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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She is frightened by how powerful he reveals himself to be, and this would be an excellent place to have a discussion about how fear and arousal can produce confusingly similar physiological reactions but being scared of someone is never a healthy basis for a relationship, and how patriarchy tells women they have to find a strong and violent man to protect them against other strong and violent men but it's their fault if that man turns that violence on them.
But that discussion doesn't happen. Instead he tells her how she was nothing before she had him as a patron but he saw and believed in her potential right from the start, and then shows her her reflection in a mirror where she sees herself looking confident, powerful and beautiful in spite of having spent the past hour being either terrified or relentlessly negged.
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But that discussion doesn't happen. Instead he tells her how she was nothing before she had him as a patron but he saw and believed in her potential right from the start, and then shows her her reflection in a mirror where she sees herself looking confident, powerful and beautiful in spite of having spent the past hour being either terrified or relentlessly negged.
I mean there's not noticing red flags, and then there's gleefully and determinedly swimming out towards the centre of the riptide in a typhoon while the RNLI circle you and holler at you through megaphones
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I mean there's not noticing red flags, and then there's gleefully and determinedly swimming out towards the centre of the riptide in a typhoon while the RNLI circle you and holler at you through megaphones
Anyway fortunately at that point the moor catches fire.
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Anyway fortunately at that point the moor catches fire.
As the flames race towards little sister she canters to the rescue, desperately casting spell after spell to quell the blaze but to no avail. But just when all hope seems lost love interest number two shows up again, having clearly concluded his muscular and virile business elsewhere
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As the flames race towards little sister she canters to the rescue, desperately casting spell after spell to quell the blaze but to no avail. But just when all hope seems lost love interest number two shows up again, having clearly concluded his muscular and virile business elsewhere
In a twist that I must confess I didn't see coming, although I can't say whether that's due to the author's skill or the fact that my expectations for this book are currently at subbasement level and actively digging, it turns out he has magic too! If it turns out Christian Gray in a lacy ruff also has abs under all that brocade she's going to have real trouble choosing between them in this game of Pick A Pillock
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In a twist that I must confess I didn't see coming, although I can't say whether that's due to the author's skill or the fact that my expectations for this book are currently at subbasement level and actively digging, it turns out he has magic too! If it turns out Christian Gray in a lacy ruff also has abs under all that brocade she's going to have real trouble choosing between them in this game of Pick A Pillock
Although rough and untutored his raw masculine power combines with her fine control and they manage to put the fire out. As their magic mixes and mingles and their energy entwines in convoluted metaphors she feels an intimacy the likes of which she has never known before.
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Although rough and untutored his raw masculine power combines with her fine control and they manage to put the fire out. As their magic mixes and mingles and their energy entwines in convoluted metaphors she feels an intimacy the likes of which she has never known before.
Once the fire is out though, in a moment of post smut clarity at least she has the sense to realise he's lied to her about just about everything so they shout at each other for a bit then go to sleep. And I'm afraid I need a bit of a rest too.
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Once the fire is out though, in a moment of post smut clarity at least she has the sense to realise he's lied to her about just about everything so they shout at each other for a bit then go to sleep. And I'm afraid I need a bit of a rest too.
I looked up some reviews of this book to see if anyone had actually enjoyed it and someone said they tore through it in an afternoon. An afternoon! It's taken me three days to get through just under half of the bastard thing because I have to keep resting my eye rolling muscles
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I looked up some reviews of this book to see if anyone had actually enjoyed it and someone said they tore through it in an afternoon. An afternoon! It's taken me three days to get through just under half of the bastard thing because I have to keep resting my eye rolling muscles
Once more unto the well filled breeches, dear friends. Apologies for the lack of updates yesterday, I had a choice between spending Sunday afternoon reading and cleaning the bathroom and went with the more enjoyable option.
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Once more unto the well filled breeches, dear friends. Apologies for the lack of updates yesterday, I had a choice between spending Sunday afternoon reading and cleaning the bathroom and went with the more enjoyable option.
They did not in fact go to sleep after putting out the fire. He crept off secretly into the woods and she was suspicious and followed him, because as Fesshole has shown us mutual secrecy and distrust is an excellent foundation for a long term relationship. He opened the portal with the magic he'd been pretending not to have and she followed him through it.
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They did not in fact go to sleep after putting out the fire. He crept off secretly into the woods and she was suspicious and followed him, because as Fesshole has shown us mutual secrecy and distrust is an excellent foundation for a long term relationship. He opened the portal with the magic he'd been pretending not to have and she followed him through it.
She found herself in an actually fairly conceptually interesting faerie realm. This is what I'm finding so frustrating about this book, it could actually have been really good if it had delivered on anything it promised, but instead it raised expectations then delivered a steaming heap of garbage. Much like the current labour government.
