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pretty-little-mind33 · 2 months

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James Potter x best friend!fem!reader

Summary: You and James stumble upon an ancient book of spells rumored to enhance pleasure.

Genre: SMUT (nsfm) + hurt and comfort

Warnings: sex while under an 'aphrodisiac' of some kind, unprotected sex, penetration, cock warming, quickie, public (not seen by anyone), riding, insecurities, porn with plot ✨

JAMES POTTER MASTERLIST

"Someone is gonna see us," you whisper, feeling James Potter's hand in yours, his thumb occasionally soothing circles over your palm as you stumble in the dark corridors under his invisibility cloak.

"That's the point of the cloak, love," James answers, holding in a laugh as he guides you towards the entrance to the library and he mutters the spell for the lock as you hold your breath.

"Hear us then," you counter, unconsciously squeezing his hand for reassurance.

James doesn't hesitate to return the squeeze and he smiles when the lock opens with a click. He opens the door and you both squeeze inside.

Once the door shuts behind you, James drops the cloak and you let out a shaky exhale, adjusting your hair. The room is dark and it smells like dust. You hold in a cough as James mutters, "Lumos," and then grins like he'd gone mad.

"Told ya we'd be fine," he sing-songs and kicks your shoe in a playful manner as he walks by you to look at all the restricted books.

You groan and take out your wand, walking along the shelves as you pick up dust with your index. "Are you looking for something in particular?" you ask, your voice low as you read the names of books, realizing just how dangerous this could become.

James nods. "Yeah, I bet Sirius I could find "Moste Potente Potions" so we could make some Polyjuice potion," he says casually.

"And you needed me, why?!" you turn to glare at your best friend.

James looks at you with a smile. "Didn't really. I'just like your company."

You bite the inside of your cheek and go back to looking at the books. "Polyjuice is dangerous, James. Are you sure you want to meddle with that?"

James nods again and he hums, "I'm top of the class in Potions, I'm sure I can handle some Polyjuice." He sounds smug and you roll your eyes at his behavior.

James is reckless and impulsive and honestly, you're worried about him making that potion with his friends. You don't dare bring it up, because who are you to tell James what to do? You aren't his girlfriend or anything—

"Woah," James's voice interrupts your thoughts as he walks over to you. You turn, standing in front of him as he flips the pages of some old dusty book. "These spells are ancient—and completely forbidden—" he mutters, his eyes round with excitement.

You tilt your head and read the title; "Antiqua Cantus." Ancient Spells.

"Bloody Hell, there's a pleasure-enhancing spell–like a sexual thing—" James exclaims and holds the book open to you so you can see. You walk over and stand next to him, looking over his shoulder at the spell. James begins to recite the spell and you read along, entranced by the words on the worn-out parchment.

By moonlight's glow and stars above,

Ignite the flames of lustful love.

Let passion's heat our bodies bind,

In ecstasy, our souls combined.

Whisper soft this sacred plea,

Unleash our wildest fantasy.

Once he's finished, you glance around the page and frown. "Shit." You grab the book from James and then look up at him with wide eyes, "James, this is a wandless spell!" you whisper and his eyes widen like yours did as he realizes what happened.

He grabs the book from you and reads the instructions. His shoulders relax and he points to the small print— "It says the participants must have already existing feelings for this to work," he mumbles and looks up at you, smiling reassuringly and unsure all the same. "So—"

"Yeah—" you whisper, stepping away from him.

"I feel fine," James starts.

"I do too," you say, feeling completely normal.

James shuts the book with a slam and his smile returns. "Thing is probably too old to work, anyways," he says confidently. You nod, less confident than he is but you push those worries down.

He doesn't like you like that—so why would it work?

Once James finally finds the book he's looking for, you both cram under the cloak and you make your way back to the dorm. You ignore the feeling, but your head feels fuzzier than it should. Every brush on James's arm against yours sends shivers up your spine. You're extra aware of how he smells and it's intoxicating. You bite your lip, hoping the pain will distract you from the pleasure building.

The spell.

James looks normal. He's even humming the Hogwarts song under his breath, his eyes trained forward as you make it to the Common Room. It feels so unfair—that he's fine and your stomach twists with butterflies as your nipples harden painfully against your bra.

It isn't fair.

As soon as you have the chance, you pull away from James and sit on the couch, pressing your thighs together. You glance up at the stairs to the girl's dorms, wondering if you should run up and take a cold shower to quench the ache.

"Hey, you okay?" James asks, folding up the cloak as he looks you over.

Bloody fuck, his voice.

"Mhmm," you nod, focusing your attention on anything but how turned on you are or how hot James sounds and looks. How much you want his lips on yours.

You clench your thighs again, nervously pressing your hands in between them and your breath hitches when James sits next to you, his hand flat on your thigh. You inhale.

"Are you sure?" he asks, looking at you behind his glasses with a look that makes you want to pounce on him. This is so humiliating. You move your thigh so his hand slips onto the couch and James's frown deepens. "Hey," he whispers again, "What's happened?"

