#I'm not naming the book because it's not even published yet 💀

[triviareads]

Hiiiii! This is a bit specific but do you know any romance novels (Modern or historical) with Brown leads that aren't about cultural trauma? 💀 I feel a bit tired everytime I pick up a book with a Brown (SWANA or South Asian) lead bc it's always about arranged marriage drama, generational clashes between disappointed old fashioned uber strict immigrant parents who wanted their kid to be doctor and their child, terrible aunties and racism and/or islamophobia related drama. I kind of feel bad for thinking like this bc all the romance books with SWANA or South Asian leads are always written by women who belong to the cultures in the books and I wanna support them whenever I can, but I'm also tired of getting slapped by trauma I personally know when all I want is fun, drama,good chemistry,cute tropes and good spice without pin straight honey blonde locks, ocean blue orbs and milky white skin,you know? 😥

I have literally dedicated my life to finding such books (I joke with a friend that every time she picks up a book with an Asian lead, there's inevitably generational trauma), and it's hard! I feel like only recently have I started to see South Asian authors write in a way that doesn't make me think they hate their own culture or are embarrassed by it. Unfortunately, I can't think of a historical romance that doesn't have some form of racial trauma (I wish more romances set in South Asia existed/were published abroad). But here are some contemporary recs:

Tastes like Shakkar by Nisha Sharma (out on 8/1): My full review isn't out yet, but I loved Bobbi and Benjamin's (dw despite the names, they're both Punjabi) relationship progression (it's sold as enemies to lovers but the enemies portion doesn't last super long tbh). It has solid sex scenes and Nisha even ventures into kink (a rarity for non-white characters). Plus, both Bobbi and Benjamin embrace their culture and you get the sense that they truly love it, and funnily enough, the aunty squad in this book is actually a force for good lol.

The Roommate Risk (previously Wanna Bet?) by Talia Hibbert: Friends-to-lovers but done RIGHT. Rahul Khan has been in love with Jasmine Allan since he gave his virginity to her (the flashback scenes in this one are great). Now, 7 years later, she's living with him because her apartment flooded, and cue all the angst and confused feelings!! Talia writes her sex scenes really well, this amazing combination of emotional intimacy and realness (and a little humor), not to mention they're uniformly hot.

Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert: So in hindsight, Talia Hibbert tends to make her South Asian heroes daddy types (stern brunch daddy types.... if you will) and Zafir Ansari fits within this pattern. Him and Dani decide to fake-date to help get publicity for his charity. The funny thing here is that Rahul is the romantic (he reads Harlequin romances!!!!!! And having sex without feelings is a STRUGGLE for this man) and Dani is relationship-avoidant, so that's fun for them. Also, Zafir is dealing with grief from losing his father and brother, but it's less "South Asian Family Trauma" and moreso just a genuine exploration of grief and coping with the help of his family.

Claiming His Bollywood Cinderella by Tara Pammi: I think Harlequins might be your best bet if you want to read about Indians in India (fun fact, Tara inspired me to try writing a Harlequin-style romance). This has kind of a Cinderella vibe; The hero Vikram is a Bollywood actor, and the heroine Naina is his grandma's assistant and they hook up at a masquerade party (which was.... very hot even if Vikram is prone to speeches while he's inside her lol), and it goes from there. It's a solid (technically slow-burn I think) romance.

The Secret She Kept in Bollywood by Tara Pammi: This is about Vikram's sister Anya and the adopted father of the child Anya gave away several years ago, Simon (he's brown too), who might also be the DILFiest DILF to ever DILF. Tell me what other man can help you through a panic attack without even knowing who you are, and then immediately proceed to give you the best sex of your life? I'll wait. No but real talk, this one hits a lot of really great emotional notes about family (not to mention a great romance) without being about, like, South Asian trauma.

Sink or Swim by Tessa Bailey: Ft. a Gujarati heroine, Jiya, and Andrew, her friend who's been in love with her since forever. What I love about this book is that the friends-to-lovers aspect isn't too cutesy; it's a bit angsty and the sexual obsession aspect is what really sold me (not to mention the fact that Andrew's a service top and that's shown in the BEST scene, therefore also subverting the "submissive Asian woman" stereotype). I also think I think the book has very reasonable portrayal of Desi parents; they want what they think is best for Jiya, and Jiya actually agrees to meet a guy in an an arranged-marriage set up, but ultimately they come around to Andrew once they understand that he loves her and will take care of her.

