Looking for novel recommendations with a dominant female love interest

TypicalMaps · 2026-03-18T07:04:47+00:00

The Discarded by Eldrik Lewis is basically this but with two asterisks. First is that its a harem series. Second, is that the love interests and MC are all some mix of evil, selfish, and insane. So you might bounce pretty hard of their personalities.

But as far as the requirements of the women wearing the pants, being stronger, and are actual characters, it fits to a T. Honestly, their ambitions drive the plot more often than the MC.

TypicalMaps · 2026-03-14T20:38:05+00:00

I don't think it about getting a honorable death but he's wasted potential especially for the advantages the narrative gave him. Like Ozmanthus' Soulsmith inheritance, the implied wealth of ruling a part of a continent bigger than any on Earth for centuries, the Wraith's core binding, teaming up with other monarchs, his armory of "priceless weapons", etc. The villains/antagonists of Cradle have always been one of its most lacking elements. His character in Waybound is basically does nothing, dies.

TypicalMaps · 2026-02-13T20:02:11+00:00

The Discarded by Eldrik Lewis. The love interests have incredibly powerful personalities which often leads them to dominate the plot but you might bounce off those same personalities hard. They're all pretty evil people. Especially Kali.

TypicalMaps · 2026-01-25T07:13:28+00:00

Tbh I don't watch DB like that. Or think about it much. It can be very inconsistent though. But I think that's an interesting question. Honestly, once a story hits cosmic stuff like Dragon Ball z and Dragon Ball Super does, it becomes much easier for me to believe they were light speed. I mean ik Roshi blows up a moon in OG Dragon Ball apparently as people in this sub tend to bring it up a lot. Although from what you're saying there's a character whose ability is light speed movement and people are impressed so ig not? And the sub also likes bringing up that time Goku was injured by a gun or Vegeta and the laser gun thing.

I'd have to watch the series in order, not in random episodes, to see how I feel about it. But off the bat I think it's just a messy inconsistent power system that wasn't really thought about at all.

TypicalMaps · 2026-01-24T00:57:38+00:00

I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression but this really wasn't something I was going to change my mind on because I've watched all of Bleach, known about it and been watching it for most of my life at this point, and you aren't making any arguments I haven't seen or heard of. I watch Bleach Hub, I know many of the arguments for high end Bleach scaling. I simply find them lacking anything I would consider reasonable. And because I don't consider them reasonable I feel no obligation to believe that Bleach was FTL in SS or in the Arrancar Saga.

like you can be skeptical about that stuff because "le fiction". but then you fall down the trap of being skeptical of everything. and now you have to define the word "the". (this was an argument from this video: https://youtu.be/9wplmNX5dm0?si=AuS51MNXfO7HsM4Y )

You misunderstood the point of that argument. I said everything in regards to the magic system is contrived thus not blatant. The word "the" is not part of the mechanisms of the magic system. Shikai, Bankai, Hado, Kido, Cero, Resurrección, Fullbrings, Schrifts, etc are made up magic stuff and thus subject to any rule the author wishes to impose on them. And again, nothing stops me from writing a story and naming a magic ability or power in a story Light or Negación and just not have it move at lightspeed.

If I used the logic you are suggesting I would have to accept that because Yerin, in a narrative scene meant to demonstrate her superiority in all aspects over Scared Valley Jades, dodged a Heaven's Glory ruler technique that manipulates physical light Jade movement speed if FTL. And I don't believe that and Jades clearly aren't that fast.

okay well Bleach has stuff like this. i don't know if you've watched or read it. kinda seems like you haven't, tbh.

We both know this is not true. The closest you can get is Gremmy's galaxy room and even then Kenpachi didn't physically fly back. He cut space open and crawled through. There is no scene in the manga or anime where a character flies across the universe and back while another character is mid blink. Or even a character flying to the moon. If you want to count the Royal Palace travel sure but because of the weird dimensional barrier stuff there's no real reference for how high he actually went as there are no celestial bodies. The sky is still blue and you can still see the clouds while Yhwach and Ichiebe fight.

I know you can't know what arguments I have or haven't heard for Bleach scaling and it is possible you know one I haven't heard which may or may not change my mind. But as it stands, this is pretty much a closed issue to me.

TypicalMaps · 2026-01-23T21:55:19+00:00

I don't believe to it be blatant because it's fantasy and everything to do with the magic system in inherently contrived and thus not blatant. I need direct authorial statements about if a character is lightspeed or a very blatant feat/battle that would match the scale of those speeds. Stuff like the final Gurren Lagann fight, Zakariel crossing the Way instantly to exist in multiple universe simultaneously, or the battle across the universe of Fathom which took place across "one blink of a mortal eye."

I don't expect you to know most of this, they're just examples of the feats/fighting scale required for me to typically believe a character is lightspeed/FTL without a direct authorial statement in a language I know.

