#and you know my taste so you won't recommend me whatever is recommended online when i try to find books similar to an enchantment of ravens

[eerna]

pls recommend me some fantasy romance!

[mermaidsirennikita]

to add to the Princess conversation, it wouldn't be common to find narratives where the hero fucks other women so openly in front of the heroine in a modern HR and if it was written ppl would lose their shit in the reviews lol I thought it was really refreshing the way it is written in Princess even though I don't even like the scenario personally it just felt interesting to read bc I knew I wouldn't find now like the author truly wrote freely

Oh for sure. If we're thinking about the same scene, I personally have no issue with it because a) I kind of love that shit in books I'm not even gonna lie b) it was before Darius and Serafina got together c) he had noooo concept that they would ever be ABLE to be together. And I think Darius's relationship with sex and trauma, which (I'm almost done with the book) is similar to Lazar's but not quite the same, informs why that scene happened. His sense of self worth is... not great.

And that's the kind of thing you would honestly not see as effectively if we didn't get a look into his sexual relationships with other women. And it's not at length, we don't have these long scenes, but we see that he's slutty and it hurts Serafina's feelings because even though there's no chance that they can be together and she's in fact engaged to another man, she still loves him and knows he knows she loves him and so on. BUT! Later on, when you're in his POV, you suddenly realize "Oh, it actually wasn't this fun and sexy time for Darius, he has a LOT of issues" (many of them related to his mom, SHOCKER the breastfeeding hero has mommy issues).

I often see readers say "well I could have gotten that without that scene" COULD YOU THO. Because to me, a real issue in the romance reading discourse about What is Good and What is Bad in romance is that people only read what they specifically KNOW they're good with. They never even try something else.

And that's fine. You can do that. But if you are ONLY going to try what you know for sure isn't going to push your boundaries in any sense, then I personally don't want to hear about what you think the genre shouldn't do. I'm not talking about people reading shit that triggers them. I'm not talking about saying, "Well, I don't really love a book where the hero has sex with a woman before the heroine on the page, but everyone says this is amazing and otherwise it sounds like my shit, so I'm going to try it".

I have recommended books to people that they get so excited about, and when I mention one thing that is not triggering but is simply not to their taste, they will just go "oh never mind". And again, that is FINE. But if all you're reading is books that don't do it, I don't think you can tell me that it never works and that it doesn't belong in the genre. Which some people absolutely do. "No cheating in romance" okay but you also won't try this book by your #1 favorite author that has all the other tropes you love that all your book friends endorse because it has cheating in it.

I don't think I'd care as much, but because romance has SO much discourse about What is Right and What is Wrong at the moment, I do think it's pushing a lot of authors to be safer. If you're constantly being bombarded with takes that say "I WILL NEVER READ THIS BC X" or whatever, and all you wanna do is sell a book in a very competitive, commercial market... idk.

And I actually think the market is much more curious and open to exploring than a lot of vocal online people would make you think, lol; because the online audience is very rarely truly representative of the average audience. Like, the average person who loves Ali Hazelwood isn't watching a million booktok takes about how her book had This Thing so you shouldn't read it. They just one-click her books because they love Ali. The GENRE may influence them more than the takes--I'm thinking of my friend who ADORES Ali but hasn't read Bride because she's reluctant to try PNR (booooo).

However, the prevalence of social media makes these things seem bigger. When Gaelen wrote Princess, she went off with her "Serafina sees Darius fucking another woman before they get together" shit, and her virgin lactation shit, and Serafina being a very spoiled brat who is beautiful and knows it and uses her beauty, and Darius having the self worth of a broken twig...

She didn't have all the takes and the admittedly dramatically transformed market on her mind. And conversely, because there was more of a divide between the reader and the author, the readers often did try shit that wasn't really their thing. Sometimes they liked it; sometimes they didn't. You weren't sitting there thinking about a billion tropes, tbh. You saw a hot cover and read the back copy and took it home. Or, you saw the author's name and went "I love Nora Roberts" and went out on a limb and tried her vampire books even though you'd only read her contemporaries. And maybe you liked it and read the other two books in the trilogy, and maybe you didn't.

