Thread 24707336

so i'm reading this book. it's supposed to be a fairytale, really. there's a little group of villages at the edge of the dark wood; the wood is corruptive and evil. (it does an excellent job selling this idea. people go into the woods and come back changed, twisted, violent, deranged. the language is disturbing and effective.) they are a small part of a large kingdom, and one man rules their little area. they call him The Dragon, but he is a man; a powerful, undying wizard. once every ten years, he comes to the villages to take away one of their daughters, at seventeen. he takes her away for ten years, then lets her go with a purse of silver. everyone assumes he takes them for concubines basically, but we learn he doesn't, he just wants a bit of company, and for someone else to cook his meals, while he does the exhausting work of fighting off the dark wood. the story follows the girl he picks (not the prettiest, but she's found to be good at magic in a way he isn't), and it's actually super engaging. i was invested in him and her, in the magic, in the wood, in the world, and i thought it was an exciting story to subvert the "man takes away girl, she basically gets stockholm syndrome, happily ever after" plot to make them just like student/teacher.

a bit into the book they start casting spells in unison. the writing of this process (where they interweave their magic and hold hands) got really intimate, but i thought it was cool. like of course that would be intimate. there's a spell that bares the truth and soul of everything around, like, the deep held feelings of everyone, the secrets, the corruption of the wood. very cool magic. randomly, like a third of the way in, they cast a spell together, and she like, does some thing to make it go well, and then they just start fucking for no reason. then they get flustered and run away and don't mention it for awhile, but like, why the fuck is this part of the story? the 17 year old and the 200 year old wizard? the guy who has mostly been mean to her this whole time, and she's been rude and disrespectful of him the entire time?? why? the magic was already cool enough without this subplot, it's kinda souring my experience with it. i love a good romance but this isn't even that, it feels forced in with poor execution on top of a story that was good and well rounded without this element. their dynamic as teacher and student was excellent. being lovers actually ruins it a lot.

why do books always do this? it was written by a woman so it's not a men-writing-women issue. it's just so dumb, it pisses me off. i wanted a cool story about spell research and history and magic and evil corruptive mysteries...

>>24707336 (OP)
> the guy who has mostly been mean to her this whole time, and she's been rude and disrespectful of him the entire time
That’s just the textbook romantasy mating ritual

>>24707365
i guess? i don't know. it doesn't feel earned at all. i've ready romantasy so cheesy it could give you a heart attack and loved it, but while i love this book and it's voice and it's world, the 'romance' feels just shoved into the cracks like someone who's bad at packing a suitcase. the friction didn't feel flirty, the fling didn't feel cathartic. it was constant frustration, then sudden lust. this sucks to me.

>>24707336 (OP)
Because that's what women do

>>24707396
then why am i complaining about it

>>24707460
Probably because you’re not fucking anyone
Classic case

>>24707469
shut up actually
this is NOT the reason its just NOT a good plot point i LIKE romance this is NOT kino you didnt even read the BOOK

I was actually slightly interested in reading that. It's disappointing to hear it's like this. Everything has to be "spicy" and daring. If something is simply comfy and clever it's described by many as plodding and dull. I'm curious if this was something she intended from the start, or if it was added later because of doubts she had or pressure from the publisher to give it more mass appeal. You have my sympathy anon. As far as low stakes tragedies go, getting 150 pages into something only for it to be ruined is one of the worse ones.

>>24707570
i'm more chapters into it. they haven't followed up on the scene again like i feared they would. i was very worried it would consume her character and the story, but it has been mostly treated like an awkwardness between those two. i actually recommend it; the strongest relationship she has isn't with the wizard, but her lifelong friend who she risks everything to save time and time again. it's magic is based on slavic mythology and it's genuinely fucking scary. give it a read. i was just really upset that weird ingredients were put in the soup; i still don't like it, but it's one bite that has the flavor, not the whole bowl.

>>24707570
also i realized that while they are vastly different ages she is also now immortal-ish, still super weird, but whatever.

>>24707570
okay maybe two spoonfulls. whatever. it's good enough that the first time i picked it up i didnt stop until 4am

>>24707336 (OP)
I'm imagining Gandalf having sex with a high school girl. That doesn't sound good.

>>24707593
i'm imagining this wizard as ageless and bald but basically, yes. you can understand my frustration. the heart of the story is the love two girls have for each other and have had since they were kids, since chapter one. (not romantic, just, like, bound for life). the weird pseudo smut side of things is so so weird and unnecessary to me. i'm still finishing it, it's still great, but i wish i could shake the author and ask her what her fucking problem is, barring this it would be like a 8/10, maybe 10/10 for me personally.

