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olderthannetfic · 2 years ago

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Book recommendation anon here

Yeah you've hit the nail on the head. But also made me question if I know what I want looool. As things stand, the books I read of whatever genre are overwhelmingly straight and it makes me a little sad. I'm not looking for tropey things and yeah, when I search for lbgt fiction that's not what I want either. I guess i just want to find the books that are about gay relationships in the way that gen books are about straight relationships. I don't even need it to be a b plot! The older I get the more it feels that anything I buy in a highstreet bookshop is set in an au in which lbgt people do not exist. Does that make sense?

I know I can go to lbgt booksellers but I don't know how to avoid books that are centred around being gay. I guess, I feel like the real world has moved past 'gay' being a sticking point and I live my day to day life crossing paths with lbgt people just living their lives and then everything I read that's not fic is just lacking that. I know that is largely because of how new it is for lbgt life to be like this. Published fiction is 99% straight. But I guess I wish there was somewhere I could go to speak to other readers who happen to be lbgt but are readers first and for them to go 'oh I really liked this character, he was just like me or my friend or my partner'. I guess I just want background gays? Or main characters who happen to be gay but that's not the story.

Your books look fun actually! I think I'll check them out.

I'm a complete genre whore which is part of the problem lol. I'm not looking for 'gay scifi' or 'gay romance' I just want some of the books I read to represent the world as I see it. I love mystery books, thrillers, adventure stories, I'll read any kind of fantasy (not a great fan of really long series cause I either lose time and read 7 books in a few weeks or I lose interest half way), I'll read historical works. Ones set in mundane real life, ones set in created worlds. I try and avoid stories that are too scary lol as I get really taken in by them, but I do end up reading quite a few of them anyway. I do love a romance tbh but it has to be done well and I've never been able to figure out exactly what I want from them. A lot of men in het romance books are frankly terrifying, and their love interests wouldn't know a red flag if it hit them in the face. I don't like anything that's too forgiving of its characters i guess? I want them to feel real and part of that is them having the humanity to make mistakes but if I feel like the author doesn't Know they've written a Bad Person tm I get weirded out lol. Nothing better than a misguided character that the author has fully intended to be misguided. I don't need them therapised. I do like an acknowledgement from the author that people aren't good or bad and I like the characters I read to show that. I love a sympathetic bad person. And... this is telling you nothing about what I like to read lol.

I guess the main thing is that I'll read anything as long as it grips me. 'Well written' is very subjective isn't it. I want to be caught up in it, I don't want to be thrown out of the story by dialogue I can't follow or an arc which even the author doesn't seem to be sure of. I don't actually mind overly flowery writing, I love learning new words lol. But really long sentences annoy me (very hypocritical I know. My formal writing is about as convoluted as this). I'm pretty forgiving of most things if I like what I'm reading tbh. I'm not a past tense purist and I'll put up with a inconsistent character if I can see they are supposed to be like that.

I read the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo recent-ish ly and I liked the f/f relationship in that. I've enjoyed Sarah waters books which are historical lesbian romance, so I'll def go for 'lbgt fiction' I just need other stuff going on. I need an actual story, not just a coffee shop au plunged in to a original story. Honestly if you go for space opera at all, you should read a matter of oaths, it was fab. I was guessing right till the end, did not expect it at all. The only thing I'd change about it is I'd love more tbh. A sequel would be fab. I love things with twists, so I'll read just about any kind of mystery. Anything where the narrative is untangling a story that already happened is fun. I enjoy gillian flynn, David Mitchell, honestly I'll pretty much read anything. I get a lot of my books second hand or from my libraries ebook service (this is pretty limited) so I read a lot of the award winners a few years late, where everyone bought it and now I can get it cheap. That said I've never had any interest in fifty shades or any popular ya books in the years since I've been a young adult lol. I mainly want to read about people around my age. 30s or so if it's more of a mundane life story. If the story takes you outside of every day life then I care less about ages. I've read some great stories with older protagonists.

Hmmmm I guess I don't know enough about what I'm looking for for ppl to recommend actual books which is fair enough as I'm massively picky and that doesn't work with ppl I know Irl either but like... where are you guys going for book reviews??? I'm gonna check out what ppl have mentioned in the notes of that post but yeah i think i need some go to places for reviews. Maybe that's where I should be starting.

It's definitely a problem. I'm not big on gay lit myself for similar reasons.

As far as I know, mystery has a longer history of including more queerness, though of course, the farther back you go, the more of it is tragedy.

where are you guys going for book reviews???

Frankly, nowhere.

All sources of queer book reviews I've found have been completely useless to me. Only lists of what exists have been useful, not lists that try to tell me what's "good".

I'll google "gay werewolf FBI" and then judge for myself what's garbage and what's at least up to the level of bad fic I'd read anyway. I've found plenty I've liked well enough to read. I haven't found so much I'd unequivocally rec, especially if someone is looking for high quality prose.

And horror of horrors, a lot of authors I once liked seem to have reacted to pandemic stress by taking all of the conflict out of their books.

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unforth · 3 years ago

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Hello unforth! Thank you for your wonderful blog, and the the untamed art blog!! I followed you years ago for destiel, and you were one of the people that got me into the untamed. I watched it last summer and have been binging various cdramas ever since!! I had a question for you about reading. After watching the untamed I read the novel, and didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I think you’re someone who prefers the show, but if not, sorry if I’m remembering wrong… hoping you understand. I want to try reading other novels but I found the romance in mdzs to be kinda off. I guess I’m wondering if you have a recommendation for the best novel you’ve read so far? It would be great if it’s one with fanfic but if not I’m still curious to try! I hope this didn’t come off as rude about the untamed, it’s just a personal preference. Thanks in advance, and thanks again for all your work in fandom!

Howdy! *waves*

You have not misremembered, I definitely prefer the Untamed to the novel of MDZS (and I'm with you, no shade on people with different preferences, of course!). I also didn't enjoy the novel of MDZS as much as I thought I would, though I think some of that was because I read the Exiled Rebels Scanalations translation which - again, no shade, translating that was a HUGE job and kudos to them - but I do here from native speakers that some questionable translation choices were made, which can detract from some people's enjoyment of the novel (and can enhance other people's, it just depends how those translation choices relate to each person's personal likes and dislikes).

Now, I can tell you what I've read and what I've thought of each one, happily - I don't know what turned you off about MDZS specifically, beyond an aspect of the relationship dynamic, so it'll be hard for me to say which of these might appeal to you more? But, here's a list of which danmei novels I've read, and my opinion. The list is shorter than you'd think - danmei novels are long and I read slow, lol.

Note that all of these end happy, for various definitions of "happy," and the main ship is canon in all of them. Also note that I tried to avoid spoilers, but sometimes it's hard to even talk about the ship dynamic without some mild spoilers.

These are (roughly) in the order I've read them; I just finished the last a few days ago. All art is by the official artists, but I'm not always sure what their names are, sorry - I've tried to figure them out for my art blogs but it's REALLY hard.

1. Mo Dao Zu Shi, by MXTX.

(since I'm writing this post for you, and you're already familiar with it, I'm not putting in TW and plot)

My take: I figure knowing my opinion of MDZS will help you assess all this? There are things I loved about MDZS, including the book, but MDZS is still obviously trying to figure out pacing. Whereas in SVSSS, the storyline doesn't always flow that smoothly and the ending is rushed, in MDZS in my opinion the biggest issue is that she clearly didn't plan some things ahead. For example, Miangmian and Wen Ning are both introduced within a few pages of when they'll be needed to Do Shit. It shows that she hadn't quite worked everything out as she was going, and every once in a while was like, "shit shit I need a character for this thing" and hastily added them. The plot itself is better paced, though, though I could have wished for a less talky denouement. When it was the only one I read, I also often thought, "this author doesn't understand consent," and, "this author has kinks I don't share." Now that I've read all three of her books, I completely retract the first one. MXTX absolutely understands consent, and was intentionally playing with it in MDZS. Not sure if the evidence of that got lost in translation, or what, but...yeah.

Relationship Dynamic: ...the second of those opinions, I still kinda feel. The consensual non-con is just not really my thing, like I'm okay with it in small doses? And I don't love some aspects of Lan Wangji's domineering attitudes and Wei Wuxian's act of bare tolerating it. And don't get me wrong, now that I'm more familiar with her work, I think it was an intentional writing choice and I also think they're both largely roleplaying it a lot of the time...but I still don't personally enjoy it much.

2. Scum Villain Self-Saving System, by MXTX.

Genre: modern transmigration into a fantasy xianxia world.

Where to find it: English translation by BC Novels | donghua season 1

Trigger warnings for: graphic descriptions of suffering, non-con of the "fuck or die" variety, and body horror...I can't think of anything else rn?)

Plot: SVSSS is MXTX's first novel, and is a satire of classic stag harem novels. Shen Yuan, the protagonist and half the main ship, is reading a serialized web novel by "Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky" about a demon named Luo Binghe who has a harem of over 3,000 women and has done all kinds of ghastly awful things. He hates this novel but has read all, like, 3 million words of it or something, and trolls every chapter...until one gets him so angry that he dies...and then he wakes up in the book right around when the book starts, in the body of one of the early antagonists, a cultivator named Shen Qingqiu who abuses a young, innocent Luo Binghe physically and emotionally and, ultimately, is horribly tortured to death. Shen Yuan, in Shen Qingqiu's body, thus sets out to not be horribly tortured to death by Luo Binghe. Hijinks ensue.

My Take: In terms of my opinion of it...SVSSS secured for me that MXTX is a much more brilliant author than I thought when I'd only read MDZS. She understands tropes and subverts them brilliantly throughout the story, and from a writing standpoint, I was impressed with her. However, from a plot standpoint...she's got all the ideas but hasn't, imo, yet figured out how exactly to bring them all together. The pacing is off at times, and the ending felt abrupt to me. It's also the only danmei I've read where I ship a side ship more than the primary one (which is, of course, Shen Yuan (as Shen Qingqiu)/Luo Binghe. (also, oops...I read SVSSS after TGCF and just put them in the wrong order, oh well, not gonna change it now.)

Relationship Dynamic: In terms of relationship weirdness...it's hard to sort in that regard, because, like, it's supposed to be weird? I think it's a really interest book but I'm not sure I'd recommend it in your situation. Bingqiu's main dynamic is...uh...tolerance and obsession? They're kinda hard to describe. Shen Yuan often seems like he's just kinda putting up with Luo Binghe, whereas Luo Binghe is...god. So hard to describe, lmao. He's a big clumsy ox in a museum full of porcelain dishes and he really, really loves his Shizun. (also note that Shen Qingqiu is Luo Binghe's teacher. They don't get together until after they're not master/student, but if that's not your thing, another reason to avoid.)

3. Tian Guan Ci Fu, by MXTX.

(art is by Starember)

Genre: historical China (loosely), xianxia (note that I'm still figuring out exactly how stuff gets classified so sorry if I get one wrong, but I think I kinda get it???)

Where to Access It: English Translation by the astonishing yummysuika | manhua (this is an official translation by Bilibili! It's a few chapters behind the actual release, but still...) | donghua season 1 is on Netflix | a live action adaptation is juuuuust getting started on script reading and filing

Trigger warnings for: MCD, temporary MCD, body horror, graphic violence, epic levels of mind fuckery, uh...genocide?...again, racism/colorism, probably other stuff, sorry, I can't take as long as I'd like to for this post so I'm not being as thorough as I oughta be.

Plot: TGCF is about Xie Lian, an 800 year old man, and it commences at the moment when, unexpectedly, he ascends to godhood...for the third time. Unfortunately, when he ascends, he accidentally does some damage in Heaven, and he has to repay that, so he gets sent back to earth to deal with a ghost who's been causing some problems. Hijinks ensue...and then fucktons of angst ensue...then more hijinks...then more angst...and basically it broke my heart like four times and I am grateful for it every day? The main ship is Xie Lian and a ghost named Hua Cheng, but it's hard to even talk about without some spoilers because of some identity shenanigans. (they're VERY mildly identity shenanigans, but still).

My Take: So, you asked what my favorite of the danmei novels I've read is? It's TGCF. TGCF is one of my favorite novels ever, and it has a growing fandom, a donghua that's on Netflix, and a live action that's just starting to film. TGCF is the culmination of the skills MXTX developed through her first two works, imo. She clearly plotted it out all from the start, and while Book 1 especially often seems kind of random - lots of elements are introduced and then kinda...apparently...forgotten? And never explained? But she actually DOES bring it ALL together and it's flat-out masterful. I'm a big fan, obviously.

Relationship Dynamic: it again depends on your preferences and what you didn't like about MDZS, and there's no way to talk about it without spoilers, so consider yourselves warned. Xie Lian ascended to godhood first at the age of 17, and right around then he also saved the life of a 10 year old boy...and that boy is Hua Cheng. Hua Cheng is a follower of Xie Lian's, in that Xie Lian is literally a god, and Hua Cheng is literally one of his followers. However, they're separated for almost 800 years, so the age difference is largely irrelevant, and while some people complain about Hua Cheng's behavior being stalkery and obsessive, I honestly think they're dead wrong. It's more like when you read a celebrity/fan AU, and it starts weird, and then they really genuinely fall in love. Like, the fan may have been in love the whole time, and how they felt about the celebrity before they really met might feel slightly ooky, but it's how they act AFTER they meet their idol that matters more, and...yeah, Hua Cheng is great, they're both great, antis fight me. Xie Lian is easily one of my favorite characters EVER, he is all my favorite tropes in one horribly, wonderfully fucked up martyristic idealistic sweet kind laid back package. I would kill for him, lmao. In terms of their relationship dynamic...they love and respect each other? There's really nothing that weird about it other than the aspects of the "fan" Hua Cheng that get revealed over time - and he's always terrified that when Xie Lian realizes what a fanboy he was, Xie Lian will be upset or disgusted, but of course Xie Lian never is. They adore each other. It's glorious. Highly recommend. :D There's also no explicit content in TGCF (unlike MXTX's other two books).

4. The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (aka 2ha) by Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat.

Genre: original world, xianxia, time travel, dimension hopping, it's so many things, 2ha is so hard to describe lmao

Where to Access it: English Translation by the amazing yummysuika (things are complicated, though, and it's not finished) | a manhua is in the works and should be out this year | a live action called "Hao Yixing" or "Immortality" is already filmed and could theoretically air literally any time cause it's completely ready, but when will it actually come? Who knows!

Trigger warnings: all of them. Literally. MCD, temporary MCD, murder, suicide, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, rape/non-con, abuse, manipulation, gas lighting, torture, graphic violence, body horror, literal graphic onscreen horrible blood murder of a small child (I had to skip that chapter), teacher/student relationship sort of but not exactly, probably other stuff, this book is dark as fuck, and a lot of these tags apply to behavior of one half of the main ship toward the other, but...it's complicated, and there are reasons things happen, and those reasons aren't "well they're just a bad person."

Plot: This is another one that's hard to describe because there's sooooo much mind fuckery going on, but I'll try. 2ha is about Mo Ran, who rises to be the Emperor of the World, Taxian Jun, but slaughtering all who oppose him...and who is so miserable that he commits suicide, only to wake up in his 16 year old body. This is pretty much perfect from Mo Ran's point of view, because he's gone back so far that the love of his life, his fellow disciple Shi Mei, is still alive. He has a chance to fix everything that went wrong, starting with preventing his awful evil Shizun, Chu Wanning, from letting Shi Mei die.

Spoilers: the main ship in this book is Mo Ran/Chu Wanning.

Hijinks do NOT ensue. There are no hijinks in 2ha. It is all pain all the time (but I swear it ends happy).

My Take: ...well, from a structural standpoint there are some pacing issues. The book is incredibly long (over 300 chapters, over 1 million words) and there are definitely some chunks that could just be excised and it'd still be fine. However, other than that, it's pretty amazing and absolutely masterful how it's plotted. As a reader you'll spend 100+ chapters thinking you know what's going on, and who the good guys are, and who the bad guys are, and how they relate to each other...and then Meatbun starts in on revealing what's ACTUALLY going on and she then spends 200 chapters repeatedly punching you in the face! Like, I went in knowing a LOT of spoilers, because the tags were so dark that I felt that for my mental health it was important I have a general idea what was going on, and I STILL ended up sobbing my eyes out (and I am NOT an easy crier and don't usually cry at books) over something I knew was coming.

Relationship Dynamic: That's about the only thing that the title accurately conveys about this book. "The Husky and His White Cat Shizun," sounds so soft and fluffy, right? That's how they get you, ha. But, Mo Ran is absolutely a big dumb husky who wants to do the right thing (well, sometimes he does) but just completely fails depressingly often. When he sees someone he likes come in the front door he WILL jump all over them and bark in their face as his way of trying to communicate affection. And Chu Wanning is equally absolutely a cat. He is emotionally constipated, poor at expressing himself, uptight, touch starved, desperate for affection, and so lonely my chest hurts when I think about him. And for how they relate to each other...well, picture that big dog greeting a loved one at the door...except that loved one is the most hide-bound proud white cat you can imagine.

That's their dynamic.

(However, also...there are multiple timelines at play, and Taxian Jun does some truly awful things to "his" Chu Wanning in the original timeline, and many of these things are graphically described, and while it's ultimately all explained, it still all HAPPENS, so if you're going to have trouble reading fucktons of abuse between the main ship, I would not recommend this book)

5. Thousand Autumns (Qianqiu) by Meng Xi Shi.

Genre: historical China (like, references actual people, as far as I can tell), xianxia

Where to Access it: ...reading Thousand Autumns is HARD, it's split over like four websites/translators. This Carrd can kinda help? I can get you the rest if you want | donghua season 1 | I heard there's a live action in the works? But I don't know more than that.

Trigger warnings: graphic violence, mentions/threats of sexual violence (but it's all stopped before things really go wrong), starvation, description of child death (from starvation), near-death, emotional/mental abuse, major semi-permanent character injury, god, minor character death, they're major characters depending on your pov, I can't actually think of others, after writing about 2ha it feels positively fluffy). Note that there's not really any explicit content, just implications of smut, and not til basically the very end and extras.

Plot: Yan Wushi, sect leader of a demonic sect, has just come out of an extended seclusion to improve his cultivation when he and one of his disciples come across a man who is wounded to the point of near death. This turns out to be Shen Qiao, the sect leader of Mount Xuandu. When Shen Qiao awakens from his wounds, he's lost his memory, AND he's blind, and Yan Wushi decides it would be great fun and an excellent use of his time to fuck with Shen Qiao by trying to turn him evil - because Yan Wushi is certain that ALL people are inherently evil, and shattering Shen Qiao's veneer of righteousness will just help prove that.

Spoilers: it's not a veneer.

Not spoilers: Not many hijinks ensue, but there are a few hijinks, and even when it's not hijinxed, it's still not that painful...usually.

My Take: despite that synopsis, a lot of the plot of Thousand Autumns is actually political, and I like political plots, so I liked that aspect of it. However, it has some serious pacing issues imo, and it's also hard to read in English atm because it's not fully translated; it's close, now, much closer than when I read it a few months ago, so it'll be easier to read soon. Or maybe I shouldn't say it's pacing problems, but rather, it's more of a sequence of multiple major plots, strung together, with the growing relationship between Yan Wushi and Shen Qiao playing out in the background. I think if I'd known there was no "one big plot" that would have actually helped me, because it kept feeling like, "Oh, THIS is the main thing," but it never was. Things would feel climactic...except then there'd be more. So it's probably better to actually think of it as more...episodic? And the episodes/stories build, and interrelate, and do have a culmination, but not all of them directly tie in, and not all the threads end up coming together/getting resolved.

Relationship Dynamic: early on, Yan Wushi is definitely abusive and manipulative, intentionally so, and I would argue that, imo, Shen Qiao falls for it. However, mid-way through, there's some big reveals, and after that when they're reunited Shen Qiao no longer takes any shit and Yan Wushi continues to act like he doesn't care even when he clearly does. They're not a typical ship in ANY WAY, and I'd say their relationship is more founded on mutual respect than on love. Indeed, in the author's notes at one point MXS actually says they doesn't see them as the kind of couple to ever exchange love declarations, and I thought that was really interesting and it really helped me to understand how they worked together because I'll own I struggled with at times. Yan Wushi is self-interested, often cruel, and ethically and morally dubious. Shen Qiao, on the other hand, could probably ascend to Daoist godhood, he's so pure. Yet...they DO work. I'd say "opposites attract" but that's ALSO not their main trope, not exactly. They're a VERY hard ship to explain, and I know some people who've read the whole book and still don't really...get them...and I've had to really think about them to wrap my head around them...but the more I've thought about them, the more I like them.

6. Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine by Man Man He Qi Duo.

Genre: historical fiction set in either actual China or make-believe China, I'm not sure if this is directly incorporated any real people

Where to Access It: English Translation by Perpetual Daydreams | manhua (untranslated, I'm not sure if there's anyone translating it into English) | I think there's a live action in the works? Not sure beyond that though.

Trigger Warnings: suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, drug addiction, drug abuse, chronic illness (different character than the drugs), manipulation, abusive, awful parents and parental figures (not all, but definitely some), some homophobia (but way less than there could have been), probably other stuff

Plot: After 7 years away, Zhong Wan returns to the capital of the Empire with the three children of his benefactor, the seven-years-dead Prince Ning. Prince Ning was executed for treason against the previous Emperor, and Zhong Wan has done all he can to protect and raise the three kids, but he's got a lot of worries about returning to the capital and what could happen to his charges if they get pulled into the politics surrounded the Emperor. But, even worse, he's got even more worries about being reunited with Yu She, nephew of the Emperor, with whom he has more than a little history...and about whom he has been lying for the past 7 years, claiming that he is Yu She's lover, in a bid to help use Yu She's reputation to protect Prince Ning's children.

Hijinks ensue.

And so does a political nightmare.