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She found herself in an actually fairly conceptually interesting faerie realm. This is what I'm finding so frustrating about this book, it could actually have been really good if it had delivered on anything it promised, but instead it raised expectations then delivered a steaming heap of garbage. Much like the current labour government.
Faerieland is laced with forgetfulness spells not as a deliberate snare for mortals but as a way for its immortal inhabitants to deal with the tedium of eternity. Its inhabitants entertain themselves with endless revels and petty cruelties, having done anything meaningful and grown bored of it aeons ago
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Faerieland is laced with forgetfulness spells not as a deliberate snare for mortals but as a way for its immortal inhabitants to deal with the tedium of eternity. Its inhabitants entertain themselves with endless revels and petty cruelties, having done anything meaningful and grown bored of it aeons ago
These forgetfulness enchantments are too powerful for mere mortal minds, so our heroine forgets what she was doing there and joins the dance. And honestly if it weren't for the fact she would eventually dance herself to death, a massive bender off her tits on faerie dust with a bunch of attractive people of all genders dressed in feathers and cobwebs would probably be a happier ending than the rest of her life with whichever of these bozos she's going to pick in the end.
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These forgetfulness enchantments are too powerful for mere mortal minds, so our heroine forgets what she was doing there and joins the dance. And honestly if it weren't for the fact she would eventually dance herself to death, a massive bender off her tits on faerie dust with a bunch of attractive people of all genders dressed in feathers and cobwebs would probably be a happier ending than the rest of her life with whichever of these bozos she's going to pick in the end.
Chonk McCordThighs then shows up to save her. Astonishingly at this point the narrative finds an entirely new way to annoy me.
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Chonk McCordThighs then shows up to save her. Astonishingly at this point the narrative finds an entirely new way to annoy me.
This is clearly a book written by a woman who likes sex, for women who like sex, about a woman who wants to have sex. But it seems we haven't quite shaken off the puritanical idea that women aren't really supposed to want sex, because they can't say they want to fuck when stone cold sober, they need the excuse of a mind muddled by forgetfulness enchantments to be allowed to.
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This is clearly a book written by a woman who likes sex, for women who like sex, about a woman who wants to have sex. But it seems we haven't quite shaken off the puritanical idea that women aren't really supposed to want sex, because they can't say they want to fuck when stone cold sober, they need the excuse of a mind muddled by forgetfulness enchantments to be allowed to.
So she runs her hands of the muscular planes of his solid and muscular muscles, attempts to kiss him passionately and describes herself as an empty void aching to be filled because the author can't quite bring herself to say she wants him to stick his willy in her.
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So she runs her hands of the muscular planes of his solid and muscular muscles, attempts to kiss him passionately and describes herself as an empty void aching to be filled because the author can't quite bring herself to say she wants him to stick his willy in her.
In the first point in his favour in over 200 pages he's having none of it and persists in trying to rescue her. "Refusing to have sex with someone incapable of consenting due to actively tripping balls" should be the basic standard of human decency rather than a characteristic of a romantic hero, but at this point it's one step ahead of poncing around in a frock coat while taking ownership of all her achievements so I am now Team Chonk.
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In the first point in his favour in over 200 pages he's having none of it and persists in trying to rescue her. "Refusing to have sex with someone incapable of consenting due to actively tripping balls" should be the basic standard of human decency rather than a characteristic of a romantic hero, but at this point it's one step ahead of poncing around in a frock coat while taking ownership of all her achievements so I am now Team Chonk.
So a couple of people have asked for the name of the book, but I'm not going to share it here because I'd feel horrible if the author then found all the mean (if entirely deserved) things I'd said about it and it turned out she had poured her heart and soul into it and all the money from sales was going to fund her dying grandmother's adorable cat's splenectomy or something.
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So a couple of people have asked for the name of the book, but I'm not going to share it here because I'd feel horrible if the author then found all the mean (if entirely deserved) things I'd said about it and it turned out she had poured her heart and soul into it and all the money from sales was going to fund her dying grandmother's adorable cat's splenectomy or something.
That's why I've deliberately omitted some features of the curse, and also avoided giving the names of the characters, although while writing this toot I realised I've actually forgotten Thighs McAbsoluteUnit's real name, which I think is a measure of how invested I am in his character arc
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That's why I've deliberately omitted some features of the curse, and also avoided giving the names of the characters, although while writing this toot I realised I've actually forgotten Thighs McAbsoluteUnit's real name, which I think is a measure of how invested I am in his character arc
I've also deliberately avoided mentioning the most distinctive features of the magic system, which is how the blasted thing was sold to me in the first place by someone who's fortunately not on the Fedi to see how I feel about her recommendation. "It's spells cast using [thing you're into] powered by [other thing you're into]!" she said, neglecting to mention that it also contains huge amounts of things I'm very much not Into Like That.