>>24707595
>i wish i could shake the author and ask her what her fucking problem is,
Don't let your dreams stay dreams. I bet she goes to conventions, and I bet she doesn't have a security detail.

UGH FUCK THERES A FUCKING ARMY OUTSIDE STOP KISSING THE WIZARD HOLY SHIT DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE KILL

>>24707570
it might be all of the carrots in the entire soup i guess i'll go FUCK myself

listen lady i like a smut fic as much as the next loser but you can't put it IN THE BOOK you need to put all the sexual tension in the subtext because it's not the POINT of the story, and then let sexually frustrated teenagers publish it on AO3. you're subverting the natural order of things.

Thanks, OP, I'm going to read this now. Any time the book starts to lose my interest, I'm going to remember you S E E T H I N G and then I'll laugh.

>>24707595
Imagine Yoda having sex with Luke after he lifts the spaceship.

>>24707336 (OP)
Let me guess, you're upset because a female protagonist isn't fucking you irl, is that it?

i am aware i am ranting but i cannot stress enough how there is a genuinely flawless medieval slavic horror fantasy story here and for some reason pasted directly on top of it is a story arc that literally goes

>OMG he's kidnapping me
>is he going to rape me???
>i'm so scared he's going to rape me
>>wizard is a rude piece of shit to her for months, treats her like a slave, insults her
>>once she shows she has a talent he treats her more like a human being (still rude)
>>he establishes he is not a rapist
>>now let the romance bloom !!!

>>24707606
exactly this but if luke was like "that's right R2, we're going to the dagobah system. obi wan said this guy loved the twink padawans the most!" and then yoda kept going like "do or do not, there is no try. also you need to wear more flattering clothes while i ride on your shoulders"

>>24707603
it's very very good other than this one glaring fucking issue. i hope you enjoy! i'll try to keep a lookout if you post a thread about it later. i'm on /lit/ all the time.

>>24707607
yes. totally.

>>24707614
I'll grab it after I finish my current book.

>also about a young girl, written by a woman
I really hope there's no sex in this one!

>>24707642
Why females love sex so much?

>>24707642
If Anne was written for adults, then sex scenes with her would be fine. It's all about context.

>>24707645
>Why females love sex so much?
How else babby formed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll-lia-FEIY

>>24707642
i've seen several book covers for anne and i like this one maybe the most. it's very sweet and lovely. aren't there like a LOT of sequels? i never read all of them, just the first one, and watched the old tv show.

>>24707679
There's an Anne Shirley anime. I might watch it.

>>24707336 (OP)
Unfortunately this is why I'm not keen to read female written fantasy. It can be very good but they can't help but put the femc in a toxic relationship

>>24707336 (OP)
Books are porn for women. Men don't read anymore.

>>24707387
>the friction didn't feel flirty, the fling didn't feel cathartic. it was constant frustration, then sudden lust. this sucks to me.
This is how women experience dating.

>>24707650
>Anne of Green Gables in 1908
>orphan girl is accidentally adopted by farmers who wanted to adopt a boy
>she can't do as much farm work as a boy, but they love her just the same

>Anne of Green Gables in 2025
>"Well, now that you're old enough, it's time you pay for your upkeep another way..."

>>24707679
The anime or one of the live actions? I watched the anime, it was cute.

>>24707682
There's two, an old one (made by Studio Ghibli people before Studio Ghibli existed) and a new one. Be aware that the old one is really slow. That works for me, that worked for audiences in 1979, but that might not work for everyone today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7jtG0T1qTg

>>24707682
i heard that was really cozy. wasn't it by miyazaki too? i might check it out sometime.

>>24707691
please do not say this depressing thing to me in my book thread

>>24707686
it reminds me of the time i read a female written weird-western about a slave girl turned werewolf hunter that made me feel like "wow, i relate to this character a lot and this setting rules" and then in book two the fucker turned her into a trans-man named rhett.

