)
I think that AI art can have a place in helping poor writers make “sketches” of their characters to give to real artists to help with concept art for book covers or other similar first drafts of characters as opposed to giving a commission artist a stick figure. However it itself is not art by any means and he makes enough money to be supporting commission artists
It can be useful for actual artists to slam together "references" and inspiration as well. It doesn't produce finished work, or work at all really
He said that's what he does, makes AI images and then sends them to artists he hires to use as reference for the final art.
@@fatterperdurabo42069 that’s a really good point! Yea it’s a tool to have in the tool kit but not real art obviously
@@markborok4481 well I suppose when he annoyed all the commission artists to the point where they stopped working with him he resorted to just only using AI gens
I am really sorry for his brother, because his brother is an awesome person and his brother instead of being supportive, he is jealous that his brother worked his ass off to get where he is when it comes to art
Who's his brother?
@@beleakswordsteelJazza, who's a pretty chill dude. He runs an art youtube channel (which makes Shad look even worse with his AI art takes imho). And even though he keeps it apolitical, some time ago he posted a statement where he strongly distances himself from Shad's worldview.
Jazza is the goat
@@stanislaww.piesio9879 I don't know Jazza, so I know it's parasocial, but he seems like such a sweet dude.
The only time I ever saw him being vindictive was towards Tana following the Tanacon fiasco. So, for his only time (from my memory) being hateful towards another RUclipsr was when said RUclipsr had mistreated her fans (some ended up in the hospital), it shows his character.
Its just hilarious that he completely ignores all of the criticism when he has an entire channel dedicated to cashing in on 'woke disney disaster' algorithm click bait. I guarantee he has talked about review manipulation for things like Captain Marvel but cannot fathom that his own simps are doing the same thing.
did you notice how he kept telling viewers to sort by newest? he payed for reviews so that the number would inflaate and he could make the video, best reviews and older ones are overwhelmingly negative
You.. CANT be that ignorant... lmao.
This video and the comments presented here as so unbelievably and BLATANTLY dishonest that i am completely baffled by the level of stupidity required to get here.
This video is on his channel Shadiversity.
You're talking about his subchannel called Knights Watch. You blithering idiot.
Shad: It's a standalone book with sequel **potential**
also Shad: *titles the book as "The Chronicles of Everfall Book One" ON THE FUCKING COVER
Doesn't say "Book One" on my copy... but he did mention he was interested in writing more about Dayless many years ago.. so...
Here's the thing, though: "stand alone with sequel potential" _is_ a phrase used in publishing.
As a way for an _author_ to pitch a book to a _publisher_. Because if it's a huge success, the publisher might want more, and what author is going to turn down work?
Except that Shad *self-published* this book, so there's no need to pitch it or a sequel. So the fact that he hasn't written a sequel tells me that either:
A) hasn't done well enough for Shad to justify writing a sequel,
B) that Shad realized that writing a book is a lot more work than he thought,
or
C) both
@@thor30013shad has said that hes written many novels, ngl i kinda would want to see them
@@zerozedzaki he says he has written 8 novels... but they aren;t pubished. They are manuscripts that haven't been edited or finished, that only he has seen. Most authors, if they are saying they have written 8 novels, would be talking about what they have published... as in completed Novels.
I have the paperback, it doesn't say "Book one" - but it does say "the chronicles of Everfall" as the series, and he's only done one book in the series.
Shad, you didnt redeem your character. At all. Instead you just have an abhorrent character that happens to be a marry sue as well as completely misrepresenting SA and the effects of trauma to a truly revolting extent. not to mention, the most telling thing about your main character is that by and large, many of the opinions your character, and the book itsself, has just so happen to line up with things you said in your Knights Watch channel, almost like your MC and your book itsself are your mouthpeice for your opinions. Which is telling, especially given what I said earlier about your depictions of sexual trauma. Also nice use of bots and/or white knights to pad your numbers.
I honestly hate the laziness recently of those wanting to skip character arcs, for villains or antagonists or whatever bad boy/gal of the week, so they can have a "ooo now is good but still edgy and has dark past" without any of the work. I get it's not the worst thing in fiction, I still find it thoughtless and lazy to rush through unless MAYBE a kid is playing around with silly fanfiction. If you can't do better than Empress Theresa go back to your manuscript and put in more effort. Come on.
Mary Sue. Marry is the word verb which leads to Marriage. Sorry to be that person, I have a compulsion.
I've honestly seen self insert fanfictions with more self awareness lmao
The thing for me as well, from my understanding, is that it's a path of redemption just cause the character feels bad and no actual legwork to get over it. It just wants to have the dark edge material and none of the work to actually make it a story. Like if you're going to throw a mix of your opinions and thoughts into a word-blender, at least allow me to be entertained
What you don't understand about SA is that there's a world of difference between being graped by an average man and being graped by the emperor. The reaction will not be the same. Having the child of the emperor has been viewed as a gift by many women throughout history. If this seems unbelievable to you, you lack historical knowledge and imagination.
I'm not saying shad made several brand new accounts to 5-star review his own book.
I'm just saying that if you read those in his voice the language fits. (eg, "I must say." [pause] [Next sentence])
he does love ai, and faking amazon reviews is one of the major uses of ai rn
Shadiversity is the type of guy to always frame himself in front of a bookshelf full of books he's never actually read to make himself look smart.
