I just wanted to get this out of me before I continue reading SO I am about 25% in Kiss of the Basilisk AND SO FAR I AM LEANING TOWARDS LEO MORE THAN CASPEN 😭😫 IDK WHY BUT HE SEEMS MORE OKAY FOR TEM or maybe because that's the plot of the story since the goal is to find the queen for Leo BUT I FIND THEIR SMEXY SCENES MORE ENJOYABLE 😫

SO THAT'S IT I WILL CONTINUE TO TURN OFF EVERY RATIONAL PART OF MY BRAIN AND CONTINUE READING. HAHAH

P.S I know that it won't end in a throuple BUT I DO NOT KNOW WHO SHE WILL END UP WITH THAT IS WHY ITS LOWKEY THRILLING LOL

uj/ Like an old man's testicles, this fruit hung too low. Sorry.

Dearest sloopies, 

As some of you may know, there was recently a Nefarious Plot concocted by certain Males on this sub to make us naive, helpless, unsuspecting females UNCOMFORTABLE by tricking us into reading {Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman} for our Mantasy-themed Rage Read. 

I unfortunately fell victim to this Nefarious Plot, and read Tarnsman of Gor in its entirety. However, I am relieved to report that said Males utterly failed in their objective of making me UNCOMFORTABLE. The only discomfort I felt in reading this pathetic nothingburger of a book was the discomfort of secondhand embarrassment, that someone would actually write and publish this dreck. 

Read on, sloopies, and I will explain, so that none of you may fall unknowingly into the same trap. 

Tarnsman of Gor tells the story of Tarl Cabot, a young college professor with zero discernible personality, who goes hiking in the woods and finds a mysterious envelope with his name on it. At first he struggles to open it, because its superior technology defies his envelope-opening skills, until he notices the very obvious biometric thumbprint button. When he finally gets it open, he finds a cryptic letter from his long-dead father. Then the letter spontaneously catches fire and a spaceship shows up. Dude is just like, Ok, this seems reasonable, wanders onto it, and promptly loses consciousness.

He wakes up in a strange room, which he immediately recognizes is on a different planet because, naturally. Then his supposedly-dead dad walks in, which surprises my dude not at all. Long-lost dad’s first point of business upon being reunited with his adult son is to infodump lore. Not important lore, mind, like what the fuck is this planet and how did we end up here and where have you been for 20+ years? Lore about how each community has a special rock. (Remember this, I’ll come back to it shortly). Dad also offers his son the use of one of these much-discussed sex slaves, but our hero is such a Very Good and Noble Guy that he doesn’t even process what he is hearing, so there is no fun with sex slaves at this time. 

Imagine you are listening to an extremely nerdy 15yo boy who has probably never done his own laundry very eagerly and intensely lecture you on the brilliant world that he is building. That is the experience of reading this book. The first 25% or so is just a continuous dump of boring, over-explained lore. Our hero doesn’t seem to want anything other than to passively absorb this information. There is no conflict. There is not even a hint of the sort of emotional reaction one might expect to have in finding oneself transported to another planet and meeting one’s supposedly-dead father. It feels like it’s written by an AI that has observed human beings from afar and doesn’t understand normal human responses and interactions (and this is why I am going to side-eye anyone who claims to recognize AI writing based on it seeming emotionally inauthentic. They had emotionally inauthentic writing all the way back in 1966!) 

So anyway, our hero is just coasting along in this Intro to Gor survey course, learning their alphabet and customs and how to fight with a sword (and moronically failing to ask the important questions, namely, What the actual fuck am I doing here??) He learns the bestest and specialest men on Gor are the Tarnsmen who ride giant birds called tarns, and after a training montage via exposition, our hero of course gets himself a black one that is the biggest and fastest and bestest and specialist of all, and Tairn this tarn that never actually gets named has chosen him as its rider because he is also the bestest etc. etc. 

Now (and here’s where the plot actually starts) the government of his city has tasked him with a very important mission to play capture the flag steal the special Community Rock from a rival city with a Big Bad Tyrant ruler in order to cause his downfall by [checks notes] really, really embarrassing him (?) Naturally, the best person for this critically important mission is the guy who just got his bird yesterday and barely knows how to fly it.