>>24707686
sorry, didn't finish my thought. it's frustrating to me because male-written female characters never resonate quite the same. there's a certain depth and shape of emotion the female characters lack and it is hard for me to ignore. but i hate this kind of weird shoe-in romance, especially when the male interest is like, old and powerful or the chosen one or some shit. i wouldn't mind so much if she happened to fall in love with some cute dweeb along the way but it's always the fucking crown prince or most powerful wizard in all the land or some shit. drives me insane. i can put up with it when the point is the romance but when its just shoved in there i want to lose my shit

>>24707387
>it was constant frustration, then sudden lust.
The lust wasn't sudden for women. The opposite of sexual desire is not hate or anger, it's indifference. Mutual animosity means they were thinking about each other a lot, and with strong, passionate feelings. The fact that these feelings are negative at the moment barely matters, the mere presence of any strong emotion indicates there is tension that can become sexual very quickly. It's not like a relationship between men, where if there is mutual animosity the only way to resolve things is to fight it out or to avoid one another so a fight doesn't happen. With a man and a woman, the woman isn't going to try fighting the man because that's not how they resolve disputes, and men aren't going to indulge in the catty psychological games women play among themselves. So from a woman's perspective, there's only one thing to do with a man who drives you crazy and you can't get away from: you sleep with him. That's just how woman brain works.

>>24707729
listen, i'm not saying you're wrong about the first thing; the opposite of desire is indifference, hate and love are twin sisters, i get that. these are not real people, though, this is a story, and the way it was told was not a love story. the rest of that devolved into some pretty heinously weird territory i'm not touching, but let's not debate how women work, i promise you lose that discussion, and it's not important to my point.

if you introduce two characters who have nothing in common, are not the same age, are not of the same culture, personality, maturity, intention, personal value, or anything else, it's on the author to convince me they are drawn to one another. especially considering they met through an unwilling abduction, the burden of proof to convince me she is coming to care for him is even stronger. considering it's all written in first person and nearly everything on the page is her thoughts? i should have seen this coming; i didn't. it felt like cousins making out at thanksgiving.

tldr, the interactions they had up until they started making out build a certain structure. i felt they had a complex but engaging dynamic. making them lovers dumpstered that entire dynamic in favor of a boring and shallow one i've seen before, and i don't even like them together. it's a really poor narrative choice and removing it would change NOTHING ELSE about the story other than i guess his devotion to her, but i sure would like to think a man could care about a woman enough to save her life without cum involved.

>>24707472
Hahahaha btfo

>>24707742
shh shh im acting smart and auraful now we don't have to talk about that post

>>24707746
I want to bully you further but the way you write is so cute and adorable, I just can't.

>>24707704
Have you ever read an exception to this? IE a man who wrote women well. I'm considering trying to write for women and I'm still not sure what exactly the gap is. My current very tentative theory is that men are actually too reserved and overdo subtletly, or something similar, on top of often getting entire aspects wrong like conflating downstream actions with the core motivations that caused them.

>>24707758
i was gonna say something about how reading so much personality from someone's writing doesn't make sense to me, but then i remembered i read books for a hobby. so i guess i can't judge! i think i'm writing pretty plain though.

i think the best way i can put it is that men deal with emotions and desires like driving a car along a road. so many obstacles and important things in male books are split choices of contrasts. women write it much more open, like picking your way through the forest with no worn path. you know where you go and where you come from, but the path is very organic. male paths seem very straight-line, all the time. anyway, i like some female characters by male writers, they just don't resonate with me as much, and especially struggle as solitary protagonists. men writing women works best when the protagonist is a man and we can trust him to warp the female characters through his own perception.

>>24707773
Ahhh that's very helpful, thanks.

>>24707758
The original script for Alien was written without genders or first names, and that gets praised for its female protagonist all the time. So I guess just write a genderless character.

>>24707778
Yeah but that's not a novel, Ripley's femaleness comes through watching her physical self. And we don't get access to her inner thoughts like you usually do in a movie. Thanks though that's a good idea.

>>24707773
Also regarding the first paragraph I think it's just your personality peeking out through your words.

i have finished the book. i have a few important takeaways:

1. the ending was lovely. the pairing is still stupid but he's very much a cherry on top of her character's fulfillment, which does not come from her lover, but from her work and her way in the world, and her people, and life. at the end he runs away to deal with politics. she finds her happy ending and becomes who she wants to be; he comes back. she would have been happy either way. i think it's lovely. even if it's a bad ship.

2. i snooped on the author. she originally wrote fanfiction on AO3 before publishing. this explains the weird pairing and the very very competent smut sections that felt super foreign. she's probably written so much of it that she's blind to that kind of thing. still hate the pairing. i think it could have been written well, and maybe it wasn't written terribly, but i was so completely NOT expecting it that it felt like a slap in the face.