Here's the thing Shad himself points out about bad reviews 'lying' about the content of his book's prose and that he could read out sections to disprove the 'lies'... He's just described most of his own 'reviews' of various pop culture TV and movies as well as trailers amongst other things.
The high road isn't ignoring the negative reviews, the highroad is reading them and taking them seriously. Especially considering the negative reviews are so detailed and unbiased
Middle age man systematicly destroying any good will that people have tovards him.
He's self-published, literally the only reason that novel has the sales it does is because he's already famous for completely unrelated content that he actually knows how to make.
Like, he became famous because his channel was making good content.
Then he tries to complain that people dislike it, when the book never sold on its own merit anyway 🤣
I will give it to him though that is quite the marketing stunt. Get big off social media and use your clout to inflate the sales numbers of your products.
Not exactly original but eh
@@pyerack Yeah, I do respect him for all the work he put into the channel.
Shame he doesn't seem to do that with any other part of his life.
What many authors starting out also don't realize is that self publishing costs a lot of money out of pocket. That's the tradeoff. It costs thousands of dollars to get self published, and it's contingent on you to promote your book because the publisher will not do this for you. However, you don't have to go through the process of hiring an editor, finding an agent, and selling your work to a publisher, where every step of the way comes with a high chance of rejection. There is a lot more peer review, so to speak, when you go the traditional route. Self publishing worked for him because, as you correctly point out, he already had a massive audience willing to buy any crap he sells.
@@FrozEnbyWolf150 If he published with Amazon, then it doesn't actually cost anything to put it up and they print on demand.
The only cost is an editor, cover art, and of course the opportunity cost that you could've been doing something other than writing.
@@ImTakingYouToFlavorTown It bypasses certain parts of the process, not others. You still need editors, as you mention, and you still have to do all the promotional legwork yourself. Publishing with KDP and then trying to actually sell your book is equivalent to a full time job, which not everyone can do, and which he is obviously not doing. Without his existing platform, nobody would even know his book was on Amazon, and nobody would want to buy it.
Yes. I do believe the book in question scored just .1 lower than _A Song Of Ice And Fire_ and ties with the average Stephen King release.
Can I have my family back now, Shad?
"Shadiversity ATTACKS fans for not liking his book"
Exactly, he is basically doing what he has made X amount of videos of accusing Disney of doing - attacking the viewers/readers. The amount of psychological projection with this dude is through the roof and it's freaking hilarious.
The novel does not follow his journey of being redeemed. It starts off with him feeling bad and wanting to kill himself, then he gets de-aged and gets magical powers out of NOWHERE, and so he decides to go around murdering petty criminals and rapists as a vigilante, and lecturing characters about how they should stop whining about the rapes and mass murdering he committed (both often to children, including a main character he partners with) since he's a good guy now.
Shadiversity is the kind of dude that reads Berserk and come to the conclusion that Griffith did nothing wrong, and the horrific violence and SA is the appeal
He tried to write Dalinar from the Stormlight Archive, if the man had been completely consumed by all his worst traits.
A person: Don't write about rape unless its actually necessary. Let's be honest, it usually isn't.
The internet, without fail: You're saying NEVER write about rape! That's censorship!
As someone once said, "if you can't handle the heavy subject then don't touch the heavy subject." I see that as also meaning put in actual work or don't do the thing.
I always avoid rape, racism, or any historical tragedy in my writing. You have to make the movies/books/show about that subject if you're going to write that, not some side plot. I might hint that the villain is racist but that's it.
Why tho? People write about things that are unnecessary all the time, the entire fiction is unnecessary.
His book is self-published, so basically, he can bullshit about his sales all he want. Also... he's a bloody mormon... wouldn't exactly be the first time the good old mormon network bought books to manipulate sales rankings or crowdfunding.
Of course he is a mormon. He has their creepy wibe
Would they even abide the book? Most abrahamic faiths dissagree with anything but Gawd, Jeezuz, and the debil doing magic. Even though certain things like prayers are technically spellcrafting.
The mormons have troubled secrets about hiding rp too....
@@ItsDaJaxMormons are not Christians or "Abrahamic." Smith made up his own Jesus fanfiction and made it a religion.
@@drtaverner I wasn't aware of that. No need for the quotes.
I watched a review for this book where someone said the magic system is super tight. I'm a writer in urban fantasy, and it's not. It's simple, but not tight. Basically, there's a "god" in the universe called "the light" and straight out of a paladin's wet dream in DnD, you can channel this god into your body. Once you do, it's a practical buffet of magic power. Anything can be accomplished, so long as you believe it can happen. Our main boi Daelan is super special and has a bigger, better brain than all these trained accolytes of the light, and can just...bend a literal god to his will if he thinks REAL hard.
Through God, all things are possible
@@fatterperdurabo42069This is no God. The Light of Shadow of the Conqueror is a Cosmic Vending Machine.
@@llewelynshingler2173 reincarnated as a vending machine, I now empower a rapist?
Shad probably thinks Darth Vader was the real hero of Star Wars.
