I know I've said it before but while in general I am a fan of the fact that romantasy as a genre exists, and popular culture is finally acknowledging that women get horny and like sex, I wish it didn't mean formulaic heterosmut now has to be shoehorned...
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I have actually learned something by reading this book by the way, after learning that literally no one has a common eye colour (little sister's eyes are emerald) I looked it up and it turns out 79% of people worldwide have brown eyes. 5% of people have amber eyes, 3% have grey, 2% have green. So now you know that too and didn't have to read the book to be motivated to look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color
I don't actually know what colour eyes our heroine has. At this rate they're probably purple with orange spots.
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I don't actually know what colour eyes our heroine has. At this rate they're probably purple with orange spots.
So. Lunchbreak. The bloody book is still in my bag, still unfinished. This thing has cost me my DuoLingo streak and a good chunk of my sanity Mastodon, I hope you're grateful.
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So. Lunchbreak. The bloody book is still in my bag, still unfinished. This thing has cost me my DuoLingo streak and a good chunk of my sanity Mastodon, I hope you're grateful.
They go riding together, and she catches herself ogling his bum in tight riding trousers and feels herself to be "no better than a wanton maid in a public house" and I mean seriously? We all know why everyone's here reading this (well apart from me, I'm still not sure why I'm doing this to myself). It's 2025, women are allowed to want sex, the readers want them to fuck like two moderately attractive male British actors in an AO3 fic written by a teenager. Can we just not with the slut shaming?
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They go riding together, and she catches herself ogling his bum in tight riding trousers and feels herself to be "no better than a wanton maid in a public house" and I mean seriously? We all know why everyone's here reading this (well apart from me, I'm still not sure why I'm doing this to myself). It's 2025, women are allowed to want sex, the readers want them to fuck like two moderately attractive male British actors in an AO3 fic written by a teenager. Can we just not with the slut shaming?
He reveals that he's doomed to a life of solitary, celibate brooding because if he had a child they would be magically bound to serve the Queen of the Fae under the same dreadful obligation he was. This is a world where magic wins wars and powers kingdoms, but apparently no one's thought to invent a contraception spell.
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He reveals that he's doomed to a life of solitary, celibate brooding because if he had a child they would be magically bound to serve the Queen of the Fae under the same dreadful obligation he was. This is a world where magic wins wars and powers kingdoms, but apparently no one's thought to invent a contraception spell.
This revelation also raises extremely disturbing questions over whether he will enforce this prohibition on relationships on his sister when she reaches an age for it to be relevant, questions I sincerely hope the book never even attempts to answer.
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This revelation also raises extremely disturbing questions over whether he will enforce this prohibition on relationships on his sister when she reaches an age for it to be relevant, questions I sincerely hope the book never even attempts to answer.
Our heroine in turn feels guilty in silence about the fact she intends to betray his trust in her by stealing the Magical MacGuffin from the Queen of the Fae for Mr Icy Eyes, although this will ultimately be in his interests and free him from his bondage to her. At no point does it occur to her to say "You know it would be in both our interests for me to steal the Magical MacGuffin from the Queen of the Fae and free you from your bondage to her"
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Our heroine in turn feels guilty in silence about the fact she intends to betray his trust in her by stealing the Magical MacGuffin from the Queen of the Fae for Mr Icy Eyes, although this will ultimately be in his interests and free him from his bondage to her. At no point does it occur to her to say "You know it would be in both our interests for me to steal the Magical MacGuffin from the Queen of the Fae and free you from your bondage to her"
He acknowledges that she is much more skilled in magic than he is, and he begs her to take his rough, powerful unschooled magic in her delicate yet firm hands and give him a right good tutoring.
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He acknowledges that she is much more skilled in magic than he is, and he begs her to take his rough, powerful unschooled magic in her delicate yet firm hands and give him a right good tutoring.
She proceeds to try and teach him some defensive spells not by actually showing him how to cast one but by chucking a bunch of enchanted wisps at him and…hoping he figures it out for himself? This doesn't feel like good pedagogy.
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She proceeds to try and teach him some defensive spells not by actually showing him how to cast one but by chucking a bunch of enchanted wisps at him and…hoping he figures it out for himself? This doesn't feel like good pedagogy.
But they have fun chasing him around the stables as he gets hot and sweaty and starts panting and loosening the collar of his shirt, then they share an intimate moment of connection lying on some hay together even though by this point he probably smells like a sweaty gym sock.
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But they have fun chasing him around the stables as he gets hot and sweaty and starts panting and loosening the collar of his shirt, then they share an intimate moment of connection lying on some hay together even though by this point he probably smells like a sweaty gym sock.
Right. Here we go again. I've been known to read an entire trilogy in a long weekend, I can't believe how long it's taking me to wade through this single relatively slim but excruciating book.
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Right. Here we go again. I've been known to read an entire trilogy in a long weekend, I can't believe how long it's taking me to wade through this single relatively slim but excruciating book.
