#NonWestern Writing Narratives

[thatonebirdwrites]

Survivor Narrative Structure

I know a lot of writers discuss various story structure, but a lot of it is trapped in this small bubble of Western styles that don't take into the full breadth of the diversity of story structures. This article by Kim Yoonmi touches on some other styles: Worldwide Story Structures. It's worth a look. You can read it here. For this short essay, I wanted to talk about a lesser known but often used story structure that I see crop up in television shows, movies, books, and various other media. This structure sometimes overlaps with others, but there's key differences that I think makes it distinct. I call it the Survivor Narrative.

A good example of the Survivor Narrative is Legend of Korra. Each season is structured around a movement/event that can devastate the people within that place/area/society. Korra and her Krew then must untangle the truth of what is happening, and it causes great trauma when they have their big confrontation. They survive and must then heal.

I also found several Marvel movies followed an adaptation of this story structure. For an example, see Moonknight; it's is a story that deconstructs the protagonist's mental illness, while the protagonist and his wife deal with a pressing issue that impact many societies at once. Each step of the Survivor's Journey was touched upon in the show.

Let's take a look at the narrative, shall we?

Introduction of players. Within this stage of the structure, we meet our protagonists. Survivor Narratives often rely on a group dynamic to be most effective, so it's rare for it to be a single protagonist (even in MoonKnight, its technically a duo or should I saw quartet if we include the multiple personalities, which all played a specific role in the group dynamics). The world itself is also introduced as a player within this story, and the antagonist(s) are revealed indirectly. The biggest key point is after the main introduction of players, we are given a glimpse of the issue/problem that is impacting the society, antagonist(s), and protagonists. This is where the stage is set for the following steps.

Untangling and/or investigating the causes of disturbance and harm. In this stage, the issue that is harming the society/community/group has become more visible and intense. The protagonists then investigate to try to understand the issue and seek a resolution. In this stage, investigation and/or infiltration is commonly used, but direct confrontation or political machinations can also appear. This stage has a lot of diversity in how the investigation is portrayed to be honest.

Reveal of the antagonist(s)' "Solution" to the issue/problem. This is the turning point of the narrative, where the antagonist(s) are fully revealed often with their "solution" to the issue/problem. This digs into the antagonists' philosophical views and why they are doing what they're doing. There is always an element to the antagonist(s) concerns and reasons that have a valid point that troubles the protagonists, where they wonder if they are really on the "good" side for "opposing" the antagonist.

Counter to the antagonist(s) "solution." Here our protagonists will encounter either another group of people or an individual or will discover in themselves a counter to the antagonist's "solution." It's a glimpse into an alternate way to solve the original issue that is causing harm to the community/society/group. The protagonists may even try to enact their solution before the antagonist (in this case a 'race against time element may appear as a side arc).

Failure to counter the antagonist. In this stage our protagonists fail at countering the antagonist's solution. If our protagonists attempted to enact their own solution first, they will always fail to do so in time. The antagonist always stays one step ahead. The antagonist(s) will begin to initiate their "solution" at this point.

Final Confrontation. Here is the moment of realization and full impact of the antagonist(s) solution on the people of this society/world/group and on the protagonists. This tends to lead to a confrontation whether directly or indirectly between the protagonists and the antagonist(s). At this point, very little can stop the antagonist(s)' enactment of the full layers of their "solution" to the issue/problem facing the larger society/group/world.

Defeat of Antagonist OR Retreat of Protagonists to Try Again Another Day. For this stage, it can go two ways. The protagonists can, through great trauma and pain, manage to defeat the antagonist, but doing so has a very, very high cost. The impact of the antagonist(s)' "solution" will still be reverberating through the world/group/society, which is a collective trauma that the protagonists then must aid in repairing. OR the protagonists fail and must retreat, upon which this entire narrative will repeat itself in the next attempt at resolving the original issue. If the protagonists retreat, they will end up with more than just the original issue to resolve, because now they must contend with the consequences of the antagonists' "solution" and any collective trauma that resulted.