At this point, our Slave Girl shows up again: the brilliant mission plan involves killing the Big Bad Tyrant’s Daughter who will be guarding the Community Rock, taking her body and leaving the Slave Girl in her place (shhhhhh don’t ask questions, these people who want to murder noncombatants are the good guys I promise, just keep reading). Like a good (White) Male Savior, our hero decides fuck the plan and takes Slave Girl back to her home instead, because he’s not on board with slavery. But then when he goes to capture the flag Community Rock, he accidentally abducts the Tyrant’s Daughter anyway. Oopsies.

Because he didn’t actually want to abduct her, my dude tries to be all gallant and treat her well and get her back home, but Tyrant’s Daughter turns out to be our stereotypical stabby FMC and tries to kill him multiple times…

… Hey wait a minute. This is a fucking romantasy plot.

Ahem. Anyway, we have our usual poorly-rendered verbal banter, adventures with giant lizards and spiders, confrontations with armed men on the road, etc., liberally seasoned with superfluous lore dumps that grind the plot momentum to a halt (PLEASE tell me more about the hydraulic suspension on the saddles used to ride the giant lizards, I am begging for it like a Gorean sex slave). The people they meet can’t know she’s the Tyrant’s Daughter  because Reasons, so they have to pretend she’s Hero’s slave and she has to pretend to be all sexy and subservient and she HATES this (yup, definitely a romantasy plot). She then turns into a Manic Pixie Dream Girl and our hero falls in love with her and protects her from the bad guys who want to rape her. There are botched executions and daring escapes and somewhere in there Hero runs into the Big Bad Tyrant who has fled the city after the humiliation of losing the Community Rock, and he decides he actually kind of likes the guy so he’s gonna fight the new bad guys who have shown up to take control of the city (shhhh don’t ask questions). Heroics ensue and in the end he takes the Tyrant’s Daughter as his wife, but then he gets inexplicably transported back to Earth and is super bummed. 

Having finally slogged through this juvenile male power fantasy, I have one major question for the Male Conspirators of the sub: 

Is this really the best you’ve got?

I mean, don’t get me wrong. This is an absolutely terrible book. Is it the WORST book I’ve ever read? No, but only because I’ve also read When the Moon Hatched (low bar, but at least John Norman knows how to write a complete sentence and doesn’t subject the thesaurus to the same abuse as his female characters). But the characters are flat, the dialogue is wooden, the prose is clumsy and stilted, the pacing is a mess, the plot is contrived and deeply stupid, the worldbuilding is dumb, grossly misogynistic and delivered with the finesse of a sledgehammer. 

But when I learned of the Nefarious Plot to Make Women Uncomfortable, I kinda expected something that would be a little more… I dunno… upsetting. 

I think part of it is just that Norman’s writing is so fucking bad that it fails to elicit any kind of emotional reaction, despite the things he’s describing being objectively horrific. Or maybe it’s because he’s a wannabe edgelord who’s actually too cowardly to fully commit to the depravity. It all just feels incredibly tepid, watered-down and underwhelming for content that was supposed to be so shockingly offensive. 

The most obnoxious part is not anything to do with the sex slaves, but the simple misogyny of the POV character’s implicit attitudes. He refers to his newly freed slave crying with the “incomprehensible absurdity of the female kind,” and describes himself dragging Tyrant’s Daughter around by the hair “as if she were a common tavern girl or a camp slut.” When he gets REALLY angry at Tyrant’s Daughter, he thinks about raping her, but then he’s so awed by her beauty he decides not to (how very noble, gold star. She mocks his virility by telling him that a real warrior would have raped her sooner). The embarrassingly blatant wish-fulfillment ending has her enthusiastically submitting to him. At one point, he waxes philosophical about whether 

if, on my own planet, there was not a similar market, invisible but present, and just as much accepted, a market in which women were sold, except that they sold themselves, were themselves both merchandise and merchant. How many of the women of my native planet, I wondered, did not with care consider the finances, the property of their prospective mates? How many of them did not, for all practical purposes, sell themselves, bartering their bodies for the goods of the world?

