#2000s literary fiction

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

A metaphor cannot be paraphrased.

-- Percival Everett, Erasure (copyright 2001) [2011 paperback edition, published by Greywolf Press]

Speaking of Irony and black comedy, one of the inciting incidents in this novel is the protagonist (a novelist) looking for his latest work (a satiric retelling of ancient Greek myth) on the shelves of a Borders bookstore, and finding it in the "African American Studies" section, when the only thing "African American" about the book is his photo on the back cover.

And here are the book's rankings on Amazon:

#1 in Self-Help & Psychology Humor #16 in Fiction Satire #147 in Literary Fiction (Books)

... Those last two rankings are at least accurate categories. But that first one... Is it somehow getting into the "Self-Help" section based on the title alone?

I mean, reading good fiction, and momentarily imagining the world through another person's experience, can be good for your mental health. But there is no way that this is a "Self-Help" book.

smh.

[kindledspiritsbooks]

My Month in Books: November and December 2023

Why We Get the Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman I spend a lot of my time at work thinking about the UK’s political system (and to be honest way too much of my free time as well) so I was excited to get a slightly more outside perspective on the workings of Westminster. While the book is probably a little bit basic for hardcore politics nerds (though I was thrilled to see a whole section…

[nicholasandriani]

2000 posts!

Wow. Post your best memories!

[alpaca-clouds]

The history of Solarpunk

Okay, I guess this has to be said, because the people will always claim the same wrong thing: No, Solarpunk did not "start out as an aesthetic". Jesus, where the hell does this claim even come from? Like, honestly, I am asking.

Solarpunk started out as a genre, that yes, did also include design elements, but also literary elements. A vaguely defined literary genre, but a genre never the less.

And I am not even talking about those early books that we today also claim under the Solarpunk umbrella. So, no, I am not talking about Ursula K. LeGuin, even though she definitely was a big influence on the genre.

The actual history of Solarpunk goes something like that: In the late 1990s and early 2000s the term "Ecopunk" was coined, which was used to refer to books that kinda fit into the Cyberpunk genre umbrella, but were more focused on ecological themes. This was less focused on the "high tech, high life" mantra that Solarpunk ended up with, but it was SciFi stories, that were focused on people interacting with the environment. Often set to a backdrop of environmental apocalypse. Now, other than Solarpunk just a bit later, this genre never got that well defined (especially with Solarpunk kinda taking over the role). As such there is only a handful of things that ever officially called themselves Ecopunk.

At the same time, though, the same sort of thought was picked up in the Brazilian science fiction scene, where the idea was further developed. Both artistically, where it got a lot of influence from the Amazofuturism movement, but also as an ideology. In this there were the ideas from Ecopunk as the "scifi in the ecological collaps" in there, but also the idea of "scifi with technology that allows us to live within the changing world/allows us to live more in harmony with nature".

Now, we do not really know who came up with the idea of naming this "Solarpunk". From all I can find the earliest mention of the term "Solarpunk" that is still online today is in this article from the Blog Republic of Bees. But given the way the blogger talks about it, it is clear there was some vague definition of the genre before it.

These days it is kinda argued about whether that title originally arose in Brazil or in the Anglosphere. But it seems very likely that the term was coined between 2006 and 2008, coming either out of the Brazilian movement around Ecopunk or out of the English Steampunk movement (specifically the literary branch of the Steampunk genre).

In the following years it was thrown around for a bit (there is an archived Wired article from 2009, that mentions the term once, as well as one other article), but for the moment there was not a lot happening in this regard.

Until 2012, when the Brazilian Solarpunk movement really started to bloom and at the same time in Italy Commando Jugendstil made their appearance. In 2012 in Brazil the anthology "Solarpunk: Histórias ecológicas e fantásticas em um mundo sustentável" was released (that did get an English translation not too long ago) establishing some groundwork for the genre. And Commando Jugendstil, who describe themselves as both a "Communication Project" and an "Art Movement", started to work on Solarpunk in Italy. Now, Commando Jugendstil is a bit more complicated than just one or the other. As they very much were a big influence on some of the aesthetic concepts, but also were releasing short stories and did some actual punky political action within Italy.

And all of that was happening in 2012, where the term really started to take off.

And only after this, in 2014, Solarpunk became this aesthetic we know today, when a (now defuct) tumblr blog started posting photos, artworks and other aesthetical things under the caption of Solarpunk. Especially as it was the first time the term was widely used within the Anglosphere.

Undoubtedly: This was probably how most people first learned of Solarpunk... But it was not how Solarpunk started. So, please stop spreading that myth.

The reason this bothers me so much is, that it so widely ignores how this movement definitely has its roots within Latin America and specifically Brazil. Instead this myth basically tries to claim Solarpunk as a thing that fully and completely originated within the anglosphere. Which is just is not.

And yes, there was artistic aspects to that early Solarpunk movement, too. But also a literary and political aspectt. That is not something that was put onto a term that was originally an aesthetic - but rather it was something that was there from the very beginning.

Again: There has been an artistic and aesthetic aspect in Solarpunk from the very beginning, yes. But there has been a literary and political aspect in it the entire time, too. And trying to divorce Solarpunk from those things is just wrong and also... kinda misses the point.

So, please. Just stop claiming that entire "it has been an aesthetic first" thing. Solarpunk is a genre of fiction, it is a political movement, just as much as it is an artistic movement. Always has been. And there has always been punk in it. So, please, stop acting as if Solarpunk is just "pretty artistic vibes". It is not.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, I guess.

[fox-teeth]

In honor of the final days of @shortboxcomicsfair 2024 I wanted to write a post about "The Maker of Grave-Goods" journey from vague sketches to final comic!

This comic started with a single idea in 2020: how would sci-fi tech like faster-than-light travel effect the life of an artist?

At the time I was writing a lot of outlines for adult sci-fi comics and dreaming about ways to publish them. Two things stalled that project at the end of 2020--struggling with how to get them "out there" in the current US comics landscape, which is very focused on kids' comics and autobio/nonfiction as the main adult genres, and me becoming a frontline covid-19 healthcare worker.

(I have wondered if people read this comic as a reaction to genAI "art"--no, it's more about what's happened to webcomics since the early 2000s)

Some things in the original 2020 sketches stayed the same--compare this sketch of the intro pages with the actual page one--while others changed a lot. Originally the story focused on Mazu meeting other unfamiliar aliens in the space station more and her backstory was less fleshed out and told quickly. Also at one point Mazu's species had technology like telephones, and the species name was "Mazu". They always looked vaguely like dragons though.

I was frankly shocked when I got into ShortBox Comic Fair! And after much hemming and hawing I decided to resurrect one of those sci-fi comics for it, because I figured if any audience could appreciate difficult, literary genre fiction for adults in my ~indie comics for girls~ art style it was SBCF's.