Recovery period. This is perhaps the most crucial stage of this entire narrative. The protagonists deal with the heavy consequences of their fight to resolve the harmful issue and stop the antagonists' "solution." Trauma is part of that heavy cost, and a healing arc is often introduced in this part of the narrative. That healing arc will enter into the Survivor Narrative as an additional issue when the cycle repeats itself for the aftermath/impact of prior stages and/or for any new issues/antagonist(s).

So those are the main stages of the Survivor Narrative. I find that most stories that utilize it seem to hit each of those eight parts fairly consistently.

As an example, Legend of Korra follows this narrative fairly accurately, even in the individual character arcs, in particular Korra's and Asami's character arcs -- follow this same format, though for them their "issue" or "problem" relates to the core of their identity, the trauma they've gained from the larger story, and their fears/weaknesses/flaws that impact their healing. To overcome and heal from their trauma and stay true to their core, they undergo the survivor narrative, where they face both an external antagonist and/or event that causes and/or exacerbates their trauma and an internal antagonist that can sabotage their healing journey.

Let's take a look at the larger story to see how the Survivor Narrative fits into Book 1 of Legend of Korra. Note that some of these stages of the narrative overlap in episodes, and that's perfectly fine. Multiple stages can happen in parallel, just as individual character arcs can also happen in parallel:

We are introduced to Avatar Korra, Republic City, Tenzin and his family, people in the city who struggle against a complicated and painful issue that impact their lives, and the start of Korra's "Krew." We see indirectly the antagonist and his promises of a "solution" to the problem/issue of inequality between benders and nonbenders.

After we get to know the characters a little better, the Krew starts to investigate the problem and the antagonist's "solution." This is sped along when Bolin goes missing. We see the flyers the Equalists have put out, we see some of the tensions between the nonbenders and benders, we hear from the homeless in the city, and we see a glimpse into the rich strata and bender council.

The Reveal of the Antagonist's "solution" happens during the episode where Mako and Korra race to save Bolin from this "reveal." This is also when the tensions between benders and nonbenders begin to escalate in painful ways. We also are give a new addition to the Krew with Asami Sato, whose father plays a major role in the "reveal" of the "solution."

Several "counters" to the antagonist's solution is put forward by the Bender Council, by the homeless population of Republic City, and by Asami's role within the Krew. Aang's solution also appears within Korra's past life visions.

The failure of all counters to the antagonist's solution devastates Republic City, and the Krew is on the run. The city is imperiled, the antagonist is now leading a revolution, and all benders are in danger of of the genocidal "solution" that Amon touts.

The Krew has a Final Confrontation, where Republic City's navy is devastated by the antagonists, where Asami and Bolin confront Asami's father, where Korra and Mako confront Amon. Great trauma and hefty consequences hit all of our protagonists during this confrontations. Asami is nearly killed by her own father, leaving her with lasting mental trauma. Korra loses her bending to Amon's "solution." Republic City loses majority of their naval force and many of their districts are damaged, and a large segment of their populace "purified" by Amon's "solution."

Defeat of Amon, Hiroshi Sato (Asami's father), and the Equalist movement in large succeeds, but it is at a great cost. Nonbender and bender relations are heavily stressed, there's great damage to the city, Korra has lost her bending, Asami's has lost her family, a lot of benders have lost their bending.

The Recovery phase is when the Krew head South for Korra to seek Katara for healing. Here Korra is confronted with the full agony of her condition, and while she contemplates suicide, her past lives appear to offer her healing and a path forward. This is a very compressed healing arc (but we'll see a much longer healing arc for Korra after the events of Book 3, which is another Book that follows this narrative to a teeth). Book 1 ends with the recovery phase going on in earnest for Republic City, Asami, and the other characters. It's not till Book 2 that we will see the full extent of how this recovery goes.

