There are so many novels with characters who are just extremely amazing at being swordsmen, or are extremely amazing at being assassins, or are the best mages, etc, and it’s just so goofy. Growing up I used to find wish fulfillment stories to be kind of silly, now that I’m older I see it everywhere.

Growing up I read hatchet, I read the hobbit, I read dragon boy (though for the life of me I can’t recall the story), I read tons of stories about hackers and digital world stories (also can’t recall their stories), I read horror novels (so, SO many horror novels), I read most if not all of the goosebumps books, I read animorphs; Heck I even read the first 2-3 Harry Potter books (although much later in high school). Heck I read the (first?) book in the Africa trilogy and I looooooved it; I also read nectar in a sieve and I loved that too (although re-reading it later in life, I got the impression that the author had an inferiority complex towards the British, and I’m hoping I just misunderstood it).

In all of this stuff, they were just people and not like these super skilled unbeatable characters, or princes or kings who just needed to get to the place or to get the thing so they can be politically (or even supernaturally) powerful, characters who were just pages away from being super awesome. They were easily one chance encounter away from death; they were basically fortunate enough to not meet characters who were simply capable and had the will to kill them. Most if not all those characters if they were to meet something like an evil soldier or something would just die if the author didn’t keep them alive.

Also the world is full of ordinary people and instead we get so many tales about the teeniest minority groups (ultra wealthy people, or ultra skilled people). I genuinely feel ordinary people are a giant untapped resource for story telling; characters who come from humble backgrounds who DON’T have innate superiority and/or political power and instead through either hard work, ingenuity, a desire to learn, or a desire to explore the world end up stumbling into fascinating stories, or have fascinating stories thrust upon them. That however doesn’t mean I want stories about a character proving that they can beat people with innate skills or political power through hard work to prove that anyone can succeed (like you get in so many animes); I’m not inherently against it, it’s just I’m more fascinated with stories of exploration and discovery, where the goal of the story teller is to transport you to an interesting world and give you that fun of discovery. I am however also interested in anti-colonial themed stories (I tried to read Baru Cormorant, and then tried to listen to it on audible, but it’s been ages since I could stay focused on a novel).

Even realistic fiction stories, I’m interested in tales of people from the global South; growing up I read a book from the Africa trilogy, I read nectar in a sieve, I read a novel about a poor kid in (South Africa?), and I recall reading a book that took place in Japan but for the life of me I can’t recall the name; all ordinary people and not like these super amazing unbeatable kings or princes or whatever.

I do also want to remind, I’m not looking for recommendations; I don’t really read any more and I can’t focus on audible either. I’m just posting this to chat.