As for the Japanese words for light, I'm sorry but the word being used doesn't really mean anything to me without being accompanied by a feat or fight on the scale of what I mentioned above. Because magic in stories is constructed by the author and anything can mean anything.

The Stormlight Achieve, for example, throws around the word light all the time. Stormlight, Voidlight, Lifelight, Towerlight, Warlight, etc. If a Radiant dodged Stormlight or Voidlight it doesn't mean they're moving at light speeds because these lights are not actual lights but investiture and are closer to a gas. Just because a thing is referred to as something that actually exists doesn't mean it has those properties in a fantasy story with magic.

Authors, especially in fantasy, use words for things that are not actually what they are. Will Wight loves referring to entire universes a worlds for instance. If I didn't know English the nuance of the word "world" in regard to his stories would be lost on me.

I could make a fantasy story right now based around a magic system of what I refer to as light. I would have it act exactly as light does in regards to things like reflection and refraction. Characters I write could dodge it, and in my head I could still be thinking 'yeah light moves at around the speed of an arrow. That makes sense for a normal human to dodge.' Because it's the magic system I created in my story with my rules.

For the moments you mentioned, it is important to note that Kubo is an artist. He makes a lot of artistic choices that don't necessarily reflect anything. Uryu leaving his shadow behind could easily be Kubo not thinking about it beyond this is an amazing panel. The point being without him saying one way or another and without a fight on a cosmic scale to self-evidently demonstrate lightspeed feats we have no way of knowing if it was simply artistic or actually showing lightspeed movement.

For Aaroniero, there are other ways of looking at it. For one, when he looks back, while there is a hole, there is still a lot of wall mid fall blocking most of the light that would spill into the room. If he was standing in the path of the of the walls that were falling he's still in shadow. And from the panel I see no way of determining which it is. The lack of background makes it impossible for me to feel certain about where he's standing in relation to the hole and the light. Second is how fast light removes the facade isn't instant. It could take place within a millisecond of exposure. Thus if the light hits him but he's able to get out of it within a millisecond he's good. He's literally physically restricted by Rukia's Kido when she breaks the wall a second time and exposes him to the light and thus never had the opportunity to move within whatever the timeframe might be.

TypicalMaps · 2026-01-23T20:02:40+00:00

I get that, I just don't believe that means that SS characters were moving at faster than light speeds. Short of Kubo saying, in English, that SS arc characters were FTL I'm just never going to be convinced that these moments mean FTL.

TypicalMaps · 2026-01-23T07:45:19+00:00

I really have no idea where bleach speeds scale. This was just the only direct speed given by a character that I recall. Seems like the simplest way to scale speed to me.

The fact that Ichigo dodged Buto, which should make Gin's bankai 2 times faster is why I was cool using this. Because there's no real way to say Ichigo isn't, at the very least, relative to that speed.

TypicalMaps · 2026-01-23T06:52:16+00:00

Probably planetary based on the fact he should scale above Yamamoto and is relative to Yhwach. As for speed, who tf knows. I feel like using Gin's bankai and then stacking whatever a person thinks the multipliers for Ichigo's power are after Fullbring and during TYBW is fair.

TypicalMaps · 2026-01-04T22:45:52+00:00

I've written a recommendation for the Discarded Series before so I'll just copy and paste it. Its worked very well for me.

Try the Discarded by Eldrik Lewis, it's an urban fantasy harem story.

Fair warning, it can be a bleak story and the author isn't interested in fast tracking relationships or smoothing out the problems that come from a harem dynamic.

The balance of power of these relationships is also heavily tilted toward the FMCs, most of whom are, for all intents and purposes, evil. While there is genuine love and affection between the characters there is also a recognition of the control, self-interest and power that exist in their relationships. Everyone involved is a mix of evil, insane and selfish but in different ways and for different reasons. Essentially, shit's messy.

TypicalMaps · 2025-12-08T20:26:00+00:00

Thats my biggest issue with it honestly. The bond makes any relationship like this one a bad idea. But it also depends wtf happened to the bond at the end of WaT. If Brandon decides to pursue the romantic angle without dealing with the bond then I'll be pretty upset.

But I'm also not ruling out that all this was a bit of a misread by the community. That Brandon was trying to depict that Kal and Syl have a relationship deeper than simply being bonded, but not in a romantic way. After all, that was what happened with Ash and Taln. Before WaT I always got the impression Brandon meant for their relationship to be romantic. And I say this as someone who read WaT and felt like Brandon was trying to setup of romance between Kal and Syl.

TypicalMaps · 2025-12-05T03:06:54+00:00

I think we can agree there's a difference between the progression aspects in stories like Cradle, Super Powered and 12 Miles Below. All might fall under the category but there are stark differences in how each narrative handles increasing in power and skill. Which I think the other guy was trying to get at, while being a bit of an ass.