Yes, I simplified the analysis above as I did not cover the individual character arcs, but I believe the above works well enough to illustrate how to apply this particular storytelling narrative.

In my opinion, I find the Survivor Narrative to be an extremely powerful and moving story structure when written well.

I also feel like the Survivor Narrative is often misunderstood because Western Media pushes the Hero's journey and/or were trapped in this idea that there was only one way to write conflict (often seen as a triangle diagram, Freytag's pyramid). This can cause friction with material that doesn't use that structure, where people claim it's "bad writing" or "too confusing."

But if we take a step back and look at these stories from a different perspective, to examine their structure through a wider lens, we see that they make perfect sense. There is a solid and good structure there, and the writing often is really good (yes, there's always exceptions but still).

The Japan's story structure of Kishotenketsu often is fused with the Survivor Narrative to add further depth to the protagonist(s), antagonist(s), and the place (setting, society, group in general that is impacted by the issue/problem). This fusion of narratives shows up in Legend of Korra, but also in a lot of Japanese Anime and Manga.

There is lovely diversity in how this narrative structure is applied, partly because one can partner the Survivor Narrative to various Non-Western (and even Western) story structures, where the fusion creates a more interesting tale. That is also why I love it so much. People's creativity and how they layer this narrative style with other styles of story structures makes the Survivor Narrative fairly unique and moving.

Let me know if you all have questions. I hope this write-up helps inspire some of you to explore this type of narrative structure!

[rosheendubh]

Thrawn quotes…(and the fact, when taken out of context, these words need to be utilized by a writer worthy of epic novels, like GGK, or Elizabeth Beare, or Freidman/Cherrah, etc…rather than mid-level military sci-fi like Zahn…)…

”He [the Emperor] commands only the loyalty of my actions, not the loyalty of my heart and mind…”—I guess this is from ‘Thrawn3: Treason’—

—Anyway—garp-I spurn the EU (except for certain particulars), and most of StarWars/Legends too, for the sprawling mass of bloated and inconsistent narrative, and combined with world-building schizophrenia. And lordy, PLEASE CAN the animation series (and BoBF and ObiWan…ugh!!). I know they’re supposed to be directed at kids, but…that’s the problem. The directors/script writers/producers are obviously capable of a series like ‘Andor’ (which, I’d say, rivals the tension of GoT, the scaled depths of Serenity-Firefly, and the plotting of TheExpanse), with layered complexities of moral and ethical challenges amid a framing of popular uprising, ideals and realities of warfare, on a very human(oidy) scale to keep the weave tight, tense, dynamic, and intricate…THAT is the kind of tale a character like Thrawn should be in, which could maybe do the description of ‘Rommel-Napoleon-JuliusCaesar-AlexandertheGreat-and Theoderic the Great (probably add the nonWestern-European folks in there too…) some justice. I’ll be honest, I’m also not a fan of TimothyZahn—his novels are mostly examples of good concepts, serviceably rendered, with lack-luster plotting, and literary blandness. —TBH, while I don’t really see Benedict Cumberbatch as Thrawn, there’s an element of that calculation, and measured logic, refined ruthlessness that came through in how Cumberbatch played Kahn in that revamped StarTrek movie from a few years back. To me, that portrayal was the closest we’ve gotten to the gravitas and genius that Zahn has tried distilling with a character too good for the level of writing. I feel like I’m reading ‘War and Peace’ as nursery rhyme when I try to peruse his books. But the quote above just….*Thrawn feels…*

[fortressofserenity]

Unpopular opinion

When it comes to discussions about sociological takes on gender roles and the like in another culture and country, there are probably already a number of white female sociologists and female social scientists who do bother studying nonwestern cultures in depth. But when it comes to a white female sociologist extensively taking on another country and culture, the way there is one for The Grand Narrative I feel she’ll mostly encounter a world that confounds and undermines her understanding of gender and sexuality in unexpected ways. I may be speaking from experience and it’s from my observations that more commonly, white men like Lawrence Monocello and James Turnbull seem more willing to study and understand the conception and formation of gender roles in a nonwestern country like South Korea.