It's very easy to understand what is going on with Shad if you've watched his channel over the years. The long and short of it is that he is extremely jealous of his brother's success and so he tries to compete against his brother in a field he has no skill or talent in simply because he wants to be able to say " I'm better than you at everything including the thing you are most skilled in". Go back and have a look at all the videos where the two brothers appear together and you'll soon realize that everything is a competition for Shad while Jazza simply smirks and ignores the stupidity of his brother.
As someone who has the bones of a fantasy novel in the works, I'll use Shadiversity as a template of what NOT to do. Though I realize that's probably a fairly low bar, so I'm sure I'm pretty good at the moment. Lol!
The bar is practically a tripping hazard in hell.
Yet here Shad is, limbo dancing with the devil.
The only three takeaways should be:
•Make sure your story actually has a plot
•Make sure your protags have clearly defined strengths and weaknesses
•Using rape as a shorthand for evil gets tiring and juvenile VERY quickly
If you want to read a novel which contains what to _do_ and what _not_ to do... may I suggest Masques by Patricia Brigs?
@@aralornwolf3140 Thank you for the suggestion! I was reading about it a little, and saw that the author first wrote the story in ‘93, but then went back and amended it. Haha! That’s the sign of a great writer. I’ll definitely give it read and learn more so I can have some guide before I start going anywhere. Based on your profile, I see you’re a fan!
@@unhackerthelaziestbastardo6083 best description ever!
It says a lot that the negative reviews are the most detailed
Great book. it really stand together with other masterwoks, like Empress Theresa and Sonichu
I really want a sequel where Shady master, sonichu and Empress theresa team up and destroy all the haters.
I personally think that shad is slowly becoming the AI art Chris chan
shad straight up admitting that he wanted to write a redemption of the worst person in eh world. im sorry people dont just write redemption arcs for hitler and stalin without being HUGE FANS f those people
I agree, but the main character is not a hitler analogue, he's more like Mao, which is why at his trial there are equal numbers of people who want him dead as not and lots of people who stan for him. Given Shad's opinion on leftists, and the main character's opinion on young college students who support The Emporer's reign, I think it's a pretty solid Mao analogue (the college students flatly ignore the bad stuff he did or think it didnt happen) - the main character of course responds by ripping one of the communist's faces off, a 20 year old woman. Hilariously the more I reflect on this the more I dislike the book, but the narrators were pretty good in the audio book which made it a lot better than it wouldve been
@@override367 Uhm, neonaz do an exist. So I fail to see how what you claim is happening makes him not an adolf but a mao. Dolfie has loads staning for him to this date. Finding one who will do that today for Mao is a LOT harder.
I think you could potentially do a redemption of a villain like that, but it certainly works better with someone like Sauron or Darth Vader. I think the attachment to the baggage of real life dictators is the main issue which, understandably, ties a lot of emotion to it which obscures our objectivity about the concept. Conceptually, it would be possible. I think you could pretty easily write a redemption story for most villains even if they were responsible for millions of deaths, but I think intentional, structured genocide and SA are the two subjects where most people will just never consider them redeemable villains. I think you could potentially write a doomed redemption arc under those circumstances, but the only responsible way to show it would be to have the main character know that redemption is not possible and they are merely going to spend the rest of their life in atonement for their crimes by doing as many good things as possible without any hope of redemption in the eyes of the people they directly harmed or in their own eyes.
Because, divorced from the baggage of reality, and absent of the structured genocide or SA, I think MOST people would have no problem with redemption arcs for Vader or Sauron, and they both were directly or indirectly responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, or millions in Vader's case including younglings.
However, I disagree with your fallacy that a writer HAS to be a huge fan of a bad person to write a story about redeeming one. That isn't even the case with Shad, let alone another author. Daylen is basically just Mao and Shad has a problem with communists and portrayed him as the worst person he could think of in every way. There's not a chance in hell that Shad is a fan of Mao and yet he wrote a redemption story about Daylen, kind of totally contradicting your fallacy. If only because you ignored the fact that someone would write such a character as a political attempt for the MC to renounce their old ideology and get "red-pilled" (ironically - because communist).
There's an amazing documentary called The Act of Killing that profiles perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian mass purges. It follows guys who did the actual killing (they're still walking free today because the regime they killed on behalf of is still in power) as they attempt to make a movie that tells 'their side of the story.' Long story short you get the sense that they whole heartily believe that what they did was right, but it still left them as completely broken, empty people. They've unleashed demons upon the land, but those demons roost upon their chests. Solid doc, one of my favorite pieces of media for the unique perspective it gives on what goes on inside the head of the worst people in the world.
But you can tell Shad hasn't seen it, and doesn't understand anything about the subject matter he's writing about. He's completely out of his depth and is entirely fueled by his own misplaced ego.
He also basically failed, the MC kind of just says "Actually no, you're wrong for hating me." and calls that redemption.
Are we sure he didn’t have ChatGPT write his book?
Well, if he could, he would.
Can't help but feel that ChatGPT would write a better plot.
Hearing people criticize him is honestly the only thing I want to hear about Shad.
Seriously, guy made a religion that worships women *yet is a male fantasy of submissive women* for the social commentary of the mom and daughter being fat.
I'm sorry
What?
Can you say that again but more coherently please?
So in short he wants his women up on a pedestal and down on their knees?