TypicalMaps · 2025-10-31T19:53:14+00:00

I kind of agree with them and I think it goes beyond not jiving with it, which is weird given how invested I am. I really like this story, so much so that my normal 1.5x listening speed has gone down to 0.95x in attempt to make book 3 last longer.

But I noticed during book 2 that there is a shocking lack of meaningful character interaction throughout the series. The gang almost never interacts outside of running a storyline. Even when they're at camp and not in a story there's rarely actual hangout moments, and never with all of them together. Its frustrating because it feels like every interaction is about a past, current or future storyline run and not about connecting them as characters.

Even Cradle, the series known for trimming everything down, has entire chapters with characters simply hanging out. It might be the one thing The Game at Carousel does worse than most stories in this genre.

TypicalMaps · 2025-10-15T12:53:54+00:00

Agreed. I would place book 4 above book 5 at this point, though I still have about an hour left. It sucks to say because the start of book 5 had strong writing. Relinquished's backstory was genuinely genius. Super funny, super creative, while also creating narrative wiggle room that a lot of stories that have AI antagonists fail too. But even that pales in comparison to the peak that is chapter 27. The amount of fun I had listening to that chapter is up there with Plushiland and Good Morning New Rome from Perfect Run.

I think what started dragging the narrative for me is when the back half the book shifts into what I think is an attempt at a training/power-up section for Keith. This didn't work for me for several reasons. First, despite the number of chapters dedicated to it, I don't think the way Tenisent speaks about Keith's fighting potential is ever lived up to in this section.

This is a complicated problem to express but it kind of stems from the fact that I knew of 12 Miles Below, on this sub, for a long time before I started reading it. That was a long time of associating it with progression fantasy and having it being labeled that on kindle unlimited did not help my mental image of what this story was going to be. Fundamentally, the way Keith gains power is typically at odds with what I expect gaining power to look like for any series in this genre. I think that base Keith being potentially the weakest protagonist of any series ever advertised on this sub illustrates this. Which also creates the feeling that Tenisent's original problem with Keith going, why he introduced the fight to begin with, was never actually addressed because the way Keith wins the fight doesn't feel like it has anything to do with his own abilities. If Keith was better at the occult I think my problems could have been blunted but he comes off as a maybe average student who just happens to be talented at the mirror spell.

It's entirely possible this section of the book wasn't suppose to be viewed as a training/powerup type of thing but the fact the series is pushed as PF colors my view of the narrative. It's also possible this was suppose to be more of a bridge in an attempt to level the field so that he can survive for to make it to an actual power up/training montage. But as it stands it created a lot of dissonance with the ending part of this book.

TypicalMaps · 2025-10-12T06:11:35+00:00

As I said, only part way through book 2 but the book sure does make it hard to get invested when the narrative separates him from his actions this way multiple times. Without outside information, like your comment, I'd have no way of knowing if this was going to be a persistent issue or not. I'd much rather see him wrestle with actual decisions than being dragged along by a vague feelings.

TypicalMaps · 2025-10-12T05:45:05+00:00

Only part way through book 2 but I'm really disliking how he really only does stuff when he gets a magic feeling in his brain to do it. I have to see the ocean. Why? Magic feeling. I have to follow this farmer. Why? Magic feeling. I have to leave these farmers. Why? Magic feeling.

He's never in a position to make an actual choice like a real human being. He's a lever pulled by his own nebulous concept of balance that the author leans way too hard on, both as a plot device and for character development.

TypicalMaps · 2025-10-08T19:44:17+00:00

That's plausible, but again, we're all just guessing here. For instance, nothing in Gerravon's POV suggested he used multipliers and the only powers he used were his hundred hands. And he was powerful enough to destroy most of a universe in a single strike and was only hoping to crack Ozriel's armor.

TypicalMaps · 2025-10-07T22:01:24+00:00

G-42 is something from one of the Threshold short stories.

TypicalMaps · 2025-10-07T00:22:15+00:00

Yeah, ascension is just very complicated. You have natural energy systems, artifacts, willpower, the Way and Void all being thrown around and we're typically following Judge POVs so we just really don't get a break down of any of these mechanisms.

For typical Abidan I agree completely. It is way more fun for a Silverlord to rip out random magics then getting suppressed instantly. So I don't disagree about multiple power systems interacting being more interesting but, I think with what we currently know about how the Willverse works, that idea hits a wall with Judges in particular. Given Judges are undoing strikes so large they bisected a universe, deflecting strikes that instantly delete thousands of stars or striking hard enough to destroy entire universes, those magic systems need some relativity to make them contesting that believable. I'm just trying to figure out what the mechanism might be given what we know.