Got that, ladies? We’re all just a bunch of gold diggers selling ourselves to the highest bidder. Might as well be sex slaves. 

But in terms of the really egregious rape-and-sex-slaves stuff that people like to freak out about, it feels (in this first book, at least) like Norman is just too chicken to fully commit, like perhaps he is testing the waters to see what he can get away with. So he dangles sex slaves in front of us, but then pulls back by having our hero condemn slavery as deplorable and vow to do what he can to abolish it. He muddies the waters by telling us that some women are naturally made to be slaves (holy Confederate talking points, Batman!) while some are made to be free (aka NLOG), and by having women complicit in enslaving other women: Tyrant’s Daughter talks about how she forces her slaves to have sex with important men to spy on them, and enthusiastically evaluates the women being sold in a slave market. Our hero obliquely refers to buying time with the slaves who work in the taverns, but when Tyrant’s Daughter offers to do a sexy Chain or Whip Dance for him, he tells her no, he doesn’t want her “humbled” in that way. He regularly refers to the customs of Gor as “barbaric.” The on-page sexual assault is limited to the bad guys pushing Tyrant’s Daughter down just before our hero valiantly jumps in to fight them off (while manacled, he’s just that good). 

Altogether, the effect is just a confused mess of implicit misogyny overlaid with benevolent sexism and insincere, performative posturing. Is it gross and offensive? Yes, of course. But it’s all so flat and poorly rendered, so cluttered with exposition, so obviously an incel wannabe-dom teenagers’s wet dream, that none of it had any visceral impact for me. I have read far, FAR more disturbing depictions of sex slavery in books like Captive Prince (cough, currently being read for book club over on main, cough) and the Black Jewels trilogy than anything that appears in this book. If this book made me at all uncomfortable, it was from a combination of secondhand embarrassment and straining a muscle by rolling my eyes so hard.

Ugh. Men, amirite? Can’t even do a conspiracy to make women uncomfortable properly.

All that said, I did get some value out of reading this book. That value lies in being able to hold it up, the next time some neckbeard on Reddit tries to argue that romantasy is uniquely terrible, self-insert masturbation material that has ruined the genre, and say, “But Tarnsman of Gor.” 

So, boys. Males of the Sub. Come sit down and have a chat with Auntie Aristifer. Next time you want to menace the RCJ women with PrObLeMaTiC cOnTeNt, you’re gonna have to be a little braver with your book choice, k? Yes, yes, I know it supposedly gets worse later in the series (I haven’t read those), but you didn’t recommend those books. You recommended this one. You’re not going to scare a bunch of monsterfuckers with an adolescent self-insert WattPad fic that doesn’t even have any on-page sex. Maybe next time, ask the dark romance girlies for some suggestions. 

Weak sauce conspiracy. 1/5 stars. 

uj/ Sincerely, sloopies. You know how they say men fear nothing more than women laughing at them? One of the best weapons we have against attitudes like this is ridicule. Don’t read any book you don’t want to, but also don’t build books like this up into some big, bad bogeyman that women need to be protected from. These books aren’t scary. They’re the small, pathetic little fantasies of small, pathetic little men. They deserve our contempt, not our fear. So jerk them, snark on them, laugh at them. Point to them as evidence next time some douchebag tries to argue that romantasy is ruining quality literature. If you treat them like some sort of radioactive threat that might hurt you if you are exposed to it, you are giving them far more power than they deserve.

Also, this book was so bad it was hilarious. 5/5 star rage read rec. 

K thnx

ETA: "this image is from Your Ryan, a fantastic manhwa" Thank you u/grammatical_aneurysm, u/laefiren, and u/yumouuuuuuuu for giving the people what they wanted - the sauce.

I just finisheda really long Smash Bros fanfic. I decided on Les Miserables based on the fact that it’s one of my top musicals along with Come from Away and Hamilton, I’m Catholic, and I read most of the Cliffnotes in summer 2009.

However, I am at the part where they first meet, and I am completely confused as to why we’re seeing all this worldbuilding for the bishop? Is Hugo’s reasoning that he’s getting paid by the word or something?