I didn't really get started in this comic in earnest until May (dayjob stuff). I wrote most of the comic in the AMNH's Gottesman Library, both because it's the quietest most beautiful library in Manhattan (IMHO) and I could wander the halls looking for inspiration. Much of the look of this comic--especially the clay objects Mazu makes--were based on drawings I did of artworks in the AMNH and the Met.

As I worked on the outline and script/thumbs the story began to take shape, and became more about Mazu's life story within her extant culture contrasted with the precipice of complete social upheaval her people were standing on with the introduction of FTL travel. It also became twice as long as I estimated...

PART TWO: page from outline to final art

Buy "The Maker of Grave-Goods" on ShortBox Comics Fair

[turtle-paced]

From the purely ‘hating fanfic being sold as original fiction’ perspective, does that only apply to things pretending not to be fanfic? Or only stuff that was ripped directly from fanfic websites and then published? For profit in general? Etc.

I just ask because I recently horrified a friend by calling things like ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,’ ‘Murder at Pemberley,’ ‘Longbourn,’ etc high quality fanfiction. Because for all their merits it is work set in another author’s universe, featuring the same characters, written by fans of that original work.

Obviously 50 Shades is not even remotely as literary as those and doesn’t actually offer much new to the original work (other than sexual fantasies that reveal how little the author knows about consent and BDSM). But I’m still interested to hear your take on ‘scholarly accepted’ published works that are essentially openly fanfics.

Yeah, I think it's different when a) the OG author is long dead, b) the derivative works clearly acknowledge their fanfic status, and c) the creator of the derivative work gives a damn about its quality.

I'm a long-time fanfic writer and I truly do believe in the ability of fan writers and artists to bring new takes and worthwhile thoughts to the derivative works they build off what they freely acknowledge to be the original creation of someone else. But there's a difference between writing good fanfiction of an 1813 novel in the late 1900s and early 2000s, including licensed and commercially sold fanfiction, and ctrl + F "Bella" replace "Ana" in 2011 - when the second part of Breaking Dawn wasn't released in theatres until 2012.

[ktwritesstuff]

The Professor (Pedro Pascal smut inspired by SNL)

Title: The Professor Fandom: RPF: Pedro Pascal, Hot for teacher AU Rating: Explicit Characters & Pairings: Pedro Pascal (professor of Latin American Studies) x Reader (bedraggled PhD candidate) Word Count: ~2000 Summary: As if that SNL skit wasn't going to launch a thousand smut fics... As always, lovingly beta-read by @bs-fangirl. Additional notes below the cut.

Notes: This is my first "real person fic," may God have mercy on my soul. Additionally, my Spanish is virtually non-existent; I've relied heavily on Google Translate and asking my coworkers questions on the sly, my apologies for any errors! As we all know, this is not a story about actual human Pedro Pascal, but the fictionalized version which lives rent free in our heads. And as proper fan girl culture dictates, we keep this shit locked down. But just in case:

This note is for actual human Pedro Pascal and Pedro Pascal only. I don't know why you would click "Read More" on a post clearly labeled "Pedro Pascal, Hot for teacher AU" but if you have, I beg of you LOOK AWAY, SIR. LOOK AWAY. If you choose to proceed, I will not be responsible for any trauma you may suffer as a result. Thank you.

For everyone else, I give you:

The Professor

Professor Pedro Pascal was the head of the Latin American Studies department at your small college.  You had never been in his classes as an undergrad–Latin American Fiction and Poetry, and a special seminar on the Magical Realism of Isabel Allende–but it was well known around campus that his family had fled Pinochet when he was a child, which granted him unsurprising street cred among your communist-leaning circle of friends.  He had been appointed the interim director of the campus’s Literary Center–after his predecessor was ousted for exposing himself in a virtual meeting. 

As the Center’s Graduate Assistant Director, it meant although he wasn’t technically your boss, you were suddenly spending an annoying amount of time working around the throngs of freshman girls who flocked to his office hours.  You couldn’t really blame them.  He was, if not an outright heartthrob, a reasonably good-looking college professor.  A strong face, with a short, rugged beard, a striking Roman nose, and deep brown eyes with the most charming crow's feet.  He had a lean physique, with a hint of softness at the belly, just this side of a “dad bod.”

His modest good looks combined with a cheerful disposition and a penchant for quoting the love poetry of Pablo Neruda were like catnip for liberal arts majors.  And although you were a card-carrying bra-burning feminist, you weren’t entirely immune.

“Professor,” his office door was open, but you knocked on the frame.  

Pedro looked up from the stack of resumes you had been sent to review before the selection panel for a new director.

“Coffee?”

“Mi angelita,” he sighed, rising from his desk to graciously accept the warm cup from your hands.  “What time is the first candidate arriving?”

“Noon,” you said.  “You, me, Dr. Monroe, the Provost, and Assistant Dean are sitting on the interview panel.”

Pedro looked at his watch.  

“Shit,” he sighed.  “I have Intro to Creative Writing at 9:30.”

“I’ll set up the conference room,” you said as he shoved his papers into his messenger bag, slinging it over his shoulder, still carrying the open mug as he raced down the stairs.  

“Thank you, Angel.  Thank you!”

It was a six month process to find a new director.  Six months of staring across the conference table, chewing on the end of your pen, pretending not to be affected by the way he leaned in when you spoke and stroked his thumb across his lower lip in concentration.  Or the obscene way he spread his legs in a comfortable chair while speaking with candidates in front of a panel of students.  

And having to do it all over again when your first choice–a student favorite–declined the position, to stay in New Jersey of all things.  You knew Pedro was relieved to have reached a conclusion; he didn’t care for the administrative duties or politics.  He wanted to teach, to be with his students.  You admired that about him, he appreciated your organizational skills (and the fact that when you made coffee it counted as a meal.)  You worked well together, but now that was coming to an end. 

It was past 9pm and you had already closed up the Literary Center for the night, but Pedro was still in his office, reviewing students’ papers.

“I’m done for the night, Professor,” you said.  “Is there anything I can do to help you get out of here?”

“That depends,” he said, with a wry smile that had you convinced he was only half-kidding.  “How’s your Spanish?”

“Hmm,” you said, stepping into the light of the desk lamp.  “¿Dónde está la biblioteca? ¿Como estas?  Bien, gracias.  ¡Qué lluvia!  And that’s all I’ve got.”

Pedro chuckled.  “I’ve heard worse.”

“That and un tequila, por favor.”

“Tequila,” Pedro repeated, intrigued. He reached into the bottom drawer of his desk, pulling out a bottle of Patron.  “That I can help you with.”

Your mouth fell open in surprise.

“Professor,” you deadpanned.  “I don’t know if you knew this, but alcohol is not permitted in academic buildings.”

"Lucky for me," he said, picking up the bottle. "I have tenure."