My Take: TYQHM was a hard book to get into because there are just so many characters and it's all about politics - this is NOT a xianxia or wuxia novel, and these characters are NOT cultivators. There's basically nothing supernatural in the whole book; instead, it's about Zhong Wan and Yu She figuring out their own histories, and accepting each other, while trying to survive in a political world that increasingly wants both of them dead. However, I adore political plots, and when all was said and done I really enjoyed it, and I'm trying tooth and nail to claw other people into the fandom with me, so far with basically no success. It only has like 15 works in English on AO3. And so not only does it not fit that requirement of yours...

Relationship Dynamic: ...I think you would also probably not like the relationship dynamic? Zhong Wan is a bit like Wei Wuxian-as-Mo Xuanyu, except more...genuinely? Like, it's his actual personality, not an act, in quite the same way. I don't mean the "flamboyantly gay" part...usually...he definitely has his moments...but he's just...like, he's been through so much that he'll basically say anything, and drag himself entirely through the mud, to distract people who might hurt the three kids (they're like 16, 13, 13, now I think? It was never THAT clear to me, tbh...certainly, all are at least 10...) and, later, Yu She. He has zero face, and doesn't mind having negative face when he feels the situation demands it...and Yu She, on the other hand, has MAJOR depression issues, is sure he deserves nothing, and mostly wants to destroy everyone around him and then kill himself, at least until Zhong Wan starts giving him a reason to live again. But, more than that...Zhong Wan is like the fucking epitome of a bratty subby bottom. He wants to get fucked SO bad. And Yu She is an incredibly reluctant dom, hilariously so at times, uncomfortably/manipulative so at others. When all was said and done, I was pretty fond of them both, but there were definitely moments that made me grimace, and given what you say of how you felt about MDZS, I think this one is less likely to be to your taste?

Bonus 7: Guardian by Priest. I never finished the novel version of Guardian because the translation had some issues that caused me not to enjoy it, so I won't get into it too much, but again, Guardian is a very different book than any of the others, because it's modern fantasy(ish, like, it's still deeply embedded in Daoist-related tropes but it's more "magic spells" and less "cultivation." Like, in terms of what it's like, it felt more like Japanese modern Onmyoji style stories, to me, than it felt like the ancient Chinese wuxia/xianxia cultivation stories.). I'm not gonna get into lots of details, because I read part of the book more than a year ago, and have seen the show (which is VERY different) like three times, so I can hardly even remember what they're like in the novel. There was definitely some weirdness, though? If you're potentially interested, I'd suggest starting with the drama instead. The plot for that is...

Plot: Zhao Yunlan heads a Special Investigation Unit in the human world tasked with maintaining a treaty between humans and the dixigren ("undergrounders") who are (in the show) aliens (in the book...it's the world of the dead). While doing this job, he keeps running into this professor, Shen Wei, who definitely knows more than he oughta.

Hijinks ensue.

And then it murders you with feels.

The live action streams from YouTube - here.

(Warning: uh, I don't want to give spoilers, but my "guaranteed happy ending" does NOT apply to the Guardian TV show...but it does apply to the book, as I understand it.)

Anyway, this was a terrible use of my time but it was definitely more fun than what I should be doing, and it's probably way more information than you wanted or needed, but since I wasn't sure what exactly you had in mind, I figured...might as well be thorough?

(Today's hyper-focus fail: this post, ha...)

#unforth rambles #i'm not gonna tag the fandoms because i give my own opinions #some of which aren't all THAT positive #i think it's best if I don't just dump that into the main tags

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maxwell-grant · 4 years ago

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I hope you don't mind me dropping asks on you every day? Anyways, a general question on modern-day attempts at using existing Pulp Heroes; do you think there is value in setting such tales in the modern day, rather than being period pieces? And if one does do so, do you think the best approach is to go full setting update, or to somehow translate the characters into the modern day, or to go the Legacy route?

I eagerly look forward to answering all kinds of questions, so don’t hesitate to send any my way!. Any feedback or excuse I get to go off on a subject is extremely appreciated.

Okay so on to your question:

...Man, that really seems like the billion dollar question when it comes to the pulp heroes, isn’t it? The one at least that every conversation regarding adapting these characters, giving them reboots or new stories, seems to inevitably get stuck on: Should these characters be left as is, or modernized? Is there any point to trying to modernize them when often, at least in the public view, the only thing that separates them from being diet superheroes is their time period? Can these characters even survive as anything other than historical footnotes if they don’t move past the trappings of time holding them back? I’ve been very firmly on both sides of the question at different points and I think every answer inevitably brings up solutions and problems of it’s own.

For the moment, I’m going to start by saying that it’s something of a case by case basis. For example, The Scarlet Pimpernel is a timeless archetype, but one who’s specific characterization and history is so tied up to it’s time period that it’s far better to just reimagine the Pimpernel into a different character set in a different time, than to try and remove the Blakeneys from their time period, likewise with characters who cross into historical fantasy like Conan or western characters, where they have such strongly defined settings and playgrounds that you’d be losing much by removing them from it.

But on the other hand, you have characters like The Phantom, or The Avenger, who very clearly could exist at just about any point in time and don’t have any specific complications holding them to the 30s (in fact The Phantom was arguably designed for this, being he kickstarted the whole legacy superhero concept). A lot of the times, people seem to think or insist that certain pulp characters cannot be separated from their time periods, even when they were well on their way to doing so before some unfortunate cancellation. The Shadow, for example. Gibson had no problems updating the character’s adventures to the 60s for the Belmont series, and if The Shadow had maintained the kind of continuous publication that Batman and Superman had, I have no doubt whatsoever that nobody would even peg him as a character that belongs to the 30s and the 30s only, even if a lot of important aspects of his character are tied up in 30s America and The Great War and whatnot.

To try and streamline this response into something more general, I’m going to state that, yes, I do think it’s a case by case basis where some characters don’t work as well outside their time periods, and others should have left them ages ago, but in general? I think most of the pulp heroes would stand to benefit much more from being set, not just in modern times, but outside of time. Or at least, outside of a specific time period being something that defines and entraps them. Pretty much none of these characters, outside of historical fantasy examples like Conan or characters whose genres are locked into specific past time periods like cowboys, were intended to be period pieces, and yet that’s what they became, because time has been extremely cruel to the pulp heroes in many ways.

To bring up superheroes briefly, while I maintain that I think the real secret to making pulp heroes work and achieve success again is to distance them from superheroes, or at least the popular blockbuster superheroes, as much as possible, the superheroes have been around running the show for a while now and experimenting a lot as an inescapable facet of pop culture that's worked out monstrously well so far,nso clearly there’s a lot to learn there. The superheroes by and large belong in shared universes held tight by copyright where the weight of accumulating timelines inevitably forces them to either undergo reboots every couple of years, or endure constant quiet retcons snipping away at continuity so the cohesive “Superhero Universes” can function. But there’s no such thing as some big “Pulp Hero Universe” existing anywhere near the same capacity, there’s works gesturing to the idea like the Wold Newton Universe and LOEG and Dynamite’s shared author works largely scrapped together from separate sources all drifting apart, and most of these characters have largely fallen through the cracks of copyright law and into outright non-existence, or are halfway there. Very few modern instances of "cinematic universes" outside of the MCU work, so what we do instead is go the opposite route, closer to DC's "throw anything at the wall to see what sticks" approach.

What I’m getting to is, I could flip through the pages of Jess Nevins’s Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes, pick about 3 or 5 random characters, put them in a story regardless of whatever time period they used to be a part of, and make something out of it, without anyone stopping to question “Hey, hold up, why is Joel Saber not on Victorian England? Why are Uirassu and Tom Shark in a loving relationship when they don’t even belong in the same decade? Why did you turn Allan Crystal into a talking sparrow? You are betraying the source material, these characters don’t work outside of it”. Because nobody has any idea who those guys are, they might as well be just original names I made up (I didn't, btw), and nobody has any reason to care, they will only care if they read good, engaging stories with strong characterizations that give them a reason to be invested. And if achieving that requires ditching adherence to the source material (which doesn’t even exist anymore for at least a third of these characters), I cannot see that as a bad thing.

He's nowhere near the ballpark of pulp heroes but I'm going to bring up King Arthur as an example because he’s been on my mind today.

All of these, and countless others, are King Arthur. I’m no expert in Arthuriana, but from what I’ve gathered, I’d make a pretty good guess that one of the main reasons why King Arthur has been able to endure so strongly, and have so many variations that we have an entire area of study dedicated just to untangling those messes we call Arthuriana, has less to do with his historical or mythological importance (you hardly see that many stories about Cú Chulainn), but because the lore and imagery and events surrounding King Arthur have so utterly transcended the source material that people still dispute what the source material even was, or if he was a real person, or if he was created by the Welsh and stolen by Brits, and etc, and because he's completely free for any writers and artists to mold and use to anything they see fit.

King Arthur is not so much a character as much as he’s a sandbox that literally anyone can play in and reshape as they see fit, with no shortage of existing events and characters and magical items that you can treat as either essential staples, or guidelines and suggestions at best. I have three separate ideas for King Arthur as a big shark man in a greaser outfit who yields an oversized hair comb with fishhooks attached as Excalibur, one where he’s a monstrous dragon who sleeps in the ruin of his former kingdom guarding the only remaining memory of Guinevere left, and one where he’s a disembodied consciousness inside a giant mechanical bear. I could pick any of these and make a story out of them, or insert these into a story, any time I want, and nobody could stop me.

Point is, I think a lot, even most, of the pulp heroes would benefit from having some kind of “no-holds-barred, just do anything you want out of whatever you find interesting about the original” approach, a lot more so than the superheroes already do, because if there’s a single group of characters nowadays that best embodies an “anything goes” approach, a group that is almost entirely in public domain nowadays save for it’s biggest icons and therefore is already available for people to take and spin any way they want, it’s the pulp heroes. These characters have been in stasis for so long, or all but faded into nothingbbut mere footnotes in encyclopedia or records in libraries not even available online, and sometimes not even that. Most of their fanbases have largely died off and they are nowhere near close to gaining new ones, and our changing media tastes call for contrasts as much as it calls for profit. No sensible person would invest in most of these properties as they stand now, which is precisely what ultimately gives them the freedom to be anything at the conceptual stage. The only thing that really, really holds them back is time, which, again, has really not been kind to them. So why adhere to it? Screw time and whatever power it’s long held over these characters, let’s get weird with it.

So if I have to choose between “full setting update, translating the characters to modern day, or the Legacy route”, all three of which are perfectly viable depending on the character, I think the best option, generally speaking, is full setting update, if only because the setting should never be the main priority in the first place. The setting, like everything else, is there to serve the story and the author’s needs and wants, and I’m of the opinion that the setting should always primarily exist in service of the characters, as my writing and my favorite writings are all character centered above all else.

I think putting the pulp heroes in radically different time periods and settings could even yield interesting results. Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal stars a caveman Conan/Tarzan type protagonist interacting with dinosaurs, Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta is a Shadow-esque character set loose in a dystopian future, Grendel is the Fantomas of 1980s New York, and so on. The precedent is there and I think it can be taken much further.

Really I think a lot of the problems and arguments that have arisen over the years in regards to adapting the pulp heroes often result of people overthinking things, lord knows I do enough of that all the time. I really think it’s just something that only seems impossible because it hasn’t really been done yet. Of course, in regards to The Shadow I obviously have a whole different text as to whether I’d want him to be adapted or not, but in general, my ultimate response to what you asked is just do whatever you think is gonna make the story better and the characters more interesting. A.K.A, do whatever you want.

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svtxsoju · 4 years ago

Text

02. morning glory fizz | dear miss soju

ღ Synopsis: College is hard. Love is even harder. Good thing the students of Mansae University can write in to Miss Soju, the campus’ very own romance advice columnist! The only problem is she’s never been in a relationship. Ever. There’s no telling what kind of chaos she may cause in the love lives of several of MU’s most eligible bachelors. Too bad no one knows who she really is! ღ Characters/Pairings: college AU! Seventeen & OC’s, Joshua x baking major!OC, and more TBA! ღ Genre: Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life ღ Warning(s): Mentions of alcohol, suggestions of sex, language ღ Word Count: 4.9k words ღ Binu’s Note: a week late but better late than never i guess 😌 i’ve been avoiding tumblr to finish writing this, but i just kept getting distracted by choi seungcheol. hit that mf like button if you relate. i’m so excited for the special album y’all the teasers and concepts are so sadkfklsj i love seventeen

anyway, i apologize not only for the late update, BUT ALSO bc this chapter is also a lot of exposition again 😔🥺 i promise i’m done setting it all up and that some real shit will go down in the next chapter!! hopefully people will still be able to enjoy this chapter huhuhu 😭💗 if you’re reading this, i love u and i hope u have a good weekend!!

《 ⊛ Author’s Note & Credits ⊛ Disclaimer ⊛ Masterlist ⊛ 》

《 Previous ⊛ Next 》

Having already completed the first half of her college career, Joohyun was well aware of the value of sleep. And yet, like most college students, she could never seem to manage a decent sleeping schedule. She had only slept 2 hours when her alarm went off at 5:30AM. She groggily rolled out of bed, mentally cursing her past self for thinking that this was a good idea when clearly, the best idea at the moment was to snuggle back up under her covers and sleep in until afternoon. Only one of her eyes seemed capable of staying open as she pulled on her clothes and got ready for the day. When she suddenly heard the front door close behind her roommate, she cursed out loud, throwing her laptop into her bag before she rushed out the door. She half-wobbled, half-hopped along the second-story walkway while she tried to get her shoes all the way on.

“Bok Bongseon! Wait for me!” Joohyun called out in an aggressive whisper.

“HOLY SHIT! You scared me, Joo!” her roommate, a shorter girl with full cheeks and pouty lips, screamed at full volume. She clutched at her racing heart and leaned against the wall while she caught her breath.

“Shut up, people are still sleeping!” Joohyun linked arms with Bongseon and dragged her down the steps leading to the street. It was still dark outside, but she could already hear the faint bustling of the mart located below their apartment. It was nice to know that they weren’t the only two people in Seoul insane enough to be awake at this hour.

“I thought you were the ghost of my grandma, you bitch! You know she visits me in my dreams to tell me how disappointed she that I’m a baker,” Bongseon said indignantly, though she still cuddled closer to Joohyun when they were hit by the morning chill. Once they reached the street, they both headed towards the train station without having to say a word. “What are you even doing up?”

“I am simply accompanying my favorite roommate to work to make sure that she gets there safely,” Joohyun crooned sweetly, and made kissy faces at the girl, who in turn pinched Joohyun’s lips between her calloused fingers. She tried to protest but could only let out pained whines until she was mercifully released. “Ow!”

“Sorry but I cannot fulfill your roommates to lovers, 12k slowburn fantasy,” Bongseon continued on nonchalantly as they climbed down the steps to the platform. “You had your chance, but I am a taken girl!”

“Oh, so you and Josh are together today?” Joohyun teased. Although it probably wasn’t the best idea, considering her lips were slightly throbbing from the girl’s attack. “I’ll just wait until tomorrow then.”

“Wow, bold words coming from Miss Fish Lips.” Bongseon raised an eyebrow and smiled tauntingly. “Understandable, considering that that was probably the most action your lips have gotten in your entire life. I could probably set it up on a blind date with my fist, if you’d like.”

Joohyun’s laughter echoed off the walls of the mostly empty station, startling the only other person waiting for the morning train (an old woman, who was still half-asleep prior to being rudely awakened by two very loud girls). Bongseon often made some colorful threats, morning or not, but Joohyun was one of the very few people who could be assured that her words were empty. “Don’t you know that it’s rude to stare, lady?” she barked at the old woman, who was openly glaring at them. Everyone else, on the other hand, was subject to Bongseon’s sharp temper.

This even included her boyfriend of approximately 4 years. ‘Approximately’ being the key word, because the two often took breaks-- a natural phenomenon when one partner was easily provoked and the other loved to do the provoking. Jihoon had told Joohyun that the two had met at the cafe in their freshman year, when Bongseon came in as a part-time baker and Joshua was merely a barista trainee. They started dating within a month and moved into an apartment together in two. That went just as well as anyone would expect. By the grace of whatever entity that was chaotic enough to keep their relationship intact, they made it 7 months before nearly breaking things off for good. As luck would have it though, a new hire and his roommate were in the same exact predicament as them. Kind of.

Joohyun shuddered to recall her freshman year when she and Jihoon somehow convinced themselves that it was a good idea to share an apartment. In principle it made sense; they had lived across the street from each other since they were in diapers. Two exhausting months into trying to irritate the other into breaking the lease first, they met Bongseon and Joshua when Jihoon started working at Smile Flower. It didn’t take long for Joohyun to suggest the switch— she would move in with Bongseon and Joshua with Woozi. Just like that, she saved both Bongseon and Joshua’s turbulent romance (temporarily) and her and Woozi’s fractured friendship (now thriving).

She and Bongseon have been roommates ever since, and Joohyun knew her life was a little easier for it.

“Joohyun, you better stop looking at me with those heart eyes before I really act up,” Bongseon warned. They had boarded the train, but hadn’t bothered to sit down since Mansae University station was only two stops away.

“But I just love you so much,” Joohyun pouted, affectionately resting her head on her friend’s shoulder. “What does Joshua have that I don’t?”

“A dick. And that’s about it.”

“Damn you, heterosexuality!”

Bongseon snorted out a laugh. “Seriously Joo, how are you awake right now? You’re only ever this lovey-dovey when you’re severely sleep deprived. I know you don’t have classes until 3PM today. You also don’t have your internship today,” Bongseon narrowed her eyes when Joohyun visibly tensed up at the mention of her current occupation. “Also, since when do you watch Youtube videos until 2am? And don’t think I didn’t notice that all of them were titled ‘Relationship Q&A’s’ and ‘I confessed to my crush and he said this!!!’. Got something to tell me, missy?”

It was so quiet on the train that Joohyun worried that Bongseon could hear all the wires in her brain short-circuit. With Bongseon’s cross-examination skills, it was a wonder why she pursued baking instead of joining her family’s firm. Come on, Joohyun, just tell a white lie. Easy, simple. Don’t need to overcomplicate things. “Oh, uh I— um— well, I j-just thought they were entertaining?” She was done for.

“Right. You thought random couples self-indulgently talking about their love lifes for 40 minutes with default iMovies effects were entertaining.”

“Y-yes?” Joohyun threw in her most convincing smile for good measure, but it did nothing to soften Bongseon’s hard gaze. “It’s my new guilty pleasure, haha!”

“Hm, interesting,” Bongseon was momentarily interrupted by the sound of the arrival bell. Joohyun eagerly pulled her friend towards the exit, hoping that the distance from the train could also get her further away from the topic. Unfortunately for her, Bongseon did not plan on dropping it so soon. “You sure you don’t want to tell me anything, Joo? About your internship?”

Joohyun began to sweat. Was she really that transparent? “Okay, don’t get mad--”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m super jazzed that you’re getting into relationships and everything, but really Joo? Youtube? You could just talk to me if you need help talking to your new crush at your job!”

“Oh.” Joohyun would have let out a sigh of relief if she wasn’t out of breath from climbing the mountain of stairs up to the sidewalk. “Right. Confessing. To my crush. That I definitely have.”

“It’s okay to admit you have one, Joo. I’m no stranger to workplace romance,” Bongseon said, her breathing completely even. A measly flight of stairs was nothing compared to eight hours of kneading dough. “Who’s the lucky bastard, Joo?”

“Well, I’m not sure I would call it a workplace romance, per se…” Joohyun laughed nervously. There was no way she could stick another clean landing if she kept talking.

“Shut up, I bet that guy is in love with you already. Who wouldn’t fall for the only editing intern at The Front?”

“Haha, I don’t know…” Probably no one, because the only editing intern at The Front doesn’t exist?

Joohyun could not be more relieved to see the small store front of Smile Flower Cafe. It was one amongst the many cafes located near campus, but Joohyun felt like nothing really matched its comforting home-like ambience. But that probably had less to do with the soft wooden floors and pastel ceramic mugs, and more owed to the three years Joohyun had spent hanging around there, usually bothering Jihoon and joking around with Josh.

The two boys already stood waiting at the cafe’s entrance, too bleary-eyed to notice Joohyun and Bongseon quickly approaching. “Hey, ugly!” Joohyun called out, snickering when both of them turned to look at her.

“What the hell, why are you awake?”

“Good morning to you too, Jihoon,” she answered, blowing him a kiss. “I’m actually here to see you, believe it or not. Don’t you feel special?”

“Oh? That’s interesting, because you told me that you came here for me,” Bongseon broke away from exchanging actual kisses with Joshua to look between Joohyun and Jihoon in a way that Joohyun did not like too much. “I guess it wasn’t a workplace romance after all.”

Joshua mirrored his girlfriend’s implicating expression as he unlocked the front door, simply because he knew it made his friends squirm. “Wow Joohyun, you woke up this early just to talk to Jihoon? You really couldn’t wait to see him, huh?”

“Uh, yes because I need his help—”

“Ah, his help, gotcha! Come on, Bongseon, I’ll go help you in the kitchen while these two help each other out here,” Joshua snickered. Before Joohyun or Jihoon could roast the couple in retaliation, they had already disappeared behind the counter.

After years of similar taunts, all Jihoon could do was shake his head. “Okay Joo, what is so important that you need my help at 6 in the morning?”

“I wrote my first response last night!” Joohyun whispered excitedly, taking out her laptop from her bag. “Well, a few hours ago. I wanted to show you before continuing on with the rest! Here, look.”

① Dear Miss Soju,

I just started my first year at MU and she’s an exchange student from New York. We met at a party and talked for two hours about comics, aliens, anything we could think of. It was perfect. She even asked me to walk her home. When the time came for me to make a move though, I kind of dropped the ball. Since we had just met that night, I didn’t want to come off too strong. Now I really regret it - I don’t even have her phone number. I feel like such an idiot! I can’t stop thinking about her, but I don’t even know if I’ll ever talk to her again. Did I make myself seem disinterested? Will we meet again? Will she even remember me?