3. this may also be effected by the fact that, looking back, she tried to describe him as looking like, early 20s? this would have probably changed my reading experience. i envisioned a skinny bald guy with white eyebrows and a short beard, pale skin, and lizardy pupils. i guess if i had clocked i was supposed to imagine him as a tumblr sexyman it wouldn't have felt so fucking unexpected. but if you tell me he's a hundreds-of-years-old wizard you have to really hammer home physical details or that's what you get.

4. other than what i think amounts to four total scenes that deal with their romance this is my favorite book i have read in years and years and i very much recommend it if you like folklore and interesting magic.

>>24707778
that's a good way to write something that only serves to prime the actual story for creation, but not so much a narrative based on internal monologue.

>>24707787
i guess that's how talking works, i just, it's hard for me to see these kinds of posts not just having personality but having a strong personality enough that you'd be like, flustered or something. i dunno, don't make me think about it.

>>24707336 (OP)
> why do fantasy books with female protagonists ALWAYS have to have her fuck someone
I don't remember Tenar fucking anyone in Tombs of Atuan, or any subsequent Earthsea books. Perhaps it's just you reading YAslop.

>>24707820
sorry i'm not 65 years old anon. it's just something i've seen commonly in books written since i've been alive. classics are good too but i'm not gonna know every damn book ever

>>24707820
>I don't remember Tenar fucking anyone in Tombs of Atuan, or any subsequent Earthsea books
She had a husband and two children, dude

>>24707874
I don't think the goal is a character with no sexual life at all, just no sex as a story's focus. But I'm NTA and I haven't read Earthsea yet so I don't know.

>>24707606
I am not going to do that.

>>24707740
>the rest of that devolved into some pretty heinously weird territory i'm not touching
scared of the truth, eh?

>>24707365
Yeah, Pride and Prejudice models the female fantasy well

Why would a woman ever come to /lit/? Not poking fun at you OP, genuinely curious.

>>24707606
Hm, yes. Love we shall now make, hrhm, hrhm. A price for services rendered, there always is.

>>24707820
She very explicitly fucks Ged in the fourth book.

>>24707985
Sense & Sensibility has the nice guys win for being nice, both for better (the Sense romance develops organically throughout the book) and for worse (the Sensibility romance has zero chemistry and zero interest in the simp beta orbiter but he wins in the last few pages for lack of better options).

>>24707835
NTA, fuck that guy but maybe read more classics like Earthsea anyway. I'm NOT saying this because the classics are inherently better than modern "slop", but because (1) you want to shake Naomi Novik and demand explanations for her writing choices, and reading the classics that inspired her is the next best thing to picking her brain, and (2) you want to find other people who've read the same books and can dissect them with you, but if it's not a classic then you're the only person in all of 4chan with this secret knowledge until >>24707642 and you see that follow-up thread.

Another classic to look into: Have you ever tried Discworld, the fantasy equivalent to the Hichhiker's Guide books (genrefic + comedy)? Specifically the "Witches" storyline with female protagonists? I haven't finished them but I can't imagine Esme in a poorly-written sexual mania.

>>24707962
i don't even hate sex scenes that much, they can be fun, but i hate when it feels like something someone checked off their list. if you're going to show me them fucking it needs to be wrapped up deeply in the character's identities and development, otherwise it's not a sex scene, it's smut, and you're just horny, not telling me a story.

>>24707992
i'm an external processor which means i like to talk during movies and stuff, i want to get my feelings OUT of me. i don't have a lot of friends, definitely none who read or would want to talk about me being annoyed that the village girl is fucking the ancient wizard. i'm honestly very surprised that people are replying, usually people ignore my threads while i talk to myself.

>>24708027
i have heard of discworld. these megaseries are really intimidating to me and i don't often like to try getting into them. the last time i tried, i bounced off the wheel of time pretty hard. i used to read super long series as a kid (there's like 22 redwall books, probably like 50 or more warrior cats books), but it feels like YA megaseries have a very HELPFUL approach of writing one book just as one book, and then it does well, and so they write more, where these megaseries by much older authors typically sit down with 10 books of ideas so the first book doesn't end up being a fun, good book, it's just a book-length prologue, which fucking sucks.

>>24707336 (OP)
Are there any women in this thread?