You laughed and Pedro laughed; you offered to run downstairs to retrieve a pair of glasses and a salt shaker from the kitchen while he finished grading papers in record speed.

“I worry about these kids,” Pedro said, three shots deep.  “I do!  The moment they hear something the least bit troubling, they refuse to engage with the material.  Our world exists in shades of gray.  They want things to be ideologically pure, when what they need is to learn to discern.  To question.  To decide!”

“I understand what you’re saying, Professor,” you said. 

“Pedro, please,” he interrupted you.  “Pedro.”  

“Pedro,” you repeated.  “I agree, but there’s no reason we need to elevate and spotlight the same tired canon of bigots, abusers, and dead white men year after year when there is so much more out there.”

Pedro downed another shot and pointed an accusing finger at you.  

“Look who’s talking,” he said.  “Your PhD is in Shakespeare Studies!”

“I know,” you laughed, pouring yourself another glass.   “I know, I’m a terrible person.”

“You are not,” he said, suddenly serious.  “You have an incredible mind and the most beautiful way of looking at the world.”

You felt languid and relaxed and warm.  You liked the way Pedro looked at you.  There was something undeniably romantic about getting drunk in the richly furnished office, with its leather armchairs and oak bookshelves, debating the merits of Nietzsche and bell hooks.   

“Okay,” you broke the silence.  “Okay, here’s a fun fact you can pass along to your successor.  There are 3 prints signed by Allen Ginsberg in this building, and you can see them all from this desk.”  

“There’s the one on the wall,” Pedro said, pointing to the framed portrait hanging above the bookshelf.  

“Yes,” you said, rising from your chair and moving to the other side of the desk.  “And there in the hallway, on the right, that's an excerpt from "Howl" they set in the printshop downstairs.”

You perched on the arm of his chair to get closer to his eye-level, pointing through the open door.  You slipped, nearly falling into his lap and he placed a hand on your back to steady you.  He smelled amazing, like old leather and warm spices.  

“And there, in the stairwell, you can just make out the top of his head on that linotype,” you explained.  “Do you see it?”

“I do.”

When you turned your head, Pedro was looking at you.  Perhaps it was the tequila, but you were almost certain he was staring at your lips, his eyes heavily lidded, smiling lazily.

“You look tired,” you warned.  You should have gotten up to leave, but you didn’t want to.  You didn’t want this warm, lovely feeling to ever end.  

“Just thinking,” he said.

“About what?” 

“Kissing you,” he said.  

You were almost surprised; you had spent so much time trying to convince yourself that your semester-long flirtation was a one-sided puppy crush.  You had been so busy with your research and recruiting and planning, you had forgotten somewhere along the way that you were a stone cold fox with tits and ass for days and enough sex appeal to blow the top off Mount St. Helens.

“You can,” you said, turning your body toward him.  “I don’t mind.” 

“I shouldn’t.”

“Fine then,” you turned to stand.

Pedro seized you by the waist, pulling you back into his lap and into a long, slow kiss.  His lips were surprisingly soft and his mouth tasted like salt and lime as his tongue brushed into yours with careful, confident strokes.  

“That was nice,” your eyes fluttered open as Pedro finally pulled away.  “You’re a good kisser.”

“You, too,” Pedro said.  “Again?”

You tilted your chin, touching the point on your neck, just below your ear.  As Pedro leaned in, working the beginnings of a hickey into your neck, you guided his hands from your waist to your breasts.  You pressed against him, moving to straddle his thigh.

“More?” Pedro asked.

“Yes,” you panted. You braced yourself on the back of the chair, one hand on either side of his head, grinding against his leg, feeling hot and wet as he kneaded your breasts with reverent appreciation.

“Mi amor,” he breathed.

“Pedro,” you held his face, nipping at his bottom lip.  

“Dime, lo qué quieres.”

“Fuck.”  His accent went straight to your cunt.  You ran one hand up his thigh, groping at the crotch of his chinos. 

Pedro let out an obscene moan and hoisted you up onto his desk.  He slid his hands up your thighs, fingers slipping into your panties.  He ran his fingertips through your folds, tracing circles around the swollen nub of your clit with an absolute shit-eating grin.

“Qué lluvia.”

You howled with laughter.  “I know that one!  I know that one!” 

“A huevo.”   

Pedro rose from his chair, bunching your dress up around your waist.  You pulled his shirt free from the waistband of his pants, running your hands up the warm skin of his back.  

“Want you,” you sighed.  “Want you inside me.”         

“Whatever you want, Angelita.”  

Pedro pulled your underwear down to your ankles, pausing to retrieve a condom from the wallet in his back pocket, like an over-eager undergrad, pulling down his pants to roll it on.  He pressed the head of his cock against your clit.  You grabbed him by the ass, wrapping your legs around him to guide him into you.  

Pedro flicked his hips into you with short, quick strokes, sending jolts of energy through your core.

“More,” you pleaded breathlessly.  “Deeper.”

Pedro lifted your ankles onto his shoulders, pressing into you long and slow until you could feel him bumping against your cervix.  You gasped, reaching behind you, scrambling for leverage, knocking the computer monitor off the desk.

“Oh no!” You turned, trying to catch it before it crashed to the floor.

“It’s okay!” Pedro said, taking your face in his hands to guide your gaze back to his eyes.  “It’s a shitty computer.  It’s fine.”

You moaned, letting your head fall back, grabbing for his chest with one hand as he fucked you.

“So soft,” he moaned against your ear.  “So fucking good for me, Angel.”  

“Give me your hand,” you said, guiding his fingers back to your clit.  “Up and down, right there.  Oh God.”  

You grabbed Pedro’s shoulder to brace yourself.  

“I’m close,” he warned.

“Not yet,” you pleaded.  “Just a little more.”  

You could feel your own climax building inside you.  You just needed a little more to push you over the edge.  

“Oh God!”

Pedro came inside you with a gasp as your inner walls clenched around him.  He slowly withdrew, supporting your legs, and easing you onto your back, scattering papers and pens onto the floor.  He kissed your neck and your breasts as his hands explored the curves of your body. 

You woke the next morning on the couch in Pedro’s office.  You were lying on top of him; your head on his chest.  He had his arms around you, your head was pounding as you squinted into the daylight.

“We got fucked up last night?” you said.

“Yup.”  

“It was nice."

"It was," Pedro agreed, kissing the top of your head as you blinked sleep from your eyes. 

"What time is it?”

You grabbed his forearm, turning it so you could look at the face of his watch.  

“Oh shit,” you gasped.  “I have Freshman Seminar in half an hour.”

“I already missed my morning classes,” Pedro moaned, letting his head fall back against the armrest. 

“Do you want to explain to Dr. Monroe why I can’t teach her class?” you said, rising from the couch and searching the office floor for your underpants.

“No,” Pedro said.  “She scares me.”  