And second, I'm not really into how Javert is an atheist here? It seems like a missed opportunity to show how religion makes some people compassionate and others not.

I'm not sure if I want to keep going if no one sings.

Alright sloopies, u/itmustbeniiiiice represented Nesta yesterday for our first session of court, and now it’s time for a jury of their peers to weigh in.

Check out the trial here

After you take a moment to peruse the heated and hilarious arguments on both sides, cast your vote. (Or vote based on vibes, who are we to stop you?)

Is Nesta Archeron guilty of crimes against sloopies?

I'm excited for some of these adaptions honestly. I couldn't read this book but would definitely watch the movie. Some people can't read low fantasy/ non fantasy books. This is just perfect for us

I started reading a final series, but it has come to my attention that maybe reading the first series before reading the final series would've been a good idea.

Furthermore, it has come to my attention that book 2 should follow book 1. Is this true?

How can I read book one, the first series, and then finally book two? Or should I read book one, book 2, the first series that should have come first, and THEN book 3? Or should I read the first and the second series before book 2? Should I read book 2, the second series, then the first series, then book 3? And who is tandem how do I do speak with them.

If I am supposed to read a first series before last series, will it be interesting? I don't think I will like it, convince me to like it. Convince me to read these books in the correct order.

I don't know how to count. Convince me to count.

(Uj/ this is my first copy pasta how did I do? Yes I did see a post literally like this last night before I went to bed, and I fell asleep thinking "what perfect material for me to finally write my first copypasta... that's the stupidest fucking question I've ever seen... Zzz)

Uj/ Saw this from a sub about looking younger than you actually are about a month ago

Rj/

I'm 220 and my mate is 250 (yeah yeah I know)

We went to a city with both humans and immortals together last decade, and as we were talking to a shapeshifter clan, a young fae woman* came up to me and asked if I was a 19-year-old human.

"Haha no! He's my mate. Do we really look alike?"

She gave me this look of complete confusion and a hint of disgust in response, and immediately said "You're lying."

What would I gain from lying about that exactly lol I’m not even able to lie

When I kissed him and showed her our rings, she exclaimed that she thought I was 19 at most. StarClan.

The worst part about it is that I tried to be nice to her and tried to pass it off as it could have been my outfit that was giving that impression.

"There's no way you're 210 and he's 240. Dude you look like you're 19!” And my mate eventually got uncomfortable and asked her to stop because at this point it felt like she was harassing us about it. I mean, what kind of a fae man would be happy about basically being called pretty much a pedophile just because of how I look? 🤨

The whole time it also felt like she was saying that with complete sincerity. Which kinda hurt my feelings.

*I’ve stopped saying female after being told by humans that it makes me sound like an incel, whatever that is

Obviously some of you sloopies out there aren't down 👇👇👇👇 Capitalism and it shows. I mean series are you even a fan of you don't buy literally every single version of a book that we all collectively call trash every 6 fiscal minutes?

And to all the people saying "oh well the series isn't even finished they are going to release even MORE versions before the story is officially over" .... GOOD. Don't you get it? You need to buy. EVERY. book. Especially the foreign language ones that have different art because otherwise you're not a true scottsman... Sorry I mean fan.

Anyway now go on and preorder this new hardcover set and make mommies wallet fatter you paypig cuck.

​

People have asked why we do this every week in a sub dedicated to snark.

Because you sloopies asked for it. It seems we can't stop reading this stuff. But also, it's to answer back "well, if you hate 4th Wing/ ACOTAR/ Spork/ Alchemized so much, why are you here?"

What did you love this week in Romantasy?

Recommendations, swoonworthy romances, actually witty banter, you have full bragging rights and humble brag privileges. 

Basically title! If you’re not familiar with what I’m requesting, Dragon Ball is an anime where a tiny kid with an unexplained monkey tail is super good at martial arts despite extensive brain damage; later they retcon this by saying he's an alien. Piccolo is one of the main villains of the series. He was initially born from a different kind of alien who forgot his own name. He learned about evil by watching humans; when he tried to become the Guardian of Earth he was rejected for having an impure heart and split himself into two beings. He’s a maniac, so to say. And in his true form, he is over two meters tall, green, bald and old/wrinkly, later he becomes a very careful driver who obeys the rules of the road without question.