I think it's kind of a snake eating its own tail thing, where the market has become so responsive to the loudest readers (by no means all readers... readers of color and LGBT+ readers and disabled readers who ask for rep and often don't get it comes to mind) that it moves incredibly quickly, and authors are just throwing shit at the wall trying to build an audience, and the quickest way to do that is by throwing the shit that the wall SCREAMS it wants and not throwing the shit that the wall SCREAMS is bad. Even if that's what YOU as an author like. And often, I gotta say, especially in the early parts of an author's career, I think that the best results will come from the author saying "fuck it, I'm gonna write what I would want to read".

Unfortunately, I don't think that's really as much the philosophy anymore. Writing to market has always been a part of romance and will always be a part of every commercial genre (I mean, look at how historicals have become sooo Regency- and Victorian-centric--that happened before social media took over the book spaces), but it has become a bit more confined, imo.

So that is something I've discovered I really love about reading older books. You can tell this person was like "fuck it, I wanna write this shit".

[barbierpt]

it truly amazes me how some people online will go to extraordinary lengths when they just don't like someone or what they're saying. congrats on whoever you are going around harassing anyone you see that's following my blog or that i'm reblogging posts from/they're reblogging posts from me. genuinely envy that you have that amount of free time to cyberstalk and sit on anonymous in their inboxes. i'm assuming you're not in my inbox because i have you blocked. hence the need to go to others like khadijha and nikkiitalks, asking rei if they're "still eating my ass" (super gross btw), and i'm sure there are other blogs i haven't seen that are just trying to mind their business and do their thing.

also you must real limber with all that reaching you're doing claiming that i'm "racist," "transphobic," "dismissing palestinians" (where??), "shading twiggy" (literally said in a post nothing was about twiggy) and apparently targeting twiggy (how exactly?? where's your proof??) when i've had them blocked and haven't looked at their blog since i hit that button. my personal favorite bs claim is that i'm "inciting anons" to go after others when i've never once done that and then here you are, obsessive anon, unable to get me out of your mind enough that you're in everyone else's inboxes about me spreading lies without sources and proof.

to clarify on my post last night about this section in particular:

don't get me wrong, i believe in writing what you want it's fiction and impossible to believe a public space can cater to everyone's perfect ideals, but i also believe in just... common sense?? idk (this is one very specific example i personally experienced) maybe let's not use a virus breaking out as a plot device in an rp when covid is still fresh and ongoing in the world. there are people who've lost loved ones or may still be suffering from longterm side effects.

congratulations on once again jumping to conclusions in your harassment towards nikkiitalks last night. this wasn't about their group or them. i didn't even know that was a thing that happened. no idea who nikkiitalks really is beyond just a blog i followed and reblogged a few posts from, we never talked. this virus plot example was about something i briefly considered as an event in a superpower rp i ran where a virus broke out and depowered all superhumans. but then i thought it would be in extremely poor taste with covid happening so i never actually played it out.

to the anon(s): this behavior of yours is extremely childish, bullying, obsessive, and frankly disgusting. you don't need to like what i'm saying on my blog and omg!! that's what the block button is for. i recommend using it and moving on instead of sitting on my blog and performing olympic level mental gymnastics to take statements from paragraph long posts out of context and twist them into a false narrative to fuel your hate. also it really says a lot that you're doing this all hidden behind the anonymous feature. you are literally worse than whatever you're claiming i am and your actions have shown that.

anyways, the only apology i'll give is that i'm genuinely sorry to anyone who's been unintentionally dragged into whatever this drama is, whether you follow me or not. idc if people block me or ignore me but i won't stand for anon hate or harassment, whether it's against me or for me. and if there's anyone out there sending any anon hate/harassment on my behalf about other blogs, stop. i want no association with that.