Serving Pleasure by Alisha Rai: Okay so maybe this has some intergenerational South Asian family drama (namely how Rana's mother views her sex life) but it's too good not to recommend! Like, sometimes you really want a crazy heroine who lowkey stalks the hero (but it's okay, Micah here gets off on it... literally), and Rana ends up being his muse (he's an artist) as they start an affair with a definite end date but obviously, Feelings get in the way.

[spinchboli]

8, 12 and 16 for the writer/artist asks! <3

8- family tree?

Unfortunately I haven't made a family tree for my characters just yet, I should probably get to that

12- story that took the most amount of research?

Age of the dragons, my fic I've done hours upon hours of research for this fic to make things as accurate as possible.

Spending hours studying ship anatomy, learning about ice age animals so I'm able to put more animals instead of mammoths and saber cats and also looking up cold environment animal species - animals hold a massive part in my story as foreshadowing and symbolizing the characters and their dynamics with eachother and Bethesda didn't do a very good job with keeping with cold water fish species in the fishing update (vampire fish, gold fish?!?) And as someone who's special interest is in ichthyology, that bugs me.

Not to mention my fic chapters are named after an animal and every chapter I have a short entry of extra information about the animals in those entries to add onto world building and the characters themselves.

16- longest ongoing project?

Once again , age of the dragons

It's going to be a project that's going to take me years to complete but I've been planning this story for years - like since I was 12 I was planning on publishing this.

I was originally going to do a comic for age of the dragons and made two attempts that I later abandoned because they ended up pushing me into a burnout cycle I still haven't recovered from completely.

So I settled with writing it and I'm glad I waited before actually writing it because so much of the plot and characters along with the themes have changed massively, my original story was supposed to be an elder scrolls and Naruto crossover but I later realized for plot reasons it would become stressful especially during the war arc 💀 not to mention the plotholes and shit

It doesn't even follow the original story structure I originally had for it, it's not even remotely recognizable except for the fact it's a last dragonborn and Miraak fic and even those two have massively changed.

Spending several months hyperfixated on the Witcher books and games has helped me massively learn what themes and dynamics I want to implement into my characters and I finally have a way to weave certain characters and OCS into my story I was previously unsure of, I have so many new characters I'm genuinely excited to introduce like my baba yaga inspired sharks and my four horsemen of the apocalypse inspired dragons I'm excited to introduce.

[spaghett-onaplate]

I'm so sick of booktok books. Tropes sticky-taped together to make a semi-comprehensible and mildly enjoyable at best story. 2D characters that have no real defining personalities beyond banter and witty one-liners, that have no clear motivations or goals, that are inconsistent in their actions and thoughts. A lack of description that has you rereading passages over and over in a lackluster attempt to understand wtf is going on.

I'm reviewing this book for a bookstore magazine, and that fucking thing is the inspiration behind this. I mean, it has "TikTok" on the front cover, so I was a little sceptical at first, but now I'm just pissed off. Apart from what I've already mentioned, there are severe plot holes - the entire plot of the book is centred around a journey to recover a magical item of legends. Both of the main characters are sceptical of its existence, but they decide to try and find it anyway. Personally, I think it could have been executed much better if one of the characters believed in it fully and wholeheartedly, and was dead set on his goal to get it. Then, that would have allowed leeway for some scepticism in other characters while still moving the plot ahead, and added more depth to the otherwise bland characters. It also would have tied in very well with the backstory and just made so much more sense plot-wise.

I don't know, it's just really pissing me off. I probably wouldn't be able to finish this book if it weren't for the fact I'm writing a review, but it pains me to think of the fact I'll have to write a mostly positive review - so I'll do what I'm best at, and compliment the (few) enjoyable aspects while backhandedly complimenting the rest. I'll keep it honest, but if I didn't have a word limit/positive theme I would write a scathing review of 5k words, at bare minimum. There are so many points where I have to flip a few pages back and ask myself if I missed something - not that there's much to miss.

The two main characters are both cardboard cutouts with inconsistent goals and thoughts. One of the central conflicts between them makes next to no sense. The other two side characters are yawn-inducing and essentially useless, and I often forget they're even there. The lore of the world is bleak and two-dimensional. The writing style reminds me of The Hunger Games with its short and direct sentences, but is executed so poorly that I hesitate to compare it to, you know, The Hunger Games. It works in that series with Katniss' thought process and character, but here it just makes me cringe. It gives off the effect of trying to put emphasis on sentences that really don't deserve it. I think some books can pull that writing style off really well, when paired with other sentence structures, but in this book it just comes across as lazy and, well, badly written.