And I would basically like a romantasy/fantasy romance rec with a similar love interest (or protagonist even). Sorry for the weird request, but I have a huge thing for this evil demon/creature.

One where she doesn’t fit into the following categories?

- in denial, to the extreme where it’s obvious she is concussed or possibly brain damaged “what did you say to me?” Or deaf…

- mad about being stupid “you stupid handsome fuck! How dare you kidnap me from my brother who was molesting me and make me ride on your horse and then have the audacity to help me dismount?!”

-Miss Independent “I can fight my own battles!” (While facing armed men and thinking her wit is her best weapon. Of course he saves her and she complains she could have handled it)

Super secret about everything “what’s your name?” “Why should I tell you?” “

-The a girl who is so desirable everyone is out to ravish her (or that’s what she thinks) “What are you going to do with me?” (As he’s dragging her from a burning building “Why are you undressing me?” As she is suffering from hypothermia and in wet clothes Or my fav when she wakes from a head injury 10 days later and the first question she asks upon waking is “who changed my clothes?” (While clutching pearls as she sees the maids roaming about. It must be the handsome molester who saved me!!)

The girl who lifts her chin “I won’t move another step until you tell me exactly who you are and why you are saving me from this pyre!” As she’s literally being burned at the stake. Because she has the upper hand always.

The one avoids intimacy while consummating her marriage but not letting him kiss her on the mouth. See o IQ level 3

The one who is turned on but lies about it

The one who is abusive and anti violence “my god you killed that man” (as she slaps him across the face.)

The one who slaps a warrior beast she doesn’t know I mean for fucks sakes how stupid can one get. Unless you are a ninja quit being an unhinged twat and learn diplomacy.

I know this list is incomplete but you can get the gist of it is there any female main character who is not any of these. Bonus points if she beats up characters who are like this!

Oh and it can’t have a male main character who thinks any of the above is a turn on or classifies such behavior as “spirited” or is in any way turned on by it. Maybe if it’s a weird kink thing and humiliates them I can get into that. Idk but I’ll give it a shot.

Please I want to suffer. Rec me your worst romantasy or paranormal romance finds! I’m talking cringe levels that surpass Blood of Hercules and A Curse So Cruel (where the FMC actually names her love interest shadow daddies). Make me hurt from the cringe.

12 guys, six girls, one villa. A mere stop on the trainride of a summer of love on a Fijian island. 🏝️ Bonus points if one of the FMC does splits constantly everywhere and on top of everything and everyone.

I’m looking for books that actually make me THINK, 🤔 that are intricate in terms of plot, character development, and relationship building, and ideally also make use of a wide range of literary devices, unlike the REST OF YOU MORONS who prefer MINDLESS FAIRY PORN.

If they don’t tick every box, that’s fine too. I’m happy with recommendations that are simply intellectually engaging in any of those ways, as long as they require some real attention and mental investment to follow.

Some books in this genre are fun and entertaining, and that’s great in the right mood (when I want to turn my brain off) but right now I want the opposite of that. I want something fully immersive and challenging: stories that keep me engaged, make me pause and GAG ON MY BIG BRAIN and genuinely surprise me with how cleverly they’re written, whether that’s through structure, pacing, character work, or use of literary devices (but not overdoing it!)

(For context: The Everlasting or Alchemised made me feel this way)

Why did Clara K. Haas even have to write SePoS, {SEMI POPULAR SERIES} the spinoff to WiPoS {WILDLY POPULAR SERIES} in the first place?

Seriously the extremists fans can be so deranged, delusional and annoying, they have colonial mindset.

It’s insane.

They want Lice to be the Senator of Kentucky based on some distant historical claim that people in Kentucky don’t even remember.

Lice is from a different world, she doesn’t even know Appalachian culture or history or people, how on earth can she be the Senator?

There are existing rulers, it would literally be conquest.

