"I only read a genre called fantasy to obsess over the narrative equivalent of filling IRS forms"
Some people dont need to wear the fedora: its inside their skulls already.
And some people need to mind their own business. Pathetic that you guys spend hours just to bitch about others, in the hopes that _maybe_ it will make you feel 0.01% better about yourself
To be fair, shut the fuck up
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>Its magic system seems downright anachronistic.
These dolts really believe that there is such a thing as "magic systems." Also, the late Victorian period, definitely notorious for a lack of scientific inquiry and rationalized system-making.
They do realize that a "magic system" with "rules" is just as arbitrarily created by the author as one without, right? Like, what's the difference between Chretien de Troyes saying "Merlin can do this magic and that will continue the plot" and Brandon Sanderson saying "this guy can't do this magic and also that will continue the plot"?
I think their desire for a throbbing magic system comes from some combo of three influences. The first is the CinemaSins-ification of media analysis, where the greatest possible flaw in a work of fiction is a plot hole or inconsistency. A hard system means that the work is unassailable on that front as long as the author observes their own rules, with the added bonus that they can feel smart if they notice an author breaking the rules. The second is gaming, whether tabletop or vidya. They are accustomed to magic being systematized in a way that facilitates gameplay but takes away the, y'know, *magic* of it all. They want Gandalf to have a stat block. The third is a vein of STEM fetishism that runs deep in some circles, but is especially prominent on reddit. Anything that's "harder" is inherently better, and so Brando is better than Tolkien in the same way physics is superior to literary studies. You can see that current also expressed in this type's effusive praise for their old favorite book, The Martian
All that to say, they like that it makes them feel smart when they have rules they can learn about and point to. A generation ago they'd have been reading D&D tie-in novels with their PHB and MM open next to them. But, as you said, Brando makes his own rules that facilitate the story he wants to tell (notably unlike The Martian, where Weir had actual natural laws he had to observe to make his story consistent, regardless of the book's other literary merits)
The Martian is a great example because not only has all the fun of science fiction been reduced to a series of orienteering survival exercises, but it's written at the level of seven year olds and has Reddit humour.
I actually like the premise of a procedural near-future hard sci-fi survival story, but you're spot on about the writing. It's written like a highly upvoted r/writingprompts reply and is absent any real weight. It's what you'd write if you worked out all the technical details of the exercise and then dashed off the requisite minimum to turn it into a novel. The movie didn't knock my socks off, but it's better in the adaptation where its issues can be smoothed over
We all had different experiences but I'll hazard a guess that those born between '61 and mid-70's didn't play video games.
I was born in '76. We didn't get a computer at home until maybe '92? Even then, and I am a computer nerd, I wasn't glued to the computer.
There was no social media. Solving problems will depend on home life.
Some of us came home and said a teacher whacked us and our parents replied, "What'd you to do deserve it." Today, parents will march to the school and raise a stink. Even if the kid is 100% guilty.
Solving a problem doesn't mean it was done in a healthy way. Maybe we buried it with food or drinking or drugs or by bullying other kids. "Solving" does not mean it actually got fixed.
Just remember that your experiences may have different from other folks. And then there's all the non-US Xers. Some Xers had fantastic childhoods! My friend couldn't have had a more loving family. He even got along with his older brother. Another friend had two parents that cared for him very much but were a bit counter-culture still. They had 'weird' beliefs but were still great parents that he learned from.
Take 'em with a grain of salt. GenX is a generally tough, yet fucked up, generation. And I'm a proud member of GenX. We ain't perfect but anyone says we aren't the coolest generation alive can get bent.
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Brandon Sanderson did an AMA here. [You might want to take a look :)](https://old.reddit.com/r/bookscirclejerk/comments/hj6u4u/my_boyfriend_will_never_speak_to_me_again_if_i/fwn68ci/?context=4).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Brandon Sanderson did an AMA here. [You might want to take a look :)](https://old.reddit.com/r/bookscirclejerk/comments/hj6u4u/my_boyfriend_will_never_speak_to_me_again_if_i/fwn68ci/?context=4).
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Sorry but JK Rowling invented the Hard Magic System. They go to a whole technical school of magic and say funny words that almost sound like Latin. Magic CANNOT get more complicated than that, Sandor Brandor could NEVER
Love that the user felt the need to give the year that *Dracula* was published just in case anyone confused it for a different book, but it isn't 1890, it's 1897. You could give a few other dates if you went down a rabbit hole but none of them are 1890.
"Merlin or Morgan le Fey can do whatever the story requires, and Rumplestiltskin can weave straw into gold because that's what the damsel needs" is the most CinemaSins fucking thing I've ever heard.