You feel like your entire body is on fire. You need to touch yourself or throw yourself out a window—you can't make up your mind.

"The stupid spell—" you say, your voice soft as you avoid his gaze and stare at your knees, feeling your hands shake. "it's working and I- I can't handle it, James,"

He doesn't answer for a moment until you hear a familiar laugh. "Oh, darling," he says, his hand finding your chin as he turns your head around, grinning. "Look at me."

You do so but he shakes his head, his eyes shimmering. "No. Look at me," he whispers, his voice husky and deep and your eyes widen when you understand what he means. Your gaze falls from his eyes to the painful-looking bulge tenting his trousers and you inhale sharply, the sight causing your mind to haze over. How had you missed this!?

"Look at what it's done to me, love," James finishes as his thumb strokes your cheek. "We really messed up this time, didn't we?" he hums.

"You messed up," you whisper, leaning into his touch. Thank Merlin no one is in the Common Room at this hour because your desperation is embarrassing.

"I messed up," James says with a strained smirk and he twirls some of your hair in his fingers. "Can I make it up to you, darling? Can I make the ache go away?"

James knows this is wrong. You're both under some kind of sexually enhancing spell—this is so many shades of messed up. Still, his heart and dick yearn for you. Somehow, he's managed to hide it well, most likely because he'd had experience in that department—James was constantly turned on to some level when he was around you. He can't help himself.

"H-how?" you ask, the idea of giving in to the desires not even crossing your mind.

James smirks, looking at you as his glasses fall down his nose. He pats his thigh. You look down, your eyes widening. You shouldn't. This is wrong. Still, your body responds to him without your brain's permission as you lift yourself to straddle his lap. Your skirt bunches up your thighs as your arms wrap around James's shoulder. You gasp for air at how sensitive you are and you can't look him in the eye.

You can feel him hard and needy against you and you swallow.

"Look at me," James whispers once more, his voice husky and deep as his hands grip your hips and he moves you up and down his trousers. You whine and bury your face in the crook of his neck, your skin clammy and flushed from need.

Suddenly the movements stop and your grip tightens around his shoulders.

"Look at me," he says again, lips pressed to your ear as he sounds as desperate as you are. "O-or I'll stop," he threatens, not sounding convincing considering the spell is starting to hit him hard and he's about ready to come in his trousers.

You pull away, looking at him as your mind buzzes and you search his eyes for some hint that you both need to stop this. You see none so you say, your voice strained, "James. Fucking need you, please."

You lift your hips, finding his zipper and fumbling with his trousers as you push aside your panties. It's rushed and sweaty and not at all romantic like you'd planned—not to mention public. You pray everyone else is asleep and won't walk in on you sitting on your best friend's cock.

With a moan, you press down and he slides in easily. "Shit, you're so wet," James mumbles as he kisses your neck, holding you close as his cock twitches inside you. You both don't even think of the fact he's not wearing a condom or anything. You're too lost in the pleasure for any rational thoughts.

"Fuck," you groan, keeping him inside you without movement for a while. You hold him as close as possible, needing him. Needing his warmth.

James groans, his eyes shut in pleasure as he holds himself back from fucking you roughly. He's going to explode at any moment if he doesn't feel you move. "Y/n," he warns, his hands tightening even more on your poor hips.

You take that as an invitation and you move, your movements slow and languid in the beginning, feeling every pull and stretch and you can't tell if James's cock just feels so much better than any others you've been with, or if the spell is messing with you.

Perhaps it's a little of both.

"Bloody hell," James grunts, losing control, as he moves you with him, his hips snapping up into you. You gasp, falling onto his shoulder as you hold him even closer, the pleasure almost unbearable.

You don't know if it's been hours or mere minutes but once James spills himself into you, his hands around your back as he continues to move your body to his liking, you can't hold it in and your mouth opens, a silent moan catching you by surprise as you finish around him. You feel weak and fuzzy almost instantly as if the string master that kept you aware suddenly cut you loose.

James's hand soothingly runs in your hair as he pants, his eyes shut. The only sound you can hear is your and James' ragged breaths and all you can smell is the burnt-out firewood and sex. You feel much calmer now as your brain tries to catch up with the events that just transpired, and when it does your blood runs cold.

You sit up, looking down at your best friend. He's looking at you, not daring to speak. You'd just fucked him with such want and need and yet all you can think about when you look at him is how you did all that without knowing the feeling of his lips on yours.

Shame burns your skin and you scramble off him, the feeling of his cock leaving from inside you makes you wince as you hold in all the emotions that threaten to overwhelm you.

"Hey," James whispers, his hand reaching for yours as he stops you from running away, standing up in the process so he's looking at you. He drops your hand and, clearly embarrassed, tucks himself back inside his trousers. You stare at him, feeling dirty from an experience you'd wished had been amazing.