I could be wrong in here as there might be white female social scientists who’ve done the same and already have when it comes to academic publications, but at other times it’s easier for other white female social scientists to focus disproportionately on gender roles and sexuality. A sort of white feminist way of thinking and understanding things, like it’s rather hard for a white female social scientist at times to ever bother understanding foreign cultures this much. Not all white female social scientists are like this, but those who do tend to reserve this for extensive studies in both print and PDF form. Not so much a blog as it is with BroadBlogs, which makes you wonder why.

As I said before to study a foreign country and culture in depth with regards to gender roles is to encounter something that undermines your expectations of them, for instance South Koreans aren’t necessarily gay for wearing makeup and quite surprisingly they rank higher on homophobia than Americans do. The preference for rather effeminate role models in K-Pop doesn’t necessarily involve endorsing male homosexuality, endorsing alternative models of masculinity maybe but not homosexuality. The fact that the blogger at BroadBlogs hasn’t experienced living in a foreign country the way Turnbull does is telling.

She does write about foreign cultures but not so much in depth and frequency/quantity the way she does with white western cultures, which may prove my point about why there’s not a single white woman-written equivalent to say The Grand Narrative (well not in any way I recognise or know it). A foreign country or culture like South Korea would sometimes confound one’s understanding of gender roles, if they were to experience it firsthand which makes you wonder about a lot of things really.

[ot3]

just as a general rule i think westerners - especially white ones - need to really be careful with wanting Gay Rep in stories told from a nonwestern perspective. not in a ‘you shouldnt expect gay rep from these undeveloped cultures :/’ way - obviously every culture on the planet has gay and trans people who have been telling their stories one way or another since antiquity. but more in the sense that every story has a limited scope and needing it to have the sort of politics You are concerned about in order to think it’s worth engaging with is gonna vastly limit the kind of ideas you’re exposed to 

like disco elysium has the privilege of being a 1,000,000+ word beast of a thing that is literally About it’s own political worldbuilding. this means there is not only ample space and ability to talk about how race and gay identity intersect with the larger communist ideology that’s the game’s actual Purpose, but that exploring these topics doesn’t feel like a tangent away from the core narrative, just an enriching of it

however, something that ISNT in that spot might have a much more difficult time making space for it and that shouldn’t necessarily be a dealbreaker

like, i’m gonna use encanto as a comparison because even though i probably can’t think of two pieces of media with less in common than encanto and disco elysium it’s just a very recent and very prominent example. 

i liked encanto i think it was the best disney movie that’s come out in almost a decade by a pretty significant margin. but i still think it’s pacing was pretty bad. almost nothing that could have been done about this though because the storytelling and character writing it was trying to do had a Lot more nuance than disney films normally do and there was just barely enough space for it in the film’s 90 minute runtime. 

some discourse i’ve seen second hand is basically concerns from colombians and other latin american people with the way white gay people are so intent to read the specific sort of Family Isolation some of these characters experience as queercoding or lgbt metaphor without any sort of regard for the larger family dynamics that are the movie’s core premise. 

like obviously there are no gay people in encanto because it’s a fucking disney movie and until faux-liberal centricism stops being profitable disney will never make anything truly progressive. but arguably more importantly than that it’s just not really the discussion the movie was trying to have. 

any piece of media can be looked at through a queer lens regardless of what representation may or may not exist in it but applying the lens of western queer analysis to media that tells a nonwestern story is a little bit on shaky and voyeuristic ground unless you’re being particularly careful. i don’t think it should be your primary means of engaging with those stories, and i definitely dont think it should be your only means. 

like i’ll bet queer colombians have a TON to say about the way this movie resonated with their experiences w/ their own family. and that’s always gonna be a much more coherent and meaningful exploration of any lgbt subtext than a white american person could bring to the table. 

like i think just in general we need to get out of the idea that something needs to reach a diversity quota in order to be worth engaging with. no narrative has the time to be about every kind of person. sometimes the person a story is about happens to not be you or anyone even a little bit like you, experiencing situations that you don’t fully understand. and you definitely should engage with these things but saying ‘what if this WAS about me’ isnt really the way to do it.