(That’s a reference to some feminist source that I can’t recall atm)
@@brookehansen6973
Which part are you questioning? My dislike of Shad or the scene where the villain protagonist visits a family, that worships women by keeping them in the kitchen, and takes note that the women were fat?
@@Bezaliel13 I was just expressing disbelief
This actually happened in the book???
him saying that only 20% of people would be repulsed enough by the chronic sexual assault to reject the book is so outrageous that it feels like he's grievously telling on himself
Well yeah. Studies on it of people anonymously asking people's fetishes found out R fantasy is ridiculously popular when people don't have to have that knowledge following their name. It's kinda nuts.
“The diversity of these human characters is written in away that makes biological and geographical sense.” LMAO, that means “there’s almost no black or brown people”.
No, worse, we have brown nudists and a magical black man stereotype
These people always forget that every port and trade center, almost every border, was practically guaranteed to have diverse groups, intermarriage, etc.
Depends on where it's set.
@@christophergreen6595 Historically, there used to be separate quarters in a city. For example in Constantinople, which is basically the model of most fantasy novel Metropoleis (yeah thats the plural in Greek), the Venetians and the Genovese merchants had their own walled off sections. The problem with the way many novels or tv shows do diversity is that they try to make everything like a UN convention or California. It doesnt work like this if you want to have realistic worlds.
if you create a fantasy world from scratch, you can make it make sense, look at the elder scrolls world, it makes perfect sense why you have all these varied races living together. if it's not set on earth, realism doesn't really matter in that sense@@joek600
Oof, finding out Michael Kramer and Kate Reading narrated this doof's What If Turbo-Rape Hitler Was The Good Guy Mary Sue fantasy is just disheartening. Still, I bet there must be some amazing outtakes of the two of them going "I'm sorry, he wrote WHAT?" as they try to struggle through Shad's awful prose with a shred of dignity.
So I’m learning that he’s brothers with Jazza, which is wild, because Jazza seems to be nowhere close to Shad in terms of political opinions, or maybe he’s just smarter about it and doesn’t talk about it on RUclips. My guess is that Shad is just the “Conservative and Zealously Religous Brother” of the family not unlike my own father.
I think Jazza is an ex Mormon. He has said he does not agree with his brother on a lot of things. I think Shad is extremely jealous of his brother.
If he likes AI so much, why didn't he use chatgpt to write his book? It would have at least been readable 😅
I wouldn't be surprised if he let AI finish the book series.
A bunch of 5 star reviews in a row isn't suspicious at all. That's totally not the opposite of review bombing at all.
12:58 i think its a good thing to work your own traumas/struggles through a story, but Shad clearly lacks of a global vision on his(if he does so). You can't write a character who does the worst and force people to like him, but you can write a evil character and try to understand his motives and gives it a story that fits. Maybe im too much of a fangirl of tales but in my opinion if theres no moral at the end of a vilain sided story, it just makes it weird. What is Shad moral ? You can kill and rape and everyone will love you if you say you're sorry. He need a moral that fits his evil character motives and actions or it makes it sounds like hes trying to justify the character's actions
Shad "I'm not afraid of female empowerment, clearly I'm not Alita battle angel is one of my favorite honestly" I guess he thinks women should be more like robots.
Virginal virtuous robots with daddy's who make their body work.
I also think so he's waiting for fembots
He made some big mistakes with history on his channel as well and has a sort of bad reputation with actual historians. I remember him saying Romans had no cavalry, only to correct himself later.
The first sign I saw of his political and religious bias was when he discovered news about a sword found in Israel that was supposedly made of crucible steel, the Vered Jericho Sword, named after the location it was found on and allegation have been made that analysis on the sword showed the iron had been deliberated hardened, meaning that ancient hebrew smiths knew how to deliberate make steel.
Why this is important to Shad? Shad is a Mormon and I would say a radical even amount them, the Book of Mormon mentions a ancient hebrew sword made of steel, the Sword of Laban, which is an important element of their theology. The LDS Church has pushed the idea that the Vered Jericho Sword proves that ancient hebrews knew how to make steel and therefore is archeological evidence confirming the Book of Mormon as truth. Shad made several videos on the sword, made a 3d model of his interpretation of the Sword of Laban and even videos addressing people that argue the Vered Jericho Sword is made of iron, not steel. It's important to mention that even if the sword is indeed made of steel the claims that it was hardened on purpose instead of accidentally have no historical footing, something he fails to mention.
Btw, the reason he is so focused on Brandon Sanderson is probably because Sanderson is also Mormon, although afaik Sanderson is much more private about his religion and from what i've read him (I just read The Final Empire and i'm now 1/3 way through The Well of Ascension) it's not obvious in his writing.
-I just think it's weird to have a Sword-Channel where anyone can dunk on you by simply owning a $30 sword because the single one you have is actually a decoration.-
*[read below to see how I'm wrong]* Thanks, Neobyrne and Darth Theo.
He owns a bunch more, he shows them in his videos quite a lot.
He just doesn't have them in the backdrop.
Why?
No idea ^^
@@Nerobyrne Are they recent by any chance? I haven't been to his channel in quite some time, but at last count I was not aware of any real swords.
Also thanks for the info
@@BaronVonQuiply He owns several. He has shown them in videos for years now.
@@BaronVonQuiply no they're quite old.