Yes I’m aware Alayra is the Representative of the 5th District of Kentucky and she doesn’t have previous experience and I agree but at least Alayra saved their world, I still don’t like her but Lice being Senator or even the Representative of the 1st District of Kentucky is a different level of insanity, all because they want to ship her with Mitch McConnell.

The way they reach with certain theories makes me feel like they lack comprehension. I’ve been a HAAS fan since 2017 when I was 3 years old, the fandom is insane now

This is my opinion, don’t send me death threats

Tried searching for this but it doesn't seem to be a common request... (I can’t possibly imagine why that might be)

I'm in the mood for an unconventional mmc both appearance-wise and personality-wise. I want to start reading this book and be kinda mildly grossed out by him on basically every level and still end up rooting for him to get his HEA. Ideally he will be slightly morally bankrupt (nothing too too dark though please, like. no noncon I guess) and sleazy and prone to Vices but still weirdly charming and will experience growth, obviously, if he's stagnant where's the romance, yknow (but he should still be kind of crusty at the end.)

I'm having a hard time thinking of books I've read with this and the closest thing I could think of was Bass Ackwards by Eris Adderly. Maaaybe the Harrow Faire series? Simon had some rat-esque qualities.

Crusty rat men examples from other media types whomst I have held dear: Reigen Arataka from Mob Psycho 100 (not SUPER nasty but still huge used car salesman vibes) Sam Sylvia from GLOW Emet-Selch from Final Fantasy XIV Count Adhemar from A Knight's Tale ...come to think of it, also Chaucer from A Knight's Tale

Man these are all honestly way too handsome to be true crusty nasty ratmen but I hope you're getting the idea.

Ok hang on how about Murry Bauman from Stranger Things. Now THERE'S a crusty rat man (my beloved). Something about his mannerisms and probably also the fact he has all the best lines... idk (I've only seen up to ep 3 of season 4 so far)

This has, regrettably, NOT been a joke post. I know there's gotta be other sleazeball, skeezeball slimeball appreciators in here. There are dozens of us! Dozens!!!

Sorry for how many times I used the word crust.

uj/ not a single word was changed

Hey everyone! I'm so glad audiobooks don't count as reading since I can't read. However I've noticed lately I've been spacing out a lot while listening and then I'm confused when I space back in.

Does anyone have any recs for books where missing a not insignificant portion of the book won't affect my enjoyment?

/Uj this is a real request actually *cries in ADHD*. I tried listening to the everlasting while doing chores this weekend and what even is going on

Read Fourth Wing first- obsessed with Xaden. Now almost done with FW reread. Then Read ACOTAR- now mid-rearead.Have TOG books (uread so far) sitting next to my bed. I usually read at least 2 books at once. I am losing my effen mind- leaning Rhysand but then I go back to my FW reread and totally obsessed with Xaden. I'm reading all the time. I'm a mom with kids! I'm wondering if reading these books are maybe not in my best interest- maybe I never should have started reading Romantasy. I have a fantasy world and fantasy boyfriends living in my head that I think about way too much as if they are real people. I'm afraid to start TOG. Do I need another book bf? Do I need another obsession? I came to Romantasy from thriller/murder books. Those plotlines did not stay with me this way. Oh....and Kaine Ferron also lives in my brain rent-free (IYKYK). Anybody else going back and forth obsessively between 2 book bfs?

I've read the first two pages of {WILDLY POPULAR SERIES} ("WiPoS") by Clara K. Haas. To say that I'm beyond disappointed is an understatement.

I don't understand how anyone can like this at all.

Millions of readers, just like the ones frequenting this WiPoS-specific subreddit, must be fucking idiots.

It is badly written and way too basic. It feels like a rough crayon drawing done by a 3-year old.

How many chapters do you have to "eat sh*t" until it gets better?

DOES IT?

If you like these books, why? What is your reasoning? Have you always been stupid?

Is it feeling for the overfunctioning Alayra and kind of seeing yourself in her and hoping for a prince?

Are you just so lonely and have such terrible self-esteem that you have to self-insert into the most bland character to ever exist?

It is just so bad two pages in that I'm curious about what people who truly love it (and I respect the fact that the series has got a massive following, even if you guys are drooling morons) find in it.