#I'm curious about the shelved by genre discussion. I somewhat doubt any of them have a ton of experience with romance or ya in this vein

[humanmorph]

I read chapters 1-7 of Magic's Pawn yesterday & was really struck by how much certain parts reminded me of popular fanfiction... Of course I think a lot of that is just as prevalent in the romance genre & YA space, but I guess both of those are less front of mind for me (even if I don't read a lot of fanfiction anymore and generally not the type this reminds me of either, I'm at least closer to those spaces).

It's like. The waking up from a nightmare hurt/comfort is such a classic in fanfics, the immediate love confession, the honestly rather young sounding voice of an adult/mentor character (this started bothering me. I guess I'm not actually sure of Savil's age, but I know she's not a peer to 17 year old Tylendel despite sounding like it sometimes!), and everyone being really emotionally mature & talking about their feelings clearly (even Vanyel very quickly knows just what to say & what he feels once he breaks down). Again, a lot of that probably is very YA-like too, and depending on fandom there's probably an overlap in demographics.

I'm enjoying it ok so far but I'm very glad there's finally some conflict getting introduced. Vanyel and Tylendel are a bit too saccharine for me as is (though it's obvious they're going somewhere with Savil being worried Vanyel is too co-dependent, Tylendel briefly going "wait is she right?" & then "no, actually I'm just as dependent on him, this is fine"). Michael at the end of the last SbG episode said something like "could a fantasy boy be more depressed" & I'm gonna be real? I'm ready for that boy to be miserable again. Maybe even both of the boys.

EDIT: I am learning she had her start as a fanfiction writer. This makes sense to me & kind of makes me wonder on fanfiction tropes then vs now... certain ones have clearly stood the test of time

---

*I actually wish I remembered some of the more romance focused YA I read as a teen better because I bet it'd be interesting to compare this (published 1989) to 2010s YA. Then again I don't think I did read a single YA novel with a gay protagonist back then, so maybe it wouldn't give a very good comparison...