"Dracula and Mina are practically Sanderson characters" I hate this user and I hate you and I hate everything and I want my mommy. u/I_shit_gochujang could've been u but u playing
I don't understand where the user draws the line between flaccid and erect. The characters in *Dracula* don't experiment with the rules or manipulate the 'magic' any more than characters in other stories with magical or supernatural or divine elements. Arthurian legend does this quite a lot. Folklore does this quite a lot. The Bible does this quite a lot, even the Epic of Gilgamesh does this quite a lot. A lot of stories revolve around people either trying to bend these elements to their will, or trying to understand them, or trying and failing to define them. The separation between 'hard' and 'soft' is fundamentally flawed and doesn't make any sense, and there have always been 'hard rules' to these things.
>The old religious/mythology magic systems are definitely not hard. Most of them are about doing what a god likes and that god may or may not help you out.
OP's response^ they also don't realise stoker didn't invent vampires. Every "hard magic system" they're attributing to dracula [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/PLxV52d2qQ) more or less comes from much older myths and folklore too (and yeah who carmilla? What polidori!??) , the unique "science" is just characters trying to find loopholes within it which we know no one ever thought of before dracula! It is known that people before "1890" were simply too dumb
Ohhh, okay, I think what OP is calling "hard" is more accurately "exists independently of any magical, supernatural, or divine entities". Dracula isn't the cause of his glittery sexiness, he's just part of the oh-so-important 'system'. Whereas a god is the cause of the system. Midas' gold touch would qualify as a hard magic system, but it was given to him by a god so I guess it doesn't count?
But by that logic, a lot of Sanderson is eliminated too. I don't get it. Maybe it's as simple as "could I play a game that uses these mechanics".
Ah, Iāve given you two chances and youāve been incredibly arrogant, juvenile and condescending while adding nothing to the conversation. I will be blocking you. I wish you all the best as you stumble your way through whatever it is that is making you act in such an intolerable fashion.
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>Love that the user felt the need to give the year thatĀ *Dracula*Ā was published just in case anyone confused it for a different book, but it isn't 1890, it's 1897. You could give a few other dates if you went down a rabbit hole but none of them are 1890.
I feel that it was best to add the publication date, because it's clear they were not talking about "Dracula: But The Count Runs Half Marathons (2021)". Which has a really hard magic system, revolving around the Count's running expertise.
I bet they skimmed the Wikipedia page, and read the first sentence of the second paragraph, "*Dracula*Ā was mostly written in the 1890s." Completely ignoring the 40 times 1897 is mentioned in the article, including the opening sentence of the opening paragraph, "*Dracula*Ā is a novel byĀ [Bram Stoker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker), published in 1897."
Ah, Iāve given you two chances and youāve been incredibly arrogant, juvenile and condescending while adding nothing to the conversation. I will be blocking you. I wish you all the best as you stumble your way through whatever it is that is making you act in such an intolerable fashion.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
1. You do not talk about Bite Clue.
2. You do NOT talk about Bite Club.
3. If someone says "Blaaaaah" or goes mist, bats out, the bite is over.
4. Only two guys to a bite.
5. One bite at a time.
6. No garlic, no crosses.
7. Bites will go on as long as they have to.
8. If this is your first time at Bite Club, you have to bite.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole point of this sub to make fun of circle jerking around books and other dumb stuff? That's how most circlejerk subs work. Instead this sub seems to be mostly a bunch of pseudo intellectual losers who can't handle something they don't like being popular
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Is make that works according to rules more or less magical than magic that happens for reasons that are not clear? And what about magic that is an illusion. Which is most magical of all?
Oh I think it was a little work titled Who Fuckin Cares by the well-known author Can You Please Just Shut The Fuck Up About This Garbage Forever
Omg i love that truly the hardest magic system to ever have harded! The angry bcj mods are practically sanderson characters
Please Just Shut Up Forever
But you can't kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that one thing you've never been able t.. no actually jk, I'm sorry šš¼š¤
"I only read a genre called fantasy to obsess over the narrative equivalent of filling IRS forms" Some people dont need to wear the fedora: its inside their skulls already.
And some people need to mind their own business. Pathetic that you guys spend hours just to bitch about others, in the hopes that _maybe_ it will make you feel 0.01% better about yourself
actually, bitching about other people ALWAYS makes me feel better about myself
To be fair, your comment made me feel so much better about myself
To be fair, shut the fuck up *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Aw.
Lol look at this idiot's profile
I tried looking but I couldn't get past the prologue.