And it was more than amazing if you were honest with yourself. You'd never been more satisfied in your life, but it also wasn't what you'd really wanted. Was it too cliché to want roses and candles? A steamy kiss and some swoon-worthy romantic confession?

Instead, you'd gotten love bites and finger dents.

"What's going on in your head?" James's voice interrupts your thoughts as he moves closer.

"Hmm?"

"Darling, come on, please talk to me," he insists, wanting to know exactly what you're feeling so he can understand his own feelings.

You cover your face with your hands, head dipping down as your body finally calms down from the surplus of hormones you've experienced.

"We shouldn't have done that, James—I–it was wrong," your voice fades as his hands find your wrists and he pulls them down. He looks hurt, sad, and guilty all in one emotion painted on his handsome face.

"Do you regret it?" he asks, his voice wavering.

You open your mouth to say yes but hold yourself back. It's more complicated than that. "I don't know– I just didn't think it would happen like this and—we didn't even kiss," you ramble, avoiding looking at him. You should have been looking because then you could have seen his next move coming.

James gently takes your cheeks in his hands, pulling you into him so he can kiss your lips. For something surprising, it isn't forceful at all. He doesn't kiss you longer than a few seconds and he doesn't use his tongue. He's delicate with you, making sure he isn't crossing any boundaries.

When he moves away, your eyes are open and you're silent for a moment. Then, you grab his collar and pull him in, crashing your lips onto his. You kiss him like he's your last meal on earth--like you've been starved of him. He feels so good pressed against you, his hands in your hair and then your cheeks again, and then your waist. You feel dizzy and you pull away. Your lips feel swollen and love-bitten and you're a flustered mess.

James continues to hold you close as he presses his forehead to yours, his thumb rubbing your waist. "You're amazing," he speaks so softly as a faint smile graces his lips.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I don't tell you enough, do I?" James smiles and tilts his head. He leans in and kisses your neck. "You're amazing—so wonderful," he inhales your scent but doesn't comment on it and a shiver runs up your spine.

"I– we–" You want to bring up the fact you had sex with him but James puts his finger on your lips, his thumb rubbing under your chin and he shakes his head.

"Stop worrying so much, lovely. It's okay. I promise it's okay. I didn't hurt you did I?"

You shake your head and James's smile turns into a grin.

"Good. So we're okay, hm?" he looks at you expectantly. "You're still my best friend."

Your heart thumps loudly in your ears. Best friends. "Y-yeah, you're still my best friend, Jamie," you say, your voice strained as you smile reluctantly.

You want to be so much more than best friends.

James can sense your hesitation and he takes a breath. "W-would you want to try to be more than just friends, Y/n?" he pauses, and then his voice picks up, "and I'm not saying that because we just fucked. No. I'm saying this because I'm hopelessly in love with you and I think you love me too. You kissed me like you love me. I want to try to make this work."

You feel like the world is crashing around you. Your skin feels clammy and your head is dizzy. Still, an unfamiliar warmth spreads all around you. You feel blissful and you reach for James's hand, needing to hold him. He lets you hold his hand and he intertwines his fingers into yours. He looks nervous like he's expecting a rejection.

"I do love you, James. So much. I want to try this too," you whisper, looking at him with a shy smile.

James's grin widens and he picks you up, spinning you around as he keeps you close when your feet touch the ground again. "I'll do right by you, my love," he whispers in your ear and you hold your hands behind his neck.

"So no more late-night trips to the restricted sections and trying old, dangerous, spells?" you tease.

James nips at your ear. "I kinda liked this one."

You laugh and swat his pec, your hand trailing down his chest as you fist his shirt and look up at him with a mockingly stern look. "Don't be a smartass, you wanker."

James returns your laugh and kisses behind your ear. "No more trips to the restricted section and trying old dangerous spells. Pink swear."

You pull away and hold out your pinky, which he takes and you grin.

"We can still have sex though, hm. We don't need a spell to do that, right?" he teases but the question almost sounds serious.

You roll your eyes. "James."

"I'm just making sure!"

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myspacebrat · 8 months

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dreams about my dealer…

dealer e.m. x fem reader

blurb request: 💌Hey Tori! Hope your day is going lovely 😊 As a request for the vday celebration, could I pls get a blurb where the reader is nerdy and loves reading old cheesy romance novels like these? And one night she falls asleep after reading and she fantasizes about her dealer Eddie as this suave romance hero who sweeps her off her feet and gets her all hot and bothered. And so after that night she starts buying books covers where the men resemble him and he catches on during one of their smoke seshs. You decide how it ends 😉😉 by: @honey-flustered

authors note: This is such a fun request, thank you for sending it in lovely. Hope you enjoy <3 if anyone wants a part two of just smut pls lmk cause I’d love to, but ya know I’m trying to blurb here.

all of my works are 18+

“there ya go, wrap your arms around me, sweet girl. Just like that.” The familiar voice bellows into your neck.