[airlock]

airlock grades the Gharnef archetype

so, I got a random hankering to start a text post series where I launch myself off on reviews of each character from a certain villainous archetype in Fire Emblem -- and hey, it’s a reasonably nice time of the year to be doing posts like these, what with that new upcoming entry that we learn more about each day, isn’t it?

to kick off the festivities, I’m doing one of my favorites -- let’s see who wore the heavy robes better!

(do note: under cut are spoilers for... everything, and also a significant amount of me criticizing or blamming characters that you might like. you’ve been warned! but if you’d still persist, you childish sword lord, then come along and meet my challenge-)

the man himself

(6/10)

although the execution suffers from myriad flaws -- of which several can be touted to stem from storage space limitations in FE1 and FE3, but are inexcusably retained in the remakes -- it’s not for no reason that this fellow spawned a lengthy line of imitators.

the detail of his backstory and motivation is brillant; he’s a perfectly understandable villain without being remotely redeemable -- a much-needed class in antagonist writing for more recent entries of the series. he’s also effective as a terrifying, genuinely threatening villain, implacable and powerful.

unfortunately, however, his excellently written characterization is largely confined to flavor; it fails to inform his actions or the flow of the plot, and so, he tends to come across as a plot device instead of a character. even his takeover of Khadein is written very powerfully for something that isn’t seen and barely influences any of the game’s events. and although his sheer ambition in withholding Falchion to eventually betray Medeus ends up coming across as a plot action instead of something steeped in his essence. and this all to say nothing of his second appearance, where he fully forgoes being a character and behaves indistinguishably from a non-sentinent madness-inducing talisman.

overall, he’s a splendid concept for a villain that is ultimately laid low in execution, largely because, back in his day, the text wasn’t big enough to comfortably carry him, and the more recent incarnations were ineffective in expanding it despite having more than enough room to do so.

I also docked a point or two for being an antisemitic/anti-roma stereotype in his earlier incarnations, what with the hooked nose and rare darker skintone; the remakes thankfully eschew this by swapping out the nose and making the skintone outright inhuman, but the more recent Heroes design, while an improvement on many fronts, seems to roll back on this one.

church gharnef

(6/10)

unlike the above-mentioned, this one was in a remake that changed a lot of things; I mention this as a healthy preface to the fact that I am only familiar with his more recent incarnation!

like Gharnef above, he’s an unforgivable, but genuine villain; while a lust for power is hardly fresh as far as motivations go, the game does reasonably well at establishing that he’s already powerful and influential, and has fallen to cruel orthodoxy in a bid to eliminate threats to his power at all costs -- in other words, his characterization is timelessly realistic.

unfortunately, however, that much is all text, if not outright fanon; the story proper restricts him to behaving as an unconvincing cacklefiend playing at a kidnap-the-princess plot that the princess in question should’ve been too strong and too smart to fall prey to. making Celica a somewhat willing hostage instead of a helpless captive was a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t cover the distance; it would have been far more interesting if Jedah had gotten the chance to overpower Celica in the arena of genuine manipulation through theological debate -- and on the other coin of things, I’m sure his preying on Celica’s fears would seem a lot more organic if not for how dedicated the game is to telling her that she’s wrong before she even takes the steps across the point of no return.

he’s much like the original Gharnef in being an intriguing concept that falls flat on execution, although with both of those qualities amped up -- even more interesting in theory, even flatter in practice.

discount gharnef

(2/10)

sorry not sorry for nicknaming him that!

