While She Knits - Fantasy tropes, much?

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Most of us read a lot of fantasy books, right?  There are elements/characteristics/tropes that appear often--things like:  good vs. evil, magic, DRAGONS, swords, a quest, the reluctant hero, etc.  These conventions sort of set the tone for the fantasy genre.  Sometimes they seem like old friends we're comfortable with.  Sometimes, in the right hands, they seem brand new.

But, sometimes these things drive me crazy.  Here's an example.  I'm reading The Rise of a Hero, book 2 in Hilari Bell's great Farsala Trilogy (thanks for all the recommendations).  When, however, the heroine chopped off her long hair with a knife, donned boy's clothes, and was immediately mistaken for a 12-year-old boy, I started to say "hey, wait a minute!"  How many 16-year-old girls could pass for a boy just because their hair is short?  How many boys have a face like a 16-year-old girl?  Am I being too picky?  Has anyone else ever pondered all the tropes we accept just because they are always there?

What other regular elements of fantasy books make you stop and say, "hey, wait a minute!"?

(my computer has eaten this post twice, so posting it NOW, grr.  Why, imac, why??)

Comments

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

Well, it kind of depends on how they've described the heroine beforehand, I'd say. "Esmeralda undulated out the ballroom, her voluptuous curves barely contained by the tight, skimpy gown she wore; her delicate features and beestung lips driving every man in the room half-mad. Determined to go on the quest, she hurried to her room, picked up a convenient knife, whacked off her hair, and threw on the boys' clothes she had stolen from one of the servants. She went back down to the ballroom. "Hello, my name's Mike. I'm twelve. Can I come along on your quest?" "Why, of course you can, lad. Glad to have you along. Let's leave now, before Esmeralda comes back and tries to convince us to take her with us."

[zephyranthia.livejournal.com]

That was beautiful and I commend you.

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

The heroine pulling a Sweet Polly Oliver (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SweetPollyOliver) is one of my least favorite tropes, mostly because, like you, I don't buy it. Maybe, a twelve-year-old girl could pass for a ten-year-old boy, but I don't know of many, if any, sixteen-year-old girls who could pass for young boys. Amanda Bynes pulled it off in She's the Man (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwby3VI89jA) (rated PG-13), a movie that retold Twelfth Night, but that was only with the help of an expert stylist and some superb acting ability (even then it was a little if-y). I also bought it in Mulan, but that was probably because it was animated and the cross-dressing allowed for some pretty hilarious moments. XD But most of the time... the book or movie in question requires some Suspension of Disbelief on the audience's part.

I actually prefer aversions of the Sweet Polly Oliver trope. My favorite being in The Singer of All Songs, in which the heroine needs to urgently sneak into a boy's academy, and comes up with a male disguise even she knows is weak (she doesn't look anything like a guy). It turns out, girls could visit the school just not attend (she was lied to so she'd stay on the ship), and a new friend she makes immediately asks why she's wearing boy's clothes. Cue epic disguise fail! XD

However, historically speaking, it has happened. There was actually a women named, Deborah Sampson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Samson), who fought in the American Revolution as a man. So it is possible.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Get the CD "Liberty!" by The Gloucester Hornpipe & Clog Society, featuring songs and singing of Diane Taraz (http://www.dianetaraz.com/records.htm).
There you will find, along with many other fine songs, "The Ballad of Deborah Samson".

[drashizu.livejournal.com]

I like this when the author lets you know specifically that the girl in question has a boylike build (such as in the Bloody Jack series) and I also really like it when the disguise fails because nobody's buying it (also the Bloody Jack series during later books, when Jacky's older and can't get away with it anymore). Tropes can be awesome or they can be weak; it definitely depends on the author's ability to make it seem new, like you mentioned.

I don't know if this counts as a trope, but when fantasy worlds that are supposed to resemble medieval Europe have things like potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate, turkey, pumpkins, corn (maize), tobacco, or any of the other foodstuffs that didn't exist in Europe until the post-Colonial era, I get a bit snippy at the author. I can accept it if there's a good reason for it, like it's obvious that in this fantasy world the flora and fauna are not like in our world (or they're deliberately mixed). But having random potatoes in an otherwise turnip-and-parsnip setting makes me think the author just didn't do any botanical research. I guess the trope that this applies to most is the Meat-n-Potato Stew trope, which only makes sense in a post-Colonial world, if the author is otherwise claiming it's Just Like Europe.