“I’ve got you now, sweetheart.” He murmurs against your flesh this time, sending shivers down your spine. The long familiar hair tickles at your collar bone as his arms wrap tighter around you. This time causing a very needed friction between you and this mystery man.

“Mmm, go ahead angel, make yourself feel good.” He says again before removing his face from the crook of your neck and revealing himself to you.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

You pop up out of bed, removing your sleep mask before you slam your hand down on the obnoxious alarm clock sitting on your side table.

You feel a wetness in your panties when you go to stand up and it’s as if a flash goes off in your mind and you’re taken back to the dream you were just awoken from. Eddie, your drug dealer in nothing but blue jeans, his hair wrapped in a low bun with loose strands that brushed your sensitive skin and his big muscular chest dripping with sweat as he held you against his body protectively.

You look back over towards your bed, eyes glancing over the book you fell asleep reading. You couldn’t deny the man on the cover looked pretty close in comparison to eddie, long hair and the same exact attire as he was wearing in your dream. The man had a smirk on his face that was almost identical to the usual smirk eddie always had when you’d buy your weed from him.

later that day you find yourself across town, at your local library; ready to check out any and every dirty romance novel with a man that in some capacity meets your dealers description. You couldn’t believe the crush that formed from one little dream, you’d been festering on thoughts of eddie all day and you need more ammo for these ongoing fantasies and the very welcomed dreams you might have tonight.

You’re able to find five books in total, and you just knew you were gonna whip through them all in one week. There was a hunger in your center that just needed to be satiated, and if you couldn’t have the real thing, then the next best will do just fine.

The next morning, you speed walk through the halls of Hawkins high, binder held tight to your body as you keep your head down just trying to get to biology in one piece, but you’re running late so your feet move frantically as you go over an excuse to give Mr. Sivertson before you breech his classroom door. As you become deeply lost in your thoughts you collide into another body who was rounding the corner, your binder falls out of your hands and on to the floor as the other persons hands catch you by your waist.

“Where’s the fire, sweetheart?” The all too familiar voice fills your ears and you freeze, eyes now level with an ozzy shirt and his statement leather jacket.

Eddie’s eyes glance down towards your stuff that fell into a messy pile between your feet, your heart hammers when he bends down to grab something. The smirk on his face tells you exactly what he’d found and now you just want to run back to where you came from, get in your car and drive to a whole new town.

“Whatcha got here?” He says through a dopey laugh, as if you’d been caught red handed. That’s exactly what’s happening.

“Didn’t think a church mouse like you would read these kinds of books.” He whispers, although you two are the only ones in the hall.

“I-I’m not a church mouse, and give me my book back.” You huff and snatch your book out of his heavily ringed hand, but your face was far too guilty and you knew that eddie knew exactly why you had these books in your possession.

You eventually side step him, not wanting to hear any of his teasing that you knew he’d readily dish out. Eddie wasn’t a bully per say but he was an asshole, a cocky asshole to be specific.

Once you’re out of biology, you speed walk to your locker. Ready to put this godforsaken book away until the end of the day, when you can read it in bed, cuddled up where no one would make fun of you. But as you open your locker a folded piece of paper falls out and hits the toe of your flat. you shove your binder into a cubbie before bending down to retrieve it.

Meet me behind the football field after school

- EM

Your stomach fills with butterflies as it simultaneously sinks into the depths of your ass.

Why would he want to meet up after school? Was he going to poke fun at you? Have you show his friends your book so they could all laugh at you?

But another part of your brain said:

What if this is it? What if he really wants you? Maybe he’ll kiss you? Maybe you can finally feed this hunger.

That was all you needed to make your split decision.

After school, you grab your book from your locker and make a beeline for the football field. Bypassing quick goodbyes from your friends.

When you finally make it to the tree line, you exhale a deep breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, then you take a few deeper steps into the desolate woods. No one else came back here except for one infamous metalhead, so you knew you wouldn’t be met with any asshole jocks. That settled your stomach a bit, but not fully.

You see the back of Eddie’s head first as he sits on the old warped, wooden bench; hunched over as if in concentration. When you move closer, walking around the rickety table you can now see that he’s breaking up a nug of weed and placing it into a zig zag before rolling it up, snug.

Your eyes meet when he glides his tongue along the lining, he smirks up at you as your eyes gawk at the movements of his pink muscle, licking up and down. You can’t help but to squeeze your thighs together, that burning in your core blazes hot and he hasn’t even touched you.

Your eyes flicker back up into his and you realize that he’s watching you, watch him.

In a moment of faux confidence, you ask—

“What’s with the letter in my locker, Munson? I thought I was the one that was supposed to put the letters in your locker when I want to smoke.” You shoot him a weak smile, making him scoff as he puts the joint behind his ear for safe keeping.

“Are you gonna sit your ass down and smoke this with me or not?” He huffs, pulling a zippo lighter out of his leather jacket pocket and flipping the lid open and closed, open and closed. Is-is that a nervous tick? Is he nervous, too?