You pulled your underwear back on, finding your bag, you used the satin scarf tied around the handle to cover the love-bites blooming on your throat and chest.  You dabbed concealer under your eyes and added a fresh coat of red lipstick.  

“Would you like to have lunch together? Not at the Caf. Somewhere nice, like a date.” Pedro asked, sitting up.  He looked endearingly child-like with his bedhead and giant brown eyes.  

You paused, checking your reflection in your compact mirror.  

“Can we do that?” you asked.

“I don’t see why not,” he said.  “You were never my student and after this week we won’t even work together any more.”

“Oh,” you nodded.  “Yeah, that sounds nice.”

“I’ll pack things up here and meet you after class.”  

You smiled.  “I’ll see you then.”   

[judasisdrafting]

betray me like a god - a wip intro

this is my original work, please do not plagiarize.

tws : suicide, religious themes & trauma, catholicism, mental illness, psychosis, abuse, queerphobia, eye injury, sexual assault, substance abuse, self destructive behaviors, mild sexual content.

summary : Betray Me Like A God follows a devout Catholic teen, Darja Ausmeel, who wants nothing more than to be normal, as ever impossible that may be. After a traumatic injury to her eye in childhood, she began to see apparitions of religious figures such as Mother Mary and Christ, alongside hearing what she believes to be the voice of God. Through everything they kept her company… Until the suicide of her best friend, Diana. Beautiful, forever young, and stuck in time, Diana haunts every corner of her life, while the eerily similar face of Darja’s estranged mother taunts her in shadow. Darja must attempt to grapple with her rippling faith, as she continues to run from the feelings (perhaps of veneration) she still carries for the late Diana, the addled state of her mind, and the question of: can a child truly come out right without the deific hands of a mother?

genre : coming of age adult literary fiction.

setting : Manigan (fictional city), New Jersey, early 2000s.

pov : 1st person, past tense.

vibe : the immaculate heart of mary. sprawling cathedrals. oxfords clicking on linoleum floors. a clouded, white iris. cross necklaces. the sacrificial lamb. the feeling of breath on your neck. snake venom. yearning for a childhood you never had. the bubble of bile. suffocating in water. nails dug into flesh. snowfall. a woman who feels familiar but is faceless.

playlist : spotify.

characters ;

darja ausmeel (mc, 15-17, estonian, they/them*) - religious, uptight, analytical, unsettling, devoted, well spoken, impulsive, set in their ways, responsible, troubled/unstable, patient, self-righteous.

diana feigenbaum (f, 15-17, german, she/her) - bold, unstable, confident, stubborn, fears rejection, dogmatic, sensitive, loyal, manipulative, overbearing, overprotective.

eduard ausmeel (mid-50s, estonian, he/him) - workaholic, hesitant, protective, caring, geeky, observant, introverted, lacks assertiveness.

maria ausmeel (late 70s, estonian, she/her) - eclectic, nurturing, erratic, holds a grudge, candid, resilient, affectionate, open-minded.

terhi rebane (late 30s, estonian-american, she/her) - troubled, intellectual, avoidant, charismatic, quick-witted, cynical, short-tempered, hypocritical, articulate, selfish, loving on own terms.

f - foil.

* within the story, they are referred to with she/her pronouns because they (at the present time in which most of the story is set) are not aware of their queerness nor are out

excerpt ;

Even now at seventeen years old, Diana’s head was stuck to the other’s right shoulder, both of their hair whipping wildly from the crisp whistle of wind. Crystals of sand crackled under Darja’s polished, black oxfords and crests of sea foam lapped at her fingertips, hand held just above the water. Diana had her bare feet dug into the seashore, black toenails taking on the appearance of mussels burrowing out of sight. Her face was flushed pink and her entire body trembled each time a gust of wind rushed over them. Regardless, she kept the sleeves of her button-up scrunched around her elbows, her skirt abandoned somewhere nearby. Winter was rearing its frostbitten head as November approached over the horizon and, yet, Diana didn’t seem to care.

[sh5]

ok I’m sorry I won’t keep posting random tumblr takes that drive me crazy but.

guys can we sit down and have a real conversation for a moment. do you truly believe independent reading is a gen z thing. do you think libraries were established in the 2000s.

and guys. I’m gonna be honest. while this article is absolutely reactionary and possibly punching down a bit……..can we admit that, for an old fucking man who is an ENGLISH PROFESSOR, that the shift from enjoying literary fiction to a serialized action adventure book for children could be a tiny bit concerning. just even from the Capitalism Of It All side?

if he had said Harry Potter was this popular among his students, y'all would've (rightfully) been screaming, READ ANOTHER BOOK. <- implying that they haven't read a new book since they were 12 years old. you know that's exactly what this prof is worried about, right? that adults aren't reading anymore. and you could understand that fear when half of his students say the Most Impactful Series They Ever Read, They Read When They Were Twelve Fucking Years Old. it's actually MORE concerning if the alternatives are true! either you haven't read since you were 12, or your literary tastes haven't DEVELOPED since you were 12, and that's just as worrying! the most concerning of all is the idea of adults reading children's literature and taking more out of it than the literature for adults that they're refusing to read...in order to fit in some more fanfic where Nico di Angelo is anorexic and takes it up the ass. HATE DOESNT EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE... you would not be saying the same thing about Harry Potter.

[floweryprosegarden]

Hello friend, it’s been a while. I completed the first draft of my adult thriller novel, which I’m currently referring to as Project Istanbul, so I wanted to share my mood board for this project and some excerpts with you.

a little about me/the blog™

I’m a Turkish-Kurdish English student living in Canada

I’m very introverted

I mostly write literary fiction

This blog is a nook for my novels and short fiction wips. I also share works I adore from my fellow writerblrs

a little about Project Istanbul

Set in Istanbul, Turkey (obviously) during the early 2000s

Story features a morally ambiguous journalist, unethical stalking, controversial therapy methods, too many expresso shots, glamourous outfits, and murder

Vague aesthetic inspos: Despair by Vladamir Nabokov, The Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath, The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Rear Window (1952)

TW: my novel explores mental illnesses including PD and NPD

random excerpts just because

1.

2.

[magnus-sm-writes]

WIP Intro: Body

Genre: Literary Fiction/Speculative/Weird | Progress: Querying | World: Earth | POV: Second Person, Braided Narrative (weaving past/present)

The Past (2000)

The narrator wakes up in his own grave as a Newly Returned Person. As is protocol with NRPs, he's expected to continue the life of The One Before: keep his name, continue his job, and live with his wife, Fransisca. However, both the narrator and Fransisca know that he is not The One Before. When the narrator meets another rogue NRP named Van, he realizes that there's more to his new life than just pretending to be a dead man.

The Present (2001)

Van goes missing. The narrator searches for him, terrified of losing the man who has allowed him to become himself. He and Fransisca deal with his grief and guilt while searching for Van, and make an unexpected ally along the way.