Sincerely,

Big Cringy Idiot

She let Jihoon read the asker’s message first, then scrolled down to show her answer.

Dear Big Cringy Idiot,

You and your crush seem to have a lot in common. There is nothing wrong with being nervous around someone you like. In fact, it is fairly normal and is a good sign that you like this girl very much. She also seems open to any future possiblities, since she did ask you to take her home. You need not worry about coming off too strong in this situation, although I do admire your dedication to respecting women’s boundaries. I hope you are able to find this girl again so that you can truly tell her how you feel. Best of luck to you!

Sincerely,

Miss Soju

“Joo, that was…”

“Poetic, beautiful, life-changing?” Joohyun grinned, and nudged her best friend with each suggestion.

“Boring. It was boring.” Joohyun’s face fell, and Jihoon could only offer the girl an apologetic smile. “Dude, you’re gonna put people to sleep if you keep it up like this. I almost took out a pillow to take a nap on the floor.”

“But this is how I write my articles— Informative and concise! How else am I supposed to write it?”

“I mean, that’s great for reporting articles, but this is an advice column. It’s supposed to be fun, sarcastic maybe. Like your promo piece! That was good.”

“I wrote that as a joke, hoping they would fire me for it,” Joohyun admitted, eyes wide in panic as she looked at her best friend.

“Huh. Well, I think it would sound better than this Wikipedia article you got going on,” Jihoon shrugged. “Try to be fun!”

“I am fun!” Joohyun cried out defensively, her nostrils flaring with passion. When Jihoon responded with a doubtful look, she let out a dramatic gasp and snatched up her laptop, stomping over to her favorite corner in the cafe. “I can be fun! I’ll show you fun!”

“Atta girl,” Jihoon’s signature cackle filled the cafe, further fueling the girl’s aggressive typing.

Just another morning in the life of So Joohyun.

To the surprise of the cafe’s current occupants, a student already tapped at the glass entrance, clearly in desperate need of his morning americano. He had walked all the way from the freshman dorms after a restless night of tossing and turning. When his phone screen told him it was already 6:05AM, he decided to just give up on sleep altogether. So there he was, trying to start off his day right, at Smile Flower Cafe, only to be stopped at the door by the grumpy barista with the red hair. He always felt like the other one was way nicer, especially since he would go out of his way to sneak him free cookie samples and made pleasant small talk while ringing him up (what was his name? Jonathan?).

All the red-haired barista ever did was scowl at him when he asked for a student discount. Now, he scowled at him as he gestured at the sign that indicated that the cafe would not be open until 7AM. The fatigued freshman had half a mind to make some choice gestures of his own, but he refrained and just whipped out his phone instead. He gave the mean barista one last pout before turning around and walking towards the 24-hour convenience store on campus.

➠ [ to: vernonie 😌😎 ] Good morning king. Are you still on your shift ?

➠ [ from: vernonie 😌😎 ] gm seungkwan pls k*ll me

Seungkwan took that as a yes. It didn’t take long for him to arrive, the entrance bell ringing lightly when he stepped into the small store. At the register sat his roommate, who was clearly fighting to keep his eyes open. “Wol-cuh ‘n—” he tried to greet through a wide-mouthed yawn. “Excuse me, welcome in! Oh, hey Seungkwan.”

Seungkwan answered with a grunt and headed straight for the refrigerated coffee section, choosing the largest can.

“Uh dude, you good? You look like—”

“Like I haven’t slept all night? I am aware,” He immediately opened his coffee and took a long gulp of the beverage in hopes of feeling even a little better. When it did nothing after 30 seconds, he frowned at the concerned cashier. “Vernon, I will not be paying for this drink, because it is clearly defective. Coffee is supposed to fix everything.”

“Is this about your audition today?” Vernon asked, eyebrows furrowed. “Your monologue sounded really solid last night though. Your audition songs were great too. You totally got this in the bag!”

“It’s not just about the audition, sweet Vernon,” Seungkwan sighed. “It’s about who I’m going to see at the audition. I still don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.”

“Oh yeah, you are probably going to see them later.” For the past week, all Seungkwan could talk about was the theater tech sophomore that he had met at the theater department’s welcome party. They had sat beside Seungkwan and had helped him through all the fast-paced drinking games, and even took some of his shots when he kept losing. Surely, this was what love felt like.

That was what Seungkwan hoped anyway, because whatever it was made him feel all warm and tingly inside (or it could have just been the alcohol). Nevertheless, he had made big plans to confess to his crush as soon as possible. His dilemma for the past several days was merely a matter of how it would be done. “Not probably! I know for a fact that they will be there, because they told me that they couldn’t wait to see me,” Seungkwan let out a wail and slumped over the counter. “They’re the sweetest, most beautiful person to ever walk the earth and I just want to tell them that I would actually jump off a bridge for them. Why is that so difficult?”

Vernon nodded sympathetically as he always did. “I mean, if you’re not ready today, maybe you could wait?”

“Wait?! No offense babe, but last time I checked, waiting didn’t get you anywhere,” Seungkwan said, patting his roommate’s arm. Vernon cringed as he was forced to remember his own romantic blunder from the past week. “Clearly, we are both in major need of help. That Woozi guy’s show didn’t do anything for us! Also, we still haven’t heard from that Miss Soju character and it’s been what? Two days? If she’s such an expert, she would know that love is time sensitive!”

“Ugh, I know. I keep refreshing The Front’s website just to see if she’s posted it yet.” Vernon sighed forlornly, which was a common punctuation to his sentences lately. “It’s getting me really antsy. What if she doesn’t even choose to answer our emails this time?”

Seungkwan quickly covered the other freshman’s mouth. “Don’t say that! The universe manifests what we say will happen. We should ask for divine intervention instead.” He cleared his throat in preparation and threw his hands up to the sky. “O Eros, god of love, please shine your blessings down upon my and Vernonie’s love lives for we are but two humble, clueless freshmen in need of romantic guidance. Send down two of your swiftest, sharpest arrows, so that those that we desire may hear your soft whispers—”

Ding. The sound of the entrance bell rang once more, stopping Seungkwan’s prayer short, much to his irritation. “Is this a bad time?” the new customer, an ethereally handsome blonde, asked amusedly. He strode into the store and grabbed two spicy tuna triangle kimbab’s before approaching the counter.

“Jeonghan hyung!”

“Ah, Vernon!” Jeonghan smiled. “I didn’t know you worked here. You should come by my and Cheol’s apartment again soon, that was fun!”

“Hyung, this is my roommate that I told you about-- Seungkwan. And Seungkwan, this is Seungcheol hyung’s roommate,” Vernon said all while ringing up Jeonghan’s food. On the side, Seungkwan bowed sheepishly after unfreezing from his previous pose. “How’s your morning going? You wake up pretty early!”

Jeonghan laughed heartily, shaking his head. “Oh no, I just finished an all-night stream. I just came by to get a snack before heading to bed. Seems like you two have been having a fun morning, though. Do you two always start your day off by praying to the ancient Greek god of desire?”

Seungkwan flushed a deep pink. “Uh no, it was more like a cry of desperation. Vernon and I are having a pretty tough time confessing to our crushes, so I figured we should just try out anything that might help us. Nothing else seems to be working…”

“Wait, that’s so cute,” Jeonghan cooed.

“Would you be able to give us some advice, hyung?” Vernon asked. He didn’t know anything about the senior’s love life, but he did give off the vibe of someone who would know… a lot.

Jeonghan’s eyes twinkled dangerously, a lazy smirk on his lips. “I mean, I could go talk to your little crushes for you, if you’d like. I’m sure I could get some sort of response out of them.”

One look at Jeonghan had Vernon and Seungkwan shaking their heads vehemently.

“No, we’re good.”

“Yeah, no thanks.”

“Mm, good call.” Jeonghan took his food from the counter, and winked at the two boys. “I really wish I could help you both more, but I’m sure you’ll get what you’re waiting for soon! Today, if you want it enough.”

There was something in the way that the senior stated those words that made Seungkwan believe him without a question. It wasn’t a naive suggestion or an optimistic prediction; Jeonghan spoke like it was the truth plainly written on the walls. He finally felt a long-awaited wave exhaustion wash over his anxieties, softening them until they fizzled away alongside the ebbing foam. All that was left behind were grains of sand. Suddenly, Seungkwan yawned, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up in his twin bed at the dorms.

“Well, I should be heading off to bed! Looks like you should be too, Seungkwan,” Jeonghan said, suppressing his own yawn. The freshman nodded in agreement. He definitely needed to rest up— this was going to be a big day, after all.

“Say hi to Cheol hyung for me when you get home!” Vernon said.

Jeonghan hummed thoughtfully as he made his way back to the entrance of the store. “I will if he’s there! He didn’t come home last night.” He turned to leave the boys with one last sleepy smile, seeming to laugh at something only he knew.

“At least one of us is doing something right.”

“Jihoon, why can’t I get this right?”

“I’m sorry! This just sounds nothing like you,” Jihoon shrugged. It had been a rather busy morning, but things slowed down as it approached noon, giving him the chance to look at Joohyun’s fourth draft of responses. “I’ve never heard you say stuff like ‘rad’ or ‘hella’... Like are you aware that you sound like a skater from the late 90’s?”

“That’s because the reference I’ve been using is from 1997!” Joohyun huffed in frustration. She was already backspacing albeit with a little more force than necessary. “I wasn’t even born in ‘97!”

“Exactly, so stop trying to write like that. What if you tried to—”

“Eat my ass, Hong!” The sound of the kitchen door slamming open interrupted Jihoon’s (probably unhelpful) suggestion, and the two best friends watched as Bongseon stormed out of the cafe in a familiar rage. Luckily, there were no customers to witness it this time.

Instinctively, they looked to the kitchen door, where Joshua stood with a resigned smile on his full lips. “Oops,” he said, scratching at the back of his neck apologetically. “Guess it was too soon to joke about our last break. Sorry about that, Jihoon. I’ll try to call in the head baker early to finish up the rest of the pastries for today.”

He walked over to where they sat and plopped himself across from Joohyun. She offered Joshua a look of sympathy, but he responded by twisting his face up in a dumb expression, reassuring her that he was just fine. Still, she couldn’t help feeling worried for both of her friends. No matter how many times Bongseon and Joshua broke it off and no matter how much Joohyun joked about it, she knew that their strong feelings for each other meant that it hurt a little every time they got into a fight. At least, that’s what she gathered from the various nights she spent soothing Bongseon while the girl cried into a toilet bowl, soju bottle still in hand.

“It’s okay, Josh, you probably don’t have to worry too much. Knowing her, she’ll probably be back in 30 minutes to make up with you and then Jihoon will have to find someone to take over your shift,” Joohyun piped up. “But please take it back to your apartment this time, because I don’t make enough money to have every surface of my apartment sanitized again.”

Joshua let out an easy laugh, as though he were not a man in deep shit. “Thank you, Joo. You always know what to say to make me feel better,” he sighed. “I should probably go after her. I’ll be back soon, Jihoon!”

She waited for him to disappear out the door before turning to her best friend. “Wow, that’s gotta be a new record for them, right? I didn’t even know they got back together until this morning.” Joohyun was surprised to find that Jihoon had been silently staring at her for a good minute now. “...Why are you looking at me?”

“What you said to Joshua,” Jihoon simply replied.

“Oh, I was only joking about the sanitation thing. I just walked in on them once in the kitchen—“

“No I mean, how you said it. Maybe that’s how you should be writing your responses.” Jihoon grinned, watching as Joohyun gave him that look again, the one where she looks at him like he’s speaking from a third head. But he knew that this was going to be another Jihoon Genius moment, which seemed to be happening more frequently lately, much to his satisfaction. “Like you’re talking to one of your friends. I mean, it made Josh feel better, right?”

Joohyun’s eyebrows scrunched together and she mulled the idea over. Without another word to Jihoon, she began to slowly type on her laptop, gradually tapping faster and faster as she gained momentum. Her best friend giddily returned to his place behind the counter to tend to the customers that just walked in. He knew that once she got into a groove, there was no hope of stopping her.

An hour later, Joohyun finally pushed away her laptop and waited for Jihoon to finish wiping down a table before calling him over. For some reason, she was anxious to show him the final product and even when he already sat besie her, she hesitated for a beat. Usually, her writing was professional and objective, always ending with a declarative period. She had spent years perfecting her reporting style so that when she presented the facts, that’s all they were. This, however, felt personal, like it was a part of her. And even though Jihoon probably knew her even better than herself sometimes, there was something so vulnerable about showing someone a side of her that she had only just discovered.

And yet, she was curious to know— desperate to know: was it any good?

“Well?” Joohyun watched for Jihoon’s reaction closely, both impatient and terrified to hear his thoughts.

“Joohyun, this...” Jihoon started slowly. She braced for impact. “This is it. I think you’ve found Miss Soju’s voice.”

She exhaled. “R-really?”

“Yes, really. You answered the questions so thoughtfully, so you know it’s not just some generic bullshit you found on the internet. Plus, it was fun to read, like I think I’d read this even if I didn’t send a letter in,” Jihoon gushed, all while skimming over the words again. He turned to smile brightly at her, reminding Joohyun of a much younger Jihoon back in their elementary school days. “Most importantly though, it’s so you.”

Joohyun returned the smile, just as brightly. Warmth bloomed in her chest and across her cheeks. “Thanks, Jihoon, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Honestly, me neither,” Jihoon laughed.

“Um, can I ask you one more thing though?” Joohyun scrolled down to the last two entries, both of which asked for advice on how to make things official with a guy they’ve been talking to. The two letters were extremely similar in detail, but had been sent from two different emails and two different signatures. At first, she thought that maybe her judgement was muddled by her lack of sleep, and as the day went on, she figured her inability to recognize any nuance between the two letters was thanks her lack of experience.

There was just something about the way they had described the boy. She knew that intelligent, funny, kind-hearted, and unbelievably handsome were pretty generic adjectives. But what were the odds for both letters to also mention his infectious laugh and deep, dark eyes? “Do you think these two are from the same person? I’m trying to go for a confession theme for this article, so I included them both, but I’m afraid they’re too similar.”

Jihoon read them over a couple of times, then shrugged. “They do sound pretty similar, but a lot of people go through that sort of thing. Also, so many people describe their crushes like that, but let’s be real, most of them end up being fuckboys. So trust me, both those people probably need your help. I mean, what’s the harm in publishing both, right?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Joohyun bit her lip, needing every ounce of reassurance she could get from her best friend. She read over her writing once, twice, thrice more. This was it. No more edits and no more excuses. Her finger hovered over the mousepad. “Okay, I”m going to send it in for approval now. Jihoon, you are about to witness me publish my first article for The Front.”

Joohyun took a deep breath and clicked. Finally.

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janiedean · 4 years ago

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Hi! I'm the Plato anon for before. First of, thank you so much for your offer, but I think I managed on me own. Second, could you elaborate on the "analysing as YA" vs "analysing as an adult" approach? I assumed that "discourse people" on this website generally don't go beyond "antagonist is bad because they are against the hero!" out of ignorance/lack of interest except to score Internet Fame Points, not that it was due a specific mindest. I also don't really read YA (except Tiffany Aching)

TIFFANY ACHING!! T_T ANON LET ME HUG YOU it’s like the only YA I actually liked in my entire life apart from nick hornby’s one book but that wasn’t typical lmao

THAT SAID, well your discourse people point is pretty much part of it but since I’m here and I can rant have the entire thing I was too tired to hash yesterday ;) so, in order:

first thing, we need to establish that ya books and **adult** books generally have different target audiences which is fine and good because obviously if you want to write a thing you’ll do that for An Audience That You Have In Mind; this doesn’t mean that adults can’t read ya or that teenagers can’t read **adult books** because everyone can read what they want (and personally for one I never cared for ya in my entire life not even when I was the target audience), but it simply means that some books are meant to be liked by one category first and eventual others later and they need to be talked about in that specific context first and everything else later - then there might be books that are aimed for kids/young readers or sold like that or that can be read on more than one level which can be appreciated for different things later in time (for example I read huck finn at sixteen and I absolutely loved it but it was a book that here is seen as good reading material also for eight year olds, and at eight I wouldn’t have liked it for the reasons I did at sixteen, and if I read it now I would still like it, while a bunch of the books for kids I read when I was seven is stuff I enjoyed then but forgot now and probably was good for that age but didn’t stick with me);

second thing, that means that when I discuss a young adult book aimed at teenagers I will never hold it to the standards I would hold a book aimed at a general adult audience, especially if it’s the kind of ya like dunno as stated the vampire diaries aimed at teenage girls which is obviously the kind where you have the fantasy world with the hot dark guy who swoons the high schooler protagonist off her feet etc because that stuff is basic teenage girl fantasy 101 and like... I’ll expect a bunch of romance tropes, the usual push and pull, the guy eventually being into her, the protagonist being someone a fourteen year-old can see herself in, probably a few sexual elements thrown here and there and so on, because that’s the shit marketed at fourteen year-olds who want to read that and like... it’s really not that deep. I can’t ask the vampire diaries to be moby dick because it’s not meant to be. or, if I read percy j/ackson - which is another thing I have zero interest in but I know about because I see tweets from the author - I expect to have a bunch of teens coming into their own coming from different backgrounds because the author wants to represent properly a lot of categories so most of his readers can have someone they can see themselves in and like if a thirteen year-old who suspects being lgbt or whatever sees themselves in the gay kid from per/cy jackson guess what that’s what that book is for, so I won’t judge it on like... being a faithful representation of greek myths or how good the style is or whatever, because even if to me it’s not top notch writing or has a plot idc about it has to be for teenagers and pre-teens, not for me, a thirty year old who again didn’t even like pre-teen aimed literature when she was a pre-teen;

third, I can extra clarify it using the damned hp discourse, as in: when I say I’m tired of people not reading anything else or reading everything like hp, it means that they read it when they were growing up/were teens and it was aimed at them which is fine, but then twenty fucking years later when the people in question are way beyond their twenties (guys I’m almost 32 and I remember when the first one came out come on) when talking about any single piece of media in existence (movies, comics, other books) use hp characters/situations as the terms of paragon - like guys I had to read sn/ape comparisons with theon and ky/lo ren on the basis that THEY’RE GREY CHARACTERS as if sn/ape is the only grey character that ever existed, people keep on talking about vold/emort as the only bad guy that ever existed and so on, and like... you can’t talk about, idk, asoiaf or any book aimed at an adult audience like you’d talk about hp, because at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if I read comparisons between sn/ape and ivan karamazov and I think I don’t need to specify how completely nonsensical that would be;

now, with all of this explained, what I mean is: ya in general - which is not a fault per se of the genre since it’s aimed at teens and pre-teens - tends to have... very fixed narrative schemes depending on which teens it’s addressing - like, stuff like tvd or twilight is obviously the romance teenage girl fantasy where you have the girl fighting to be with the dark beautiful supernatural creature in question, per/cy jackson is more like I’ll give you a bunch of relatable characters having cool adventures against bad guys with the occasional redemption so we can see that people are redeemable but you still have right vs wrong, hp is sort of like that in the sense you get relatable-ish protagonist with relatable friends growing up throughout the entire thing and fighting on the good side vs the evil side including the usual death of the mentor plus people who seemed bad actually not being bad™ except that PJ has more povs and better rep from what I gather but that’s not the point so it’s basically the growing up journey for the young protagonist(s) the kid sees themselves in, then there’s stuff like hunger games where you actually have the dystopian worldbuilding just written to be enjoyable by younger people who don’t want to get too depressed (and ngl I haven’t read the books but I’ve seen the first two movies and guys the way everyone ignores the classist commentary in thg to discuss the love triangle is... a staple of the problem tbh) but still try to introduce deeper themes and have more nuanced characters and at the same time are still written to be enjoyed maybe by the more adult side of the target, and at the same time I can’t say that thg is the same as 1984 when it comes to target audience because 1984 doesn’t make the ugly dystopian themes more accessible using the love story/teenage protagonist etc;

at this point the problem is: if you only ever read ya and nothing else in your life (which is what a lot of people here do - guys again when I got here in 2011 if people didn’t discuss hp they discussed john gr/een, the only *adult*-aimed book I see discussed on tumblr is asoiaf... because of got X°DDD) then you end up seeing every other piece of literature expecting what you do out of a young adult and then you expect adult literature out of young adults/ya to approach certain implications the way an adult novel would, which is... frankly ridiculous;

specific examples: I see blogs which are principally about like ya fantasy books ie acotar or shadow/hunters or whatever shitting on grrm because AAAAH HE’S PROBLEMATIC/MISOGYNIST/HE HAS VIOLENCE AND RAPE IN THE BOOKS BLAH BLAH and like... spoilers: if I wrote a fantasy series aimed at fourteen year-olds who want their fantasy romance with the hot dark guy who is maybe a tiny bit problematic but turns their leaf for them I would hold back on blood and violence, if I wrote a fantasy for adults where I want to be realistic about misogyny I will not, and the fact that grrm gets judged on what happens and not how he writes it (and again, saying that a guy who has 1/3rd of his pov characters female except that it’s actually 50/50 because there are no throwaway povs except for mel while guys have a lot more of them and all the female povs have narrative weight [and mel has it before she gets one] and all of them have a different personality and he also has the same trope [brienne and arya] in two people with wildly different personalities and needs which is basically a goddamned miracle is a misogynist because there’s misogyny in his fantasy world is ridiculous imvho) which is.... exactly expecting of asoiaf what you’d expect out of acotar, when grrm and acotar’s writer write for wildly different audiences. now, if I had read acotar at 15 and asoiaf at 15 I’d have had no doubt re asoiaf being more my thing because again the subgenre acotar goes for is not my thing because I never related to that fantasy while brienne is my rep, but in general a 14yo girl who likes the acotar-like stuff will not care for grrm.... which is normal because grrm writes for adults of both genders, not teenage girls (I mean teenage boys also have their own subgenres for which the same rules are valid), and someone who likes percy jackson (aimed at both genders but like... pre-teens early teens) who doesn’t gaf for grrm won’t because it’s not aimed at them unless they like grrm for other reasons ie idk they realize that they relate to jon snow idk but you see my point, so like tldr that’s what I mean with if you only read ya you’ll expect adult writers to handle their themes like ya writers would and like... sorry but if I write stuff for adults I won’t feel the need to specify that the bad guy is B A D with neon lights because an adult should grasp that from the narrative, I don’t need to make sure it’s obvious bc it’s aimed at kids;