He made some video where he pretended to be a Sword Salesman.
@@Nerobyrne I wonder how I missed them.
Regardless, thanks for telling me. I have to stop using that line now.
Literally right-wing human Brian.
Hot take: the only reason this book was not generated by AI is that ChatGPT does not like to describe mass child rape.
I now feel inspired to get my own written out, because I can't be worse than him.
Do it. Twilight was a success and it was questionable teen angst fanfiction.
Imagine being ANY writer and thinking your very first novel is an absolute masterpiece.
Oof.
again ALL he had to do was keep on keeping on and he would JUST have been the nerdy fun sword guy lol. I call this Musking it up.
So, if I scan Shads books with AI and get it to write a book, would Shad be okay with that?
You have to occasionally change the syntax in the book first then run it through the AI again. After that he should be ok with it.
he's so lacking in confidence in anything that he made an entire video proving to people that people actually like his book where he reads reviews that exclusively seem like they could be bot reviews
Honestly I can understand Shad to a degree, because I used to work for something that got mad popular with a small percentage of extreme haters that managed to be very loud at times.
I won't go in details about self-growth and how you should listen to the harsher critiques at times because it's obvious. The problem is that making a video about why they're wrong is an admission of weakness.
If you're going to prove that you only care about the positive and "fair", and you want to make the haters feel small, then don't make a video specifically because of them. Hell if they're a tiny percentage then you're objectively fine. At worst only reply to the haters that contact you directly because they'll be the ones starting shit and you can act like the bigger person.
He even complains that they're biased and not objective because they hate him, but then it can also be applied to his fans complimenting him because they're his fans in the first place. They'll be nice to him and barely highlight the negative, and logically they're also are gonna be the majority of people buying the book. It's wholesome in a way because I know the feeling of support they give him, but he has to understand they are not much more "objective" than the haters are in the end.
In conclusion I think he's someone who's lead a very privilieged and sheltered life. If he doesn't change and keeps sheltering himself so much, he'll just keep getting worse.
I've had people reaching out to me to tell me the work I contributed to helped them through great crisis in their life, and I would absolutely hate to use their messages as an argument against someone claiming what I'm working on sucks. Sure it's something you can remind yourself for motivation, but using it as a rhetorical card is so...innapropriate and petty.
I was his fan, that's why I bought the book. I'm sure that's why _everyone_ bought the book. Yet, I read it... and it pissed me off. Dayless was arrogant in chapter 1, and Dayless remained arrant all throughout the novel, even to the final word. He _knowingly_ *exually exploited children... and he had the gall to consider himself a "good person" at the end because he was "forgiven"....
I guess I would be labeled as a "hater"... I left comments on his videos describing multitude of problems with his novel, with the hope that he'll take my criticisms and learn from them, so his next book will be better. I guess the hundreds of comments praising his book as "one of the best books they have ever read" just got to his head.
Plot is full of contrivances... Characters are inconsistent, especially Dayless... Setting is self-contradictory... That's even before getting to the intention of Shad to redeem a thoroughly irredeemable person.
Wait, how does your first paragraph indicate him being sheltered and privileged?
Shad looks like he smells bad.
Dayless is the embodiment of 'might makes right'. He gets rewarded with youth, incredible power and retains access to his vast wealth and knowledge so he becomes unbeatable. Shad waffles on way too long and in a clinically dull way about his magic system.
Shad is one of the first authors I've ever heard review his own book positively. That isn't praise, that's problematic... You can't grow if you can't see what's wrong with your previous work.
Philip K. Dick said about Scanner Darkly that "I believe this is a masterpiece. I believe it is the only masterpiece I will ever write" and he was quite right. He had also written many novels by then.
@@vksasdgaming9472 First amateur author* then.
@@hawkshot867 Author should be proud of job well done despite it's results (written two novels to desk drawer) and acknowledge their flaws. Shad Brooks tries to market his book as greatest fantasy novel since Silmarillion and I know that regular D&D campaign adapted into novel(s) can produce better work (lead to career as author) and one of best-written fantasy novels I've read was prequel to those simple campaign action-novels. They did have same author though so expertise was greatest.
Addendum: as coherent novel Silmarillion is not that good, but it has extremely good singular moments in it and it is obvious knowing it was unfinished work. Lord of The Rings was much more polished work and even that has issues with pacing and wildly varying style.
If he thinks that's cool, wait until he finds out I ranked 13th worldwide in one of my VR games (it was such a milestone that I don't remember which game it was).
HE'S the one not getting along! he's has a lot of nerve to tell people "cant we all just get along?"
this is why you don't buy youtuber books. at least not voluntarily. if you're curious wait until it pops up at your local library first.
I think Shad might be a narcissist.
So there was this guy -- I originally went to middle school and high school with him, but hardly interacted with him outside of one camping field trip in 8th grade. Over 13 years after _high school_ I just so happened to run into the guy when he was working at Barnes & Noble. My tabletop gaming group had just had 3 people leave (one moved, the other two had a child and just didn't have time) and so I thought "hey, he seems like an okay nerdy sort, maybe he can join us".
That was a huge mistake.