>>24707336 (OP)
>>24707642
Books like OP is genuinely why I have checked out of contemporary lit.
These modern women writers drive everything towards a sexual resolution rather than one of actual heartfelt meaning. Which isn't a problem in and of itself, it's not some zoomer eww sex is yucky; rather they all have these false tonal promises they can't keep. And more often than not, I think the root of the problem lays in the same perverse desire to make everything deconstructive and contrived, rather than just allowing it be simple and pure
Classics like Anne affirm you don't any of that and its the reason they stand the test of time.
if I could write more prolifically, I'd be the first to spearhead a movement against it. But perhaps that's the silver lining - the less time wasted on such failure of novels the more time on shaping my own

>>24708855
Discworld is completely different from a series like Wheel of Time because it's not one continous story, you can pick and choose the books you want to read. They're not all standalone but a lot of them work in isolation perfectly fine and a familiarity with the setting just gives you a chuckle here and there when you recognize a reference to something else.

>>24708868
no way man we would be able to tell

>>24708881
that's all very fair, and it frustrates me too (which is why i made the thread), but the book is still genuinely really good. while it felt unearned, and i dislike the pairing, it didn't take over the plot; they made out in the heat of the moment once, then split up. then it was awkward for a while. then they boned right before a big conflict, and i guess it lends itself to the story SLIGHTLY because his devotion to her was probably meant to be the reason he does [unreasonable and unwise things] to help her in the end of the story, and then he's back and meets her mom for one line at the end of the book. while it's a flavor i dislike, the meal as a whole is definitely worth having.

>>24708855
You're right, it does look like an intimidating mess. I'm trying to think of other messes on the same level of messiness. Have you ever read comic books? Imagine trying to explain to someone where to start with, say, Wolverine.
>Well actually I recommend that you start with his team debut in Giant Size X-Men 1 1975, even though acktually his first appearance is in Incredible Hulk 181 1974, but ackchually for more context on his team you could go back to X-Men 1 1963, though ackchyoually if you want to see him more prominently then his first mini starts at Wolverine 1 1982, however aughchyoually...

To make out simpler, Discworld has four main storylines, and the Witches storyline is the one starring women. The Witches line has two divisions, the stories of Granny Weatherwax (old ancient experienced witch) and of Tiffany Aching (young and new, aged 9 in the first book and late teens in the last book). I've read some of the former, but I haven't read the latter yet.

To try out Granny Weatherwax all you need to try her out is her first book, Equal Rites. An incredibly powerful wizard is born, but the wizard is born as a girl instead of a boy. Girls are supposed to be witches, not wizards, so the girl is rejected from wizarding school. The great witch Granny Weatherwax takes her to the school and gets them to let her in, but working as a servant instead of as a student. And while she's there, the young girl wizard meets a nice cute boy wizard...

For Tiffany Aching, you could skip all prior books and just try her first one, The Wee Free Men. Wikipedia says
>It is labelled a "Story of Discworld" to indicate its status as children's or young adult fiction, unlike most of the books in the Discworld series.
>Tiffany Aching is a 9-year-old girl who literally sees things differently from others. While playing by the river near her home, she sees two tiny blue, kilted men who warn her of a "green heid" in the water. Suddenly a vile green monster, Jenny Greenteeth, appears in the water. Using her brother Wentworth as bait, Tiffany ambushes the beast and cracks it with a frying pan, while Wentworth is completely unfazed, as he is unable to see either the little men or the monster. She goes into town to visit a travelling teacher and comes upon Miss Tick, a witch who has been watching her. Tiffany is told that these little men are the Nac Mac Feegles, who are rough and rowdy fae folk who speak in Scots. Miss Tick informs her that she is likely the witch of the wold she resides in, and gives her the toad familiar she carries as a guide...
and the story goes on from there, and hopefully it's a good one (I haven't read it yet).

>>24709072
i like how you made the comic book nerd's "actually" become more mutated and evil the more times he said it

i did a little research on it, and i'm not sure how much i would like these books. the witches don't sound terribly interesting to me, and neither do the city watch crime stories. or the cowardly wizard stories. the ones where the main character is death sound most interesting, but i guess the idea that there's so many 'branches' of this world actually feels more like a negative than a positive to me? if we didn't make this world as a canvas shaped to gently cradle and support one story, it feels like it would be kind of formless and distant, meaning any stories would either have to interest me purely for the world itself if it's emphasized, or purely for the characters if it's de-emphasized, neither of which sound nice.

i wonder if that's a discussion point more well read people have talked about before. worldbuilding as a tool to hold up a narrative vs worldbuilding as an indifferent canvas to splash a story across.