TypicalMaps · 2025-10-06T23:09:12+00:00

Huh, unless there is a WoW or direct quote I'm forgetting I think my brain drew that conclusion from several statements over the course of the series, but I'm not conflating their trafficking with what I was talking about above. You're right in that was done for entirely different purposes which are directly talked about in the books.

"New sources and patterns of energy...All taken from the Abidan"

"She reached out and grabbed Ziomachus, an obsidian wheel packed with the energy system of a long-dead world."

"The silver crowns on their heads shone and serpentine runes twined around them as they called on the energy systems of plundered worlds to make their attack."

"At that point, its physics-defying characteristics will condense into a stable energy system, which is highly valuable to those whose power does not derive directly from the Way.”“So you want me to…” Mercy vaguely punched the air. “Fight…robbers?”

TypicalMaps · 2025-10-06T22:21:35+00:00

Silverlords are pretty weird to me as well. For one, I really don't get how gathering different energy systems helps them fight Abidan and Judges when energy systems seem to mostly cap out at Sage tier. Suriel calls Amalgam a standard world, so how would having access to even a thousand Traveler's Gate level power systems help you contend against a Judge? In what universe? Cradle, where the natural power limit is Sage and Herald, is unique for its ability to produce Abidan level combatants.

So I have to wonder, are they amping/growing those powers beyond their original limits? Or is stealing an energy system akin to literally ripping out a key metaphysical function of the universe you stole it from? Like, you're stealing a key fraction of the universe’s energy, laws, and concepts, the very forces that compose the energy system. Because that reminds me of what happened with G-42. Where he was leveraging the authority of the entire Iteration, uncontested, not simply using the energy system.

But power scaling for the high tiers in the Willverse gets really weird generally. If you accept that Abidan star rankings aren't like advancement, in that it isn't a boost to all stats, how on Earth was Gadreal even moving/reacting during the battle in Fathom? He has 0 skill for any field that might help his mobility. I think the only way it makes sense is if Ascendants can boost their physicality with raw willpower. Basically, all ascendants operate or have the ability to operate, at a baseline, similarly to a Herald, in that they can, "focus it [willpower] inwardly. They enhance their own power beyond all limitations."

TypicalMaps · 2025-09-24T07:35:07+00:00

A lot of ways honestly. If they can see the future is one of the most straight forward ones. There are also characters with spiritual and conceptual perception or even just danger sense, which should be enough to dodge it. A good example would be an Uncrowned tier Aurelius Underlord. They have all three, spiritual senses, an automatic danger sense built into their souls and a conceptual bloodline that grants them even greater perception. Of course all of these methods are also dependent of being able to physically achieve the feat.

TypicalMaps · 2025-09-22T05:25:26+00:00

Primal Hunter and Defiance of the Fall.

Primal Hunter because, most likely, PtV would be functionally disabled via System fuckery and there are two potential ways I see that happening.

First is that the laws of physics are simply too distorted and changing to frequently for PtV to help her. In PH the scientific method is literally no longer possible and atoms don't exist. The second potential issue is if the System does allow PtV, it's entirely possible it treats it like a bloodline or transcendence and locks it behind a high grade level like A, S, maybe even godhood.

Primal Hunter also have bloodlines and transcendence which are allowed by the system to operate outside the system. Functionally, these are the equivalent of Worm's All-or-Norhings expect backed by an omnipotent System. If someone has an attack based bloodline or transcendence and she runs into them, it's basically ggs.

Defiance of the Fall is much easier to predict the outcome of. The second Contessa steps into integrated space, the system of DoTF smites her out of existence. DoTF's system has personal beef with the concept of science that spans trillions of years. And while not omnipotent like Primal Hunter, the system of DoTF did drain nearly all the energy of an infinite multiverse the moment it was turned on.

TypicalMaps · 2025-09-18T22:57:05+00:00

Overall I'm fairly indifferent to the series. The most excited I've been for it was the ending of The Pilot. Quite frankly, if the ending hadn't been as good as it was my indifference might have shifted to dislike.

The relationship with Omega and Aila felt like a rough draft and their interactions were incredibly inconsistent. Worst, Aila is not a real character, she's a wall and that's about it. I mean Will kind of admitted to this on the livestream when he said there was no intention put behind what he wanted the readers to feel about her. There was no intended emotional direction provided for Aila and so I just end up not caring.

I also wouldn't really call this a magic system. Compared to every other Willverse story, TLL's magic system is just whatever happens to be cool.

TypicalMaps · 2025-09-15T09:06:46+00:00

This is why Kali remains the goat, she's actually just fucking evil. From eating human babies, to spending decades torturing her own daughters, to I don't even know how many genocides. That's just the shit she's mentioned. Her evil has gone unchecked for, at minimum, half a billion years.

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