Writing a book is still an impressive feat, and the author could have done much worse. So I'll still write a kind review, but I'll keep it honest and I won't be happy about it.

Anyway, just needed to get that out of my system so that I can write a mostly positive review. But I'm just sick of what is essentially the Marvel-ification of a lot of recent YA books. I've seen other posts discussing this so I'm glad I'm not alone. And either way, bad books have always existed - it's not a recent phenomenon. Good books exist, bad books exist, and unfortunately it's a lot easier to find the latter.

[marksollinger]

(holds out my hands) 18, please ?

18. what is a line/scene you’re really proud of? give us the dvd commentary for that scene.

it's hard to choose one, especially since most the scenes i'm currently proud of have yet to be published 😅 i've also deleted a lot of my past fics (literally all of them from pre-2020) which i feel a little bad about. but i also didn't want to share them anymore due to Lots of insecurities about the quality of my writing and my tastes in general 😔 and some of them were permanently deleted 🥴 i constantly have to stop indulging the temptation to burn everything down and start over lol...

as promised, though, i will provide a scene... i will actually provide two, just because the stuff i currently have posted is quite old and needs updating because i take so fucking long to finish new chapters 🙃 i can also use this as an opportunity to leak some things, heehe...

(excerpts and commentary below the cut because it's long and i want to save as many of my followers’ dashboards as possible lmao)

questions for fic writers

Before she came to rationalize the things he’d done as violently untenable acts of misplaced protection, the best hope she once had to separate herself from her father’s blood-stained legacy was to outshine her schoolmates as much and as often as possible. Julia Montag would give her foster mother something else to talk about with the neighbors and the bridge-players and the parents of her peers; she’d get fantastic grades, run cross-country, read the most books, and do all of her chores without even needing to be asked. Yes, that Julia Montag. She’d go see the therapists and counselors and she’d show every adult in her life how marvelously well-adjusted she’d become. — For Future Reference (The Magnus Archives)

so, just as a little disclaimer, i changed julia and robert's family name from "montauk" to "montag" because it's german & plenty of british people share this name, it has strong ties to a pre-existing famous work of genre-fiction (fahrenheit 451), sounds virtually fucking identical to their original surname, and is not the literal name of an indigenous tribe. it may not be the name of an author, in line with the conventions jonny followed for melanie, tim, martin, sasha, etc... and it may be from speculative fiction rather than horror but. close enough.

i have been working on this oneshot for almost a year, now, only because i am extremely unmotivated and was honestly waiting for the end of tma to come for... whatever reason... i'm nervous about diverging from canon when i write for things with large fandoms, especially ones with fans as opinionated as tma's 💀 but i loved julia. i loved her so much. i wanted to give her something. anything. and i wanted to write a conversation that was kinda-sorta hinted at in-canon, in mag 111, inspired by lines that got tangled in my mind each time i relistened to it:

julia: it’s not a… trevor doesn’t like using the book. i don’t either. makes me feel off. dead should stay dead. archivist: s-so… i mean, why keep it around? trevor: ‘cause sometimes talking to the dead can stop you joining ‘em. come on, julia...

and i simply could not stop thinking about the history of them using the book? gerry's possible conversations with julia? there's a lot that was implied that i can't help but dive into. and so i decided i'd do that with this fic. i share a lot with julia and i'm still trying to find a proper balance between canon and self-projection that i can live with but i'm getting there. slowly, but. still getting there. that said, i promise i will actually be publishing this at some point soon...

alright. next one:

“Don’t think I’m not wise to your tricks,” one of them, a woman whose profile Caroline could narrowly see over the ridge of her broad shoulders, said with a playful tone in her voice that made the grin on her lips nearly impossible not to hear. “I won that wager. You’re paying the tab.” — The Seven States of Matter, Ch. 2, "Confluent Forces" (Archive 81)

so these are vic's first words in tssom 🥰 i have more or less created an oc and slapped the name 'vic' onto her, because that's how much i love the idea of her, and how i could make her a really fun character. i am... unfortunately Not going to be writing a whole ass character meta here because i seriously have 4 chapters that outline the backstory i have assigned to her? and i don't want to spoil anything too prematurely. but i love her so much and she is a joy to write so far.

in conclusion, i am noticing that i tend to enjoy & be the most proud of writing characterization moments? which makes sense, i think. these two in particular are canon characters i'd always wanted to know more about. because i love them. writing vic has given me the chance to project a bunch and manufacture an entire character from just a name and a handful of facts (both explicit and implied). i fucking love doing that kind of thing.