reverse: when I see people saying ‘the vampire diaries is problematic because it’s about people who are a hundred years old preying on teenage girls so we need to stop teenage girls from reading that kind of thing because it makes them think it’s okay to go with someone that much older than them’, we’re at the opposite problem in the sense that you’re asking a young adult novel what you would ask of AN ADULT NOVEL when there’s no point in it. like, a teenage girl knows perfectly that damon salvatore doesn’t exist and vampires don’t exist and werewolves don’t exist - the entire point of tvd is that she gets to fawn over the hot supernatural dude who changes for the better thanks to the female protagonist she most likely sees herself in and she gets to have a few nice fantasies about that which is like... normal for people who are developing their sexualities, most people wouldn’t actually want damon salvatore the way he’s exactly in canon irl because they know it’s a fantasy and so it should stay. like, sorry but as someone who watched the show because ian somerhalder is hot in her twenties and tried the first book and gave it up at page 30 because I couldn’t do it, I can 100% assure anyone that the biggest issues with tvd books are that the writing is really fucking bad (for my standards at least), with the tvd show that from S4 the writing spiraled downwards and no one wanted the magical vampire pregnancy witch twins ridiculousness, but none of the content actually was shit that anyone would take seriously like that and I wouldn’t expect tvd to approach that subject realistically. if I read a vampire book aimed at adults who actually wants to write such a relationship as creepy WELL YES OF COURSE I’D EXPECT IT TO BE OBVIOUS ABOUT IT BEING CREEPY, but if it’s aimed at freaking teenagers... it’s a fantasy and not really that deep, take it for what it is and let teenage girls enjoy thinking about smooching damon salvatore (or stefan or whoever) without assuming they need to be protected from Horrible Vampire Fiction™, same as no one goes bitching about unrealistic sex scenes in serialized romance books because people read them because they’re unrealistic and escapism, not because they expect nobel prize worthy exploration of themes from them;

now, ^^^^^^ would not happen if people actually read variedly and studied some decent lit analysis in school - but like, after I had to read I think at some point that of mice and men is ableist... THAT’S the damned point - with ya you can take a lot of the plot at face value, with adult lit you can’t and you have to see motivation beyond the action of the characters and you can’t do that if you only read books aimed at pre-teens/teenagers where obviously that’s... more spelled out than it would be in a book aimed at an adult audience;

that by the way also means wildly missing actual adult themes discussion in ya, because again, I haven’t read thg but from the two movies I’ve seen it’s fucking obvious that the whole thing is an anti us-classism commentary from how the districts are built to how the games are rigged to pretty much everything in the worldbuilding, but all the discourse I see on tumblr is about either the love triangle or katniss being miscast or president snow being a jerk and whatever else, but I never once saw anyone saying ‘heeeeey the people in katniss’ district are an in your face metaphor of poor people in the us of a belonging to certain categories while the first few districts are absolutely the 1% and the entire point of it is that she wants to tell you A CLASSIST SOCIETY IS BAD AND WILL LEAD TO REVOLUTIONS’, which to me was... like, glaring, it was literally what 90% of the entire thing was about and no one ever discusses it in a fandom-wide sense (I mean... I saw a bunch of hg posts back when the movies came out, I never saw this brought out), which... is a problem because it means that the moment people are put in front of a ya product that actually tackles that kind of issue.... they go and worry about the love triangle (which seemed to me the excuse to draw the people in the story) not about the social commentary, and like, maybe a twelve year-old won’t catch on the social commentary, a twenty-year old especially from the us should, and I don’t see that happening;

and sorry but that is because if you only engage with content aimed at a younger audience than your target first you assume that every piece of literature should be consumable/readable/enjoyable by a younger audience (and sorry but no, some of us don’t want to write stuff making sure teenagers like it) and then ask of actual ya media to cater to their *adult* needs and not to the needs of the target audience because wow obviously if you’re 25 you won’t want out of literature what you wanted at fourteen;

and this also is valid for children’s media because again, I’m cutting it short, but adults watching st/even universe and sending people death threats because they don’t agree with their opinion of a cartoon aimed at an audience that’s at moooostttt eight years old is a thing that shouldn’t even fucking exist, and if you think steven/universe is that important at an adult age you need to re-assess your priorities;

tldr: adults should not expect media aimed at kids/teens to cater to their interests and shouldn’t analyze it the way they’d analyze a piece of media aimed at an adult audience and should not presume that every piece of media should have the scope/schemes of medias aimed at kids/teens because some of us don’t want to read that.

now, I’ll leave you with a nice short anecdote which hopefully will further clarify what I mean and add to another point which would be, kids and teens don’t give a fuck about what you, an adult, do: when everyone was in a frenzy about my little pony back in 2013 or so I had to see a ton of posts like ‘AAAAAH MEN/BOYS WHO ARE INTO MLP ARE STEALING THE SHOW FROM YOUNG GIRLS HOW DARE THEY ENJOY IT WE NEED TO KICK THEM OUT’ with added people saying that a ten year old male kid who tried to kill himself bc his friends bullied him bc he liked mlp deserved it and the likes, my only thought was that... when I was 8-10 in elementary school and was actually the target for cartoons and stuff, sailor moon was the rage between all girls my age me included, we’d spend recess playing pretend (and I’d get stuck playing sailor mars bc no one wanted her, sad) and our hugest first world problem in existence was that we needed technically a mamoru and of course no self-respecting boy in elementary school would have admitted under death threats to watching sailor moon because it was a girls’ thing (aaaaah gender roles in the early-mid 90s, how fun) so everyone despaired because ofc no one wanted to play mamoru... and the few times any guy actually showed up like HEEEEY I WANNA DO IT BUT PLEASE DON’T TELL MY FRIENDS I LIKE SAILOR MOON we’d all be like OMG YOU’RE OUR NEW FAVORITE PERSON PLEASE YOUR SECRET IS SAFE because we couldn’t believe we found the magical boy™ who wanted to do it, and if anyone had told us that the kid in question was stealing sailor moon from us we’d have laughed in their face.

like.

kids don’t ask of media what you, an adult do, and it’s unfair of you, an adult, to ask children’s/ya media to cater to your damned interests, which are amply catered to by the tons of adult literature around which also forces you to push on your views and read more challenging things and to not read/watch stuff at face value, which is why I would really appreciate it if the amount of 20yo people on here who I consider adults engaged with more adult media and let themselves be challenged instead of just going back to ya/kids’ things, which are good for teens and kids and can be enjoyed by everyone but should not be the only goddamned genre you measure all other literature against because then you get people saying that lolita is pro-pedo when it’s exactly the goddamned contrary, but if you think that pov character = protagonist = good guy (which is... staple kids/ya stuff for obvious reasons) then you decide that humbert humbert is someone you’re supposed to root for. too bad that you’re not and the author was an actual csa victim so it’s a completely ridiculous reading that wouldn’t happen if you didn’t read lolita the way you read hp.

... okay, I’m done, sorry for how long this was, I hope it cleared things for good xD

#literature for ts #janie rants #idek #Anonymous #ask post #suicide attempt cw

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ren-c-leyn · 5 years ago

Text

QnA tag game

I was tagged by @hyba to play this. Thank you very much.

rules: post your answers, and tag some pals.

1. When did you first learn you enjoyed writing?

Honestly, I used to hate writing. It wasn’t fun, it was boring school essays and annoying prompts on exams. That being said, I had always enjoyed storytelling, and had been telling stories since before I could remember.

How I reconciled that gap between the written and the spoken was I went through a really shitty period of time in my life and I took up poetry to help vent. And it was so freeing and fun that I kept with it.

I had been doing that for a while when I decided to try writing some fantasy story that popped into my head, though I can’t quite recall why I bothered to try. It wasn’t a very good story, but I filled up like an entire notebook with it and started writing it on another, and I discovered ‘hey, writing can be fun... if it isn’t about something boring.’

And over the years, fantasy has over taken poetry. I still write poems from time to time, but not like I used to.

2. Tell us about the first project you ever wrote.

It was one that tried cramming way too much into one story, but there’s elements of it that I still use a lot of. I can’t remember the exact plot I had in mind for it, because it was all over the place, but I remember there being some sci-fi, a lot of fantasy weirdness, and a chosen one who was both angry and horrified that her world ended when she had the power to save it, because no one knew what she was or that their world was in danger. It never got finished, but I had fun with it while I was working on it.

3. How does your favorite media shape who you are as a writer?

In ways I don’t even realize it did, I’m sure. Particularly since I binge read without really analyzing the writing techniques of people. My writer brain turns off and reader brain takes over. Which many people say is bad, but it works for me. That being said, I can draw some obvious parallels between things I’ve read and my own works.

I know that Tolkien was a big influence for my ‘this string pulls on this person’s string, which does that, which leads to a poor hobbit having to lose his finger to throw a cursed ring into a volcano and save the world’ kinda plots. I also enjoyed his world building, but, and this is just my opinion, it slowed the Lord of the Rings triology down a lot and made it a little clunky to read. So it taught me both what I kinda wanted to see in my world building, but also how I didn’t want it to come out in the story. Plus, The Hobbit is the book for me. It is one of the first ones I got when I finally learned ‘oh, reading can be fun’ (because child me hated reading like she also hated writing boring essays), and it’s the one that got me stuck on fantasy.

Douglas Adams, there are many who will probably consider it a crime I have not read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and yet still list his name in this, but my favorite book of all time is probably The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, and it was the way the characters existed and the hidden easter eggs that I’m still finding like 7 read throughs later and the pacing and red herrings. I learned from and loved a lot about that book alone.

There was also J.A. Jance, the author of many of the murder mysteries my grandmother loaned me, and it was from her and other mystery authors that I finally, finally figured out how to set up suspense and tension. They were also really good studies in character motivations and how a character’s mindset can change the way they perceive the world and the things they notice and miss.

Video games is another thing I know has influenced me. I like story and lore rich games. Dungeons and Dragons is another thing I play a lot of and has followed me through my writings. The stories that get told can be every bit as awesome as a book, and the mechanics are also part of what helped me learn to structure my magic systems. Because if the wizards didn’t have rules, who would play a fighter who does? The same idea got translated into my writing very early on, ‘if I don’t give my wizards rules, why would warriors exist?’

And I can keep rambling, but I think I’ll leave it at this for now ^^

4. What’s something you’ve wanted to write, but aren’t sure you could? (A tv show, a genre, a style, a time period, a video game, etc)

I had an idea for a fantasy world inspired by various Asian myths, and even had a basic map drawn out in my head and some ideas for a magic system, but I’ve been too terrified to actually do anything with it, and it’s been so long since then that I don’t remember anything about it. Plus, I had no plot to use for it at the time.

I also wanted to write a mystery, but when I tried I found that while I has suspects and everything, I couldn’t think of the crime or how the heck anyone would just kinda figure it out from a bunch of random things normal people could just play off or not notice XD

5. What is the thing that keeps you from writing the most?

Procrastination is sometimes a problem, and I do occasionally need to kick myself in the shin. But there’s also life and plot snags and just days when a story isn’t working for me.

6. How do you deal with an inner editor?

That depends. Sometimes the inner editor saves me a lot of headaches later, and sometimes a tiny mistake can break the flow of writing. I normally don’t have an issue with fixing things on the spot, but on nights I need to focus on writing I just keep myself from reading back.

7. How long have you been writing?

I mean, they make kids write really young for school, so begrudgingly that long. Creatively and for fun? I’m not sure. I can’t quite recall how old I was when I started with the poetry. But considering the notebook I have the earliest pieces in is falling apart, I think it’s been a long time. lol

8. What is your general writing process? Do you write chronologically? Do you do a lot of planning?

I normally get this idea that shows up out of the blue as a daydream or a random thought. Then, there’s at least a month. If it’s still there, it gets considered. If it’s grown and expanded into something resembling either a world or a plot by then, it’s probably getting written.

After the idea finally bugs me enough, I’ll start world building and building a bare-bones plot, complete with bare-boned characters. I never flesh anything out completely, since I do most of that while I write and having strict outlines suffocates my story.

If the world building, characters, and whatever I have of a plot are interesting, I’ll start chronologically and keep moving from there.

9. Assign a scent to your writing style.

A scent for my style? Um... that’s kind of a weird question and I have no idea how I would even begin to think of an answer for that. Like, how do you translate comma usage and word choice into a smell? I mean, I use roses a lot in my stories, so maybe that would work?

10. One book you hope everyone reads?

I have to agree with hyba that I hope everyone just finds their version of the book. The one that gets them through a hard time, the one they really need, and that that book won’t be the same for everyone.

11. What is it about your least favorite genre that makes it your least favorite–and how might you change that to better appeal to you?

Oh that’s simple, it’s because horror does it’s job. That’s it. It’s nothing particularly about the style or anything besides that the genre is what it is.

12. Design a “collector’s edition” for your first novel. Include items that might be of interest to your audience.

Never thought about it, but I guess I could throw in the world map I drew for The Plight of a Sparrow into it.

13. If one thing was real from your project, what would you want it to be?

Nothing in particular? I can’t think of anything that would make sense to transfer from my projects to the real world, because I don’t want magic to be real, because my magic systems tend to be brutal, but also, we have stuff like or better than a lot of what doesn’t run off magic. Maybe some of the creatures would be cool, but I don’t know how that would affect ecosystems.... probably not for the better.

14. What’s something you always include in your work? Do you have any other Easter eggs?

As far as easter eggs, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. If I do, it probably wasn’t intentional.

15. What is your favorite passage from your own work?

I still am not really comfortable with sharing things out of my WIPs on here. As far as things I’ve written for the blog itself go, there are quite a few pieces and passages that turned out really good. I think one of my favorites is from a really old piece I did back before I was doing fusion stories. It’s from this one specifically, if anyone would like to read the full tale, it is a grim one, though.

The very edge of the forest was about as welcoming as a gallows. Crows watched us hungrily, like we were dead men about to sway. None of them made so much as a peep as their dead eyes followed our trek through the knotted mess of brambles, ivy, knotted shrubs, and gnarled trees. We hacked at the plants, and they hacked right back at us. We traded blows like it was a war. hatchet and sword blows countered with sharp thorns and parried with thick branches.

I’m going to leave this an open tag, jump in if you’d like to. =D

#tag game

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mia-cooper · 5 years ago

Text

Fanfiction Questions

from here

Fandom Questions

1. What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Involved as in ‘frantically read every book I could get my hands on, daydreamed about being part of that universe and wrote stories/made art inspired by the books, if not actual fanfiction’? Mm, probably The Chronicles of Narnia when I was six or seven. The next great obsession was The Silver Brumby when I went through my horse stage around age 12, and then Sweet Valley High when I was 15. Hahaha.

2. What is your latest fandom?

Marvel! I’m not into comics and I’m definitely not interested in consuming every last bit of canon material or memorising the variations of every universe, but I love (most of) the movies and Agents of SHIELD is pretty cool.

3. What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

Star Trek Voyager. No contest. I venture to suggest that the older fandoms, the ones that are all about defunct shows, are a hell of a lot more chilled. Maybe because we’ve come to terms with our shitty canon endings and learned that liking the ship you hate doesn’t make someone problematic, unlike some newer fandoms I could name (Yes I’m talking about you, Game of Thrones fans. What the fuck.)

4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms?

I’ve dipped a toe into one or two fandoms for shows or books I’ve really enjoyed and backed the fuck out when the vibe gets weird (oh hey, it’s GoT again), but nope. No regrets.

5. Which fandoms have you written fanfiction for?

All the Star Treks except TOS, and a Trek/MCU crossover. I’d like to write more for MCU someday. Plus I’ve written longhand entire notebooks full of teen romance shit that bore an uncanny similarity to SVH, and my first short story was a fantasy fic that featured a girl whose guardian was a wise talking lion who led her into mystical secret worlds, which is kind of familiar.

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Wow. I’m going to define ‘involved in’ as ‘cared enough about to have an OTP’, but I’m guaranteed to forget a ton. In no particular order:

Voyager: Janeway x anyone who can get her off

Discovery: Lorca x Cornwell or Pike x Tyler x Burnham (or any combination of)

DS9: Kira x Jadzia Dax

TNG: Picard x Vash, I guess? I don’t really have any TNG ships

ENT: T’Pol x Trip x Hoshi (or any variation therein)

MCU: Cap x Widow

AoS: Coulson x Skye... no May... no Skye... I don’t know

CAOS: Madam Satan x Zelda

Timeless: Garcy

The Good Place: Eleanor x Tahani

The 100 (shut up): toss up between Clarke x Bellamy and Kane x Abby

Veronica Mars: Veronica x Leo (first run), Veronica x Logan (s4)

Orphan Black: Cosima x Delphine

BSG: Apollo x Starbuck

SG1: Sam x Jack

Arrow: Olicity (so over the show now though)

This Life: Milly x Egg

Yeah you know what... I’m drawing a blank. I can’t think of any other shows where I’ve been invested in The Romance that much.

7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

I’m too tired to do every fandom, and besides, I can come around to almost any ship if the headcanons (or fics) are convincing enough. I do have a few hard no-gos, but they might be someone else’s OTP so I’ll shut up about them.

8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom?

Reluctantly. The MCU movies are not something I ever thought I’d enjoy beyond a dull evening’s entertainment. I never expected to get attached to the characters. And yet.

9. What are the best things about your current fandom?

Voyager is my forever fandom and the only one where I’ve really interacted with other fans. The best things about it? In general, everyone is just cool, accepting, open and basically awesome. And talented. I love my Party Bus people.

10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don’t write in?

Sure. The 100, Veronica Mars and Agents of SHIELD are the ones I’d dip into more frequently. I really enjoy crossovers between Trek and BSG or the Stargate variants, too.

Ship Questions for your Current Fandom

11. Who is your current OTP?

Janeway x Chakotay.

12. Who is your current OT3?

Janeway x Chakotay x Paris.

13. Any NoTPs?

A few.

14. Go on, who are your BroTPs?

Janeway & Tuvok! Also Torres & Chakotay, and I’d have killed for more Janeway & Torres in canon. (If they kissed sometimes that would be okay too)

15. Is there an obscure ship which you love?

Yeah. Paris x Seven. There are like two fics in existence, and yet ... the potential! (Sorry, B’Elanna)

16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Nope.

17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Janeway x Paris. And they’re still way up there, but not quite at the top.

18. What ship have you written the most about?

84% of my fics feature Janeway x Chakotay as either the primary or secondary pairing... holy shit.

19. Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Paris x Torres. I mean, I feel them. I just don’t generally feel the need to write about them.

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Chakotay x Seven. In another universe, it could’ve been beautiful.

Author Questions

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

Actual story that was clearly fanfic? A farcical drunken romp told in the 24th century equivalent of email format called PADDemonium (see what I did there?)

22. Is there anything you regret writing?

Lol, a few things that should probably have never seen the light of day for various reasons, some of them leola related. But I’ve only deleted two fics that I can recall.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Relieved. It’s a 30k AU Chakotay moral dilemma backstory that brings in DS9 characters, Section 31 and his longstanding history with AU Janeway. I did so much research for it (way back in the days before memory alpha and chakoteya.net) and I’m really proud of how I wound in canon stuff across series but changed a few key bits and pieces. Only problem is, it’s a sequel to ...

24. What fic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

... Pressure, which I can’t even read without cringing. My characterisation of Janeway, even Angry Maquis AU Janeway, is way over the top and there are moments that verge on Mills and Boon and give me first, second and third hand embarrassment. God, I’d love to rewrite it. Actually, that’s a lie. I want someone else to rewrite it so I can read it without covering my eyes and moaning.

25. What’s your most popular fanfic?

Desperate Measures, by about 70,000 light years, lol. Although Fragile Things beats it on bookmarks.

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

You know what? A fair percentage of the time, I think of the title first and come up with a plot second. Aside from that, I prefer shorter, punchier titles that clearly tie into the story (Flight Risk, Speechless), though sometimes it’s song lyrics (Burn Our Horizons, your body like a searchlight) or a literary quote (Required to Bear, All the Devils are Here) or a turn of phrase from the story itself (The Prisons You Inhabit). Hey that was fun. Thanks for letting me pimp the shit out of my stories.

27. What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

Ugh, it depends on the day. Summaries are harder, I think. I never want to give away too much of the plot, but there has to be enough there for people to know whether they’ll bother clicking. Funny story: I actually ran the stats on this a few months back. Here they are for your edification:

Fics with a one line plot summary = 54%

With two or three line plot summary = 18%

With a short snippet directly from the fic = 16%

With a snippet + a one line explanation = 3%

With a one line plot summary plus a line to date the fic (eg "set in season 3", “episode tag to Worst Case Scenario") or the fic prompt = 7%

And finally, a quote from something other than the fic = 2% (that's only 3 fics).

28. If someone were to draw a piece of fanart for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of?

Ooh. I’ll say the final scene in Explosive.

29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not?

I used to regularly ask @jhelenoftrek and @littleobsessions90 to beta for me, and both of them are brilliant at it. Lately I’ve been posting without sending my stuff off for editing. This is partly because I’m impatient to get stuff out there, partly because I don’t have as much time to write/edit, and partly because I’m a little less focused on improving my writing and more on enjoying it for its own sake.