You lower yourself onto the seat in front of him, taking on your own nervous tick of picking at your nails.

He takes the joint from behind his ear, his eyes never leaving your form and it has you cowering deeper into yourself. He lights the spliff and inhales deep, holding it in for a second and then letting the smoke bellow out of his nose and mouth. You can’t deny how undeniably sexy he is.

“So, those little slutty novels you have—” He starts

“They’re not slutty! They’re romance novels, Eddie!” You screech in embarrassment, as your cheeks heat up from the deep cackle he makes in your expense.

“Yeah yeah, princess. Tell me, do they fuck in these romance novels?” He throws weak quotation marks up for the last two words, as his eyebrows shoot up under his bangs in question.

“Well, I mean…yeah they do.” You respond with a defeated slump of your shoulders.

“Mhm, just as I suspected. Slutty.” The way he sing-songs ‘slutty’ makes you fall into a fit of giggles, and the noise is music to Eddie’s ears.

“So uh, do you want me to make you feel better than those shitty books ever could?”

#— 𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐈 𝐖𝐑𝐈��𝐄𝐒 #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fanfic #eddie stranger things #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson #eddie munson fic #eddie munson x female reader

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annafromuni · 12 days

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Historical Romance and Magical Birds in India Holton's The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love

India Holton has such a likeable writing style, and her new release, The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love has breathed fresh life into my reading. With such lovely landscape description, loveable characters, gorgeous birds and no small amount of innuendos and bantering, The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love is the kind of read you need to liven up your week. This is such a light, easy-going…

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angel-maybe-alive · 2 years

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More things I hate about modern literature because today is a bad day and I need to be a dick online to feel better:

How much sex there is in everything

And again I am not a prude, erotica has existed for decades and it's okay but every popular YA or adventure book nowadays is a bad erotica with some low stakes adventure in the background

And somehow they are able to be both bad porn and bad adventure

And also people will promote those books as " yes the plot kinda sucks but there's good sex scenes"

The word Mary sue

The misuse of the word Mary sue

Any attempt to make a "LOTR inspired" book made by a man

Because usually the things that made LOTR good go just over the authors head and we end with basically a vin diesel movie set in the middle ages

This is not just about modern literature but books about or set in horrible moments for a oppressed minority(like holocaust or slavery) written by people who aren't part of said minority

Coleen hoover

She did for feminist literature what Seth MacFarlane did for adult animation

The harry Potter/Percy Jacksonification of children's literature

The magical choose one trope being taken to a magical world did irremediable damage to children's literature

The mean girl trope

Books set in fictional middle ages but the protagonist go to balls in fashion show modern runaway style dresses

You know the tacky Pinterest glittery showing shoulders back and leg

Those official arts of the same exactly white women and the same white guy in slightly different clothes with the same 2016 style eyebrows and the sharp jawline and the nothing expression

Characters being described as "golden skin" so depending if the author needs some representation points they can be interpreted as people of color but if no one says nothing they stay as just tan white

Comparing dark skin color to any food

How many authors try to make at the same time "this is brainless wish fulfilment fantasy about being desired by a hot dominating guy" and " this is a profound take about the horrors of abuse"

Usually by having the second love interest to abuse the protag

In the end the message that stays is any abuse is forgivable if the abuser is hot enough

The "I'm skinny but not hot super model skinny I am ugly skinny my bones show because of malnourishment"

"yet I don't feel any other effect of starvation like being weak and I can carry five times my body weight in whatever animal the author needs me to hunt in the beginning of the book because making me a farmer wouldn't be cool"

"I am ugly" cried the skinny girl with locks of auburn hair porcelain white skin and eyes of emerald green.

The jk Rowling stupid name school (she named the werewolf Wolfy mcwolf in Latin and people though it was smart now we have a girl who fights on a island named island and the archer who marries a fae named fae archer )

And again faes because fuck faes

#anti sjm #anti sarah j maas #anti booktok #books #writing #unpopular opinion #i guess #yes i am sour and mean #anti jk rowling #anti lore olympus #i know it doesn't counts as a book #but i bloody hate it #fuck booktok #anti coho #anti coleen hoover #i think this is how you write her name

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pangur-and-grim · 2 years

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something I’ve learned from querying: everything has a million subcategories, and it is crucial to actually learn then.

like when I first started, I thought an agent listing ‘speculative fiction’ in their interests was enough to give me a shot! but now it’s like ok. but does that actually mean fantasy (as opposed to science fiction or surrealism)? and if it does, is it constrained to one of the following:

high fantasy

low fantasy

grounded fantasy

magical realism

etc.

and if fate is smiling on me and it is high fantasy, what sort do they like? because mine starts as a medieval George R R Martin clone before morphing into a post-apocalyptic sci fi, so they have to simultaneously be alright with a) cliched shit and b) experimental weird shit.

and say everything aligns, and that genre works for them - even then, they often accept it only in one or two age categories. there’s mg, ya, na (middle grade, young adult, new adult) and adult. mine is adult, which is a huge strike against it given the genre.