I believe I’ve said it a number of times and I’ll say it again: Manfroy is a manipulative villain in a setting full of people who don’t need manipulation to make bad decisions and ruin their own lives. he comes across as a plot device at the best of times, and as a null factor at the worst of times; he brings nothing to any cutscene that he appears in.

Seliph’s visit to the Yied Shrine alludes to his backstory -- that which he shares with the rest of the cult -- but this instance is even poorer than previous examples at establishing a plot presence; it not only fails to inform Manfroy’s choices in any interesting way, but it’s also outright contradicted by his actions sometimes (cfr: withholding the Naga tome, in a move that brings Gharnef’s playbook to mind but makes no sense at all for Manfroy).

points have been docked again for racial stereotyping, also; the sprite alone doesn’t make it very evident but he’s also got a face that can be used as a fishing pole.

irrelevant gharnef

(1/10)

Veld is a step beneath even Manfroy, as yet another pointless manipulative villain -- notorious for stealing a slice of agency from one of the far more genuine antagonists of the setting -- who doesn’t make his presence felt at all. I was halfway tempted to consider Raydrik the actual Manfroy here, even.

he retains one point only for not being a racial stereotype, for once.

the absence of a gharnef

(wha?/10)

Binding Blade, for all its highly repetitious usage of archetypes (being, in fact, arguably responsible for making them a thing in the first place, where they were previously just repetitive Kaga quirks), seems to have eschewed the Gharnef. this actually somewhat works in its favor; although the game’s plot is ultimately one of the shallower ones in the series, the lack of a core manipulative villain puts the focus on the self-interested factionalism that each country suffers from as they fail to mobilize a resistance against the primary villain. so, overall, an approach that would have worked out great in Jugdral.

monsterfucker gharnef

(8.5/10)

where Binding Blade had succeeded in building a plot that doesn’t need a Gharnef, its prequel was successful in the opposite: creating one of the most effective incarnations of the archetype to date, and making him front and center, to boot.

although all Gharnefs thus far have been manipulative villains, Nergal and his cronies are the first ones who show true skill in manipulation -- as in, conning people into acting against their interests, in situations where they otherwise would not have. through this, he cements himself as the primary antagonist and driver of the plot, where his predecessors were content, if dishonest, in serving a greater evil. and he brings very perceptible weight to the position, specially in the scenes where he presses the buttons of the heroes; although he fails to ultimately discourage them from defeating him, it comes across as a result of heroic strength, not of ineffective villainy.

that said, however he shimmers and shines as the heavy, he’s somewhat held back by his backstory -- one that only partially succeeds at informing his actions (however compelling it is when it does manage to do so), and worse, is largely locked to second-playthrough bonuses, where the story would’ve benefitted much more from naturally doling out his secrets along the way.

I also docked a half-point because the pseudo-turban and goatee arguably veer into the racial stereotype territory again, although he at least has the point-for of not having an outright gonk design (even when the turban goes off). I should be clear: it’s not that I oppose having nonwhite/nonwestern elements on an antagonist at all, it just comes across rather poorly when certain elements are only seen on antagonists, and especially if it’s always on the ugly ones.

twink gharnef

(10/10)

Lyon is the apex of plot-driving gharnefs, plain and simple. undeniably sympathetic, but impossible to save, whether he’s too far gone or was never redeemable to begin with -- and in fact, this ambiguity is easily the most brillant aspect of all of the writing in Sacred Stones.

he’s characterized effectively from wire to wire: his appearance, mannerisms and fond flashbacks do an excellent job of disarming the player while setting them up for a staggering plot twist, but the game is also not too hesitant to bring the plot twist to fruition and saves enough time to keep building on him past the point when the big secret is out -- sidestepping a pervasive trap that otherwise often causes plot twists to weaken stories. and all the way to the end, it’s difficult to narrow his character down to one narrative that doesn’t feel strictly like a personal interpretation; there are as many Lyons as there are players, right down to the point where he comes across differently depending on whether you’re playing as Eirika or Ephraim!