He'd never played a tabletop roleplaying game and so we decided to be supportive and help him along, because it can be a lot to take in. The first two sessions he wouldn't stop going on about his fantasy book -- a series of books, actually -- he'd written (or was writing) and a board game he made based on it (which according to him was modeled on chess, but he'd improved chess). Third session he brings this partly home-made board game over, almost begging us to "playtest" it.
We'd find out he didn't mean play test, as he didn't want any feedback that wasn't overwhelmingly positive. He meant "play and then tell me how much a genius I am for making this".
The board game was, in part, fabricated by some low-tier company that presents itself as a means for mass production of board games. But he'd spent a *lot* on two prototypes (which looked awful, and as someone who has worked in graphic design and some fabrication, it looked to me like it shouldn't have cost more than $30 to produce what he had, and still it was full of numerous production errors that even an amateur should catch -- and additionally the artwork was atrocious and I'd offered to make some up for him or hook him up with some other artists I knew, but it was _his_ artwork and he thought it was perfect).
We decided to humor him and play his game. It was a mess of needlessly complex rules and contradictions, and was mechanically broken. I feel it's important to add in here that he'd been working on this game for the last 4 years at that point, but it all appeared to be the first draft. First off, it's just capture the flag via candyland but with art that's a mix of that one "fixed" Jesus painting and Fallout New Vegas if it was set in Middle Earth, with 5 different characters and one of the characters is blatantly better than the others in every way. The mechanically broken bit is that when you eliminate the other players, and just two people are left (both with the most powerful character type, as it one-shots all others) they will just keep going around in circles forever. There's no end state to the game, no winner. Because to have a winner, one of the two would have to purposefully throw the game. We point this out to him (very gently, mind you) and offer a handful of ideas for how to avoid that and he got mad and told us we didn't understand it. And I mean mad, like a 3 year old on the verge of a full on fit -- so we all just backed off to let him cool off and hopefully regain composure.
Two sessions later (at this point I was regretting getting him involved, but two others in the group thought it'd be "too mean" to stop inviting him, despite him being a huge pain at the table and also a bit of a dick toward the one woman player we had) he announced he had made his own RPG. To note, he had played 3 sessions of D&D (which I could go on and on about the bullshit of those two sessions) and a one-shot in Fate that I ran. Not only had I now realized he was a through and through Maga-loving rightoid, but one who was quite deluded about his own abilities.
So, yeah. He made his own RPG. Oh, don't worry about the rules, he memorized them and will tell you them... as it comes up.
We had even offered to let him borrow some books, because we thought he _meant_ to say he was going to make his own campaign. That is incorrect. He made his own RPG. From scratch. And none of it was written down. This happened in 2019, not long before the ol' Covid hit. And to this day I severely regret not recording that entire thing. Because yeah, we played it.
It was laughably bad. I couldn't believe a grown man had come up with something so poorly thought out -- and so obviously made up on the fly. He had made some sort of character sheet from a combo of Excel and Paint, then had pre-made out characters for us. It's not clear if there were classes in his game. Just a mix of random stuff. And the "stats" were very inconsistent between characters. I asked if I could play a magic user (mostly out of a morbid curiosity to see what he'd do for magic). I got handed a character that was a knight who'd been possessed by a wizard. I could cast fireball, but it took all my Ability Points to do it and did less damage than my sword. Range wasn't a mechanic, so in theory I could attack with my sword at range. I could also "shield bash" which caused the target to lose a turn (no save, no roll, no usage of Ability Points, it just happened).
Two boss fights in, he said I couldn't use the shield anymore because it was broken. Because I'd been running up to enemies, shield bashing them every turn to keep them from getting a turn, while the others killed them off with no resistance. -- But the real kicker is that the whole thing was based off of his books, same as that board game. And you know what his books were? The adventure of a reincarnated wizard who was actually Jesus Christ come to save the world from the demons of the Seven Deadly Sins.... and also stop abortion and taxes and rescue a sexy princess who had no other defining traits. Oh, and one of the big bad demons had a vagina for a face. We know because he'd drawn a picture for us and... it's not clear if _he_ knew what he'd drawn, as we all think there was some Freudian stuff going on there and self-awareness was not a strength for him.
The game ended with the NPC heroes from Heaven swooping in to kill all the baddies (including the Satan Dragon that came out a regular villager when we the players had deviated wildly from the plot to start a socialist revolution in the kingdom without using the word socialist... we had to have our fun) while our characters just watched it happen. And no, my character wasn't the Jesus wizard from his books, the Jesus Wizard was one of the heroes from Heaven. My character was a clone or something, and died because clones are an affront to god or whatever. That mess of a super railroaded game took three agonizing sessions. And we played it mostly to see how shit it could get, since any criticism we offered along the way (way more constructive than he deserved at times) was swatted down and ignored and we were told we didn't know what we were talking about routinely, despite having played RPGs for a decade more than him
.... ....
I wish I could say that guy wasn't part of our group after that. But no. Me and one other person kept saying we should stop having him over while the other two kept saying "oh, he seems harmless, let's give him another chance". Roughly 30 one-more-chances later we did finally stop having him come over (during the heigh of covid we played online and that MFer would eat into the Mic, talk over people, go AFK without telling us and then demand we fill him in on the 20 minutes he was away for). The last 5E D&D game we played was Curse of Strahd... and while I have a number of complaints with that module and 5E in general, that guy definitely played a big part in making it worse.
...