AND THEN! AND THEN! say everything else is perfect. they love high fantasy with elves and unicorns, they want it for adults, they’re cool with genre bending, but in their profile is a phrase I’ve learned to dread: “HEA (which stands for happily every after) required”. I love my little book, but it is dark and full of terrible people.

and then I also have to hope that they’re into queer romance, on top of everything else! it’s a hard process.

currently I have 45 queries sent, 15 rejections, and 30 unknowns, and I think a good portion of those rejections are because I didn’t initially understand that ‘accepts speculative fiction’ shouldn’t be taken literally.

#book #grim just rolled another egg off the counter

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nobodysuspectsthebutterfly · 2 months

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Do you have any high fantasy book recs? I have enjoyed asoiaf and would like to explore more of the genre

Sure, you can see a lot in my book recs tag, with plenty of details, but here's a quick list of my favorite high fantasy series:

The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (yes, everyone knows this one, but you might be a complete newbie to fantasy, so hey)

The Discworld series, by Terry Pratchett (ditto; also note I detest those reading order guides you may see around, I read the books as they were published (almost) and I was better than fine ok)

The World of the Five Gods, by Lois McMaster Bujold (I recommend again going with publishing order for the novels, then moving on to the Penric novellas, either publishing or chronological. I also rec her Sharing Knife series, though it's not a top favorite, her Spirit Ring novel is sweet and should appeal to YA fantasy fans, and I highly rec her Vorkosigan Saga to ASOIAF fans, though it's SF.)

The Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny (love this series so much, always rec it to fans of ASOIAF, and like GRRM I agree it desperately needs a tv adaptation)

The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander (utter classic, very badly served by the Disney adaptation, needs a much better one)

The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis (another classic, and lol publishers really like "chronicles" don't they)

Pelmen the Powershaper series, by Robert Don Hughes (out of print for a long time sadly, but you may be able to find cheap used books)

and there's so much more, in low fantasy and other sub-genres (Naomi Novik's various series and novels are big loves of mine, and I adore Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series), check my tag!

#also there's lots of other high fantasy series like shannara and thomas covenant that i've read but don't exactly rec- ymmv #book recs #fantasy #high fantasy #lord of the rings #discworld #the world of the five gods #the chronicles of amber #the chronicles of prydain #the chronicles of narnia #pelmen the powershaper #anonymous asks

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mixelation · 2 months

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i've finished reading xiran jay zhao's iron widow! here is my review so far (contains spoilers, including the "twist" at the end). my tl;dr is that it starts as a fun revenge story but both the quality of the narrative and the writing itself decline over the course of the novel. you might like it if you want a power fantasy where the main character is unapologetically violent and selfish, and you don't mind cardboard characterization or shallow worldbuilding. if you want a nuanced take on how misogyny functions in a society, a book about strong female characters (as opposed to a singular, capital Strong Female Character), or you find descriptions of anime-style action scenes cringey, you this book may not be for you.

on to the full review ->

iron widow is a scifi-fantasy YA book set in alternate timeline china, where humanity battles invading alien "hunduns" using gundam-esque giant robots called "chrysalises." a lot of the worldbuilding draws on the aesthetic and certain social norms of ~old timesy~ china (iirc zhao has stated they pulled inspiration from lots of time periods, but my familiarity with both historical china and chinese historical fantasy is very low, so i am absolutely not the person to label anything beside "the past"). so you have people checking tablets and riding around in hovercraft and using modern slang, but a lot of Aesthetic elements are more traditional, and society is deeply, deeply sexist in a way that.... feels old-fashioned (wording chosen to set the Mood apart from how modern misogyny tends to work). for example, the main character has bound feet but also uses phrases like "railed on."

chrysalises, the giant robots, work by the pilot channeling qi. for whatever reason that's not really well explained, they require a copilot to boost their control/power over the chrysalis. think "drifting" in pacific rim, except here when pilots are not compatible with their copilot (this seems to rely largely on "qi levels" and pilots don't seem to have control over it), the "weaker" copilot can become overwhelmed and die. in this setting, the main pilot is always male the copilot always female, with the copilot usually dying. this part of the premise as it is described on the back of the book confused me as a setting for a ~feminist~ story, because why would men always win in a wild mind-meld, battle-of-wills situation? however, the main character slowly figures out that it's not that men are inherently stronger pilots-- it's that women are always paired with a male pilot the military has tested to be stronger (based on qi levels), and then later one of the plot twists is that the chrysalises are designed to weaken the female copilot. this is because, in the way sexism works in this society, "families wouldn't send their sons to be pilots if they knew they could be killed by some girl." (not an exact quote, but what one character gives as the explanation)

weaker female copilots are called "concubines" and teenaged girls are frequently sold to the military to be concubines. if the concubine survives, she's dubbed a "balanced match" for the male pilot and they become quasi-married. more on this later.