Speaking of which, while the Just Like Europe trope doesn't irritate me, it does bore me. I want to read fantasy stories set in places reminiscent of Siberia or sub-Saharan Africa or India or Central America or the Polynesian islands (like The Lost Conspiracy, which was an amazing book).

As you wish

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Read The Book of Wirrun, a trilogy by Patricia Wrightson, a much-honored Australian YA author, comprising
1. The Ice Is Coming (1977)
2. The Dark Bright Water (1978)
3. Journey Behind the Wind (1981)

Set in Australia and based in native Australian mythology.

Summary of The Ice Is Coming from FantasticFiction.com (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/w/patricia-wrightson/ice-is-coming.htm):
The Ice is coming. Frost is seen in summer and ice patches form in spite of the hot Australian sun. To the Happy Folk, the town-dwellers, following the progress of the ice is a new game - but Wirrun, whose People have lived in the land since Dreamtime, feels fear in his bones. The Ninya, the green-eyed ice men, are abroad. Ancient foes must fight again. Wirrun goes out to join the battle. Ko-in, hero, brings him to the power held in a crystal of quartz which will protect him as he meets the oldest race of the country: the creatures born of the land itself, sly and secret creatures, the earth spirits. Oldest of them all is the Eldest Nargun, a monster of rock poured molten from the fires in the heart of the land itself and able to summon up the fire of its beginning. The Ninya can never rule unless they defeat it. So they search for the Eldest Nargun, and Wirrun searches too. Here, in a country young only to its latest settlers but in truth ancient, close to the world's beginnings, the spirits of the Dreamtime are locked in battle with the ice - the frail, courageous Mimi, little grey Nyols of the rocks, that terrible, red-eyed beast the Bunyip, the many-shaped Yabon, and the great white bird-spirits, the Yauruks. Through it all the Happy Folk continue their relentless search for happiness. And Wirrun moves towards the country of the Narguns, to the unexpected and stunning climax of an epic struggle. The first book in the Wirrun trilogy.

From the same site (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/w/patricia-wrightson/):
Patricia Wrightson (Australia, 1921 - 2010) iswas one of Australia's most distinguished writers for children. Her books have won many prestigious awards all over the world. She was awarded an OBE (Officer of the British Empire) in 1977, the Dromkeen Medal in 1984 and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1986, all for her services to children's literature. She is a four-time winner of the Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award: in 1956 for The Crooked Snake, in 1974 for The Nargun and the Stars, in 1978 for The Ice Is Coming and in 1984 for A Little Fear. Patricia lives and writeslived and wrote in a beautiful stretch of the Australian bush beside the Clarence River in northern New South Wales.

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

I'm with the people who say that it depends on how the character has been described before. If she's been emphasized as being pretty and delicate and all that is feminine, then there's going to be little chance of it being believable.

That being said, there are many, many accounts from the 19th century of women fighting in the Civil War as men (http://www.angelfire.com/ny/anghockey/NAME.htm/) (more info here (http://bemm1462.tripod.com/)), and part of the reason they were successful is because there were so many boys and young men also enlisted in the army. One of the women wasn't discovered until she had a baby in a prison camp, so I suppose it's possible that people were just not paying attention, but that idea gets stretched pretty thin when you see estimates of somewhere between 400 and 1000 women serving disguised as men during the Civil War.

I think it's a lot more plausible than a lot of other fantasy tropes, like everybody except the bad guys (and then most of them!) being really incredibly good looking. That bugs me. I'm a lot more willing to imagine a young woman might pass as a young man than I am that everybody is pretty, except for a few dashing and character-building scars.

[drashizu.livejournal.com]

This. If everyone in a story is so good-looking, then no one is really good-looking, are they? It dulls the effect, in addition to being unrealistic. Also, somehow even in stories that describe people as being plain-looking, the main character might think s/he's not attractive, but s/he always turns out to be in the end and it was all just poor self-esteem making them think they weren't gorgeous! Another thing MWT doesn't do and another reason I love QT.

(Doesn't stop me from envisioning Gen as Jude Law in my head, of course. But that's different...)