Anyway, if that guy ever got his bad books published, I can only imagine they'd be on the same level as Shad's trash.
Excellent read!
At least better than Shads read
To be honest, I do think that its possible for horrible characters to be redeemed. But only if they:
1. Suffer the 110% of the karmic force of what they made other people suffer;
2. Pay for their crimes for the rest of their lifes or die making a big enough sacrifice;
3. Aren't so much of a**hole that they haven't anything that could push they in the right direction (even if its something a little more sellfish like the fear of death);
& 4. Is well written.
And that said, it still is a herculean task and few skilled authors can pull that one of. And I didn't read the book, but it doesn't seem like Shadiversity pulled that one of.
I think the great irony is that I didn't realize AI was trash until Shad started defending it. It was Shad in his defense of AI art that made me realize that AI all looks the god damn same. I'm not going to say AI art is bad full stop, but its utility seems really niche.
It is genuinely just a tool with very very limited utility but a massive cost to the environment and to basic human dignity to develop and improve. The juice just isn't worth the squeeze, and dorks like Shad getting off on pretending to be artists with it is a true insult to injury.
Either way... people who do support it, I don't consider them artist, just because they're good with a boolean search.
People like Shad saying “can’t we all just find common ground” is so funny because people like him are the ones incapable of compromise.
The Terry Goodkind is strong with Shad... super-creepy, psycho-sexual r4p3 fetishism laid over either non-plots or plagiarized plots...
Terry was exactly who I thought of during that ending. I have a pretty strong suspension of disbelief in a book, but that rocked me right out of it.
Holy shite, thank you! Didn't realize I was the only one who picked Terry Goodkind's works and "noped" right out.
@@fedupN I had the advantage of having already read most of Wheel Of Time before reading any of the Sword Of Truth, so the Plagiarism was SUPER obvious to me, and I'd also read grimdark fantasies that hand SA that advanced the plot, so his non-sequitur and gratuitous ones were pretty flagrant too.
Now I'm learning that he's something of a byword in the fantasy reader community, with a small and fervently loyal fanbase of his loudly attacking his critics. There are some good YT Video essays about how horrible he was as an author and a person...
@@lady_draguliana784 Thanks! Ill have to check those videos out.
13:09 - reading that chat snippet - bro some of the victims are “extra traumatized” that they weren’t “gifted” a rape baby by the super chad MC? Like are we supposed to believe that some women were like “oh how could that guy be so indecent as to not impregnate me when he raped me”, like I’m not a woman so if any women reading this comment want to correct me please do, but I just don’t think that most women would think it’s a bad thing that they didn’t get impregnated via rape. Does Shad just assume that all women have a rape fantasy, or at least enough to make it believable that some of his MC’s victims are sad about not being “gifted” one of his babies?
Good mercy that’s literally so much worse than just having your MC be a rapist. Methinks Shad needs therapy about how he thinks about assault, pregnancy, consent, literally so many things. I doubt anything else I could learn about the book could top that, but I am open to being proved wrong.
Edit: so it gets worse, this MC literally lowered the age of consent and assaulted children on top of everything else. I am now even more concerned that Shad might need to be on a list.
The weird thing is Shad has Yumi and the Nightmare Painting in the background. A book about AI art and hire bad it is. Written by his hero Brandon Sanderson
"Sort for most recent" - Probably because he noticed the bad reviews popping up and mobilized a dozen of his followers for counteraction very recently. Why else would anyone ever highlight that specific function in such a context? There´s literally no benefit to it, unless you know you somehow fucked with the system.
I read it. It was a book. It had some good points but it also had some extremely bad points. The main character that got out of any problem by creating new powers (that technically fit the magic system but still seemed overdone to the point of annoyance). But the main thing was how he dealt with female characters and “relationships”. I didn’t know his religious views before going into it but very quickly realized his view of women was juvenile and just plain creepy. I don’t think writing about SA is bad but he did not handle it well at all. It came across as him as a writer being creepy.
Reminds me of a better prompt was that when confronted with all the horrible stuff they’d done would for a moment have a retreat before doubling down.
Weird shady incel with bad takes: "because there are a lot more people that dislike me for" insert wildly inaccurate reason here.
Yeah, can't imagine why people don't like an incel who is buddies with Sargon of swindon...
You cannot separate your art and politics. And you lose your credibility on education when you make stupid Disney conspiracies that aren’t true and being butt hurt over Peach wearing her Mario Kart outfit.
Yes, you can easily separate art from politics.
@@addison_v_ertisement1678 I think they mean Shad can't do it lol not that people in general can't though I can almost always tell when a sci fi or fantasy book is written by a right wing author because they can't help but jab about things they don't like lol
@@jacksmith-vs4ct ^^^ exactly like you can easily read the undertones of an authors politics depending on what they write.
@jacksmith-vs4ct They literally said *"YOU cannot separate your art and politics." That very obviously refers to the people reading their comment.
As someone who started a revised draft of a fantasy novel, along with many others in the works, i was curious to check out his book when it came out, but after reading all the reviews im probably gonna steer clear of it. Maybe if i find it for dirt cheap or for free somewhere, ill give it a try just to see how bad it is, analyzing it for learning purposes of what not to do. I've read some meh fantasy in the past, but this sounds like a new low.