there’s also credit to be given to the remainder of the cast that effectively props him up; because he has underlings that behave strongly on their own motivations -- and sometimes beyond even Lyon’s control -- he spares himself from behaving as a plot device to focus fully on serving as the genuine core of the story as a whole. I suppose he’s a good delegator if nothing else, eh?

depression gharnef

(4/10)

unlike the above, Sephiran fails crucially in one regard: he’s set up as an extremely endgame plot twist, which, coupled with a frantic, breathless third act that insuffices to fully explore the implications of the reveals it dishes out, causes his reveal to land closer to shock value than to the completion of an arc.

while his backstory is breathtakingly fascinating, it serves exclusively as a footnote to eulogize him with; it’s not just that his actions don’t seem to be informed by it, but rather that his actions completely lack weight in the plot, making it even somewhat arguable to class him as a Gharnef at all. in Path of Radiance, he only appears as an irrelevant mystery, and Radiant Dawn coming out to accredit him for some number of Ashnard’s deeds fails to budge that one’s sheer weight and doesn’t change perspectives.

it’s quite a shame, because in concept, he could’ve been the next Lyon; but the execution is painfully fragile, and amidst the complex web of characters and plots in Tellius, his greater-scope motions fail to be felt whatsoever until the late chapters of Radiant Dawn’s Part 3.

DIWNLF gharnef

(0/10)

(that’s “dad I would not like to fuck”, incidentally)

it’s not for no reason that this guy is the only major antagonist that Awakening doesn’t let you trip over still alive and kicking somehow. he is 100% plot device, adds nothing to the story or to any single scene that he appears in, lacks in personality, doesn’t present any sort of challenge that isn’t erradicated without fanfare by the protagonists, and doesn’t even have any sort of a backstory.

and he’s a racist stereotype on top of all that, so he doesn’t even get a mercy point like his similarly irrelevant predecessor from Thracia 776.

I have not played the game with this gharnef

(??/10)

I don’t even know if he counts; I see a lot of back-and-forth in that regard.

anyways, what do you all think? “oh my god someone finally said it”, or perhaps “I will kill you but not as hard as you assassinated my favorite antagonist”? if the upcoming Three Houses is to have a Gharnef, do you have any hopes for what they’ll be like? this is all nice and open to replies and reblogs, folks! don’t be shy! yes.... do it... succumb to the temptation.......

[hellyeahomeland]

Maybe you can discuss on the pod, but honestly so disappointed in the ‘white Western woman saves Afghan woman ‘ narrative they decided to go with...I mean my expectations have never been high for how they portray Muslim, nonWestern individuals and communities...but still stung

Anonymous #2: I agree that the focus on Samira’s life outside of her relationship with Carrie were a welcome bit of respect paid to those lives. And the white savior trope is always valid to call out whenever it rears its head. But it’s tricky with this show because it also has been rightfully critiqued for unrealistically and unsubtly portraying life in the Middle East, and, maybe I’m wrong, but what other realistic escape would there have been for Samira at that particular moment?

I didn’t get to do the podcast last week, so I’ve been sitting on this for a little bit. 

So, first of all, I know that Homeland has gotten a lot of well-deserved ridicule for their portrayal of the Middle East and I know that Homeland has learned exactly nothing from it. Do you remember what Carrie Mathison was doing in season six? She’d literally founded an organization that provided legal aid to Muslims specifically. 

If the show leaned any harder into the white savior trope, it’d fall into a ditch.

The Samira stuff was especially kind of shitty because really it was just an excuse for Carrie to ditch the motorcade. (That was the writers’ motivation, not Carrie’s.) 

I don’t know if she is going to play any sort of role moving forward, so, like... if that’s the last we see of her, that’s shitty. There was no need to get her brother-in-law involved and have him trying to drag her back to her village. There was no reason to write a story that required Samira to need rescuing. 