this leads us to wu zetian, a "frontier peasant" who offers herself up to be a "concubine" (co-pilot). we learn that zetian's older sister was sold off by their family to be a concubine, but was murdered by her assigned pilot. like, regular murdered, not killed by a psychic link the way most concubines are. so zetian, having a shit home life, and under pressure to sell herself as well, decides she will enlist and then murder her sister's killer.

now, i had a lot of fun with the beginning of this story. but in order to get into this book, you have to accept upfront that zetian is very firmly the main character, and she is always right and ridiculously strong, clever, and resilient just because. she runs her mouth even at the risk of violence, and is usually meant to be right about whatever she's saying. she rejects her role in society just because, and she decides she doesn't care if her whole family is punished or even killed for her actions because they're terrible to her, and the reader isn't really expected to criticize this. despite having no formal education, she always knows what she needs to know to logic her way through things successfully, and she can strategize and debate on par with people whose literal jobs it is to do these things.

for the first ~25% of the book, this is fun. zetian has decided fuck the system, fuck her family, and fuck her own life-- if they're going to kill her, she's bringing her sister's murderer down with her. she doesn't care about having to endure demeaning tests or people insisting on putting her through painful make-up routines. this is a girl who just has murder on her mind, and it's pretty entertaining.

then, she's shoved into the co-pilot seat of a chrysalis with the man who killed her sister as the main pilot, and through some messy mind-scape battling, she kills him. she takes control of the chrysalis and wins the battle. and then..... the book sort of stops having a real plot, and everything slows down.

see, in the first chunk where we're reading a vengeful murder plot, everything is centered around this one goal. zetian's extreme personality makes sense because we're reading about someone who's actively thrown her life away for revenge. we're on board with it and we wan to see how she manages it. this premise allows for an unhinged protagonist making unhinged decisions.

so what happens next, if she accomplished her goal a quarter of the way in? the military decides to pair her with a character called li shimin, who is the current top pilot. he's the top pilot in that pilots are given scores (their battles are televised and they're treated as a celebrities) and also he has the highest qi level. he's also a convicted murderer and was recruited off death row. sounds fun, right? wrong. shimin is a cardboard cut out of a man. he barely speaks. the only thing he really does is drink and fight people. he gets into physical fights with little provocation. the narration makes a big point of really driving home how big and intimidating he is.... and also how he's an ethnic minority. i cannot comment on if this was meant to reflect any real world group or how they're treated, but overall shimin's characterization make me slightly uncomfortable AND he's just not very interesting. later we find out he's an ex-scholar who murdered his whole family after walking in on his brother raping someone (yeah, i..... idk), and he used to write poems. i think this was meant to make him seem more fleshed out, but the character writing needs a lot of work, so "ex-scholar and poet" is a very informed trait.

if you've followed the buzz on this book, you'll know one of its "draws" is that the end game ship is polyamorous. so, zetian has a second love interest. his name is yizhi and he's the fifth son of the richest man in the country, and he made friends with zetian before the start of the novel. the way they met and bonded doesn't super make sense, but i'm willing to buy into it. yizhi has been infused with SLIGHTLY more personality. he signs up to work for the military as a strategist, which is how he gets to hang out with zetian and shimin. his contribution to the plot is mostly just that he has money to throw at problems. oh, and he can give their chrysalis a boost of qi for extra power and starts hanging out with them in their cockpit during battles. why others don't also do this, and why pilots need to parasite a copilot instead of just having other people around for extra qi, is never explained. zetian has a line where she says something like "don't you know a triangle is the strongest shape?" so i kind of dig what i think zhao was going for (that they balance each other better than just two of them would), but it's not really a realized theme.

okay, so if zetian killed who she wanted to kill, then what's the rest of the book about? good question! it's a little unclear. zetian survives copiloting with shimin and they're declared a balanced match. then the buddies of the pilot zetian killed try to kill her. then the military tries to kill her AND shimin by sending them into battles when they're too tired. then zetian asks yizhi's rich dad to help them with their PR so the government will stop trying to kill them. then they decide to "take back" a province the hunduns took over years ago. then zetian realizes the chrysalises are rigged against female pilots and they go and kidnap and torture a guy to make him confess to how it's done. then they go to take back the province and zetian finds the cryopreserved body of an ancient emperor and his dragon chrysalis. oh, did i not mention him? yeah he's some legend that gets brought up a couple times and then suddenly he's there at the end. but he doesn't do anything. he just agrees with everything zetian wants to do, for some reason, and what she spontaneously decides to do with her new giant robot is go take over the government. she kills multiple people. then the book ends with them finding out they're on the hundun's native planet. okay???