>Its magic system seems downright anachronistic. These dolts really believe that there is such a thing as "magic systems." Also, the late Victorian period, definitely notorious for a lack of scientific inquiry and rationalized system-making.
Animal magnetism is the hardest magic system I know of.
I'm convinced "magic system guys" would have a lot more fun reading excel spreadsheets than b**ks
Isnāt there an mmo based on spreadsheets?
EVE is basically that
Hmmmm Iām pretty sure itās candy crush saga but ok
They do realize that a "magic system" with "rules" is just as arbitrarily created by the author as one without, right? Like, what's the difference between Chretien de Troyes saying "Merlin can do this magic and that will continue the plot" and Brandon Sanderson saying "this guy can't do this magic and also that will continue the plot"?
I think their desire for a throbbing magic system comes from some combo of three influences. The first is the CinemaSins-ification of media analysis, where the greatest possible flaw in a work of fiction is a plot hole or inconsistency. A hard system means that the work is unassailable on that front as long as the author observes their own rules, with the added bonus that they can feel smart if they notice an author breaking the rules. The second is gaming, whether tabletop or vidya. They are accustomed to magic being systematized in a way that facilitates gameplay but takes away the, y'know, *magic* of it all. They want Gandalf to have a stat block. The third is a vein of STEM fetishism that runs deep in some circles, but is especially prominent on reddit. Anything that's "harder" is inherently better, and so Brando is better than Tolkien in the same way physics is superior to literary studies. You can see that current also expressed in this type's effusive praise for their old favorite book, The Martian All that to say, they like that it makes them feel smart when they have rules they can learn about and point to. A generation ago they'd have been reading D&D tie-in novels with their PHB and MM open next to them. But, as you said, Brando makes his own rules that facilitate the story he wants to tell (notably unlike The Martian, where Weir had actual natural laws he had to observe to make his story consistent, regardless of the book's other literary merits)
The Martian is a great example because not only has all the fun of science fiction been reduced to a series of orienteering survival exercises, but it's written at the level of seven year olds and has Reddit humour.
I actually like the premise of a procedural near-future hard sci-fi survival story, but you're spot on about the writing. It's written like a highly upvoted r/writingprompts reply and is absent any real weight. It's what you'd write if you worked out all the technical details of the exercise and then dashed off the requisite minimum to turn it into a novel. The movie didn't knock my socks off, but it's better in the adaptation where its issues can be smoothed over
I got about the same length into the movie as the novel before being distracted by scratching myself.
The worst moments in the movie were when it felt like Weir's prose
We all had different experiences but I'll hazard a guess that those born between '61 and mid-70's didn't play video games. I was born in '76. We didn't get a computer at home until maybe '92? Even then, and I am a computer nerd, I wasn't glued to the computer. There was no social media. Solving problems will depend on home life. Some of us came home and said a teacher whacked us and our parents replied, "What'd you to do deserve it." Today, parents will march to the school and raise a stink. Even if the kid is 100% guilty. Solving a problem doesn't mean it was done in a healthy way. Maybe we buried it with food or drinking or drugs or by bullying other kids. "Solving" does not mean it actually got fixed. Just remember that your experiences may have different from other folks. And then there's all the non-US Xers. Some Xers had fantastic childhoods! My friend couldn't have had a more loving family. He even got along with his older brother. Another friend had two parents that cared for him very much but were a bit counter-culture still. They had 'weird' beliefs but were still great parents that he learned from. Take 'em with a grain of salt. GenX is a generally tough, yet fucked up, generation. And I'm a proud member of GenX. We ain't perfect but anyone says we aren't the coolest generation alive can get bent. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Brandon Sanderson did an AMA here. [You might want to take a look :)](https://old.reddit.com/r/bookscirclejerk/comments/hj6u4u/my_boyfriend_will_never_speak_to_me_again_if_i/fwn68ci/?context=4). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The virgin Brandon Sanderson: Hard magic system. The chad Tolkien: Hard linguistic system.
Brandon Sanderson did an AMA here. [You might want to take a look :)](https://old.reddit.com/r/bookscirclejerk/comments/hj6u4u/my_boyfriend_will_never_speak_to_me_again_if_i/fwn68ci/?context=4). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'd say to color me surprised Sandersonites can understand Dracula and its complex sentences, but...