[styromgalleries.livejournal.com]

**off topic**

Fall of a Kingdom! I love that trilogy! Hope you're enjoying it!

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I am! I'm about 10 pages from the end of the second book, and the third one is sitting right here, on deck.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

The "girl dressed as a boy" makes more sense to me when it happens in societies in which the gender roles are very clearly defined and never openly transgressed. If someone is dressed like a boy and is acting like a boy, they are clearly a boy, QED, no possibility of them being anything else, even if they look strangely effeminate.

That said, in such worls, precisely because the gender roles are so rigidly divided, I find it even harder to accept that a girl would imitate such things as the gait, mannerisms, vocabulary etc. of an average boy than I do to accept that they could fool the eye on first appearances. If you've spent your entire childhood being taught how a lady moves, sits, holds a cup, eats, looks at men etc. etc., it must be very hard to not to act that way instinctively. Lower down the social scale, I expect it would come easier, but a princess or a lady...?

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I had not even thought about the mannerisms, but of course you are right! This girl is described as "small" and she's undoubtedly slim after being a slave for awhile, but she was raised as a noblewoman. She knew how to ride and hunt, and wore trousers when she could get away with it, but the biggest issue she seems to have had is her accent. Though, in fairness, it touches on her mannerisms as far as keeping her eyes down, etc.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

As for other fantasy tropes...

Dark Lords! I love Dark Lords for their comedy value (and have written several short stories (http://www.rhymer.org.uk/misc/lord/lord.html) laughing about them) but as serious baddies...? Why do they want to destroy the world? Why do they live in hideous pointy citadels in ravaged wastes, rather than in comfy mansions in pleasant sun-kissed meadows? Why don't they have competent, pretty minions? Why do their citadels never have safety rails? Why are there no moral shades of grey in their worlds?

Prophecies - more specifically, prophecies that become a To-Do list for the hero, and he works his way through each line and deliberately does what the prophecy tells him, like someone following a recipe for chocolate cake.

Wise old mentors who speak in riddles, only tell the hero a quarter of what he really needs to know, and then snuff it half way through. I suspect all wise old mentors of being in league with their local Dark Lord, since I can find no other sensible explanation for their constant witholding of useful facts.

[agh-4.livejournal.com]

Yes! The mentors! It just seems like such a narrow and inexplicable role. It makes me really appreciate the Magus, because although he's a mentor to Sophos, it actually makes sense because that's his job, and it makes extra sense because Sophos sort of adopts him as a gentler father figure (if that makes any sense) ... Also, while he's intelligent, he's definitely not inscrutably wise and dignified, and he even has a backstory!

...so yeah, the whole wise mentor thing is so boring unless it's done a bit originally, and it really makes me enjoy things like Slartibartfast in Hitchhiker's and the Wizard Guide job in Dark Lord of Derkholm.

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

And of course here are the Main Fantasy Conventions to avoid (for some reason I despise the word "tropes." Also "meme."):

http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/humor/evilovl.html

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

And, being curious, I now know why I despise them: new words with no substantial background behind them.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Aside from the difference between things being done badly and well . . . there is historical weight behind women disguising themselves as men (as you guys have already mentioned), and there's a pretty grand dramatic tradition of heroines cross-dressing too. Too bad I'd never pass. *pout*

Along the lines of Just Like Europe (but totally inaccurate half the time) and pseudo-Medieval settings, I am sick to death of generic pseudo-Celtic and pseudo-Norse pantheons and magic. (Yeah, that is one of the reasons I was so happy to pick up the Queen's Thief books too.)

[(Anonymous)]

I get pretty tired of the same old cliches. For example, the first strike against Eragon (for me) was when he fell in love with an Elf girl. Then OF COURSE she ended up being a princess. Made me gag.

I also get tired of the whole, "I gotta prove myself to the boys" thing that many women/girls have going in books. "I guess I'll pretend to be a boy" "I can fight too!" and "I'll take on the villian myself in hand to hand combat" gets pretty old after a while. What rocks is when a female character figures out how to manipulate the situation because of who she is, rather than in spite of who she is. Good examples of this are (of course) Attolia and Eddis. Sure, Eddis has been trained to fight, but she doesn't make a big show of it, or feel that she "isn't good enough" if she doesn't. Irene envies Helen's weapons-training, but not because she thinks of it as masculine, but because Attolia figures if she had that kind of training, she would not have to depend on others for her own safety. Others that come to mind are Sophie (Howl's MC) and Enola Holmes.