Literal Logline

In a thinly-veiled trans allegory, a man learns how to love after undeath.

Inspirations

Mollymauk Tealeaf, "Moonkids" by Abbey Mei Otis, that part of Fight Club where the narrator is frantically trying to find Tyler Durden, Glass Animals' "Dreamland" album, my gender dysphoria, Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners collection, the theory of the doppelgänger, my grandmother's death

Characters

The narrator has no name that belongs to him. He hasn't quite gotten used to being alive yet, but he's getting better at it.

The One Before is the person the narrator is supposed to be. He is dead, and will stay that way.

Fransisca is the wife of The One Before. She's strangely understanding of the narrator's plight and comforts him through his grief.

Van is the first NRP the narrator meets that refuses to pretend to be a dead person. The narrator falls in love with him for that.

Setting

A world where the dead have begun to come back. Some people believe this is the real Y2K; others believe God has begun rejecting souls. Whatever the cause, NRPs are cropping up around the world. A particular hotspot is New York City.

In early 2000s New York City, the narrator's job at a shitty motel and fight to find Van brings him to some unsavory places with equally unsavory people.

Excerpt

She looked at you with pain, but no anger. You were wearing her dead husband’s face like a poor Halloween costume. If she were angry, you would understand. But she looked as if she’d been stabbed. A deep pain you didn’t know yet. You’d never known loss before, because you were the loss.

“I’m not him.” You wanted a cigarette. You wanted to run away. You wanted to hide in the cabinets. There were so many things you wanted in that moment, and you could have none of them.

Taglist

@flower-reads, @drowsy-quill

If you'd like to be added to the taglist, please let me know!

[deanwax]

Writer Interview

Cheers for the tags, @autism-purgatory and @the-golden-comet <3

no-presh tag to @dyrewrites and @winterandwords, lets gooo

About Me

When did you first start writing?

I would've cut my teeth in the Neopets roleplay forums around age 11-12, likely didn't start writing standalone fics until age 18-19.

Are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

Not really, but also: I'll read literally anything if it's presented as a graphic novel. It's been a useful way to discover new things, and historical graphic novels have been a gateway drug to documentaries and video essays.

Is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you’re often compared?

I don't really concern myself with emulation these days, but way back I tried to style a novel heavily on the works of Poppy Z Brite. I was too green to understand how to give a gothic horror a point, and "Wailing" fizzled out with not much more than wallowing in edgy misery. I've still never been able to salvage the plot or characters to this day.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (Room, coffee shop, desk, etc.)

In order of frequency: lying on my stomach in bed with a heat pack, at my computer desk, hunched up in the corner of a train, being weirdly intense in the bar of a local theatre. So yeah, I do a lot of writing on my phone.

What’s your most effective way to muster up some muse?

I'm actually in the middle of reckoning with my own limitations caused by a chronic pain condition, so I'm more in the camp of "let the muse come to you". I try to check in often, I'd only to smash out a few more notes or paste in some research.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

No, except Sucks Down Under which is literally set in early 2000s Australiana. For the most part I'm making stuff up freestyle.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

I didn't think there'd be so much symbolic cannibalism when I started out, but here we are.

My Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character? (Current WIP, past WIP, never used, etc.)

Man. Adam "Flicker" Prescott from Wailing was the OG, man. He was supremely socially awkward and couldn't stick up for himself against his trans friend who was too angry about gender to see how cruel they were being. He could see ghosts. Eventually he got separated from his body entirely and became a spirit trapped in the mind of the vampire who killed him. He deserved better.

Which of your characters do you think you’d be friends with in real life?

Flicker could live in the back of my mind if he wanted. I guess he does.

Which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

Setting aside outright villains, I actually would start to avoid Alistair from Impressions of Aire for long stretches of time if I knew him IRL. He's way too socially outgoing, man. That's not my speed. Small doses only.

Tell me about the process of coming up with of one, all, or any of your characters.

The speed at which I can come up with these dudes is too fast to clearly separate the process onto steps. It helps to have a prompt to get the bones down, like a genre or an event that will happen in the story. Then: nyeeeooowwww.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

Autism.

What’s your reason for writing?

Also autism. Yes, yes, the joy of creation. But also: I am putting the characters through The Situations with wildly different parameters.

Is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

Babe, I write original fiction. Any kind of comment at all is a joyous rarity.

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work? (For example: as a literary genius, or as a writer who “gets” the human condition; as a talented worldbuilder, as a role model, etc.)

A trickster.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Grounding the actions of the story in some kind of reason, or at least a process that can be observed if not clearly understood.

What have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

Knack for words.

How do you feel about your own writing? (Answer in whatever way you interpret this question.)

I have loved everything I have ever written.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

Yes, so I could read it later.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? If it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

Any story where I've tried to inject content that would make it popular has hit wall until I've allowed myself to rework it to be as weird as I truly want it to be.

[victusinveritas]

Happy 84th birthday to esteemed Canadian novelist and poet Margaret Atwood! She is pictured here attempting to burn an 'unburnable' copy of her novel "The Handmaid's Tale" with a flamethrower. A single unburnable copy was created last year to raise awareness about increasing censorship; her dystopian science fiction novel, which centers around one woman's quest for freedom in a totalitarian theocracy where women's rights are completely suppressed, has been the subject of numerous censorship challenges since its publication in 1985. The unburnable copy was auctioned off after Atwood's flamethrowing attempt, raising $130,00 for PEN America, a literary and free expression advocacy organization. As Atwood famously asserted in her poem "Spelling": "A word after a word after a word is power."

Born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1939, Atwood is the author of 15 books of poetry and numerous novels, including Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, The Edible Woman, and Oryx and Crake. She won the Booker Prize -- which honors the best original novel published that year -- for "The Blind Assassin" in 2000 and has been shortlisted several additional times. She has also won two Governor General's Award, Canada's highest literary honor. This year, the American Academy of Arts and Letters elected Atwood as a Foreign Honorary Member of the Academy.

Atwood’s classic dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale” is available at https://www.amightygirl.com/the-handmaid-s-tale

There is also a t-shirt featuring the iconic artwork from the novel’s first edition for teens and adults at https://www.amightygirl.com/the-handmaid-s-tale-t-shirt

To introduce kids to the power of their own words, we recommend the 'IlluStory Create Your Own Book Kit' for ages 5 to 10 (https://www.amightygirl.com/make-your-own-book-kit) and the creative writing guides "Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly" for ages 8 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/writing-magic) and "Dear Ally, How Do You Write a Book?" for ages 13 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/dear-ally)

And for books for tweens and teens about girls living in real-life oppressive societies with little respect for freedom of expression, visit our blog post "The Fragility of Freedom: Mighty Girl Books About Life Under Authoritarianism" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=32426

[centrally-unplanned]

River's Edge & The Flat Battle? Field: Deep Diving a Single Word

So the 1993 manga River's Edge, by Kyoko Okazaki, was finally officially released in English last week. It's a problematic fave of mine, and (as I discussed in my review of it many moons ago), the peak of its edgy angst is this poem, standing alone on a field of black, near the end of the book:

"The flat battlefield" is a phrase that has really stuck with me since I read it, and anything that has that level of sticking power is a meaningful piece of art. My opinion of the manga has grown over time.

