[ SECRET POST #5635 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5635 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


All spoilers/content warning type secrets from here!




















01. [SPOILERS for Obi-Wan Kenobi]




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02. [SPOILERS for Horizon Forbidden West]




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03. [WARNING for discussion of possible underage pairings]




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04. [WARNING for discussion of underage pairings]




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05. [WARNING for discussion of self-harm]




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06. [WARNING for discussion of transphobia]




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07. [WARNING for discussion of child abuse]





















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #806.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. [WARNING for discussion of possible underage pairings]
https://i.imgur.com/f7A1oLC.png

[feotakahari]

I hesitate to even mention this, but you might be the target audience for Littlewitch Romanesque.

[(Anonymous)]

Comment OP and that sounds like a manga, which isn't my thing, but thank you, hopefully someone will enjoy the rec. If it's loli manga it's definitely not my thing.

[(Anonymous)]

I love love love that pairing dynamic, and particularly the sorcerer/apprentice aspect of it (albeit not underage versions of it).

Part of it is that I generally like that sort of character, I like wizards and I like sorcerer's apprentices, and I like stories about magic generally. And part of it is that there's a huge range of really interesting dynamics that you can do with those relationships - from fucked-up dub-con, to surprisingly sweet. Also you can do all kinds of sex magic stuff and hand-wave-y magic sex tropes. So it's all good, basically.

[(Anonymous)]

Comment OP here and I'm not specifically into underage/adult pairings, but while I would be grossed out by it IRL I'm okay reading about a younger partner with an older person so long as the younger person is 16+ and treated like an adult by the narrative; still learning but the equivalent of a college grad with a new job, not a high schooler. 15 on down is "ew no" territory no matter how their fictional society works.

I dunno I've read some sex magic/magic sex fic and it's fine, but really I just like fantasy settings.

[(Anonymous)]

OMG YES!!!! I was actually looking for recs here not too long ago to fit a somewhat broader version of this. And FS came through for me so well that I have years of canon and fanon to soak up. Please share your hits, OP? I’m always on the lookout for more!

[(Anonymous)]

Comment OP and I think I already mentioned my faves (Rumbelle, some of Naomi Novik's books, some of Robin McKinley's) in that thread.

Did I mention A Matter of Magic by Patricia Wrede? YA fantasy Regency (eventual) romance between a magician and a street thief. Also The Immortals Quartet starting with Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce. Both smut free but fun. Maybe you'd like The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Barker; I'm kind of on the fence about it.

My other/oldest fave pairing only gets in on a technicality; I'm a Christine/Erik (Phantom of the Opera) shipper. He was a stage magician and she's his music student, and it's probably the most fucked up thing I ship *knock wood because I don't need more fucked up pairings.

The funniest thing to me about the ship is the most famous and wildly read trad published fanfic a) makes him some kind of irresistible virgin sex god but more importantly b) references the Roma (called by the common slur in the book) spreading rumors that he went to the Scholomance.

So either the author writing in the late 1980s looked up Hungary, Romania, and the Roma and used the same like 2 sources as Bram Stoker writing Dracula, or just fucking lifted it from Dracula wholesale.

So it's possible to write an almost-canon (assuming the published fic counts) compliant crack fic where Count Dracula and the Phantom of the Opera were roommates at a wizard school taught by the devil and the Phantom is a wizard dragonrider.

How fucking hilarious is that?

The published fic is called Phantom, by Susan Kay; there are other trad published fics out there but none so widely pillaged for the kind of adaptation mishmash that most fanfic writers pull from when writing PotO fic.

If you want to read it, it's pretty purple prosey in bits and features icky matching Electra and Oedipus complexes and turns Christine into kind of a doormat, but otherwise it's fun in a melodramatic with bonus Orientalism way.

And the original novel doesn't focus on pairing them up; it's a mystery thriller more than a romance. And I've never found an English translation I really love.

The 2004 film adaptation of the ALW musical sucks, the 2012 anniversary concert is solid and worth a watch but not amazing.

There are some fucking weird super loose adaptations of the original story out there. Avoid the Dario Argento one unless you have a thing for a) cracky bizarre horror or b) rodent bestiality.

The Freddy Krueger knockoff time travel version is actually worth a watch. Maybe the cult classic disco one, too.

[(Anonymous)]

Look at you just sending me down more rabbit holes! <3

I actually almost phrased my comment to say FS came through with Gold ;) thank you so much, you have seriously been the best!

[(Anonymous)]

Meh, definitely not my fav dynamic by far, but I can def relate to bouncing hard off a paring especially when everything about it should really be my wheelhouse.

[(Anonymous)]

As someone who has read next to zero fantasy fiction, I haven't encountered much of this. But I seem to have a bit of a thing for mentor/protégé with significant age gap, so what you're describing sounds fairly appealing to me.

Oddly, large age gap pairings without a mentor/protégé dynamic are less likely to work for me. What's funny is that arguably the mentor/protégé element makes the pairing more ~problematic~, and yet I like it for the opposite reason: it creates a strong bedrock for the relationship, so that the attraction ends up feeling like it's born of caring and shared understanding. Plus a mentor/protégé element can create a dynamic in which the older character is intent on aiding and protecting the younger character...but then "oh no, they caught feelings!"

[(Anonymous)]

Comment OP here and I think you articulated one of the reasons I like the whole mentor/protégé thing.

But I don't necessarily loathe toxic takes on this kind of ship. But even then I like at least some acknowledgment from both halves of the ship that they're aware of potential pitfalls.

One of the takes I can't stand is the older guy going "oh no I might hurt her I need to be really careful" while the woman fawns over him and is totally clueless or in vocal denial that harm is a possibility.

And with magic added in, she should absolutely understand that yes, romance with her older teacher is more fraught than with another student her own age, but magic is already dangerous and if she was that terrified of taking risks she would never have started learning how to melt holes in stone walls with a candle lighting ("it was an accident!" "Removing your eyebrows?" "No!") spell.

And I'm not a fan of "I turn into a monster and can't control my base urges around her" so much as "oh shit how do I relationship. Did I forget or just never realize I didn't know? Please don't let me fuck this up."

[(Anonymous)]

I've only found one pairing that really scratches this itch for me (admittedly, I haven't exactly been looking for more), and that's Prof. Grabiner/Mary Sue from Magical Diary: Horse Hall. It's a very sweet pairing, and easily one of my favorite endings in the game.

[(Anonymous)]

Omg the minute I saw his name lmao. If you were the OP once upon a time that mentioned that game in a secret or in the comments, I bought that game because of you!!!

I romanced the prof last and the bad 4 your health vampire first, because naturally lol.

[(Anonymous)]

This is actually one of my least favorite things in fantasy BUT on the plus side, it means I might have a couple of book recs you'd enjoy? Namely Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder and The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan.
I haven't read them in a while, but I remember enjoying the stories and magic systems at the time, and even though I dislike the trope, I thought the relationship dynamics were at least interesting (moreso than, say, in Tamora Pierce's Wild Magic quartet).

[(Anonymous)]

Comment but not secret OP here and I actually bounced off Snyder's books (it's been a long time so I couldn't tell you exactly why but I only made it two books in.) And I loved Wild Magic, so there you go.

[meadowphoenix]

I only like it when it starts dark and becomes more even or even switches dynamic completely. Otherwise, I get the creeping sensation of either future issues that I can't shake lol.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for turning my comment into a secret, OP!