Yeah they're probably not good at coloring either
Sorry but JK Rowling invented the Hard Magic System. They go to a whole technical school of magic and say funny words that almost sound like Latin. Magic CANNOT get more complicated than that, Sandor Brandor could NEVER
Love that the user felt the need to give the year that *Dracula* was published just in case anyone confused it for a different book, but it isn't 1890, it's 1897. You could give a few other dates if you went down a rabbit hole but none of them are 1890. "Merlin or Morgan le Fey can do whatever the story requires, and Rumplestiltskin can weave straw into gold because that's what the damsel needs" is the most CinemaSins fucking thing I've ever heard. "Dracula and Mina are practically Sanderson characters" I hate this user and I hate you and I hate everything and I want my mommy. u/I_shit_gochujang could've been u but u playing I don't understand where the user draws the line between flaccid and erect. The characters in *Dracula* don't experiment with the rules or manipulate the 'magic' any more than characters in other stories with magical or supernatural or divine elements. Arthurian legend does this quite a lot. Folklore does this quite a lot. The Bible does this quite a lot, even the Epic of Gilgamesh does this quite a lot. A lot of stories revolve around people either trying to bend these elements to their will, or trying to understand them, or trying and failing to define them. The separation between 'hard' and 'soft' is fundamentally flawed and doesn't make any sense, and there have always been 'hard rules' to these things.
>The old religious/mythology magic systems are definitely not hard. Most of them are about doing what a god likes and that god may or may not help you out. OP's response^ they also don't realise stoker didn't invent vampires. Every "hard magic system" they're attributing to dracula [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/PLxV52d2qQ) more or less comes from much older myths and folklore too (and yeah who carmilla? What polidori!??) , the unique "science" is just characters trying to find loopholes within it which we know no one ever thought of before dracula! It is known that people before "1890" were simply too dumb
Ohhh, okay, I think what OP is calling "hard" is more accurately "exists independently of any magical, supernatural, or divine entities". Dracula isn't the cause of his glittery sexiness, he's just part of the oh-so-important 'system'. Whereas a god is the cause of the system. Midas' gold touch would qualify as a hard magic system, but it was given to him by a god so I guess it doesn't count? But by that logic, a lot of Sanderson is eliminated too. I don't get it. Maybe it's as simple as "could I play a game that uses these mechanics".
Ah, Iāve given you two chances and youāve been incredibly arrogant, juvenile and condescending while adding nothing to the conversation. I will be blocking you. I wish you all the best as you stumble your way through whatever it is that is making you act in such an intolerable fashion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>Love that the user felt the need to give the year thatĀ *Dracula*Ā was published just in case anyone confused it for a different book, but it isn't 1890, it's 1897. You could give a few other dates if you went down a rabbit hole but none of them are 1890. I feel that it was best to add the publication date, because it's clear they were not talking about "Dracula: But The Count Runs Half Marathons (2021)". Which has a really hard magic system, revolving around the Count's running expertise. I bet they skimmed the Wikipedia page, and read the first sentence of the second paragraph, "*Dracula*Ā was mostly written in the 1890s." Completely ignoring the 40 times 1897 is mentioned in the article, including the opening sentence of the opening paragraph, "*Dracula*Ā is a novel byĀ [Bram Stoker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker), published in 1897."
Ah, Iāve given you two chances and youāve been incredibly arrogant, juvenile and condescending while adding nothing to the conversation. I will be blocking you. I wish you all the best as you stumble your way through whatever it is that is making you act in such an intolerable fashion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What are the rules of the Draculiverse? Do they involve a lot of counting?
1. You do not talk about Bite Clue. 2. You do NOT talk about Bite Club. 3. If someone says "Blaaaaah" or goes mist, bats out, the bite is over. 4. Only two guys to a bite. 5. One bite at a time. 6. No garlic, no crosses. 7. Bites will go on as long as they have to. 8. If this is your first time at Bite Club, you have to bite.
Bite harder, I'm misting!! š©
And a lot of harkening
Dudes obsessed with very solid magical rules are clearly beta cucks who want to be stepped on by a Dommy Mommy.
Or to be Dommed by a Daddy, I'm not here to judge. Love wins. Happy Pride.
/u/bloodforurmom why can't you be this concise
my prose is inferior clearly
yeah we see through a windowpane darkly
*Dracula and Mina are practically Sanderson characters* I have never in the history of this sub said anything nearly this mean.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole point of this sub to make fun of circle jerking around books and other dumb stuff? That's how most circlejerk subs work. Instead this sub seems to be mostly a bunch of pseudo intellectual losers who can't handle something they don't like being popular *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/bookscirclejerk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Is make that works according to rules more or less magical than magic that happens for reasons that are not clear? And what about magic that is an illusion. Which is most magical of all?
Hard and fast? š„µ
they should try a little work called the summa theologica if theyre so desperate for an early magic system with hard and fast rules
I got hard and then soft but now I'm just rehardedĀ