So when I got to this section in the official translation and I saw:

I was a bit bummed, "flat field" really just lacks the impact "battlefield" ha-

-wait what?

Reprinted by Permission of SSL/Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Copyright by William Gibson, originally published in "Robert Longo"

Okazaki didn't write this, William Gibson did?? The American cyberpunk fiction author? He...writes poetry? Turns out by the way this attribution is in the original manga, it just didn't survive the scanlation process.

I was curious about both how and when this translation shift occurred (if it ever did), and the origin of this poem - which was really hard to find! "Robert Longo" is not a book, he's a person - an American artist and filmmaker who directed the 1995 movie Johnny Mnemonic, which William Gibson wrote the screenplay for (and wrote the short story it is an adaptation of). When you search books by the two of them nothing really turns up - at least on the western side of things. In America they never really did publish a book. But in Japan they published a few actually - some too late for 1993's River's Edge, but in 1991: 

Publisher Kyoto Shion's Art RANDOM series, vol. 71, featuring the collected art of Robert Longo, edited by Kyoichi Tsuzuki...and featuring inset poetry by William Gibson. Funnily enough one of the listings (Fukkan) actually notes:

現代美術コレクターだけでなく、ウィリアム・ギブスンのファン、岡崎京子のファン共々気になる作品集だと思います。 This is a work that will be of interest not only to contemporary art collectors, but also to fans of William Gibson and Kyoko Okazaki.

The poem from this book - which is called "The Beloved: Voices for Three Heads" - is way more famous as a reference by Okazaki than as a work by Gibson. Which turned out to be a problem when I wanted to dig deeper and find the actual poem and its context; when you google it you get...almost entirely Japanese results discussing River's Edge! Which means I couldn’t actually find the poem, just Japanese translations of it. And I am pretty sure the poem was not originally in Japanese - the bookseller listings note that the book is bilingual in both Japanese & English, the Gibson poems would be the obvious English candidates. 

However, buried beneath piles of mid-2000’s Japanese Okazaki fandom blog posts, I found the work of academic Gary Westfahl. He wrote a deep dive book in 2013 on the works of William Gibson, and in the abstract header for Chapter Five:

It also considers Gibson's poems such as “The Beloved: Voices for Three Heads,” his ventures into writing song lyrics, and the approach he used in some of his later nonfiction works

Ba-bam - and with a quick trip to LibGen pulling up a pdf version of the book, here we go: 

Gibson's first literary publications, in 1963, were poems, and he obviously remained interested in the form, since in the 1980s and 1990s, when artists approached him about collaborative projects, he usually provided poetry. To date, Gibson has published three poems, not counting fanzine efforts, along with two other poems available only as excerpts.  Asked to contribute to Robert Longo's 1989 performance piece Dream Jumbo, Gibson wrote a poem, "The Beloved: Voices for Three Heads," later included in a book, Robert Longo: Art Random, largely devoted to documenting that show

Gary fucking Westfahl, coming through in the clutch!! I was curious why this combination art book/poetry existed, but now it makes sense; the poem and the art were already a packaged deal as part of a performance art exhibit. And this also explains why the poem was so hard to find - as of 2013 Gibson only ever published 3 poems in his career! I am curious how this play got over to Japan - Dream Jumbo premiered in LA in 1989, but additionally in 1989 Longo had a titular "Robert Longo" art exhibit at the Seibu Contemporary Art Gallery in Tokyo, which had its own art book published - its fair to say he was "big in Japan" and so the success of Dream Jumbo made its way over. He would actually run a sort of gallery-version of the performance in Tokyo in 1995, for which he gave an interview that taught me that the name "dream jumbo" is pulled from the name of a popular Japanese lottery; perhaps it was always destined for Japan and also Robert Longo is a bit of a weeb.

ANYWAY the actual text of the poem: 

Our love knew The flat field

Yeah, it was originally ‘field’. Westfahl also confirms that this poem was only ever published in print in Japan, making it virtually unknown outside of it. Which, and this is kind of cool, means that the publishing of the translation of the Japanese manga River's Edge is the first time Gibson's "The Beloved: Voices for Three Heads" has ever been published in the West. 

Knowing that the original is ‘field’, I checked the original Japanese page for River's Edge and:

戦場 - Battlefield

The first kanji is literally 'war', this is not ambiguous, there is no other read here. River's Edge changed the word from "field" to "battlefield" - assuming that the original art book did not have its own Japanese translation of the poem. On reflection, it probably did; it's not like Okazaki herself is a translator, and in the manga the poem’s translation is credited to translator Hisashi Kuromaru, who had previously translated Gibson’s novel Neuromancer. However, it’s not like I have a copy to check, so I can’t say for sure.

…or so I thought! But when looking around for Kuromaru’s translation credits, I stumbled on the most precious resource one can find; a blog post from an Okazaki-otaku a decade+ after the fact who was obsessed with the poem and hunted down a copy of the original Art RANDOM artbook to see it for themselves. In their post they give a line by line comparison of the poem and its translation…credited to Kuromaru, confirming that this book is where the translation comes from. And lo and behold:

Kuromaru is the source of our creative twist. Chad of chads, “Tach” from 2005.

What is funny is that this is not like a tiny little quirk I am interested in - I mean, okay, it's mainly that. But "the battlefield" is actually a small part of Okazaki's brand as an artist. Here is a sketch she sold titled "Girl's Life on the Battlefield" (It uses the same kanji)

Here is a link to an exhibit of her work in Japan that was titled:

(Her art is incredibly on point btw).

Here is an entire book by art critic Noi Sawagari investigating How we survive on a flat battlefield - Kyoko Okazaki's theory! The one Amazon review says its content is "thin” and it was “tiring to read”, 2 stars, ouch.

But you get what I'm saying- Okazaki leaned into this phrase. I'm actually a little let down, when I read River’s Edge and was so taken with this specific moment I thought it was a ‘me’ thing; turns out the entire country of Japan was equally smitten and it became the tagline for the manga. Real loss of hipster points for me on this one! Still, I really think “battlefield” is way more impactful - this elevation of the phrase would not have happened if it was just ‘field’, I feel confident on that. And I am not calling the translation ‘wrong’, or anything. It is just one of those tiny contingencies, this liberal translation and odd series of events, art crossing from LA to Japan, led to a brand for an up-and-coming josei manga author that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. And in fact, I am willing to say that the translation just published by Kodansha of River’s Edge is… not right. It doesn’t matter what Gibson wrote - this is Okazaki’s poem now. She wrote a manga about the battlefield, all of her fans agree, and a truly faithful translation would build on that.