the last 75% just reads like a bunch of things happening because why not. this by itself isn't necessarily bad, but the events are not well connected nor do events get set up in a way where you understand why they occur in the order they occur. zetian stays angry and determined, but her actual overall goal evaporates and instead it just feels like every few chapters she just decides on a new thing she wants. one could argue her overall goal is "claiming agency" or "survival," but they narrative doesn't really carry either of these themes through. for example, in the first quarter of the book, zetian repeated emphasizes she's ready and willing to through her life away if she can get her revenge, and i believed that. but after she miraculously survives.... that willingness to throw her life away vanishes, but not in a "character has undergone development" way. it's just not there anymore.

the writing isn't amazing in the first quarter, but i thought it was fine. it steadily declines over the course of the book, making it feel like a rough draft where zhao was losing steam. instead of getting to see characters interact and play off each other, we just read descriptions of events and conversations. this is nitpicky, but one thing that was starting to drive me crazy through out the book is that the narration frequently would be like "oh, earlier so-and-so showed me this" and then it would be something that could have EASILY just been included at the beginning of the scene and would have also been INTERESTING to see.

the world has a lot of elements going on, but there is a huge problem with telling and not showing, so even with lots of details, the worldbuilding feels shallow. for example, despite zetian saying defeating hunduns has to be a priority, i don't know what happens if hunduns successfully invade an area. we're never shown a ransacked village or hunduns killing anyone but unnamed pilots. the narrative spends a lot of time talking about different element qi and the advantages and disadvantages of each element, but this never actually becomes plot relevant. the pilots are paraded out to the public as fancy celebrities and zetian and shimin have photoshoots for PR, but this also never really becomes plot relevant besides being well-liked being something zetian decides would be a good idea for a few chapters. we don't even know what zetian's relationship with her sister is like, even though she decides to die seeking revenge for her.

i want to expand on that last part a bit. zetian states repeatedly that she wants to help save other girls from becoming concubines, and yet no stakes are attached to this. shimin accidentally killed a concubine he was in love with before the start of the book, so we get some flashbacks of her, but otherwise we never see the impact (or lack of impact) of these young girls' deaths. like, that character really only exists as a tragic backstory for shimin. there's no sympathetic concubine character that dies to drive home the point (although there IS a mean concubine character that presumably died and zetian never thinks of again); there's no meeting a family that misses their daughter; there's no dramatically prying open a cockpit to free a concubine. there are two other female pilots who are balanced matches, and one is a bitch to zetian and the nice one backstabs and attempts to kill her later. zetian never sympathizes with another girl or woman for more than a few lines, including her own sister, so it is unclear why saving girls is so important to her. there's a brief moment where the "nice" female pilot points out to zetian that living in poverty and being terrified of hunduns attacks likely contributed to the various types of misogynistic abuse going on in her family and that providing more support for them would help them.... and zetian sympathizes with her mother for maybe a paragraph.... and then at the end of the book she decides to murder her family. Uh. Okay? Oh, and when the "nice" pilot betrays her, she says it was because the military had her kids and was threatening them. zetian decides to literally crush her to death. Feminism, I guess.

when i read through reviews of this book, the negative ones largely complained about zetian as a character. i always take reviews complaining the main female character is a bitch with a grain of salt, because often they're just bullshit and also i like horrible women. i liked zetian alright for the first two thirds of them book, although she starts to come off as weirdly arrogant at some point. (she starts to refer to herself as one of the most powerful women in the world due to her qi level, even though this does not help her physically, politically, or socially, and she has very little actual agency until just revives a frozen emperor at the end and goes off the rails.) however, this time i think the complaints are merited. you ever read a dark harry fic? or a "naruto gets chased by villagers, becomes powerful and murders them all" type fic? it's like that but if those types of writers were 5% more aware of social issues. zetian is self-righteous about wanting to change the pilot system, but her actions do not indicate she actually gives a shit about anyone but her and her boyfriends. so in the end it seems like even though she's preaching about saving girls, she's actually going, "me! what about me! how dare you do these bad things to ME!" which like. obviously it's fine to be angry about wrongs done to you, but it comes off like she's less upset about systemic problems and more upset the systemic problems happened to HER. there's a lack of nuance and character work that would make or explore this difference.

hmm, what else. i don't really have specific compliments or complaints about the romance aspect, other than the inter-character relationships aren't really built up well. there's definitely effort put into the zetian-yizhi and zetian-shimin relationships, it's just that.... neither of the boys have a ton of personality....? also there's a few oddly placed asides about zetian not feeling ashamed of having two lovers, which feel more liek they're there to justify it to the reader than zetian's actual internal monologue. it's okay, zetian. i did not for a second think you were a shamed of a single thing you've done.

The top review on amazon says, "Wow… this is everything you could want from a science fiction novel." Iron Widow is sci-fi the way Star Wars or Pacific Rim are sci-fi: it's fantasy with robots. Except there's no loving descriptions of engines revving or switches being flipped. There's not even cool little alien dudes; I don't even know what a hundun looks like.

#mixed bag #iron widow

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