30. What inspires you to write?

Little bits of episode dialogue I haven’t noticed before, other people’s fanfiction, stray conversations, fic prompts, song lyrics, random headcanons, fever dreams, dares ...

31. What’s the nicest thing someone has ever said about your writing?

I’ve been really lucky with comments on my fic. The least helpful comment I’ve ever received was on one of my early 30k fics and all it said was “Did you have to take the name of the lord in vain?” Which is kind of funny. The nicest thing anyone’s ever said? I’m very partial to the feedback that starts “I don’t even like this pairing/genre/trope/show but you made me love it”, and particularly “I’ll read anything you write, I don’t care what it’s about.” But all comments are gold. The little heart button is cool too.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

I’m not someone who can tune out music I love, or leave it in the background to inspire me. If it’s on, I’m fully invested in it. I’m that annoying person in the car who flips radio stations every three seconds until I find something I like and then it’s on 11 and I’m singing along to it. I’m also really picky but extremely eclectic, although there are genres I can’t stand (anything with autotune makes me stabby). That said, sometimes I find a song that I can’t stop listening to for weeks and often that perfect combination of music and lyrics will inspire me to write a fic. For example, I just plotted out an entire J/C story because of this song.

33. Do you write oneshots, multi-chapter fics or huuuuuge epics?

All of the above. Although I’m not sure if my longest epic is huuuuuge or just huuuge.

34. What’s the word count on your longest fic?

101,467.

35. Do you write drabbles? If so, what do you normally write them about?

I have two drabble collections. One is all J/C, full of responses to random prompts and I add to it sporadically. The other is episode additions set on Kathryn Janeway’s birthday (May 20) and added to annually.

36. What’s your favourite genre to write?

Angst, definitely. Sometimes it’s smutty angst or fluffy angst or hurt/comfort angst, but often it’s just fucking unrelenting angst. And I’m okay with that.

37. First person or third person - what do you write in and why?

I did the stats on this once, too, haha. Pretty sure I came out fairly even on first and third person with a smattering of second person in there. I’m probably even-ish on present vs past tense, too. I make it a point to mix it up to avoid my writing getting stale or same-y. And sometimes a fic doesn’t really click for me until I try it in a different POV or tense or from a different character’s perspective.

38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs?

I mostly write for canon characters - the fun is in all the different ways you can interpret and imagine them - but I’ve been known to throw in the odd OC, or focus on a character who only got a brief cameo appearance, or write about someone who only appears in beta canon, or who only rates a mention on screen.

39. What is your greatest strength as a writer?

Oh, wow. I’m not sure. I guess the thing I value most about my own writing is my willingness to try different styles, characters, pairings and so on. The thing I strive for most is characterisation that feels true, and I really love it when I get comments on that. Exploring a character in a way that rings true with a reader is the best thing ever.

40. What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Overly long sentences and adverb abuse, haha. No, truthfully, there comes a point in most of my fics, particularly the longer ones, when I really just want to scrap it because in my heart I know it’s dreadful. Usually that passes once I slog through the ‘I don’t wanna’ stage because I’m a bloody-minded bitch, but sometimes fics do get left in the dust half-written. Honestly, though, they’re the ones that probably should stay there.

Fanfiction Questions

41. List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

This is hilarious because I was just talking on discord about my problematic ‘to read’ pile. My unread AO3 subscription emails currently number 29 and my phone browser has 71 tabs open. So here are 5 random picks from that list of exactly 100 fics I should be reading:

Sex on the Beach (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by @traccigaryn

The Ruby Ring (T, Janeway/Chakotay, Janeway/Tighe) by @trinfinity2001

Earth is But an Idea (T, Janeway/Chakotay, Carter/O’Neill) by @caladeniablue

Home (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by Cassatt

Wise Up (E, Janeway/Chakotay) by KimJ

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

Only five? Shit. Okay. In no particular order, these are five of the writers I keep coming back to:

quantumsilver (also here)

northernexposure

LittleObsessions

Helen8462

Cheshire

But there are so many others. My chosen fandom is chock full of amazing talent.

43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you?

All of the authors above for various reasons, but also august because her writing is so spare and delicate and devastating, and runawaymetaphor because she writes the most delicious Janeway/Paris, and @seperis because I read In the Space of Seven Days literally 20 years ago and I still haven’t recovered, and I could be here all night raving on this topic but there are still many questions to get through.

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention?

Janeway x Paris. I’m so happy there’s been a little bit of a resurgence in J/P fics lately. Thanks, @curator-on-ao3, you’re doing the lord’s work.

I’ll also take Janeway x Johnson content any day of the week.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

What the hell? I can’t pick just one! Ugh!

... but okay, here’s the first one that came to mind when I tried to think about this: if you came this way by tree. I’m not sure I’d call it my favourite, but it’s one I revisit often. Ugh, there are so many other fics I’m thinking of now that I really want to list.

46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

Oh, that’s hard. I should probably pick an angsty smutty J/C because that’s a fair proportion of what I write and it’s good to let a new reader know what they can expect. But honestly, I think the best fic I’ve written is The Uncharted Sea. (It’s safe for work. Maybe not for makeup.)

47. Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction.net or Tumblr - where do you prefer to post and why?

The Archive, of course. Where else can I find ad-free hosting on a stunningly user-friendly interface with absolutely no moralising content restrictions and the world’s best tagging system? That Hugo award is well deserved.

Tumblr is good for headcanons and meta and gifsets and a few other formats that I’m less likely to post on AO3 because I’d feel like I was pissing off people who subscribe to me by giving them some random garbage.

I also have my own website, but I’m not really sure why. Sometimes I post fic there that doesn’t make it to tumblr or AO3.

48. Do you leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/Why not?

I try to. Honestly I do. I love it when I get reviews, so I figure paying it forward is the least I can do. I’m less scrupulous about leaving comments when I’m busy or reading on my phone.

49. Do you care if people comment/reblog your writing? Why/why not?

I mean, I love it when people reblog, but I certainly don’t expect it. @arcadia1995 is amazing for reblogging stuff *blows kisses*

Nobody owes fanfic writers shit, but I feel like there’s a tacit agreement that if you like what you just read for free and you’re on a platform that makes it easy to do so, you leave a review or at least a kudos, because I’m not gonna lie, posting a fic you’ve worked super hard on and seeing it get very few kudos or comments is a bit deflating. I’m sure a lot of us have been there.

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

During Voyager’s original run I was trawling the internet for Endgame spoilers (I don’t know why; I usually love surprises) and I guess I googled (or whatever the 2001 equivalent of googling was) something like “how does voyager get home” and somehow I stumbled across Revisionist History. At first I had no idea what I was reading - was this a lost story pitch that somehow got leaked? A professional novella commissioned by the showrunners?

Then I started following links and discovered yahoo groups and webrings and Trekiverse and fanfiction.net and all sorts of incredible things I’d never guessed at, including the now defunct ‘archipelago of angst’, a collection of Voyager writers who focused mainly on a darker Janeway than most of the other fic writers I was encountering, and I was hooked. So I wrote a few of my own pieces, and then I lost interest for 15 years. I’m still not sure how I got dragged back in.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Honestly, in what other way can I indulge my obsessions, hone my skills and talk about it endlessly with like-minded people? Where else can I instantly find a plethora of fiction about the exact topic I feel like reading about on my mobile device and for free? Fanfiction is fucking amazing and I’m so glad it exists in my life.

#miamemes #fanfiction #fanfic asks

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comicteaparty · 5 years ago

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March 25th-March 31st, 2020 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from March 25th, 2020 to March 31st, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

How many pages/how long is the ideal webcomic for you? When do you feel something has gone on too long?

Feather J. Fern

I know I usually think anything that is over 500 chapters a bit too long for a manga series, but I do have a bunch of long running favourites. But they are comedy and gag series. I do like an ending to my stories, sometimes if it keeps oging and going, I know more is good but sometimes more is too much. I know a webtoon I really liked ended around 300 episodes, and it was long running.

I think as long as I can see the end of something I don't think it's too long. Also no chapters that don't contribue to the plot. Sometimes a lot of the time, people pad out a fun chapter for webcomics but it is just too long and starts to get boring. 4 to 5 pages of fun times it a good refresher, but when it's like 20 pages of just them chilling at a pool with NO CHARACTER DELEVOPMENT (Like this is key, if there is a plotline about teaching a character to swim, that makes sense, if there is no delevopment that's a problem)

carcarchu

you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. a webcomic can keep going as long as the content continues to be meaningful and productive but once an author starts needlessly dragging stuff out just for the sake of continuing last past the point where they actually had anything meaningful to say with it that's when it's gone on too long. i'm all for fun bonus content like "what happened after the main story ended!" but there's limits to how far that can go. once the "bonus content" goes on near as long or longer than the actual meat of the story it starts to get painful to read. i'd much rather see a series end with dignity than see a long long drawn out conclusion that no one actually wants to slog through. on the flipside a series is too short when there's not enough time to develop an attachment for the characters or you DO develop an attachment and then poof story's over

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

Yesss, very apt quote there.

There are some ongoing comics with multi-thousand-strip archives that I'm caught up with, and when something has kept me interested for that long, it feels like the creators have hit a perfect groove and could keep it up forever. Skin Horse has lapped 4k, Schlock Mercenary is over 7k, and Kevin & Kell leads the pack at a bewildering 8k... But part of why it works is that they're very episodic, ensemble-cast series. They can introduce new problems at any time, resolve those while introducing more, jump to a whole different group of characters for a month in a row without missing a beat. The ideal length for a comic that's "one central story, tightly-focused on the arc(s) of a small core group of protagonists, all building to a single main climax" is way shorter, it would feel badly-paced and exhausting if it dragged on that long.

Nutty (Court of Roses)

As someone who expects their comic to reach fairly far in length, I don't think I'm comfortable judging any comic for any length it has ahahah. If it continues to hold my attention, length doesn't matter to me at all.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I agree that as long as the pacing is good and the overall direction is clear, the specific length isn’t too important to me

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I’ve followed really long webcomic series like The Pirate Balthazar, and it really depends how flexible you are with genre. Because I noticed that in a few cases, if it goes on long enough, the webcomic may shift in tone. I like PB because I don’t mind its shift from action comedy to slice of life comedy, but many people might not share the same sentiments. I usually think a webcomic grows and develops as the artist/author grows. Maybe the changes will appeal or alienate the readers.(edited)

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

I'm of the "the longer the better" camp, but I like the story to be neatly structured into volumes, each their own little finished story that still add up to a bigger whole. Kinda like a good novel series, you know?

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Massive comic archives do intimidate me at first glance - but if I'm hooked after the first chapter, then the path to the end seems all that more reasonable and fun. If the first chapter doesn't grab me, though, then the comic's length starts looking like a chore. I guess that's the case for any story, but yeah, personally, it's all about that first little hill. Get me over it, and it's smooth sailing from then on

RebelVampire

For me ideal length would actually probably depend a bit on genre. For things like horror or slice-of-life, I tend to prefer comics be a bit shorter. For me horror loses its fear factor after a point if it goes on too long. And slice-of-life I find better in small doses. Then there's things like fantasy and sci-fi, who like novels, generally should be longer cause you need more time for world-building. Then there's gag-a-day which in all essence can go onto infinity as long as the writing is still good. That being said, with the exception to gag-a-day, for genres I prefer shorter, I generally prefer them to be less than 300 pages, and for fantasy and sci-fi, I prefer less than 600. Which sounds like a lot of pages, but I've read plenty of comics with that amount that are still ongoing. Now of course, plenty of exceptions here, because if a comic is still good, it could go on for much longer for all I really care. However, just based on my personal experiences, I find for a good majority anything more than that and the comics are more likely to start dragging and padding their story too much. Also, these choices are for practicality cause I've seen a lot of comics get defeated by indefinite hiatus, and I find comics not finishing a huge disappointment. Not that I blame creators for having to move on in life, but just because I understand doesn't mean I don't get sad.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Oooof, 300 pages is not that much for fantasy to me, haha That's less than 10 chapters in the case of my comic. As a reader however, I agree with much of what was said before: as long as the story still has purpose, the length doesn't really matter. But that's more a matter of pacing than length. The only time length deters me is when I'm reading a comic for the first time, and it's over 100 chapters and still ongoing. Then, the concern becomes: "How will I ever find the time to read all this?" But there have been a few comics I started reading relatively close to when they first came out, and they went on for years and 500+ chapters. As long as the pacing is still good, it can go on forever imo.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

How do you feel about long comics with dedicated jump-on points so that you don't have to fight through the really early archives, like schlock mercenary? Because for me it makes a huge difference if there's a dedicated "join the story here!", or if you have to start from the absolute beginning.

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Ah....

I'm not really a fan, because I'd feel like I'm missing something

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Same

RebelVampire

I imagine that was directed at Cronaj, but I actually do want to answer that cause it's an interesting subtopic. And my answer is can't do it. I'm a read for the absolute beginning or no dice even when give the option. I've tried jump-on points, and I really struggle because there'll be a) pre-established relationships between characters (even if its just insider jokes) I can't connect with and b) a fandom that does know the beginning and will chat about it and you wind up auto ostracized

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, like I know some people who can jump into the a TV show starting from like, episode 4 season 2 if they get some basic explanation of prior episodes. I am not one of those people.

Same with comics

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Same

I feel so left out

And I'll have to keep asking potentially stupid questions

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I can't even ask questions because I don't have enough info to form questions

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

the sad truth

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

I feel that too usually I have to go on the show's trope page to catch up

but at the same time, I also still feel a bit left out

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

If the comic is worth reading, the first 100 pages are worth reading to me

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

Yep

Me too

It's more a matter of, do I have the time to read this comic at all?

Which I wish didn't come into my decision at all, but it does :/

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's understandable, really

not enough time in the world

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

so basically

make it worth the readers' while

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

For the right readers.

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

fair enough go straight for the jugular and don't hold back XD

eli [a winged tale]

I love longforms and if I’m invested, I’m there for the entire ride, no matter how long. Will agree with Rebel that it’s heartbreaking when long stories go on hiatuses (but of course, that’s life). As for jump points, I’m one where I can hop on and if I’m intrigued, start from the beginning. I have built in season trailers for this since one of the webtoons, Hooky, seemed to have used it to good effect. One interesting thing that I love is seeing the art grow with time. It’s always so interesting to see the change and the growth.

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

fair enough go straight for the jugular and don't hold back XD

@shadowhood (SunnyxRain) LOL your quote always sound like you're a hunter ready for a kill

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

OH MY GOD

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

that's a great point, Eli. I feel he same. Where it depends on the series, I don't mind long form, but I have to read from the start, because the later episodes will have relationships or events I have 'missed out'. I can tell when a creator has either a) interest in world building, which explains a longer series, or 2) interest in relationship development, which tends to be a little shorter in stories. I've read comics that are in-between which is fasinating and imo, hard to juggle. Oh yes, artstyle change motivates me and what I often recommend to friends. Even if your artstyle isn't up to your standard, it will slowly evolved. It gives me inspiration not to redo series. (if I can help it)(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, if the art is CLEAR enough -- both simple event/action-wise and mood-wise -- then it's good enough. It doesn't need to be amazing.

shadowhood (SunnyxRain)

a lot of long term webcomic series also tend to improve on their art

so as you post it, over time you'll find yourself improving because you've forced yourself to draw so much

#ctparchive #comic #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #reader favorites #comic tea party #ctp

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hforhonesty · 5 years ago

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Book Review #2 | Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

“Cath and Wren are identical twins and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they’re off to university and Wren’s decided she doesn’t want to be one half of a pair any more – she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It’s not easy for Cath. She would rather bury herself in the fanfiction she writes where there’s romance far more intense than anything she’s experienced in real life.

Now Cath has to decide whether she’s ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she’s realizing there’s more to learn about love than she ever thought possible…” [Official synopsis of the book]

Alternative title: “Ode to our Inner Fangirl” or “Every fangirl must-read”.

This book was pretty popular when I was still active on my fandoms but I, uhm, refused to read it.

(Because I’m disturbed)

(Ask anyone)

Seriously, though. I was only 14 at the time and I was going through that phase that didn’t let me read books outside the fantasy genre, given my not-so-little obsession toward Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Mortal Instruments, Hunger Games, and so on.

I bought my first copy on July 2014, during a fortnight study holiday in Dublin. I also got something like ten other books and had to purchase a carry-on because they wouldn’t fit in my luggage, but that’s another story.

Anyway, as soon as I started Fangirl, I decided to read only a few chapters for each night instead of finishing it in a glorious one-night-stand. You need to know that I have always been a fast-reader, but this time… I really didn’t want to finish it; instead, I wanted to enjoy every single line and make the book last as long as possible.

Before we start talking about Fangirl, you need to know that it is set in an alternative universe where Gemma T. Leslie is the actual author the Simon Snow Series, which is worldwide famous. Since the eighth and last book of the series is about to be published, most fans seized the day and decided to write on the Internet their own versions of the story, so that they could all have a say in the matter regarding the end.

“The whole point of fanfiction,” she said, “is that you get to play inside somebody else’s universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them. The story doesn’t have to end when Gemma Leslie gets tired of it. You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you want, as long as you keep thinking of new stories...” “Fanfiction,” Levi said.

“Yes.”

Cath Avery is undoubtedly Simon Snow’s #1 FAN. She loves the books so much that she owns something like every gadget of the series: posters, drawings, t-shirts, commemorative busts of Simon and Baz...

Just take a look at the fanart of her room made by Simini Blocker:

However, if someone asked Cath if there were something about the series that she wanted to change, the answer would be the most affirmative yes in the history of yes-s.

Because in Gemma T. Leslie’s version of Simon Snow, he and Baz Pitch are just enemies... And Snowbaz is a CRACK SHIP.

I mean, only G̶e̶m̶m̶a̶ ̶T̶.̶ ̶L̶e̶s̶l̶i̶e̶ a monster would write about their amazing chemistry and THEN DELIBERATELY CHOOSE NOT TO MAKE THEIR RELATIONSHIP ROMANTIC.

I need five minutes to calm down.

Inhala, exhala.

Okay. Fine. Fine. I’m cool. I’m fine.

So sorry you had to witness my wig snatching. Anyway...

Since R̶a̶i̶n̶b̶o̶w̶ ̶R̶o̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ Cath is also Snowbaz’s #1 FAN, she has to do something about this contempt of court, so she writes several fanfictions using the nickname Magicath and becomes beyond popular. People all around North America read her fanfictions, and she’s pretty well-known in Japan, too.

She’s currently working on her latest fanfiction, Carry on, which is her own version of the eighth book.

Wait a minute, you say. Is her fanfiction the same as Rainbow’s book?

The answer is no. Rainbow herself said that her book and Cath’s fanfiction are pretty much different, so you don’t have to worry about spoilers while you’re reading Fangirl. Moreover, here’s the link to my spoiler!free review/analysis of Carry on, which can be read by both newbies or og members of the fandom.

Anyway... As you can see, Cath loves writing – and she loves it so much that not only she’s majoring in English, but she’s also convinced her advisor to let her take Intro to Fiction-Writing, which is a class only for junior students.

Intro to Fiction-Writing is taught by professor Piper, whom I consider one of the best fictional-teachers of all time. One of my favourite scenes of the book is set during her very first lecture, when she asks her students why people write fiction.

The first time I read Fangirl, I remember putting the book down for a moment and asking myself how I would have answered if I had been one of those students. I probably would have kept the answer for myself, but the point is that, as I was getting lost on my thought, I couldn’t come up with an explanation of why I write.

It’s a tricky question for a writer, isn’t it? I bet that we could all come up with replies that couldn’t be more different from each other. We have a urge to write and we try to get along with it, but where does this urge come from? And what does it say? Does it speak a universal language?

Five years later, I think I’ve found my answer.

I’m an introvert. I’m loud and talkative when I’m with my friends, but I can’t even order a pizza on the phone — which is kind of funny, whatever.

Being an introvert also means that I have a hard time identifying myself with fictional characters. They are what I like to call the ‘Quiet Ones’, of course, but they seem to overcome their introversion, which is described as a huge problem that needs to be fixed, and gain tons of ““confidence”” (see: extroversion) toward the end of the book | series | movie | tv show, becoming totally different people.

So why do I write?

I write because I want people like me to know that they are not alone, that there’s nothing wrong with them, that there are people out there who think and feel things just like they do.

Because darling, we don’t need to be fixed.

We are just introverts.

Why do I write? Cath tried to come up with a profound answer – knowing she wouldn’t speak up, even if she did.

But she does. I mean, she does come up with an answer. More than one, actually. And while I was reading this scene, I was like, how is it even possible? How can I relate so much to a character that I’ve known for less than twenty pages?

“To explore new worlds,” someone said.

“To explore old ones,” someone else said. Professor Piper was nodding.

To be somewhere else, Cath thought.

“To set ourselves free,” a girl said.

To get free of ourselves.

“To stop hearing the voices in our head,” said the boy in front of Cath. [...]

To stop, Cath thought.

To stop from being anything or anywhere at all.

“Why do we write fiction?” Professor Piper asked.

Cath looked down at her notebook.

To disappear.

Cath can’t help isolating herself from everyone but her loved ones. Her father suffers from bipolarism, and her mother abandoned her and Wren because she wasn’t interested in motherhood.

When your family is incapable of loving you, it leaves a mark that lasts a lifetime. You’re afraid of rejection, you know that nobody will ever accept you for who you are, and you can’t stop thinking that if your own mother left you, then everyone else will eventually do the same.

So what’s the point in letting them break your heart any way?

“No,” Cath said, “seriously. Look at you. You’ve got your shit together, you’re not scared of everything. I’m scared of everything. And I’m crazy. Like maybe you think I’m a little crazy, but I only ever let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I’m a complete disaster.”