So our heroine casts a truth spell in the hope of getting Delts McBeefsteak to give her some clues on how to steal the magical thingummybob, but instead he ends up confessing that he loves her. this all feels unpleasantly non consensual, and she at least feels sufficiently guilty afterwards to go and tell Love Interest The First that the deal's off, she'll accept losing her magic.
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So our heroine casts a truth spell in the hope of getting Delts McBeefsteak to give her some clues on how to steal the magical thingummybob, but instead he ends up confessing that he loves her. this all feels unpleasantly non consensual, and she at least feels sufficiently guilty afterwards to go and tell Love Interest The First that the deal's off, she'll accept losing her magic.
Having apparently anticipated this he has conveniently kidnapped Little Sister, who is happily eating tea and cake with him until she bursts in on them. He then casts a sleeping spell on her, and if he has a spell that makes ten years olds sleep on command I'm surprised he's wasting time with evil machinations instead of getting richer than God selling it to parents across the land.
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Having apparently anticipated this he has conveniently kidnapped Little Sister, who is happily eating tea and cake with him until she bursts in on them. He then casts a sleeping spell on her, and if he has a spell that makes ten years olds sleep on command I'm surprised he's wasting time with evil machinations instead of getting richer than God selling it to parents across the land.
As little sister snoozes she attempts to renegotiate the deal and gets a little light torture and her heart somehow bound to him for her pains, but eventually gets out and brings little sister home. I am not looking forward to finding out how the heart thing will become important later but I'm sure it will.
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As little sister snoozes she attempts to renegotiate the deal and gets a little light torture and her heart somehow bound to him for her pains, but eventually gets out and brings little sister home. I am not looking forward to finding out how the heart thing will become important later but I'm sure it will.
LI2 is grateful, and a lot of intense eye contact and mutual pining occurs. It turns out that dead Mum's Shawl wasn't in fact a crucial clue, she just pinched it to mend it for him.
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LI2 is grateful, and a lot of intense eye contact and mutual pining occurs. It turns out that dead Mum's Shawl wasn't in fact a crucial clue, she just pinched it to mend it for him.
I feel like the author has rather fundamentally misunderstood the nature of sentimental mementos of lost loved ones here. When my Nan passed away, after the funeral I pocketed one of her battered wooden strawberry fridge magnets because it reminded me of happy childhood memories of playing in her kitchen. If someone decided to pinch that and repaint it because they fancied me I would not be held accountable for the consequences.
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I feel like the author has rather fundamentally misunderstood the nature of sentimental mementos of lost loved ones here. When my Nan passed away, after the funeral I pocketed one of her battered wooden strawberry fridge magnets because it reminded me of happy childhood memories of playing in her kitchen. If someone decided to pinch that and repaint it because they fancied me I would not be held accountable for the consequences.
He is, however, delighted and in return gives her a powerful magical item that she’s been hankering after ever since the very beginning of the book, when her patron took her to Fantasy Harrods and bought her a bunch of expensive outfits and magic items but couldn’t stretch to this one. I failed to note the likely future importance of this object or post about this scene because the only thing duller than shopping is reading about someone else shopping and I rather zoned out for a chapter.
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He is, however, delighted and in return gives her a powerful magical item that she’s been hankering after ever since the very beginning of the book, when her patron took her to Fantasy Harrods and bought her a bunch of expensive outfits and magic items but couldn’t stretch to this one. I failed to note the likely future importance of this object or post about this scene because the only thing duller than shopping is reading about someone else shopping and I rather zoned out for a chapter.
He then decides vows be damned, he's going to get some action. She in turn is overcome by desperate, primal need. Several paragraphs are dedicated to the way their hands explore each others' bodies, phrased in a disconcertingly disembodied way that puts me in mind of Thing from the Adams Family. It is at this point that she decides now is the perfect moment to tell him that she's working with LI1 to steal the magical doohickey he's oath bound to protect.
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He then decides vows be damned, he's going to get some action. She in turn is overcome by desperate, primal need. Several paragraphs are dedicated to the way their hands explore each others' bodies, phrased in a disconcertingly disembodied way that puts me in mind of Thing from the Adams Family. It is at this point that she decides now is the perfect moment to tell him that she's working with LI1 to steal the magical doohickey he's oath bound to protect.
Unsurprisingly really, he's not terribly happy about this.
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Unsurprisingly really, he's not terribly happy about this.
He restrains her in a thoroughly unsexy way, and seriously for a book whose author has up to this point been playing Mildly Spicy Trope Bingo she really missed an open goal here.
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He restrains her in a thoroughly unsexy way, and seriously for a book whose author has up to this point been playing Mildly Spicy Trope Bingo she really missed an open goal here.
She eventually frees herself, dashes to the portal as fast as she can and passes through it, pausing only briefly on the other side to change into a fancy frock to infiltrate the faerie ball unnoticed. Why she bothered doing this is anyone's guess because as soon as she spots the fae queen menacing her solid and manly beau she throws herself on her mercy, pleads for his release and says she is the one responsible for everything.