Come on girls! Work with what you've got. Don't try to be something you are not. (hehe that rhymes)

Puppeteergirl

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

What rocks is when a female character figures out how to manipulate the situation because of who she is, rather than in spite of who she is.

Have you read The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson? You would like it.

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

First off, love the Farsala Trilogy!

Second (and please don't throw things at me!) I don't particualraly mind tropes. *gasp* I know, I know, but the charachter's themselves are more important to me. Nothing annoys me more than reveiws of books dismissing a book as 'heavily troped.' I don't care so much about the 'trope' as about the how the character deals with that trope. For example, Alanna comes to mind as someone who disguises herself as a boy, and as a result, she develops a sort of contempt for more feminine things (i.e. Cooking, sewing, you know, all the important stuff!) Soraya, on the other hand, spend some time disguises herself as a boy, but still tried as best she can to learn to cook or at least peel vegetables (even if all she accomplished was washing dishes!) It is a difference in their characters.

Actually, (and this is a bit off topic) what annoys me more is modern language in medieval books. I hate to break it to some authors, but the word 'Okay' came into being around the mid-1800s, so it doesn't belong in a book set in around 1200. And 'Hello' was invented so we all would have something to say when we answer the phone. I'm serious! And girls in Saxon Brittain don't run around calling their fathers 'Dad.' It's just a pet peeve of mione that annoys me more than tropes.

Yikes that was a long comment - Is it safe to come out yet?

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

Also, when did cooking and sewing become disgustingly feminine skills? I know plenty of women who can cook, sew, and kill their own dinner! Though, that may come from years of living in a hunting community... //is cruel to animals

Actually, that's another reason I love The Hunger Games. It's an aversion on the Girls Cook, Guys Hunt trope. Instead, Katniss hunts and Peeta bakes! XD

You would like Edge on the Sword (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/798539.The_Edge_on_the_Sword) by Rebecca Tingle, a certified expert of Saxon culture. The book is about Æthelflæd, one of the warrior princesses of Mercia in the late 800s. And forget about her husband, her Pol-like bodyguard steals the spotlight!

[1221bookworm.livejournal.com]

Yeah for the Farsala Trilogy!! I hope you are enjoying the rest of it Checkers? There is a comm to discuss it, and we would love to hear your insights (and don't worry about not having read the whole series, we make sure we use spoiler warnings for 2nd and 3rd book material) Here is the link http://farsala.livejournal.com/ (http://farsala.livejournal.com/). Enjoy!

I think your right that tropes can sometimes be comforting to slip into, and one thing I like about fantasy is that you get to "make things up" that don't always happen in real life. (For example, in Sherwood Smith's world, there is magic that takes away the need for certain cleanliness tasks, and also magic that allows them to have all sorts of luxeries - like coffee and horses that are not indigenous to that world.)

However, they certainly have to have a ring of truth, and when they have something jarring, they disrupt the flow of the story. I understand what you're saying about Soraya, but I actually never felt that, and I have read the book several times. Soraya was described as being feminine, but I think it had to do with the clothing complimenting her figure. She is described as being paticularly petite (something I can relate to!! :) So, when she cut her hair and donned boys clothing, she was not paticularly distinguisable by her size, and if she wore loose enough clothing, her actual shape would have been hidden, while most would think she was wearing hand-me-downs she hadn't quite grown into yet. She also played the part very well, she kept her hat and head low, and then sat by the fire with her back to the room. She was also aided by Kavi, who is a salesmen, and probably could have convinced the people in the inn that she was his grandmother if he wanted to. And they had no reason to believe that she was anything other than what she was introduced as. So it has a lot to do with people seeing what they want to see.

Sorry if that was more than you actually wanted, but I really enjoy discussing the Farsala Trilogy, and I think you have a great discussion question.

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

I agree about Kavi...He sucks all the breathable air out of a room when he goes in, so no one paid Soraya much attention, and Kavi gave them no reason to doubt what he said.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Another convention that bugs me is the Twilight "he is my soulmate, I will give up everything for him, turn my back on everything I hold dear, there can never be another love" one. It totally ruined Daughter of Smoke and Bone for me, which has a fabulous setting and compelling characters. It might be because of my age, but I have a feeling if I'd read it at 15 I'd have thought the same thing.