>>24709269
I think in Discworld's case people don't read it for the plot or characters or the canvas of the world, they read it for the mood. The writing style is breezy and jovial, the tone wanders back and forth between winking irony and sincere whimsy, and if the plots stay fresh and don't repeat themselves or make convoluted twists then reading that tone and style puts people in a good mood.

I'm actually the wrong person to advertise for Discworld though. As a comedy series, I don't think it ever made me laugh out loud. It just gave me some sensible chuckles now and then.

Maybe "secretly-talented female servant at an all-male school" isn't your favorite setup, but let the record show, Your Honor, that someone managed to write it WITHOUT filling the pages with sexsexsexsexsex.

>>24707336 (OP)
>the guy who has mostly been mean to her this whole time, and she's been rude and disrespectful of him the entire time
I miss when I was this innocent about women. Be an asshole to them and see your success change with them over night.

>>24707336 (OP)
Because women are coomers

>>24709370
i mean secretly talented female servant at an all male school is the same premise as a weird post i made months ago, i like the premise, but magic is interesting to me when they write it as something complex and engaging, where the casting of a spell is a process that catches your creative spark. in uprooted, wizards use perfectly portioned ingredients and perfectly dictated phrases, but the forest witches sing songs and tell stories and slur the words, they speak to the ingredients and tell them a story that inspires them to take the spell's shape. it's exciting to read her encouraging fire to take flame. when the magic is like "erm abrafuckdabra" i snooze to death.

>>24709390
I would say that magic is alive in Discworld, but it's not consistent. It's whatever the author wants it to be for any given scene in any given story. If you value consistency then this isn't the universe for you.

But at least
>Although Tiffany is too young at the time to be an official witch, Granny gives her an imaginary invisible hat to boost her confidence. Such is the power of belief on the Disc that this imaginary hat keeps off the rain.
isn't "Abracadabra, rainus goawayus", and
>Although capable of powerful magic, Granny Weatherwax prefers to avoid using it. She often relies on headology, a sort of folk-psychology that makes use of the placebo and nocebo effects. For instance, although Granny is capable of placing curses upon people who anger her, she will instead simply allow them to believe that she has cursed them. This causes the "cursed" person to worry and attribute any misfortune they experience to the "curse".
isn't "Alakazam, acurse onyoufam".

>>24709416
yeah, the witches who prefer to use psychology angle is... quirky? but not nearly as appealing to me as actual magicians. i also don't like that they seem to be positioned as effectively government officials. maybe i wouldn't hate it, idk, but i'm more interested in reading more of naomi novik's other books to see if they can capture the same mystical beauty without giving such a dogshit unwanted 'romance'. or one of the other books i got this library trip. i'm probably trying childgrave next but i don't know if it will be any good.

>>24707791
>she originally wrote fanfiction on AO3 before publishing.
>AO3
No idea what this is, sis?

>>24710143
archive of our own. fully uncensored platform for original writing that was made after some fuckass copyright companies tried to get some fanfic taken down and some overly offended housewives tried to get fanfiction.net taken down for having fucked up stuff on it.

tldr it's the free speech smut site.

>>24707835
>books written since i've been alive
That's the main problem, not femoid protagonists or whatever

>>24707593
*boy

>>24710176
what

>>24710187
Gandalf is gay, tolkien confirmed it in one of his "tweets" (messages sent by bird) 20 years after lotr was published

>>24707336 (OP)
Who reads this kind of shit?

>>24710305
me? it's a good book otherwise.

>>24710301
that's dumbledore

>>24710318
Pretty sure rowling was inspired by the first gay wizard anon

>>24710344
ugh.
*opens a large jar i carried in a backpack that contains pure crude oil and rubs it all over your face and body and then lights you on fire so you die horribly*

>>24710348
ooh, we're roleplaying?
*sniffs your bulge*

>>24710369
/failrp/ you didn't read my description OR look at my faceclaim CLEARLY

>>24707336 (OP)
Tamora Pierce books don't have this problem for the most part.

Granted it's mostly because they are books for younger teens and most of the protags are young, but still.
Good books, I highly recommend them.

>>24707387
Welcome to the genre lol. It isn't really a thought out romance, more smut for the sake of smut.

>>24707336 (OP)
Because they are novels of female self-actualistion, including of her sexual being. Stop reading genreslop and read D.H. Lawrence to understand both your ownself and women.