So I’m sticking with “battlefield” and y’all should too.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Anne Hébert

Novelist and poet Anne Hébert was born in 1916 in St. Catherine de Fossambault, Quebec. Hébert was a three-time winner of the Governor General's Award, Canada's highest literary honor. She won once for poetry and twice for fiction. Hébert published her first poetry collection, Les Songes en équilibre, in 1942, and her first novel, Les Chambres de bois, in 1958. Her 1970 novel Kamouraska won the Prix des Libraires as well as the Prix littéraire hors de France, and was adapted to film. Héberts prose and poetry have been widely studied and considered a model for other writers, and her work has been translated into seven languages.

Anne Hébert died in 2000 at the age of 83.

[hanzajesthanza]

the "origin" of the witcher

this year, i set forth for myself a very important goal. i began to seek the original publication of the first, original witcher story.

this was a personal goal as much as it was a "fan" goal, and at first, it originated as an amusing pipe dream, a hopeful "what if," a "if i should be so lucky".

i had become interested in the origins of the witcher through reading interviews with sapkowski, translated and published on r/wiedzmin by gracious fans. these interviews are often from the 1990s or early 2000s (the good ones, anyways), and thus, often reference the very beginning of the witcher. there was one particular interview which struck me, in which sapkowski said this:

"My book witcher is real and original. All adaptations are only more or less successful and have all the corresponding disadvantages of adaptations. There is only one original "Witcher". He is mine and no one will take him away from me." — Interview with Sapkowski in the Polish magazine Polityka

this one original "witcher". yes, of course he is referring to his geralt, the geralt that lives in my heart, but i also thought to myself, the witcher as he as a concept was originally conceived - the first publication. i need to see it. i need to see this publication, in person. if not for me as a fan, for me as a writer, an artist. i need proof that this ever existed." later in the year, i realized this was not only a dream, but a real possibility...

but first, let me introduce the witcher, for those that do not know the story. not the short story "the witcher," but the story of "the witcher"—of its creation.

sapkowski's story

36 years ago, andrzej sapkowski's short story, "witcher", was first published in the december 1986 edition of polish sci-fi and fantasy magazine fantastyka (later renamed nowa fantastyka). sapkowski, at the time, had been working as a tradesman selling leather, fur, and textiles… though he was a fan of fantasy since boyhood, in which he obsessed over arthurian legend, and throughout his life had been an avid reader. during the 1980s, sapkowski lost his job as the national company went bankrupt, and he turned more to his writing, as he had previously written some short stories and had them published in magazines.

at the time, he did not subscribe to fantastyka, and the edition in which the short story contest was announced indeed belonged to his son—his only son, his now late son, krzysztof, who asked him to write and enter the contest. the senior sapkowski's reply? "no problem, i'll write."

fantastyka magazine, as mentioned, encompassed works of both science fiction and fantasy genres. sapkowski wrote "witcher" in hopes of being a standout competitor - assuming that most applicants would write "hard science fiction," he chose to write fantasy. unexpectedly to him, it turned out that the fantasy genre was written by the majority of those who submitted stories!

the witcher, though, was indeed a standout entry. because it dealt with the familiar, but through inverting, changing, subverting, and being original, exciting the reader:

"Geralt of Rivia is the character of my first story, of my literary debut. In my first encounter with the Fantasy and SF readers, my proposition was to do something atypical, completely new. I had to rethink the fairy tales, where some problem with a dragon in a kingdom was solved, the king was disposed to offer to the first one which passed his daughter and half the kingdom for solving it. My vision of Fantasy is almost real. You have to believe that which occurs in the stories, because they are not a fairy tale. No one comes to believe that a king can be so stupid as to give half the kingdom and his daughter (...) I re-wrote the story, since it is not a poor shoemaker who kills the dragon and saves the kingdom, but instead a professional, who works for money. I have turned to construct the fantasy story: it is almost real, you have to feel it, to believe all. It is not the typical fairy tale, all is fucking real." — Interview with Sapkowski at the Feria del Libro (Spain, 2008)

the "lore" of the witcher

this is why a new reader does not need to know anything prior about the witcher in order to grasp the books, because "the witcher" was originally a collection of short stories boasting little world or "lore" to speak of:

for instance, elder speech is not a conlang, it is a deliberate crafting of various european languages together.

"No, I didn't [create a new language for my books, like Tolkien]. (...) I limited myself to only creating a couple sentences, whose entire point was for me to avoid putting a footnote there, because it annoys me beyond belief, when someone writes ''drapatuluk papatuluk'' and underneath the translation says ''close the doors or we'll get flies''. My point was for this made up language to be acceptible for a Pole, who's well read and can see through foreign languages; so it'd be clear without a footnote. Henceforth I decided to construct the language based on languages that Polish people know well: French, English, Latin and German, and just for funsies I threw in some Celtic, so no one cared for specific words, but everybody understood more or less what it meant. I created it as a cocktail language." — Sapkowski on anime, manga, D&D, adaptations, the origins of the Witcher and Elder Speech (2001)

sapkowski never drew a map for publishing—though a map was drawn by czech translator stanislav komárek (and husband of illustrator jana komárková, what a power couple!).

"That's where the biggest problem lies, stemming from the simple fact that I've never had the ambition to create worlds. Never! The world of the Witcher was always an allegory to me. I've never done what's supposed to be a Commandment of every fantasy writer, especially one that writes a longer story or a novel. He starts with the heavy duty of… cartography, meaning he has to draw a MAP. (...) I've never bothered with that and it was on purpose. It came from the fact that my world was supposed to be an allegory and from the fact that I was doing a different take on fairy tales! Themes and problems were more important, these two words, from which I usually built the title and that often appeared in the dialogue, was more important. — Andrzej Sapkowski about accusations of sexism, postmodernism, adaptations and why there is no map - part 2

and as we all know from francesca's wonderful demonstration via apples and a pomegranate, explanations of bloodlines only enter into the fray in the fifth book.

for all intents and purposes, the motto of the witcher's "lore" should be: "the story comes first!"