ETA: Obviously, I've never been a fan of Wuthering Heights, either.

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

Wuthering Heights...*gag* It was horrible - and very disturbing....

[beth-shulman.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, I'm glad you're reading the Farsala books! They're great.

There's a (little-known, apparently?) author named Rachel Neumeier, and one of the things I absolutely loved about her novel The City in the Lake was that she danced around (while simultaneously acknowledging) fantasy conventions. It's a fantastic book.

She wrote another book called The Floating Islands that's even further removed from convention than The City in the Lake, and it's really, really great, too. Also political! I love that!

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

I want to say a lot of things, but I gotta go study, so I'll just say one thing right now that come easily to mind.

"Chosen One" trope? I think that one is pretty over-used. I mean, it's very difficult to make an interesting main character that is not distinguishable from any other person in the setting, but I do get tired of it from time to time. I'm not saying a book will be necessarily bad if the main character *is* like that; it all depends on how the author writes him / her. But it's just nice to see a variation, where a completely average person (who doesn't end up to be a completely extra-ordinary person in the end) somehow manages to be a successful hero. Kate from "Perilous Gard" comes to mind... Razo too from "River Secrets".

Well, just because there are all these comments about undercover girls, has anyone read a book where a boy has gone undercover as a girl? I've only seen it once in an anime, but never in an actual novel. If any of you have read something like that, let me know! I'd like to try one.

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

Have you read 'The Squire. His Knight, and His Lady" yet? There is one scene, though it's not a theme of the book....Poor Terence!

And of course, Gen was wearing Irene's nightgown, but I don't think anyone was fooled!

[brandy-painter.livejournal.com]

The aspect of the girl-disguised-as-boy trope that always bothers me is when the girl becomes friends with a boy and starts crushing on him and gets all angsty over the deception as a result. Then there is always some lame conclusion to that like the boy saying, "I knew it all along and I loves you so much too!" OR "I forgive you-hey we can totally hook up now."

And notice that we don't see a reversal of that. At least I never have.

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by a reversal? The boy feels betrayed, or disturbed, and they're not friends anymore? Or he even reveals to everyone else that she's not male?

Or do you mean the boy having a crush on the girl while he still thinks she's a boy, and then is betrayed and disturbed to find she's not? Now that would be interesting.

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

The being mistaken for a boy thing could happen, of course, but you're right that it depends heavily on the type of girl and the type of boy. You'd probably have to be a late bloomer in a lot of cases, though I think it helps that often this happens in fantasy books set a mediaeval past, when people did physically mature later. I mean, even 'Welcome to Puberty' books that were published when my parents were that age set the normal age for a girl to get her period from about 13-16, and tell you not to worry unless you get to be 17 or so and still aren't menstruating. The books put out more recently tell you to expect your period from something like 10-13. Even 14 is kind of weirdly late now, and that used to be normal just a few decades ago - artificial hormones in food and all that.

Also I think it works out better with certain groups of people. For instance, I think Mulan got away with it plausibly because a lot of East Asian women have small breasts and small hips to begin with.

Now I wonder, if you had a society where women were required to cover entirely at all times, like wearing burqas, and men only ever saw their wives uncovered (not even their mothers or sisters), could a woman really easily pass for a man simply because no one had ever seen more than one or two women's bodies, ever? So they would have no solid basis for comparison?

[spunspider.livejournal.com]

wow that last point is interesting. of course, we're assuming these men never saw porn or prostitutes or movies/tv......

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

It can be an overused trope, but I think it depends on how well the writer handles it. The best case I remember in a novel was Alanna The Lionheart series. She switched places with her twin brother early so she could learn to be a knight. However, this was before puberty hit because I remember the scene in which she realized she had developed breasts and was frantically trying to find a way to hide them. So, it's a lot more believable.

Then of course, there is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_Regiment_%28novel%29 (Monstrous Regiment) which is a more comedic spin on the trope. XD In which it turns out that EVERYONE is a women pretending to be a man

As for other tropes, I don't often care for "Great Divine Prophecies" in stories unless the writer finds a neat way to give a twist.