>>24710548
but that's the thing, it's not romantasy! 99% of the story has nothing to do with the relationship, which is why it feels so weird.

>>24707336 (OP)
Author was probably just feeling horny that chapter and wrote with one hand. Happens to the best of us.

>>24707336 (OP)
If it has an explicit description of sex involving a 17-year-old doesn't that technically make it illegal in Canada?

>>24712686
uh i guess. i dont know

>>24712686
Books get a free pass for almost anything.

>>24712714
I believe the Canadian child pornography laws technically cover written depictions.

>>24712724
I had to look it up and yes, apparently, Canada does ban books on the basis of being "child pornography" even if they are fiction. They even arrested an author in Quebec on those charges in 2020. Apparently he was eventually acquitted but not before they had ruined his reputation and personal life and career as a novelist, for which they never apologized nor offered him any restitution.

Starting to see why Canada doesn't have a thriving literary scene. Fucking oppressive up there.

>>24707336 (OP)
Women are ascendant socially and this is a highly erotic position to be in. Their cultural works now reflect their unchained libidinal expression.

Hey op what's your favorite kink

>>24712863
uniforms. i'm not sure how that's relevant.

>>24712863
BIG
WIZARD
CRYSTALBALLS

>>24712868
Noted
>>24712882
Hot

Have you considered the editorial process may have screwed up the presentation? If it's coming out of left field, maybe the scene (multiples scenes later revised out?) was more extended t to begin with, and the editor said to slash it down to size because it wouldn't pass with the average reader. Alternatively, maybe there was no smut to begin with, and the editor demanded revision because she thought the average reader would expect it. Strange things can happen during rewrites to satisfy genre lit standards.

>>24712956
knowing what i do now, i think i was supposed to be reading in between the lines the entire time for there to be sexual tension. i think the wizard is supposed to be hot and the very intimate way they describe magic isn't supposed to be just 'magic is emotional', it's supposed to be a sex allegory, which i HATE by the way FUCK fusion in steven universe as a sex allegory that SUCKED. this sucks too. but whatever. i think the author just has a history in smut and fanfic and carried over tropes without thinking too much, and i was reading it like a folk tale instead of like a fanfic.

>>24712959
You couldn't suss out the romantasy tropes? To be fair I do think there's this obsession with describing the femc extensively while the male love interest gets less detail in comparison. I once read something related to Joseph Campbell, like "men tend to engage their desires in a variety of distinct women, while women engage their desires on a single indistinct man" or something like that. The number 1 no-no in a book like this would probably be to make an unappealing love interest, so go as generic as possible physically speaking.

>>24707336 (OP)
>the 17 year old and the 200 year old wizard?
#zoomerproblems

>>24707396
indeed. otherwise it could have had a male protagonist... if it's female it's obvious why she's there

>>24712970
i mean the thing is the romance genuinely is a minor part of the story. it's not romantasy. the relationship she has with her childhood friend is immensely plot relevant and has plot impact on every page, the romance is kinda just tacked on a few scenes and flavor their dynamic a bit at the end. i would not call it romantasy. it's just like, she got to the point she wanted to establish a relationship, and did it 100% on muscle memory, not in a way that particularly suits the story or world i think. it's very weird. i'd kill for someone to read it and give me their thoughts but i don't expect it.

but yeah he's barely described, which is why i imagined him as a tall gaunt old bald guy. again. IMMORTAL WIZARD. CMON.

>>24712981
>i'd kill for someone to read it and give me their thoughts but i don't expect it.
NTA, I said I'd do it after I finish my current book. Might even be able to start this weekend.
>but the thread might not last that long
Then you will live for the rest of your life with your curiosity unsatisfied, unfortunately.

>>24712993
/lit/ is a slow board, maybe it will, who knows. if it doesn't i'll still try to keep an eye out if you make your own thread.

>>24712995
It will if we necrobump from page 10 every few hours... but at the cost of our dignity. We're better than that, aren't we?

>>24712981
Not romantasy huh... the rest of the internet seems to agree with you how the romance comes out of left field. Definitely sounds like they slapped it in there in post-production. I bet reading the author's previous work would tell more, like if they're big on F/F romances but didn't want to go that route for business reasons.

>>24712993
>>24712995
>>24713007
You could exchange contact information, you know. It's allowed.