Reading this quote was like watching my reflection on the mirror. I felt every single word of what she was saying, I felt her insecurities, her second-guessing, her fears. For a moment she was me... and I was her.

Fangirl made me realise that I’m not alone, that there is nothing wrong with who I am, that there are people out there who think and feel things just like I do.

So it’s pretty obvious that Cath belongs to the Quiet Ones. What makes her different, however, is that she doesn’t give anything up; instead, she accepts herself for who she is. And at the end of the story, she has gained more confidence, it’s true, but she’s still Cath Avery, which is one of the reasons why I love this book so much.

Thank you for reading my review. I hope you guys enjoyed it! :)

With love,

M.C.

Post scriptum: I can’t believe that my first review on Carry on got 102 notes! That’s insane, guys! I can’t believe it! Okay, enough with the exclamation marks. It’s just that... Wow. Even Rainbow Rowell herself liked it. I mean, RAINBOW ROWELL. For Heaven’s sake, I couldn’t be more thrilled.

So thank you, thank you very much. You’ve made my year.

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oumiyuki · 6 years ago

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Teachers don’t date teachers (but You-sensei and Riko-sensei definitely are) Ch5

Summary: The whole student body and teachers teases the gym teacher, Watanabe You, with the new art teacher, Sakurauchi Riko, that they make a cute couple. How long can You deny this when Riko isn’t helping to reduce the rumours?

Pairing: YouRiko

Genre: Romance, Fluff, Slice of Teacher Life ;D

Words: 2219

Author Notes

Okay...Not so much tumbling...more like bearing the cuts and bruises and all forces of nature... but hey, I'm still here...

And here's another YouRiko-sensei update.

May you enjoy~ XD

Tease05 – You-sensei and Riko-sensei’s first kiss!? (it sure looks like it)

You haven’t noticed this, but the students buzzing with endless energy and on the edge of their seats with cameras and love-filled shipping minds have. What they have noticed? They noticed that the newest addition to the art facility, a beautiful, gentle but kind of damsel in distress art teacher, namely Sakurauchi Riko, complete the perfect picture of romance when she rests in the gym teacher’s arms. That’s right, once again, Riko was being held by You’s strong arms.

Bundles of rolled up canvases tightly hugged in her left and right arms, a few wooden frames, art box and jotter book pressed to her chest in a risky way as she tried to make her way to the carpark, but alas, turns around the bend was never in favour to her, or never in favour to pretty girls who can’t see to their front that well. The auburn-haired art teacher lets out a shriek of surprise as she steps onto a can and loses her balance; right leg stretches in front of her more than she has ever stretched in months, the pull on her muscles getting to her already. She expected to meet the floor this time but instead warm, very warm hands held her up from the waist.

“Riko-sensei. Are you alright?” Her hero unintentionally breathes in her ears those words of concern and even let out a sigh of relief through the nose as the ash-brunette leaned in front to examine her face. Riko scrambles for her facial muscles to bring up a smile and hope to all the gods that her face wasn’t painted in any shades of the cherry blossom pink or the red camellia flowers she illustrated in class today.

"Ah...You-sensei...Yes, I believe I'm in good hands right now." Riko leans her head back onto the gym teacher's reliable chest to make her point.

You feels her cheek turn warm. "Um... I'm glad..?"

Is it just me or Riko-sensei looks really pretty right now?

Riko's smile pulls a tad higher and looks back to the front, seemingly giving off a somewhat embarrassed aura.

Riko-sensei..?

"Um... Could you help me back up...all the way? And er..." The auburn hair teacher sports a dash of pink on her cheeks which makes You's cheeks redder by a chain reaction. The way Riko's almond eyes pointed out the fact that You's arms were still wrapped around Riko didn't help You's case of staring at the art teacher rumoured to be her girlfriend.

You moves her tongue in her mouth nervously, swallowing nothing at all just to distract herself, a silent call out from her brain to the body to stop gaping at the pretty art teacher and start doing as requested.

"Ah. Right. Yes. Um. Yes. Sure!" You blurts a string of agreement. Riko chuckles; worsening You's red cheek reaction.

Iiiiiiiii am such an embarrassment! What was that, Watanabe You??

You stands back awkwardly, not noticing two pairs of eyes watching her and Riko's little save and rescued moment with growing excitement and glee. Riko, on the other hand, was back on her feet and gives You a slight bow of thanks, grin gentle and cool, pink cheeks no more.

"Say, You-sensei, could you help me with something?"

You nods. "Sure. Whatever you need, Riko-sensei."

As long as it's within my capabilities! And if I can clear up all the uncool side of me Riko-sensei has witnessed...that would be a plus.

Riko's ears flared a hot red when You suggests that she can offer pretty much any service but luckily for the art teacher, the gym teacher did not notice her mini rise of excited-panic, her cool exterior hiding a blush-inducing fantasy that flashed through Riko's imaginative mind. Riko clears her throat for good measure. "Could you help bring my materials to my car?"

You looks Riko up and down once. "Ah, of course. You wouldn't be able to unlock your car with that many things on hand!" You slaps her hand over her mouth without warning earning raised eyebrows from Riko.

And chest..! I almost said and on Riko-sensei's chest! If I did that I'd not only be uncool, I'd be seen as a perv! Ahh, that was a close call!

You composes herself and gives Riko a reassuring smile as she eased Riko's arms of more than half the load. "S-shall we?"

Riko smiles, letting the matter slide though she glanced at the gym teacher curiously on the way to the car, to see if she could perhaps spot anything to clue her in on what made You react that way.

Now by the car and items loaded, "Do you have to bring all these up to your house?"

I doubt Riko-sensei can enter her house like that...

Riko nods. "I do. I've got to grade the assignments."

You chuckles softly. "And how do you see yourself opening your house door?"

Riko's eyes widen as realization settled upon her with the help of the ash-brunette's wagging eyebrows.

"Perhaps you actually can go through doors without unlocking them and you've been hiding it from us?" You teases with a broad smile.

Riko gives the playful gym teacher a mock glare as she opens the passenger door. "Then will you help a maiden out?"

Anytime.

You grins and nonchalantly rests her arm over the top of the opened car's door. "If I get a please and dinner."

I don't really want those from helping but well, let's see how Riko-sensei handles being teased~

Riko simply smiles; completely okay with You's request. "Please help me out, You-sensei? We can grab dinner before my house too. My treat."

Uwa. Not even a slight fluster or hesitance.

You straightens her back. "Sounds good."

Riko giggles and closes the door after making sure You was nicely settled in her humble, brownish-red Mazda. Both teachers do not notice squeals and camera flashes after Riko was in the car and buckled up.

"Ah."

"What's wrong?" You looks over with concern.

"Just a... dirt I guess..." The art teacher carefully touched her eye that may have caught some dirt on the way into the car.

You leans across the distance between them and silently obtains permission to assist Riko in clearing the dirt and easing the art teacher's eyes since Riko seemed to be having slight troubles doing so herself. Riko lowers her own hands and after a short few seconds of You's feather-like touches and a soft blow of air to her eyes, Riko's eyes were back to good condition.

"T-Thank you..."

You leans back in her seat with a satisfied smile. "No problem."

Riko takes a moment to herself, while You sat beside her oblivious to how she has caused the art teacher to be on the receiving end of needing a timeout. A good minute or so and Riko starts the drive back to her place.

A week later, You receives a text message from Riko which made You confused.

Riko (10:37): Have you seen it yet?

You (10:41): Seen what?

Riko (10:56): It's okay.

You was perplexed. If it was something that the art teacher would message her about, wouldn't it be important? Or pressing? You tapped her pen impatiently on her desk where she sat; having some paperwork to do.

What did I miss?

You glances to the photo collage of her students and her; at a barbeque and on the school open field. You was a teacher that was really close with the students after all; chatting, playing, teaching, advising as a full package.

Was the students doing something again? Their murmuring has been more hushed lately though...

The gym teacher kicked back and spun in her computer chair a few rounds before the science teacher places something on her face. "Hey."

The teacher with long blue hair grins. "Thought this might interest you."

"What is it?" You takes the papers folded in half, wearing a thinking face which was rather adorable for the gym teacher who usually wore a carefree, smiley expression.

"You're the topic."

"... Don't tell me."

The science teacher chuckles. "Okay, I won't."

It's that matter again, isn't it? Ah, please don't be it. Don't be it... What could it be?

You stresses the ear of the folded documents which was actually really high-quality paper for a good minute before she finally turns the paper over to see the content.

WHA-

You immediately slaps the paper close after her eyes widened at the image of Riko and herself. You looks up and gestures at the paper now lying on her table. "Where did you get that, Kanan?"

Kanan shrugs. "Noticeboard, You. When did it happen? You could have been more a friend and tell me ‘bout it."

You squints at Kanan's teasing tone. "Because we're not. Ugh, the students just keep teasing me and Riko-sensei and I don't even know why. Do we look like that to you?"

You asks genuinely and Kanan hums for a moment. "Kinda."

You groans. "No. We're not."

The ash-brunette picks up her phone, opening the messaging application, taps Riko's name swiftly like she’s used to it; the fact that Riko was on the top made Kanan hold back a chuckle.

You (11.33): I just saw it

You (11.33): why ;_;

You (11.33): I'm sorry

You (11.33): I'll talk to the kids

You (11.33): tell them to stop these

The gym teacher sighs as she rests her back against the chair, head facing the ceiling with a tired expression. She sees Kanan smiling down at her and she pouts at the science teacher. “What.”

“Oh, nothing.” Kanan grabs a chair and sits on it, hands propped on the headrest and her chin on her arms, grinning cheekily. “Texting your girlfriend?”

You groans yet again and spins in an attempt to kick Kanan’s chair. The bluenette easily dodges it with a front push with her long legs, laughing. “Better luck next time.” You stops her chair’s spin to face Kanan while the playful science teacher rolls the chair she’s on forwards.

Them and all their teasing… Kanan too! Sheesh!

You whines in her mind before grabbing the papers once more. Looking at the image reluctantly. The scene of Riko resting on her shoulder, her arms wrapped around Riko’s waist, and with how her face was leaning close to the art teacher, features not entirely visible from the side-back view the picture is taken in, it’s not a surprise that the header is “You-sensei kisses Riko-sensei!?” You’s shoulders slumps.

How did this happen?

You glances to her phone; the pretty but clumsy art teacher coming to mind.

Riko-sensei slipped and I caught her. That’s all.

You’s phone vibrates and the purple light indicates a message.

Riko (11:55): It’s my fault. So I’m sorry, You-sensei. Don’t scold your students please. They are just having harmless fun and…their photography and editing skills are commendable.

You chuckles as she reads the message. Even now – with such a scandalous news spreading about Riko-sensei and her, and the art teacher is actually defending them. Praising them too!

You (11:56): Aye, I don’t really scold. They don’t find me scary enough.

You (11:57): Still gotta tell them off tho

You (11:57): And how are you to blame? >8/

Riko-sensei is too kind… This probably needs disciplinary action… I think… Not that I want the students getting in trouble…

You looks back at her phone when a vibration comes in.

Riko (11:57): I fell.

You arches an eyebrow at the message.

That I know.

Riko (11:58): Want to have lunch together?

You blinks twice at the question. Usually, she’d respond with a quick “Sure” if her schedule was free, and a “Sorry, can’t”, if her schedule was not. But for some reason, she’s definitely free for lunch at the moment, but she’s hesitating. You doesn’t know why; her palms got a little sweaty and she wasn’t being straight forth… why?

Kanan notices the gym teacher in a rare state of pouts and thoughts so the bluenette gives a helping nudge. “Yo, what’s up?”

That’s what I want to know…

You sighs. “Riko-sensei asks if I wanna go grab lunch. Wondering if I want to.”

“Why not?”

You looks to the phone; Riko smiling gently appears in her mind and You for a reason she can’t come up with feels like blushing. You looks to Kanan with an unsure face. “I don’t know.”

Kanan stares at You for a time before a grin grew on her face. “Just go.” The bluenette turns back to her desk. “Not like you to overthink things, You.”

True… I’m not thinking of anything that leads anywhere anyway.

You picks up her phone and taps away.

You (12:09): Sure

You (12:09): Sorry for the late reply

You (12:09): I’ll treat

“Thanks.” You brofists with Kanan.

Riko (12:10): See you soon :)

Riko (12:10): And I’m treating ;)

You smiles at Riko’s responses as she grabs her gym jacket and heads for the school cafeteria. The new picture and news from the newspaper club, or what You thinks to call them now – the teacher teasing club – parked at the back of her mind as the ash-brunette was more interested in having a good meal with her colleague cum friend, not girlfriend.

Of course, the student body thinks otherwise, and more pictures were snapped that day.

Author Notes

When this is done, I wish to have all those pictures. So precious. Mari-sensei, please give me a nice HD copy of them all~ XD

Anyways! Here’s another teacher we all know and love~ ;D

I got so much more I wanna write for this AU, ahh. XD

Do tell me which parts you like of this chapter! *O* And see you next tease! ^w^

P.S. I keep trying to come up with witty titles fitting of the content and it’s fun but sure takes lots of time XD –chuckles- I came up with like 5 for this chapter and kept changing it :3

#youriko #rikoyou #watanabe you #sakurauchi riko #love live! sunshine!!#fanfic #fanfiction #writing #yuri #romance #fluff #teacher/teacher au #the teacher/teacher au I crave for YouRiko #matsuura kanan #teachers

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moistwithgender · 6 years ago

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Monthly Media Roundup (April 2019)

April was a bit of a disaster month for me, and as such I didn’t get much of anything finished. Old wounds got reopened, I was sick all month, I had an unavoidably bad birthday, and a lifelong pet died. I didn’t engage with a lot of things, and mostly slept. I did play a lot of Breath of the Wild, but seeing as I didn’t finish that, I’m not including it yet. Here’s the things I did finish:

Games:

Blaster Master Zero (Switch): I actually first bought and finished this two years ago, and since the sequel has come out I decided to replay it with the Shovel Knight DLC character. While I genuinely like this game (I 100%’d it both times), I was not really in a good spot to enjoy this playthrough, and just kinda mindlessly pushed through it for nine consecutive hours, beating it in that single sitting. Playing as a DLC character removes the story, which is fine since they’re intended for replays, though I wonder if it added to my emotional disconnect. SK doesn’t receive fall damage, and so the precariousness of navigating the world outside of the highly-mobile tank doesn’t exist nearly as much, though the trade-off is that SK’s combat abilities in dungeons are hindered by an overall lack of range. The game is still rather easy, though, so I can’t say any particular level cadences or combat scenarios carved their way into my memory.

To the game’s credit, though, the things that are good about it are still good. If you have an attachment to the original NES game, or an interest in retro properties, or just want a nice, breezy platformer, it’s very good. It’s interesting in how it repurposes the altered plot of the US version of the original game (where it was its most popular), including even the plot of the little novelization that came out because Gotta Get Those Video Game Kids to Read Something. It has a fake out ending, and if you 100% the maps it unlocks a final map that is genuinely surreal enough to be the highlight of the game. Despite my sighing, it is a genuinely good time, and I’m very curious to play the new game, somewhat hilariously titled Blaster Master Zero 2.

Anime:

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: I chewed through the last four episodes of this so that I could say I finally finished the season. I didn’t watch the post-season recap episode. TenSura (the abbreviation of the Japanese title, which I will use to refer to it because satisfyingly abbreviating the english title is impossible) is not a very good show, but for about half the length of the 24-episode first season, it fascinates due to how it functions at all. TenSura is an isekai show, much like the other isekai shows, where a person dissatisfied with their life is brutally murdered (usually by a truck. USUALLY by a truck) and is reborn in a fantasy world that coincidentally gives them an absurd advantage over other people, allowing them to live out all the decadence they felt they deserved in the real world. If this sounds like the most boring kind of wish fulfillment possible to you, that’s because it is. It’s also extremely popular with consumers. Which is interesting! I think the isekai boom is indicative of how late-stage capitalism everyday people the world over, that we envision or escape to worlds where your efforts actually return appropriate reward. A bonkers concept, to be sure.

In TenSura, the formula doesn’t stray much. The main character is a man in his 30s (?) who has never fucked and gets knifed to death while HEROICALLY saving a coworker from a plot-irrelevant stabber dude who was running down the sidewalk with his knife out for no reason besides Main Character Needs an Inciting Incident Now. It’s actually pretty weirdly violent for the start to a show that is almost entirely light-hearted. Dude dies, his coworker dumps his hard drive in the bath out of respect (lol), and he wakes up in a fantasy world that works on videogame logic, including loot, skill trees, and class upgrades. He is reborn as an adorable slime a la Dragon Quest, but the personality traits he had in his previous life (and I guess his choice of dying words) scan to obscenely convenient passive abilities that ensure he’s not only invincible, but will never stop experiencing exponential power growth. Also he immediately makes friends with a final boss-level dragon and then eats him. That’s how he makes friends in this sometimes.

I’m being very cynical here, but the core narrative loop (and it IS a loop) of the series kept my interest for longer than I expected. Rimuru (the name of the reborn protagonist) goes somewhere he hasn’t been, astonishes the nearby (sometimes violent) inhabitants with his overpowered abilities, makes friends with them, and then improves their lives with community. Goblins, direwolves, orcs, demon lords. It stacks and builds upon itself to absurd degrees but it’s interesting that in a genre loaded with very problematic stories of disenchanted dudes finally getting the underage harem they’ve always wanted (aaaaAAAAAAAAA) that the main concept of this series is improving the lives of others and giving them closure for the ways life has hurt them. Even if. Sometimes that hurt was the main character’s doing? Like Rimuru absolutely decapitates a direwolf leader and then adopts the pack who from then on absolutely LOVE the dude. Also one of Rimuru’s abilities is that if he gives a monster a name, it class upgrades, which is generally and reasonably seen as a life improvement. Though, these class upgrades are almost always decidedly “less-tribal” or outright human, which smacks of some imperialist thinking. It’s also something I’m sure I never questioned in old videogames growing up. Meanwhile, there’s also a bit with a woman who came from Japan during that one really bad war, you know the one, and the closure she’s given as she’s dying is handled with actual delicacy. It’s a weird series! It’s only a shame to me that after most of the first season, there was less to talk about. Sometime after the halfway mark, you realize the show is never going to maintain tension for more than half an episode, that all problems are solvable (yes, even terminally ill children), and that the show isn’t going anywhere you can’t predict. It’s a checklist show, and the plot points are a list of achievements being checked off one episode at a time.

I don’t think I would actually recommend the show to most people, despite how popular it is. It’s not a great show, but it does weird enough things for a while that it generates conversations. Which is honestly pretty okay. It’s a pretty okay show. Also, Rimuru is effectively nonbinary (with he pronouns), and that’s… somethin’! (24 episodes, finished 4/17/19, Crunchyroll (Funimation also now has the dub I think? Clips I saw were pretty weird, Rimuru seemed to be characterized differently.))

Manga:

Nejimaki Kagyu Vol 1: You would think a manga that immediately starts with a reference to Phantom Blood would be, well, at least interesting.

Okay maybe invoking a beloved work doesn’t actually mean anything. I just wanted to share this blatant callback. Nejimaki Kagyu is a seinen manga about a highschool teacher whose tragically cursed to, uh, have all teenage girls fall in love with him. And the highschool-age childhood friend of his who has spent her whole life obsessed with him and learning super martial arts to defend his chastity. Her supers make her clothes explode.

…

I take no joy in this travesty.

Anyway, uh. The biggest tragedy here is that the art is actually really good, though the paneling is regularly squished around to hilarious degree. Let’s look at some pages and then forget this manga exists forever.

That horror face is how I feel the entire series should be portraying itself. The manga has a distinct lack of self-awareness.

The fan translation for this series appears to have dropped off halfway through and hasn’t been picked up for years, and based on reviews I saw on MAL talking about the directionlessness of the later volumes, I wonder if the translator got fed up with the series. Oh well!

Kyou no Asuka Show Vol 1: Oh god damn it I just got done with talking about a series about ogling the youth.

BLEASE STOP

Okay so. Kyou no Asuka Show, or “Today’s Asuka Show” is an older slice of life manga by the same author I mentioned previously who is doing an edutainment series about people working in a condom factory. Innocently-minded women in comedically lewdish situations appears to be his whole bag. I think Asuka is pretty charming, but I also know she’s designed to appeal to my monkey male gaze. Obliviously sexy is very much a mood, and in a more adult context I would be all for it. There have been a few chapters where I find myself at odds with the wisdom the author is attempting to impart, sometimes through Asuka’s father, who works as an adult photographer, and doesn’t want his daughter involved in anything that could cause her to be ogled. Like, that’s already something that requires a lot of unpacking in the modern day. Aforementioned wisdom sometimes takes the form of Asuka doing something stupid and innocent and ripe for objectifying, like wearing a school swimsuit in a rainstorm. Or she’ll work a job as a cute girl courier and inadvertently turn a shut-ins life around. Situations where, if it were in real life, I’d think “wow that’s weird and charming,” but by being a work of intentional authorship, it inherently loses some of that innocence, and becomes something well-meaning but problematic. Is that the second time I’ve used the word “problematic” in this post? Is this 2014?

I may continue reading this, but I really can’t recommend it to most people I know in 2019 without several disclaimers and also without probably getting some side eye. I think it’s worth a couple chapters to feel out what its doing before you decide whether you can siphon the charm from it, or would rather move on to something else.

Me enjoying myself when this manga tries to suddenly get up to some shit.

Blue Period Vol 1: This is the last thing on my list, because I don’t want to expand this list beyond the three mediums I’ve already assigned to it. Also, I actually finished this May 1st, but I wanted to talk about it now.

If I had the power to actually get people to engage with a specific work once per month, Blue Period would easily be the one I pick. That doesn’t mean as much when all the other things I finished this month were conflicted experiences, but I really think everyone would benefit from this series. Or at least anyone with even a passing interest in visual arts.