[agh-4.livejournal.com]

Yeaaahhh, Monstrous Regiment. XD

(& that's a really cool spoiler thing you did!)

[agh-4.livejournal.com]

Right now I'm reading Magic for Beginners, a short story book by Kelly Link (which I bought because I recognized her name from the same Firebirds collection where I first read mwt so very long agooo). So far, I really like the book and her writing, although some of the stories are more than a bit unsettling ... Anyway, the first story has the boyfriend/loved one-trapped-in-the-fairy-kingdom thing going on. The writing and the narrator's voice in that story are so strong and wonderful that it didn't really bug me, though, and I'm not even sure I have a problem with that trope, because I don't usually read books where it comes up.

Has anyone else read Kelly Link?

And I also just checked out the soundtrack to "1776," because it seemed amazing when Willow and Leslie were singing it in the conspiracy room backlog. And it is. :D
....I suppose we can also listen to music while she knits...

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

Ha! I remember my US History teacher in high school introducing me to that album (this was pre-video days, so I knew the album long before I saw the movie).

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

That's actually one of the things I like about Princess Ben -- she passes for a *chubby* boy because she herself is chubby but flat chested.

http://thehathorlegacy.com/princess-ben-catherine-gilbert-murdock/

[drashizu.livejournal.com]

Aaaand now it's on the TBR list. That looks really interesting, especially the part about how it's narrated from Ben's p.o.v. as an adult.

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

I get off the net for two days, and look what sounis does without me.
Looks like I've got alot to read...
when I like, actually have time.

Love the topic, though, Checkers, I'm looking forward to reading everyones comments :D

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

...and now I've read it all. First of all: I love you Sounis :D

Now my turn to share a fantasy trope that bugs me, but maybe it isn't really a trope? Well, just something that turns up alot in books that has bugged me lately (for obvious reasons if you know me at all...:-)

I get annoyed with the "all neighboring countries speak the same language" or "hero/ine has a gift for languages and picks it all up really quickly/with little training". I mean, I love some books that have that... The Blue Sword, Ella Enchanted, and The Goose Girl all come to mind without me even thinking very hard--and I understand why its often important to the plot. They kind of need to learn the languages for things to work. But how many people really *do* have a gift for languages and pick it up in however-many weeks because they're 'gifted'? NOT VERY MANY (says the frustrated girl who wouldn't even call herself fluent after 18 months of hard work.) (Ang totoo: magaling talaga ako, marunong talaga ako mag-tagalog! Pero hindi pa managalog, kung gets nyo ang ibig kong sabihin...)

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

Seconds! I prefer my characters to work for their skills (like I have to), not just pick them up in a couple of weeks because of some undefined "special talent". After all, Cosits is certainly having to work for his knowledge of Median! :)

A sci-fi aversion I like is Dollhouse, in which the character's brains are actually being programed with skills. In books, the only time I really bought it was in Singer of All Songs, but that was magical chants the main character was learning, not an entirely new language.

[tapiiri-ihme.livejournal.com]

Maybe you are familiar with the amazing Tough Guide to Fantasyland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tough_Guide_To_Fantasyland) by Diana Wynne Jones? You'll never read a fantasy with the same eyes as before....

[drashizu.livejournal.com]

Love.

[tiegirl.livejournal.com]

Funny stupid facts about Tiegirl: I was mistaken for 18 when I was 13, because of my, er, voluptuosity (it is so totally a word!) in a bikini. But in high school diving practice, using the trampoline or running around the gym or driving or walking around in shorts and a tee shirt I was often called "sir" in my short hair, with my broad shoulders and relatively narrow hips (long gone now, alas). Once a mean kid even asked me point-blank, "Are you a boy or a girl?" What a difference a bikini makes!

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

Now you've got me thinking, what about a situation where people pretend to be a different age than they are, either years older or younger? I can't really think of any in books (aside from the much discussed teenage-girl-pretending-to-be-young-boy) but that could be something interesting as well. Because seriously, how many people actually look their age? :-) (I'm still mistaken for a teenager, and not because I'm short (because I'm not particularly) and not just because I have a roundish face (though I do).)

[filkferengi]

In the next days, weeks, and months, when the books come rolling in at the library, I'll see the surging tide of awesome and remember that I've been reading sounis again. Y'all rock!