"And write so that it would be interesting to read. Questions? Answers? Who the fuck needs them! This is a novel, not an instruction to a DVD player. As a writer, as a prose writer, I do not read any sermons to anyone in the church, I do not push speeches in Hyde Park. I'm a storyteller. I tell stories to give readers pleasure, create heroes to arouse sympathy / dislike, situations, to amuse, to laugh, upset, frighten - and, of course, to make them move their brains, to think. But this is a story, it's a farce, not a conversion, not a vocation, not faith." — Interview with Sapkowski "The work of my life is yet to come."

back to getting published

"witcher" placed third in the contest, but its publication was soon followed by fan demand for more stories of the "witcher" variety and universe. it was shortly followed by "road with no return" in 1988, "a grain of truth" in 1989, and "the lesser evil” and "a question of price" in 1990 (and more in the first half of the decade, as well).

soon, sapkowski's name was featured on the very cover of fantastyka to excite readers:

note that there is not one, but THREE exclamation marks on the cover of this edition from september 1990, the one with "a question of price". [unlike the other pictures in this post, this is not my photo]

soon afterwards, sapkowski was able to secure publishing with supernowa—a distinct challenge, because nearly no publisher would "risk" publishing a polish author:

“Finally, in Poland, the moment for a fantasy was absolutely crucial: "SuperNova" published my "Sword of Destiny". This was a real event, because until then there was hardly anyone among the Polish publishers who would have risked doing something like this. Polish fantasy was published by some amateurs, losing money on every edition.” (...) in Western countries, (...) the average fan always chooses a book of the familiar Anglo-Saxon in the bookstore - the exotic name of the author will force him to refrain from buying. Unfortunately, publishers also know about this, therefore, picking up a book from "some Poland" or "some Moldavia" - even a good one - he will think ten times before publishing.” — Andrzej Sapkowski and Stanisław Bereś "History and fantasy" part 2

as that is a whole other loooong story... let's get back to the short story.

the story as it is today

this is all a very abridged version of the story, and i've cut out a lot of the historical context and cultural context surrounding the subject for brevity. i may have mentioned that this came about for me throughout the entire year of 2022 - and it really has been a product of the year. i actually received the copy of fantastyka in september, now four months ago, but for various reasons i decided to keep it between me and friends (if you're a part of the books discord server, you may have seen this already!)

the largest reason is that i want to pay as much respect to this as i possibly can. since september, i've been working on a video to feature the magazine and through its presence, explain the context and history surrounding the witcher as i have done in this post, just with... more history and context. i want to do my research and have more conversations before i record and publish a video like that. and not just some, but more. this isn't something i feel comfortable reading a wikipedia article about and saying, "cool, i think i know the whole story now." especially as an american fan—especially knowing and feeling how the witcher has been treated over these past couple of years. so, expect it, but maybe not soon. though there will likely be other things along the way on my youtube channel :)

my story

for me, this year marks 5 years since i got into the witcher. it was the fall of 2017 when i got interested, and the winter of 2017 when i got serious about it.

the witcher came to me at a really difficult time in my life. my parents separated in the march of 2018. it was not a peaceful separation. the last spring break i had in high school ended with a restraining order and the changing of the locks on our door.

so imagine the solace i felt being able to point to an actually healthy father-daughter relationship with a middle-aged father and a teenage girl. one such as this:

‘Where to now?’ asked Geralt, looking at the column of smoke, a smudged streak discolouring the sky glowing pink in the dawn. ‘Who do you still have to pay back, Ciri?’ She glanced at him and he immediately regretted his question. He suddenly desired to hug her, dreamed of embracing her, cuddling her, stroking her hair. Protecting her. Never allowing her to be alone again. To encounter evil. To encounter anything that would make her desire revenge. — Lady of the Lake, Ch. 11

or of an alcoholic, acknowledging and owning up to his past of violence:

‘Each time I became more savage,’ the vampire continued. ‘And as time went on I was getting worse. (...) Disappointment and grief, as you know, is a great alibi. I was looking for justification for my behavior, and it was the perfect excuse. Everyone seemed to understand. Even I thought I understood. And I matched the theory to practice.’ — Baptism of Fire, Ch. 7

and intentionally pursuing sobreity in the present:

‘I beg your forgiveness, gentlemen,’ the alchemist said. ‘I do not drink. My health is no longer what is was, so I had to give up… many pleasures.’ ‘Not even a sip?’ ‘It is a matter of principle.’ Regis said quietly. ‘I never violate the principles I set for myself.’ — Baptism of Fire, Ch. 3

‘I do not touch blood. Not at all and never.’ — Baptism of Fire, Ch. 7

later, when i had begun to recover my senses from shock, i felt rage. i felt a need for revenge, a sick hatred and vile indignation for what had happened. i thought there must be something wrong with me, to have such a reaction. but i then realized how natural, though dangerous, it was:

‘(...) I know what I have to do. I’m a witcher!’ ‘You're an unstable young person!’ he exploded. ‘You're a child who's been through traumatic experiences; a damaged child, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And more than that, you're sick with a craving for revenge! Blinded by a lust for retribution! Do you not understand that?’ ‘I understand it better then you!’ she yelled. ‘Because you have no idea what it means to be hurt! You have no idea of revenge, for no one has ever truly wronged you!’ — Tower of the Swallow, Ch. 10

but lastly, i learned that the tragedies of my past do not bind me to a tragic fate:

They rode straight into the setting sun. Leaving behind them the darkening valley. Behind them was the lake, the enchanted lake, the blue lake as smooth as a polished sapphire. They left behind them the boulders on the lakeside. Thepines on the hillsides. That was all behind them. And before them was everything. — Lady of the Lake, Ch. 12

to be clear, i'm not sharing my story for pity. like as triss says when recounting the battle of sodden, "And then I saw what they had done to me, and I started to howl, howl like a beaten dog, like a battered child—Leave me alone! Don’t worry, I’m not going to cry. I’m not a little girl from a tiny tower in Maribor anymore," (Blood of Elves, Ch. 3) ...

i'm sharing this story because i think it's relevant to understanding the witcher. the witcher is about a realistic view of fairytales and the fantasy genre, a view that is often dark and showcases all the sorrow and violence in the world, but a view that really centers the people of the world, their relationships, their motivations, and what makes them fight to keep living. it's about family, friendship, laughter at the end of the world... and one doesn't need to experience a personal trauma to understand these very human, very instrinsic experiences. one also does not need extensive research to be able to jump into the witcher.

fantastyka and me

even if i'm not prepared at the moment to publish an extensive historical research and analysis on this subject, i just wanted to make this post today to remind all witcher fans what the witcher really is, where it really came from, what it all really means.

reading through this copy of fantastyka, what really struck me is the community of it—there is an entire personals section for finding copies of fantasy books, there are opinion polls, critical essays, and an entire novel published in three installments across monthly editions. this must not have been just a magazine, but a lifeline for sci-fi and fantasy fans at that time. i see so many parallels between the sci-fi and fantasy fans of these pages and my experience as a witcher fan in the community. this is a piece of history, "the witcher" is a piece of history, and i am honored to not only know of it, but to have seen it, touched it, and proven to myself that yes, this is all real. "all is fucking real."

now, for my favorite picture of myself:

and as expressed by the editors of the december 1986 edition of fantastyka...

i wish you a fantastic christmas and new year... this time, new year 2023 ;)

[this post has also been posted on reddit]