Blue Period (named for Picasso’s Blue Period) is about a highschool delinquent who has a knack for studying, a safe social life, and no interests in pretty much anything. He’s on the road to do fine in his life, and he doesn’t question it much, but that’s it, until he discovers art and realizes it’s the only way he’s ever been able to truly communicate his feelings. It changes everything about him, for more emotionally satisfying reasons, but also riskier ones. He only has one year of highschool to go to decide what he’s doing with his life, and Japan has a very strict education system. You’re not really allowed to just “get around” to things.

Apologies in advance if you’re tired of me spamming full pages but I really do wanna show this off. This is another series with an educational angle to it, though the emphasis is definitely more rooted in a personal narrative of growth. The explanations of art practice and the functionality of exercises and tools are both very informative and relevant to the characters, never feeling like the story is taking a backseat to explain. The characters are, hilariously, everyone I’ve ever met in an art class. There’s the kid who would rather exclusively draw the things they like, there’s the kid who likes art as a hobby but haaaates being given a project, etc etc. There are students who have an innate grasp on how to draw but haven’t internalized the Why of the exercises, and students who are receptive to the lessons but don’t have the ability to match. The narrative is extremely even-handed towards all of these different levels of skills, and places a lot more importance on why, emotionally, you should totally care about drawing apples and water pitchers for five hours at a time. It’s GREAT and I want to force it on every creative I’ve ever known.

Another thing I appreciate about this series so far is that while there has been something resembling sexual/romantic tension, it’s kind of not like that at all? In the first volume I haven’t been able to pinpoint where a potential relationship subplot would go, if at all. Two possibilities are this girl:

...who is a very likable character but surprisingly doesn’t fit into that box of “standard love interest”. The protag’s interactions with her have been exclusively respectful and admiring, which doesn’t even necessarily imply a romantic subplot, but would be pretty cool if it did? And the other girl:

...who is featured in decidedly more sexual tension-y contexts, is actually TRANS. The manga actually portrays them so uncompromisingly feminine that I didn’t realize they were crossdressing (the term used in the text) until the author’s notes at the end of the volume. I will partially blame this on me being out of it this month, since I just went back to their introduction and yep, they got misgendered and contested it. Given how the character is regularly framed (confident, attractive, skilled, nonstereotypical), I’m… pretty okay with this! If a romance blooms between a delinquent boy and a trans girl, that’s amazing.

I hope y’all understand where I’m coming from in expecting a shoehorned romantic subplot. I’m not hoping for one, I just know the product by now. And if it happens, the options are considerably more interesting than usual.

These are pretty good kids.

Manga licensing is a lot better nowadays than it ever was before, with lots of obscure series being picked up, old series getting re-localized, and translations being better than ever. I really really want this series to get licensed so someone can be compensated for it, and so more people might read it. Until then, I think you should look up the fan work.

---

So that’s all for April. If these posts included live-action movies, I’d have talked about Endgame, but I also don’t want to go spoiling anything for someone who still wants to go see that (it’s probably one of my favorite MCU movies, though). I read most of 1970-71 in Marvel comics, or at least most of the issues on my reading list, but I semi-liveblog about those, so you can just search my “curry reads comics” tag for that. Here’s hoping I have more interesting, more positive things to say about May in a month. I expect to finish Breath of the Wild by then, so I’ll finally talk about that. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far! Go check out Blue Period.

#curry reads manga #curry watches anime #curry plays games

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sophygurl · 5 years ago

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WisCon 43 panel Mental Illness in SFF

Speculative fiction is fruitful grounds for stereotypes and tropes related to mental illness. We have mad scientists on the one hand and mad gods on the other. We have robots representing one kind of neurodivergency in the science realm and the fae or fae-touched doing similar in fantasy worlds. We have creatures that feed on sanity and medications that cure mental illnesses, and the drugs or plants that cause them. What's going on with mental illness in SFF genres? When are these depictions and metaphors helpful and which ones are just plain harmful?

Moderator: Jason Finn. Panelists: Ira Alexandre, Kristy Eagar, Clara Cecilia Abnet Holden, Kiersty Lemon-Rogers. [also Autumn was added to the panel - I didn’t catch if she wanted to be known beyond her first name however] [additionally, a member of the audience named Cassie eventually joined the panel as well, but I wasn’t able to catch anything beyond her first name]

Disclaimers: These are only the notes I was personally able to jot down on paper during the panel. I absolutely did not get everything, and may even have some things wrong. Corrections by panelists or other audience members always welcome. I name the mod and panelists because they are publicly listed, but will remove/change names if asked. I do not name audience members unless specifically asked by them to be named. If I mix up a pronouns or name spelling or anything else, please tell me and I’ll fix it!

Notes:

Kristy introduced herself by saying “I like to say I’m seven kinds of crazy” - she has a wide array of mental illnesses/neurodivergency.

Ira said they are “also seven kinds of crazy”, specifically mentioned Bipolar II, autism, and ADHD.

Kiersty said she’s liking the term “mentally weird” for herself, that not everything is officially diagnosed “for reasons”, and that she likes to see people like herself in fiction.

Clara said she also likes the “seven kinds of crazy” and mentioned OCD, GAD, autism, and severe depression. She gets excited to see characters even close to being like her.

Autumn said she finished her master’s degree in counseling and also holds multiple diagnoses. She writes “queer mental illness trash romance”, and has created the games Player 2 and Self Interview.

Autumn also said she wanted to hold space for people who don’t like the word crazy, for whom it’s not something they’re reclaiming.

Jason said he has a family history of mental illness. He started the panelists off asking about representation that they have feelings about.

Ira said they wrote about the Vorkosigan Saga with a focus on Miles, who is more known for his physical differences but who is also neurodivergent. Miles is also a vet with PTSD - which is not handled very well in the story. There is another character who has PTSD who gets the help that he needs, however.

Ira also likes Murderbot (I’m guessing by a quick search this means The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells), as well as Chidi from The Good Place. The fork in the garbage disposal line really speaks to them.

Kristy also loves and relates to Chidi. She noted that there is no therapeutic help available in the afterlife. She also talked about the show Monk - the detective with OCD. Monk often described his OCD as being both a blessing and a curse. Monk made her feel seen, however she felt depressed at the end of each episode. She noted that his OCD gave him a sort of superpower where hers did not. Instead of framing it in terms of blessing and curse, and feeling like she only has the curse, she likes to think of it as neither - it just is.

Clara talked about characters like Monk where the superpower is just that the see the world differently.

Kristy also talked about how most of us don’t have a personal assistance to come around and help us interface with the world.

Clara added that other shows do this, as well - Sherlock, House, The Good Doctor. There is an exceptional cis white male with an ability that is valued enough that his inability to interface with the world on his own is seen as okay.

Autumn said she is sensitive to characters being read as autistic but the story doesn’t tell us that they are. Example was a Canadian show, Strange Empire.

Autumn also talked about Jacqueline Koyanagi’s Ascension - the main character is both physically and mentally disabled. Strong rec. [I agree!!]

Kiersty mentioned Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series as being decent rep for someone with ADHD as a sort of superpower. Also An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon reads as neurodivergent.

Kiersty added an example that was not well done, which I didn’t catch the name of. She loves the work but the representation was bad. Another work I didn’t catch the name of [ugh my handwriting] has tokenization. The queer mentally ill character has psychopathy and is treated unkindly within the story. This was the focus of Kiersty’s graduate work - it can be hard for her to analyze critically because she loves and respects the author overall, but there are serious issues here.

Ira went back to the idea of the helper character (like for Monk, Sherlock, etc.) - there are labor issues here as well. These helpers are paid for their work to make the character more palatable to the world. Sometimes the exceptional genius character gets taught how to treat others kindly along the way.

Kristy said this is a classic trope in the detective genre - the neurodivergent genuis detective and the person who explains what they mean to the rest of the world. Nero Wolf is another example of this - being a massive genius somehow entitles these men to treat others poorly.

Kristy talked about The Good Doctor as a combination of good and bad representation. Often, another doctor or nurse or even patient will explain things to or for the main character, which can lead to the idea that he is unable to learn these things on his own. One episode had the example of “I can’t be racist, I’m disabled!” which is a very bad take.

Kristy noted that the interfacer is also the one who is seen as having the “burden” of being in relationship with the person with the mental illness.

Ira talked about Murderbot - the first book at least was a positive example - that it’s okay to interact with people differently instead of trying to correct how you naturally relate to people. It’s a more adaptive relationship,

Kiersty talked about Data in Star Trek and the whole “I just want to be human” trope. When that type of character is coded as neuroatypical, it can be problematic. Kiersty will fight anyone who questions Data’s personhood. She relates to him very strongly.

Kiersty also talked about Deanna and how she would tell Data that he does have emotions - he just expresses them differently. He didn’t need to have an emotion chip or whatever. He already had connections and relationships with others, even if they looked different.

Autumn talked about Kingpin in Daredevil as a possibly divisive example because he’s a villain. But his villainy was not related to his autism. They both just existed. This is also an example where the translator character is a man and also paid for his services, so it is not unpaid labor. And Kingpin’s romantic interest, Vanessa, accepts him as he is.

Clara added “Kingpin is definitely not a good person, but I love him.” She also agreed his character was handled well and is over the common trope of mental illness being the reason for the villainy.

Clara talked about how so many villains are characters with anti-social personality disorders - the all villains are psychopaths trope. Then there is Sherlock who said in the first episode that he was a sociopath but no, he wasn’t, and portraying him that way is a problem. Rec’s the book and film I Am Not a Serial Killer - good depiction of someone with anti-social PD who is not a villain and not violent and who gets a diagnosis and therapy.

Ira said, in regards to villains, mental illness as a driving force for the plot becomes the reason for their villainy. There is a fascination in pop culture for the display of a villain’s psyche’s in a way that there isn’t for other types of characters.

Kristy talked about the debates between psychopathy and sociopathy. With the Sherlock thing that Clara mentioned - Kristy thought it was plausible because of the spectrum of disconnect in emotions involved. There is a problem in portraying all psychopaths as serial killers - many are CEO’s, accountants, soccer mom’s, etc. There are positives - the emotional disconnect can make someone with psychopathy good at hiring and firing people, for example.

Clara said that she likes depictions where anti-social characters can be helpful and useful.

Autumn spent the past year working with people with anti-social PD - people who require full time care. Incarcerated people tend to have it as a diagnosis but it’s not always a good diagnosis because part of the diagnostic criteria includes “criminal behavior.” The context of criminal behavior is not always taken into consideration.

Autumn said that the people she worked with had empathy but their feelings of guilt were so overwhelming that they melted down when they tried to tune into them. The problem is that this disconnect becomes habituated - it becomes a refusal to take responsibility for their actions at all because they can’t let the feelings in.

Jason asked the panelists to talk about depictions of therapy. This was Deanna’s whole job. He is unhappy with Barclay’s treatment in the series a lot of the time.

Ira commented that there are too few space therapists. In fantasy - therapists usually have another role in addition to the therapy.

Autumn talked more about Deanna as a professional empath. In seasons 6 and 7, the show started portraying therapy more realistically - the way therapy actually happened during the time the series originally aired. Autumn also added that Dax was unqualified for the role as councilor on DS9.

Kristy talked about therapy in speculative fiction sometimes being specifically therapy. Then there is Guinan in The Next Generation who did a lot of unpaid labor as a therapist for everybody, exemplifying the magical black woman trope as well. There are a couple of episodes focused on her character and her feelings, but not a lot.

Kristy is also interested in the idea of the holodeck being used as therapy. Also, in fantasy novels, the priest often plays the role of therapist. It’s worth asking who is doing the labor and who is getting paid for the labor and who is benefiting from the labor, especially through lenses of race and gender.

Ira talked some about the movement of getting therapy from your own demographic (for example, black and queer therapists treating their own people), and how that could be an interesting concept to explore in spec. fic.

An audience member talked about the white cis male frame that mental illness is often looked at through in fiction. As a counter example, brought up Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti and Akata Witch, as well as Andrea Hairston’s Will Do Magic for Small Change - which delve into black and brown ideas of not being allowed to feel and the harm that therapy can do. Horror, as a genre, looks at this sometimes, too.

Autumn said the issue is complex - the thing about therapy with someone who shares your demographic can work because the most important thing in success of therapy is a shared rapport, and often that can be found with people you share things with.

Autumn also shared that in real life, schizophrenia cuts equally across the population, but diagnostically that doesn’t show. Black and brown people have more distrust of authority for obvious reasons, and that can be viewed as mental illness. Similarly, Russia used anti-psychotics on people who didn’t trust the state - but they had good reason not to have that trust.

Kristy noted that the panel is all white and that this is a problem. An audience member began asking the panelists questions in regards to race, and was asked if she wanted to join the panel to speak on that and she did (everyone applauded - this felt very needed, although the panelists were doing their best to address the issues).

The audience member introduced herself as Cassie, and this was her first WisCon - she said this kind of thing happens to her a lot because being at cons sparks her hypomania.

Cassie talked about the TV show Insecure where one of the black main characters is seen in therapy with a black therapist and how amazing that is.

She also talked about the issue of black people being scared of being shot at by police and that getting a diagnosis of delusion slapped on them, but this is a very realistic fear. Also - black expression of depression is often anger.

As far as people with anti-social PD, the white ones tend to end up as CEO’s, the black ones end up in prison.

Cassie rec’d Binti as well and talked about the depiction of PTSD, isolation from one’s own community. The character does see a therapist, but there is so much misunderstanding due to cultural differences. There are access issues around therapy - both in real life and in SFF.

Clara talked about strict and narrow depictions of “otherness” in fiction and how we can only have one margliazation in a character. As if it’s unrealistic for someone to be both black and mentally ill.

An audience member commented - “I guess cishet white men have no trouble empathizing with others.”

Kristy talked about Shonda Rhimes shows, specifically How To Get Away With Murder has a bisexual black woman with mental illness as a main character.

Kristy also mentioned Hannibal - “I love relationships where the therapist ends up eating their patient, or vice versa.”

“If you love cannibalism and mental illness....”

Jason - and we’re out of time and have to end it there. [lol]

[So. This was a really good and really interesting panel for a lot of reasons, but I’m left feeling a little frustrated about the focus of it, only because well - I wrote this one up too and was thinking about it specifically touching on ways that SF and fantasy use the tropes of their genres to portray mental illness and when those are used well or poorly. The panel did a little bit of that, but it feels like it veered off a lot into other genres, discussing mental illnesses in general, and even when focused on SFF - it was more listing off works and what they did vs. exploring the idea of SFF tropes specifically in regards to mental illness. But perhaps I need to narrow the focus of the panel description more if that’s the panel I want to see? IDK. It really was interesting and I liked how they just invited the audience member to the panel mid-way through to gain her perspective. Also some cool recs!]

#wiscon #wiscon 43 #mental illness in sff #mental illness #mental illness representation

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gonewiddershins · 6 years ago

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Romancelandia you don’t have to ask I’m just gonna say it anyway~

Original Post Here

Barbara Cartland: Favourite author?

Courtney Milan.

Alisha Rai: Favorite era? (i.e. when they were written, not when set)

Current! I’m ecstatic to see how much more punk the romance novel genre has become lately- so many authors explicitly talking about race and class and gender and mental health and neurodivergence in so many interesting ways. Independent publishing opening up entirely new avenues which were not recommended for traditional publications. It’s exciting and wonderful.

Eve Dangerfield: Favourite setting for historicals?

Not sure if my opinion matters here because I have read books from very few eras? I think my preferences have moved to mid-to-late Victorian era for England-based books, but what I really want more of is historicals on other (non North American) continents. I badly want to do a romance in Historical India that is not about Englishmen, for example. Like a Muslim and Hindu falling in love during the Aurangazeb era, maybe.

Anne Mather: Favourite contemporary setting/sub-genre

Again, I haven’t really read enough to form a nuanced opinion- when I look for contemporaries, my first priority used to be “does this make me laugh?” Which is um- a relic of a bygone era, because that used to be the only thing I wanted from contemporaries.

Right now, I try to get read more of diverse romance in contemporary eras. Again, including non-American/English nationalities.

Georgette Heyer: Third or first person tense?

Either will do. It’s not really a factor in how much I enjoy a story.

Lisa Kleypas: Hero/ine you’d most like to date & Jane Austen: Hero/ine you’d most like to be friends with

Same answer to both of the above categories. I’ll take anyone who I think is a rational person who forgives misunderstandings ans does not try to actively make them. I’m not really that picky.

Amanda Quick: Hero/ine you most relate to

At the time when I first read it as a dramatic early twenties person, Minerva Lane from Courtney Milan’s The Duchess War spoke to me. There was a lot in there about fear and having to push yourself down fro the sake of survival that was similar to my life back then. I cried a lot when I read that book.

More recently, I really wanted to snuggle up to Verity Plum from Cat Sebastian’s A duke in Disguise because her feelings of independence and placing it above pretty much everything else her life is... yeah. A lot of what Verity says sounds intimately familiar.

Julie Anne Long: Historical or contemporary?

Historical. Given a choice between two books which are similarly positioned in terms of tropes I like and hate, I’ll pick a historical every time.

Mariana Zapata: Open or closed door sex scenes? & Anne Hampson: Erotic or clean romances?

Ninety percent of the time I’m thoroughly disinterested in the sex scenes, and sometimes I am actively annoyed at the many pages of boning happening while the protagonists barely have an emotional connection. That said, there are plenty books which have no sex scenes where I am reduced to gross sobbing because GODDAMMIT THERE IS TOO MUCH SEXUAL TENSION IN THE AIR GIVE ME BONING.

I am still thirsty about Jo Beverley’s The Unwilling Bride. There was so much sexual tension and growth and Lucien was hot as hell but there was no sex scene. //grumbles

Elizabeth Hoyt: Paranormal or science fiction?

I haven’t read that much SF romance, but I’m going to pick it anyway because the usual tropes associated with Werewolves/Vampires bug the crap out of me.

Nalini Singh: Favourite tropes

Both the protagonists have problems with stakes, and one is not there to manic pixie the other. Protagonists have relationships (non-romantic) outside of the romance. Subversions and reversions of gender norms. Banter and Snark. Character tries very very hard to not be emotionally vulnerable, but goddammit there are these stupid feelings.

Alyssa Cole: Least favourite tropes

Prolonged Miscommunication. Slut shaming, especially when coupled with I Have Had So Much Sex and I am So Experienced hypocrisy. Gratuitous sex with no emotional connection. Protagonists immediately throwing over all other friends/family/loved ones for the sake of their new romantic interest. False competence in female characters which immediately get thrown to the wind when the romantic interest comes on scene (Ahem. Never Judge a lady By Her Cover.)

Rose Lerner: Favourite / Least favourite series

Nope.

Sandra Marton: Favourite romantic non-romance or love story

Unspoken Trilogy, by Sarah Rees Brennan. It is in part a fascinating exploration of privacy in a relationship- most of the rest of it is about friendships and platonic relationships. There is also a cult of sorcerers trying to take over the world via human sacrifice but I continue to insist that’s mostly just setting information.

Skye Warren: Any problematic faves?

I have a depressingly large soft spot for anything funny, and I will forgive a lot of despised tropes if a book makes me laugh. I’m easy.

Specific examples: Until You (Judith McNaught), Dragon Shifter Series (Katie MacCalister).

Ainsley Booth: Position on HEAs

I’m cool with those.

Abby Green: Position on HFNs

I like these better than HEAs, because the characters I like tend to be difficult and also fighting various difficult scenarios so it’s far more likely that more problems will pop up in their lives than not.

Kristen Ashley: Position on the “romance novels are feminist” discourse

Conflicted. I think many romances are feminist, but there are an equal number or more which are patently not. Like all other genres, it has to be judged on a book by book basis, not for the genre as a whole.

Carla Kelly: Position on the “calling romance novels trashy is problematic” discourse

Yes. Outright dismissal of an entire genre is just dumb.

Diana Palmer: Position on the “are romance novels porn” discourse

Ha, no. Porn is porn.

Johanna Lindsey: Position on the “romance novels represent the female gaze” discourse

Yes, I guess? In many romances the way men are portrayed is markedly different from the way they are seen in other genres. Again, this is not a universal constant- all romances do not show men in the exact same way.

Also, it is hard to find any other genre with a larger proportion of characters, viewpoints and conflicts centered around women so there’s that.

Mary Jo Putney: Position on the “calling romances without sex ‘clean’ or ‘sweet’ is implicitly slut shaming romances with sex” discourse?

Yes. Just call them romances without sex. What are we, the moral police?

Cara McKenna: What’s your hot take on the “forced seduction” trope?

I understand the time and place where there scenes were popular, and the social norms which prompted them. I’m still uncomfortable with them and there are may things I’d rather read about so I avoid them.

Abigail Barnette: Opinion of Fifty Shades of Grey

Never read it, don’t plan to. Like I said, sex is not really my thing.

Tessa Bailey: Opinion of Twilight

I gobbled these books like a maniac when I first read them and there is a lot of pure entertainment in there and there is so much emotion. That said, they are not quite as interesting on re-reads. :(

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss: Opinion of Pride & Prejudice

I’m not comfortable with the prose, which means i prefer to watch/read adaptations. Most notably the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

Lynne Graham: Opinion of Harlequin Mills & Boon

Meh.

Tessa Dare: Opinion of bodice rippers

I mean, I would be fine if there wasn’t so much of people causing their own problems by refusing to talk to each other.

Sylvia Day: Opinion of Fabio

I did not even know he was a real person till like- recently.

Roni Loren: Opinion of male romance authors

Yes please. Particularly if they are writing under female pseudonyms. With this, we are getting the exact same thing that female authors did and have to go through- a forced perspective from people oft he other gender. That can only lead to more nuance and acceptance and I am all about that.

Courtney Milan: All-time favourite romance novel & Jana Aston: Favourite contemporary romance & Judith McNaught: Favourite historical romance

Nope.