I hate to read someone elses work with such a mindset, but the reality is that not everyone is a good writer, and i hate how the fantasy genre is saturated with a lot of them. Hopefully what im creating will shine if even just a little.
He has over a million and a half subscribers and he's only sold 40,000 copies of his book? That tells me everything I need to know
That tells you absolutely nothing.
🤣
Tears in his eyes”YOU LIKE ME YOU REALLY LIKE ME!”
Since when does popular consensus mean a book is objectively well written? 50 Shades of Grey anyone? The After series?
He was suppose to release a live action short movie of this book. What happened to that?
I just find it hard to believe that Brandon Sanderson, actually listed him on the thanks part of the storm light archive. Like, Shad is ass at writing but gets a glow from one of the best writers of our time. Meanwhile I'm stuck in mid card hell working on the same story since I was att least 15 lol.
Once I found out about his political nonsense and his AI Art nonsense, it doesn’t matter that he breaks them into separate channels. I’m never giving any of his channels any views ever again.
There are outside millions of people who believe that the earth is a flat plate (that's what the bible tells them) and that's not more funny but worrying. So just like Shad and his book and his supporters, we should be worried what society we're living in
Shad says he asked “could hitler be redeemed?” But he actually asked “was hitler really that bad? What if he was young and cool and sexy and was wow! He’s just like me! Omg so poggers thanks for the upvotes look at how cool and witty le tony stark he is what if he was Superman or Batman and you really wanted to date him ha ha jk unless? 👉👈”
At least that’s what I got from it when I read the book
It really feels like if he heard Hitler came out as an uwu sad boy asking everyone to forgive him for messing up, Shad'd want everyone to just give him a pat on the back and a reelection.
I don't know how much can be done about it, but it is really hard to read the text when its on screen even at 1080p
Okay so I have people in my TTRPG who are clearly evil, but that is the point. They can not be redeemed they are like Shad and they are proud of how cruel they are.
This! I've been running Curse of Strahd and half the joy of that module is finding a good balance between "understandable sad man" and "wilfully cruel bastard who can't be excused by his past".
@@MikanTsumikiTV one thing I have had to come to terms with in real life is that sometimes redemption doesn’t mean being good it just means no longer being evil.
I don’t see it basically ever being done, redemption of your past mistakes isn’t necessarily an accomplishment it’s putting you at neutral.
You can’t just negate decades of abuse and become a hero but you can hope to not die a villain.
@@n0etic_f0x Pretty much! People also tend to forget that redemption isn't owed. One can atone and do good deeds and pay off whatever karmic debts they think they have, but they shouldn't do it in hopes of being accepted or even recognised for it, because that's the choice of the victim(s) alone
@@MikanTsumikiTV Yeah I definitely agree, the guy in my life who is never going to be the hero is sadly my own male DNA donor.
He tries not to be such a bad person but he’s not all too good at it. Always angry and typically fairly bigoted but he does at least try to be better.
Will he be forgiven? Well, no, but I can’t honestly hate him. A lot of it is that he is simply not strong minded enough to go through with any level of introspection to modify his behavior.
Honestly as soon as you start doing sexual harassment and involve kids in it, any form of "redemption" is out the window.
Hell even murder is too far but at least the character can atone for that sort of stuff. No idea why Shad even though it was a good idea to go with this type of story.
He reads reviews from Audible, one of which describes the book on an AUDIO BOOK website as "one of the best READS"? Is that normal for audio book listeners? To call it " reading" when they listen to an audio book?
It's not abnormal, we shouldn't be gatekeeping reading that way
@@LITTLEREDBEAR917 It is consuming literature, but not by definition reading. I'll accept that people experienced the story sure, but it's a lot closer to watching a film adaptation that full reading, without audio supplementation. I say this as a person who was an avid reader from age 6. The experience you make is one thing, but audio books take away a little bit of that agency for the sake of convenience. I would have once upon a time also brought up the lack of page flipping, but as I have moved largely to digital, that is no longer a big factor.
@@LITTLEREDBEAR917 and what sort of gatekeeping are you assuming is happening here? After all, reading is an action. As is listening. Recognizing the difference between the two doesn't gatekeep anyone from consuming media. At all.
So....what's being gatekept here?
Maybe he should have handed his book to AI and then edited it with his "ArTisTiC EYe"
The problem with the redemption question is that he handles it way wrong. The character doesnt change and gets redeemed. He needed to you know... Actually change because he was irredeemable and needs to be come redeemable.
Ill take a wild guess that the MC "redeems" himself by doing a lot of heroic deeds, and not by doing any soul searching or self review or any remorse for the effect his previous actions had on his victims. " But he's a good guy now" "But he doesn't do that stuff anymore"
Apparently he brutally murders a huge amount of people who he detects are evil while saying he doesn't like killing.
So the book rejects the idea that bad people can redeem themselves because the MC kills bad people not giving them the chance for redemption. You can't make this shit up! @@daefaron
@@KaleidoAbridged honestly the reviews I've read and listened to (shocking, ones shad did not comment on) made the main character sound like the peak murderhobo trouble d&d player who kills everywhere but never gets in trouble.
That's hilarious! @@daefaron
His insistence on people only looking at the reviews by "most recent" is sus, as if he paid for good review spam recently.