>>24713007
i mean i've just been replying whenever someone posts and it's stayed alive somehow. i barely leave my room so it's not that hard.

>>24713009
...i think i would have liked that a lot more, to be honest. the story would need slight tweaking to make it work, but a lot less than it would take to make me happy with the wizard pairing. quite honestly i would have liked the story best with no romance at all though; i love stories about lifelong friends who love each other in a deep, unbreakable, but non-romantic way. it was good. i wish the ending was better for their relationship but oh well.

>>24713013
scary. true. i might if he offered but i would have a lot of overthinking in my future as soon as he transmogrifies from a little internet ghost into a real dude who exists in a semipermanent way

>>24713015
Naomi Novik is bigtime on AO3, but looking through her bibliography it's actually a lot of M/M fanfic. Maybe there's an AMA floating out there where someone voiced this exact thought about the romance.

>>24713033
i snooped her AMA but everyone mostly talked about the big series. one person asked about the romance but she was basically just like yeah i like enemies to lovers.

YOU GOT THE ENEMIES RIGHT NAOMI YOU FORGOT THE FUCKING 'TO' NAOMI THERE MUST BE A TRANSITORY PERIOD NAOMI

>>24713028
We still have time, maybe this thread will last long enough.

But just in case, here's my email. I like reading books that other people are reading so we can compare notes. I've done it before and I'll do it again.
BookBacklog@proton.me

I'm out for today, have a good night.

>>24713036
2015... it was a different time...

>>24707336 (OP)
can a woman be separated from her pussy? the answer is no and what is a pussy for, to be fucked.
There you go.

>>24713056
Can a man be separated from his dick? The answer is no, and what is a dick for, to fuck.

>>24713212
>Can a man be separated from his dick? The answer is no, and what is a dick for, to fuck.
men write stories where there is no fucking at all quite often. The difference being in how women see the world and their place in it compared to how men see the world and their place in it.
Women denigrate themselves far more often than men have ever bothered to do so.

>>24713522
>his argument is that women are hornier than men

>>24707387
It's women-writing-men trope
I bet the wizard is not ugly, Am I right?

>>24713846
men are horny more frequently than women get horny, but when women get horny, they become truly and utterly depraved

>>24707387
what was the cheesy heart attack book. i want that one.

KILL YOURSELF FOID POSTER.

>>24714071
who?

>>24714004
to be completely real with you anon when i said that i was thinking about a CYOA mobile game series i played when i was in middleschool. the games are so corny it hurts but i love them to death. i think my favorite was Creatures Such As We, but i was also a sucker for Choice of Romance: Affairs of the Court. there were others that were cool that i never finished because i was like fourteen

>>24707336 (OP)
Great way to reveal your a kid. ups until the late nineties (maybe even 2000s?) all fantasy books had at least one mandatory sex scene regardless of who you it was written for.

>>24714198
>why do so many of these books always have hamfisted sex scenes
>ACTUALLY ALL THE BOOKS HAVE HAMFISTED SEX SCENES
okay

>>24707993
There once was an elf from Dagobah
Who used a gross cave as his sauna;
When a Jedi walked by,
Green slime splattered his thigh,
The elf said “MY BAD” with a guffaw

i'm going to read dark woods, deep water next. wish me luck this one doesn't piss me off too.

>>24714205
>ACTUALLY ALL THE BOOKS HAVE HAMFISTED SEX SCENES
Genuinely yes

>>24707993
>Robot Chicken skit where the Jedi were grooming their apprentices

>>24707336 (OP)
>it was written by a woman so it's not a men-writing-women issue.
youre a faggot, get off my board

>>24715118
>my

>>24713522
And women also quite frequently write stories where there is no fucking.

>>24713910
People elsewhere in the thread have said he's barely described physically.

>>24713910
idk how i missed you and didnt reply. i imagined him as bald and old. apparently he's described to have dark hair and not look much older than mid twenties and i missed that.

>>24708027
>Discworld, the fantasy equivalent to the Hichhiker's Guide books (genrefic + comedy)? Specifically the "Witches" storyline with female protagonists?
NTA, but witches books especially are all about psychology, sex and "down to earth" life and death cycle.
Also, just because you have mentioned Pratchett, i will recommend another Scottish writer - certain R. Rankin. Also goes for a long list of comedy/satire fantasy, but of slightly different persuasion. Books, while not connected directly, often use many events/characters/references from previous books, so it is best to read in the publishing order. Although he is quite unrelated to this thread's theme.