Alexa Riley: Physical or digital books?

Digital. I tend to make a lot of highlights and notes and that holds up much better with ebooks.

E.L. James: Internal drama or external drama

Characters who are not getting together/along because they can’t communicate with each other are better off not being with each other in the first place. So if that’s what internal drama is then I prefer the external type.

Sarah MacLean: Favourite heroine/s & Maya Rodale: Least favourite heroine/s & Penny Reid: Favourite hero/s & Megan Hart: Least favourite hero/s & Stephenie Meyer: Favourite and least favourite couple/s

I have types rather than specific examples. Most of it has already been detailed out in the tropes questions.

Beverly Jenkins: First romance novel you ever read

Almost Heaven, by Judith McNaught.

Sabrina Jeffries: How long have you been reading romance novels?

14 years or thereabouts.

Loretta Chase: Last romance novel you read

A Duke in Disguise by Cat Sebastian. I’m currently reading An Unconditional Freedom (Alyussa Cole) and Earthrise (MCA Hogarth).

Christina Lauren: Do you need to start a series from the beginning, or can you just dive in anywhere?

Anywhere is fine.

Chuck Tingle: How strong does your HEA have to be?

Not much. See the HFN answer.

Julia Quinn: Underrated author/s & Mary Balogh: Most overrated author/s & Violet Winspear: Most overrated book/s & Sara Craven: Most underrated book/s & Susan Elizabeth Phillips: Best romance by a debut author? & Madison Faye: Favourite romance by a non-romance author

Error Report: Cannot Compute, not enough data.

Nora Roberts: Least favourite hero and heroine archetypes

Eloisa James: What are you reading when you’re not reading romance?

Fantasy, Science Fiction, YA, Comics, Mysteries, Fanfiction, Nonfiction. I’ll read anything.

Teresa Medeiros: Other media property you wish was a romance novel

Idk what this means?

Laura Lee Guhrke: Last romance novel you DNFed

I think it was Elizabeth Kingston’s A Fallen Lady? Which was actually a GOOD book and I skipped ahead to scenes I really wanted to see and those scenes made me cry but also... there was not much about the romance itself that I was really interested in. I loved the heroine to death though.

Cat Sebastian: Alpha, Gamma, or Beta heroes?

Depends on how they are written, but I confess an Alpha is so easily made into an irredeemable dipshit.

Jeannie Lin: Ideal hero and heroine archetypes

Family-minded hero stressed out about taking care of his family. Independent, business minded heroine.

Helen Hoang: Sexually experienced or inexperienced heroines? & Lucy Monroe: Sexually experienced or inexperienced heroes?

Experienced heroines and inexperienced heroes. Play against the type!

Lorraine Heath: When you choose a book do you look for tropes, plots or authors?

Authors, then Tropes. I barely pay attention to plots.

C.D. Reiss: Puns in titles: 👍 or 👎?

YES. I have picked up books purely because of punny titles.

Emily Bronte: Favourite cover designs/illustrations & Maya Banks: Least favourite cover design

I suck a remembering covers so this question is going to get skipped~

Penny Jordan: What would you like to see more of in romance novels?

Diversity and cliche subversions.

Lauren Blakey: What would you like to see less of in romance novels?

Overplayed cliches played in the same way again and again. Relationships based entirely on sex.

Betty Neels: What do you think are the high and low points of the genre?

Highs: Romancelandia is probably the most intelligent and nuanced fandom I have ever been a part of and I have been a part of many fandoms. The genre is very, very diverse and there are so many experiments going on in the fringes. Questions and stories about the emotional components of relationships can never get old because there are too many permutations to explore in a few lifetimes.

Lows: The core of the romance novel industry is still trying desperately to hold on to tropes and themes of older days, many of which are regressive.

Jill Shalvis: Finish this sentence: “Romance novels are__________”

complex social commentaries.

#ask meme #romance novels

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bookedbookshelf · 6 years ago

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Revisiting Harry Potter After 12 Years: The Great, the Good, and the Bad

Some Background on Harry Potter and I...

When I was a child, I practically breathed Harry Potter. The books were everything to me. I used to connect every conversation around me to HP in every way that I could (to the great annoyance of my entire family.) But I didn’t care that I could see their indifference or that my older sister used to make fun of me for reading it. I didn’t care that I had annoyed her so much with the topic that she began to call it “Harry Pothead.” Harry Potter was my thing as a kid- a fixation I never quite got rid of, even as an adult. To this day, nothing can get me into a passionate debate the way that a Harry Potter-based conversation can. I watch the movies at least once a year with my nephews.

I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for the first time when I was in the third grade. I had trouble reading chapter-books and writing during this time. Looking back on it, it makes a lot of sense that I was probably suffering from some kind of learning disability. If it was ever diagnosed, I’m not sure, but I had been going to a special reading and writing program twice a week since grade one. The purpose of putting me in this program was to try and keep pace with the other students around me who were beginning to read and write with a speed that I just could not match.

Even now, I remember how much it embarrassed me. I hated feeling stupid and like I lacked something the other students had. And so, when my teacher announced to my class that he would be reading Harry Potter to us during Story Time, I asked my father to purchase the book for me, so I could read along. It was a huge decision that I still remember the exact moment that I made it. That decision was the foundation for my love of reading. Reading Harry Potter, and struggling to keep up with my teacher, but doing it regardless, cemented my love for the books. It was the first chapter book I ever read cover to cover. When I put that book down, I no longer felt stupid. I felt accomplished.

The number of times I reread the first three books are countless. I can confidently say I have read every Harry Potter book, except the last, more than four times. I have only read Death Hallows twice, once when first released in 2007 and again last month.

So, why did I wait so long to reread these books I so desperately loved and endlessly talked about?

I think I was afraid that I’d reread them and find faults and flaws that would make me become sad. I didn’t want to find a reason to distance myself from these books, I wanted them to remain this untouched relic of my childhood that turned me into an avid reader. I know so many people have the same story of learning to love reading because of Harry Potter. For me, it turned something I hated, dreaded, and pretended to do, into something I actively sought. Harry Potter changed everything about my childhood education and is probably a massive reason why I want to be an author today. I owe so much to these seven magical books about a boy who lived in a cupboard.

So...why, after all this time, did I change my mind? Why did I reread all of the books?

That sister who called it “Harry Pothead” finally decided to read them and when she told me that she was on the fourth, I was suddenly inspired to pick up my books and reread them too. And so I did, one after the other, cover to cover, first until last.

So...has anything changed? Is this series still a nostalgic favourite that cannot be touched by criticism for me?

Nope, but I still love them!

The Review: 4.5/5

Let’s start with the fact that this review is not spoiler free, as it has been...12 years since the last HP book came out. I feel that is a plentiful grace period and if you haven’t read it by now, I doubt you care much about spoilers. Even so, please take into consideration that this entire review is spoiler- heavy.

Harry Potter perfectly captures a few things through the entire series: the pain of isolation, the importance of friendship, and the fear of failure.

But Harry Potter also lacks sorely in some areas and we’ll touch on that. While I will not be going book by book, because I was a dummy who didn’t consider doing this when I began to reread them, I will break down some of the major themes and what the series lacks or did poorly. Having flaws doesn’t make Harry Potter bad. Despite everything, these books are still like a 4.5/5, with just some nitpicky flaws from my perspective.

So let’s get started with what Harry Potter did well, in my opinion.

What I Liked...

Isolation and Character-Building:

All of the books captured Harry’s isolation perfectly. Through every novel, you wish that he still had his family and he didn’t have to fulfill an insane destiny that was thrust upon him the moment Voldemort saw him as a threat. As I am older, I understand Mrs. Weasley so. much. more. I understand why she worried about Harry so much, he was indeed just a boy.

As the novels go on, every loss that Harry suffers feels like a sucker-punch to the stomach, because you know Harry started out with so little and it feels like he is losing things for shock value. For good or bad, I can say that these books know how to tug at your heart and make you invested in the main character, as well as the side characters. One of the things that Harry Potter does best is its large cast of interesting and sympathetic characters. You even pity Voldemort’s origins and how he was created despite him being a monster of a man.

Magical World Building:

All of the books capture the wonder and magic of the Harry Potter universe with effortless beauty. There was pure genius in ensuring that Harry grew up like a muggle because it allowed us as readers to experience Diagon Alley, Hogwarts, and all of the other magical places in the books, as Harry did. It allowed us to learn about magic as he did and it created a sense of being there beside Harry, learning as he did.

Never once does it feel like laws of the world are being peddled off just to catch the reader up to speed. This is something Rowling does amazingly and something I am so in awe of even to this day. Harry going to Hogwarts during his first year felt like we went with him and I’ll never forget how thrilling it was to read as a child.

Blending Other Genres into a Fantasy Series:

As the books go on, little mysteries are written here and there are truly very well executed. Especially in the Goblet of Fire, which always felt like a hybrid mystery/fantasy novel to me, as we’re trying to discover who put Harry’s name in the Goblet. Furthermore, as the books mature, so do the characters. Through book five, six, and seven, there is an aspect of romance, as Harry has fallen in and out of crushes a couple different times. I love that Rowling blends other book genres into the story very well.

Relationship Building:

As the books go on, the relationships between characters develop. Many people think Ron/Hermione was terrible, but I disagree. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Ron coming to realise he felt strongly for her and Hermione grappling with her gender identity and feeling invisible to both Harry and Ron as a female. I thought the Ron and Hermione love was actually well thought out and developed over several books, despite popular opinions.

Complex Characters:

Harry Potter has an array of complex characters, ranging from Dumbledore to Lupin, James, Sirius, and Snape. While there are characters that I despise with a bitter passion despite them being fan favourites (ahem, Snape,) I can still recognise that many of the villainous characters in HP are written BRILLIANTLY. I love me some problematic and interesting characters who keep you guessing (ahem, also Snape.) Brilliant writing, through and through.

Conclusion:

Overall, the story throughout the books is gripping and takes you through each page with absolute ease. The pacing of these books never lacked for me or dragged- the story was thoroughly gripping and entertaining, cover to cover.

But there are some things that could be better.

What I Didn’t Like...

What the Hell is Going on with the Magic System???:

Harry Potter is littered with magical inconsistencies and perhaps the MOST glaring is the Fidelius Charm. Let’s talk about Secret Keepers. Okay, we talked about it, they’re flipping stupid. I cannot express how much frustration these things have caused me over the years.

WHY DIDN’T JAMES JUST BE HIS OWN SECRET KEEPER IF THAT WAS POSSIBLE...EH, BILL WEASLEY? EH?

I feel like the Fidelius Charm has the most crippling plot holes and ret-cons out of all of the spells inside of the HP world. Why is this a problem? Well, it is only a huge freaking catalyst in the entire story: using the Fidelius Charm with the wrong people is what caused Lily and James Potter to die. I feel that more attention should be paid to the way a spell can and cannot work in the book, or else everything falls apart. Yes, we could say that James’ flaw was wanting to trust and believe in his friends, and so he didn’t make himself the secret keeper….but that is freaking dumb. The life of his wife and child were on the line, no one would spare any possible measure of safety, not even James Flipping Potter.

Let’s move onto the god.damned.trace. THE TRACE. I hate the trace mostly because of its glaring inconsistencies. It is the worse case of plot-convenience-holes throughout the series. Let’s talk about how Voldemort murdered his father and his grandparents without the Ministry even blinking an eye, as this did not happen in a wizard's house, unlike him attacking his Uncle. Because the exact way the trace works has never been specified in book canon, it leaves glaring plot holes everywhere. While I do not hate the concept of the trace, I definitely hate the execution.

Harry and Ginny? Are We Serious?:

While I did praise Rowling for her relationship developing, Harry being into Ginny felt very very very sudden and out of nowhere. Harry never considered Ginny romantically until the 6th book, fine, but his romantic interest came out of...no where? One day in the common room he noticed she smells like the flowers he smelled in Slughorn’s love potion...okie dokie.

While we can say this is because Harry had to spend that summer playing Quidditch with her, Ron, and Hermione at the Burrow, to have these feelings come upon him. I say bull-crap. We know Rowling put years into the development of Ron and Hermione, building it up through multiple books. As a result, Harry and Ginny felt cheap, last minute, and insincere. I wouldn’t have minded the couple, if she put more time making it believable.

What the Hell Happened to Lupin in the 7th Book?:

Lupin turning into a full-on edgelord in the seventh book felt like such a cop-out to the type of character we had seen thus far. And yes, we can explain it as Harry seeing Lupin as an adult to admire and not really like a person with complicated feelings and emotions. But wanting to ditch Tonks to go on an adventure? Sorry, can’t relate. Lupin’s sudden character change felt cheap and like there was nothing leading up to the sudden change. Even the tension beforehand did not seem grand enough for this.

Let’s Talk About Deaths:

The undeniably worst thing for me about Harry Potter is how poorly Rowling writes deaths. They are just...horrible. She leaves so little detail in the actual death happening, it’s always one or two sentences max that vaguely outline someone’s death. And I am sure she does this to give you a snap sense of someone suddenly dying, but it feels unbelievably cheap and poorly thought out. Furthermore, I truly believe no one but Dumbledore needed to die throughout the last few books to advance the plot, and yet we’re hit with death after death that lent nothing to the plot.

Sirius dying felt rushed and unnecessary. What plot did his death further lend, what did it spur into action? You may say Harry needed to have everything taken from him to truly be okay with learning his fate in the last book, but I say no. I think it was just another thing written in to remind the audience of how alone Harry is and it felt lacklustre and poorly executed. I don’t hate that Sirius died, but I hate when he did. I felt killing him so early and for no reason was outrightly silly.

The biggest problem is it did not lend to the effect that Rowling intended- it did not make me feel hollow inside for Harry. It didn’t make me cry when it happened. It doesn’t hit in an impactful way at all. It just felt like Sirius died to a series of clumsy mistakes (largely due to his own actions,) but still clumsy nonetheless. Of course, characters can be killed suddenly and hard-hitting for . However, when reading through the books, it felt like Sirius’ death didn’t actually have such a far-reaching impact as it should have had. He felt discarded of in a very poorly managed way. It was as if Rowling made up a list of “people to kill” because she thought her story wouldn’t be real enough without death.

Similarly, Tonks and Lupin feel very much the same. Their deaths are more justifiable, as they are casualties of a battle, but the problem was they happened off page. You have no connection to how it happened or why, they’re just dead, in a room full of other bodies. Many argue this is impactful because it is the cost of war, but I argue differently. I argue that just seeing them dead in the Great Hall takes all of the impact out of their deaths. I feel practically all of the deaths throughout the Battle of Hogwarts were handled this way and it wasn’t as gripping as I’d like it to be. I loved Tonks and Lupin as characters, but it just felt like a shrug of the shoulders, because it was given so little time of contemplation.

Snape, on the other hand, was written very well. We saw how it happened, we saw that he knew it was about to go down. We saw his last breaths and the painful way that he died. The entire scene is very emotionally gripping, unlike the way the other deaths are handled throughout the ending quarter of Deathly Hallows.

To me, it just felt more effort was put in some deaths over others, leaving a majority of them to feel cheap, poorly planned, and poorly executed.

So, is Harry Potter Worth Reading? Even As an Adult?

Yes, Harry Potter, books 1-7, are thoroughly worth reading. They’re enjoyable, gripping, suspenseful in places, and truly magical. While there are some flaws, such as a lack of representation and a faulty magic system, the books hold up incredibly well and there is a reason they have endured this long as a childhood favourite. Think about it, the craze of other series such as Twilight, the Hunger Games, Divergent, and so on have all died out, but Harry Potter remains strong and relevant to this day. You can find Harry Potter merchandise easily in physical stores around the world. The truth is that Harry Potter endures so well because it is a coming of age story about so much more than magic.

Harry Potter flawlessly blends many relatable themes together, such as friendship, loyalty, uncertainty, loneliness, anger, and hope in the face of adversity together into a story of fantastically written characters and settings. Backpedaled by a good plot, interesting characters, and a bit of magic, alongside Rowling’s easy to read writing style, I have no doubts that Harry Potter will continue to endure for generations to come.

My sister, the one who teased me, is 32 now. She read through every book this year as well and upon finishing it, she told me that she wished there was more. A common feeling among anyone who has read all of the books cover to cover.

#harry potter #hp #harry potter books #hp books #harry potter review #book review #first review people!#3/12/2019

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by-ethan-fox · 6 years ago

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A self-publisher’s design journey

Thought you guys might be interested in the design journey it took to reach the final cover for The Scissors and the Sword, because it was anything but linear, and it might help some of you who are also looking into cover design.

To get started, I wasn’t a complete amateur at this. I actually have a background in design, having worked as a graphic designer in the past. However, my work was in an industrial capacity, not the entertainment or publishing industry, so although I know my way around the tools, I’m not the most artistically inclined person.

Taking the approach I guess most people would take, I started off thinking about the book’s inspirations and themes.

One of the biggest inspirations for the World of Orochi was the world of anime, particularly some shows that I loved a number of years ago, such as Rurouni Kenshin and Inuyasha. I really wanted the cover to reflect this, if possible.

I pulled together a mood-board of covers and images that had elements I liked; compositions, logo styles, colour schemes; this ended up being hundreds of files in many different folders:

... and from that, I settled on a few ideas. I really wanted Jessica front-and-centre, with Hikaru’s appearance being more enigmatic. I also wanted something in the backdrop which brought in both the London and fantasy elements. I also would’ve loved to get something which, in cover form, evoked something like the intro to Psychic Force, one of my favourite PS1 games with an anime feel:

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So I went online, downloaded a bunch of images, and produced a rough idea for the composition. Quick note to say I don’t own any of these images; this was never meant to be a public thing - so I’ll keep this low-res:

That’s a collage of about 8 images. The foreground stuff is obvious; Murrue Ramius would be Jessica, the facing-away character in the tabi boots would be Hikaru, but the background actually took some compositing to get the serpent to look as though it was coiled around Big Ben.

I went online to seek advice about this, both because I needed to find an artist to commission, and also to get some feedback on the general idea. The response I got was extremely negative; not because of the art (like I said, it was just a composition sketch) but the idea itself.

The main response I received was that this wouldn’t be workable because customers would expect the book to be a graphic novel, and be disappointed upon looking into it, even buying it. The overwhelming advice I received was to keep this sort of thing for promo materials, and not to use it for the cover. This seems obvious in retrospect, but part of me really wanted my anime tankobon style cover regardless, so it was a difficult idea of which to let go.

What do you guys think? Tag a comment on a reblog or reply if you want. Do you think I should’ve stuck with this? I do think about it sometimes. Still, I moved on.

The very first cover I produced was never meant to be final, but it looked like this:

As the cover states, this was a “sample edition” which I produced for promotional reasons. At the time, I wasn’t completely sold on going with self-publishing, and was still shopping around to agents, some of whom requested more material before the eventual rejection. Only two copies still exist (as far as I’m aware), one in my possession and one in the hands of a beta reader.

After this, I started to explore the ideas that would lead onto the cover of the first run.

This was where I eventually landed. I liked a few elements of this cover, such as the textures and clear text.

However, it had a few problems. Firstly, it lacks focus; I crammed so many elements in; crime, scissors, blood, characters, backdrops... It was busy.

Then it got rejected from Amazon, and later Google ads, because it features blood as a motif. Google reviewed it and said the implied “improvised weapon” of scissors was a problem for their service. I removed the blood, but that reduced the effectiveness of the cover, and I started to realise it was probably going to need to change.

The second came from an early reader. They bought it and said they enjoyed the book, but from the cover they had expected something of a horror-crime-thriller, as opposed to an urban fantasy. This was a much bigger problem; I walked down to my local Waterstones and looked through the shelves, and quickly saw how they could’ve reached this conclusion.

I realised I had to go back to the drawing board and have another try, making an effort to get the fantasy element front-and-centre. That led to these explorations:

Now, all three of these are somewhat hideous. That’s kinda the point. I spent a couple of days just throwing work at the problem, not taking much care about the result, to see if any good ideas emerged. There were actually 20 or so variants of these ideas.

However, none of them resonated with me. I kinda felt as though they just had the same problem as the previous design, with a less polished appearance.

It was around this time I knew that I was going to need professional help. I went onto the Self-publishing subreddit and sought out a cover designer; as it happens, one was advertising at the time, and we got talking.

Jim, at Jelzoo.com, took the time to go through all of this with me, and to get an idea of what the book was about, and he suggested something I hadn’t considered much up until now: If the book is part of a series, the design must take into account that we would need to make covers for future books of this series in a similar style. This meant we needed ideas and concepts which would be preserved, along with elements that would be swapped in and out for each book.

He also helped me understand something that was totally beyond me at this point; obviously everybody judges a book by its cover, but a good image is not necessarily a good cover. Many books have covers which are not particularly good images; like you wouldn’t frame them and put them on your wall. Some readers, when confronted with a new book, are attracted by the cover, but the thought is that most are picking up on the visual language of covers; what they say by the imagery they use. These images imply genre, tone, style, authorial intent... And this is more important than commissioning an artist to paint you a fantastic image to put on your book. You need to speak to these sensibilities.

This was the process that led us to the cover that my readers will be more familiar with:

I feel that Jim did a great job at the time, but it wasn’t until I actually wrote the sequel that I truly understood what he meant. He was able to preserve the core idea while bringing in the elements book 2 needed, which gave us this:

... and right away, I could see how we could start to construct a brand around the covers; something which I hadn’t considered at the start.

So suffice to say, it was quite a journey! The above summarises several months of back-and-forths between Jim and I, so it was an incremental process, but the end result was worth the effortt! I hope this has been useful to you guys who are considering self-publishing.

Ethan Fox is an indie author of urban fantasy novels with an anime slant. He is most notable for his World of Orochi series of novels.

His covers are designed by Jim, at Jelzoo.com.

#self publishing #writeblr #writerslife #author

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