But as related to Carrie’s character, I thought it was important and I really liked it, because it brought back the Carrie who will go to hell and back to protect her assets. Remember her horrified response when she realized that an asset she was 100% certain she’d never told anybody about had died horribly.

It reminded me of her relationship with Lynne Reed (RIP) in a way. I don’t think we’ve seen Carrie go that far out of her way to protect an asset since then. It was good to be reminded that Carrie does care about people, she does care about the people she puts in harm’s way, she will fight for people... it’s just, well, it doesn’t always work. 

Please take this all with a grain of salt, because I’m probably the whitest white person I know, and honestly, Carrie “white savior”-ing Samira did not actually occur to me until you said it. I just saw Carrie trying to protect a woman who’d helped her.

But that’s on the writers, not on Carrie... and, weirdly, I do see them separately. They WROTE the situation, and Carrie reacted as I’d expect her to. 

Am I talking too much? I think I’m talking too much.

[guileheroine]

if you don't think korrasami is good why do you write so much about them?

my feelings on korrasami are basically [lovingthatconcept.gif] like completely literally

man i ship it to heaven but it’s despite the show, not bc of it. i’m viscerally attached to (the potential of) the characters individually & together and I love the fact of its canonicity, but everything in between is more just about where I can run with the blueprint of the canon + how fresh & lovely the idea is

the ka presence in the show is incredibly unsatisfactory and i cba to pretend otherwise. its hard not to feel cheated. what i like about korrasami feels practically incidental (so due credit for canonisation but literally only that) bc it seems like there’s barely any effort in ka or asami and sometimes even korra. (arguably wrt romance that’s kind of a blessing in disguise bc avatar’s track record w explicated romance tells me i wouldn’t dig their intentional ka - why i know the comics are def not for me - but what about the friendship?) what’s there obviously clicks w me but it’s honestly like 500% short. excellent concept but they’re scraps.

point is: being positively invested & being disappointed by the canon here aren’t mutually exclusive or even contradictory. (see masami which i also adore the potential of but within canon is just a device for the love triangle that i try to avoid eye contact with.) it’s v much my feelings re: lok which imo is a show defined by potential totally squandered in incompetent/ignorant (if not ill-meaning) hands. and with ka it’s barely written, let alone good writing. that’s essentially the reason i started writing ka fic in the first place, to plug the gaps & put meat on the skeleton.

a couple things, to be clear:

^ this doesn’t mean ka’s not valid representation (in fact i really resist that notion). there’s more to representation than narrative quality (esp in a show that’s shoddy across the board) - it’s about the space it creates, for ppl to be & play in, in minds & the media landscape at large. it’s v difficult for me to suggest it doesn’t/shouldn’t ‘count’ as rep when veritable hordes of ppl (including myself!) feel represented by it (and i think by definition rep rests in the audience not just the text?) it’s a super unique, gentle happy ending pairing & with characters like these (nonwhite nonwestern f/f couple) imo that peace fantasy is part of the power fantasy. 

ofc not everyone has to take to it for it to be valid (and why would they, lgbt ppl aren’t homogenous & so much, mostly chance, goes into what u happen to like). i stand by ka’s legitimacy and right to be as shitty as [pick ur show flaw of choice] (and there’s plenty uncomfortable stuff in the show - this aspect is actually ultimately benign and positive, so… perspective.) yeah it’s poorly executed & i’ll be the first to say so but i don’t think that is a hill to die on. no ones going back to it for the quality of the text

- i’m not looking down on those who find the canon satisfactory at all - naturally as someone who doesn’t feel that way i might find aspects of fandom uninteresting/grating/not relatable (notwithstanding actually problematic shit that’s in any fandom), but it’s not a value judgement. i def dislike the idea that ka fans are just kiss-ass/don’t use critical thinking skills/whatever (hello!) or that it’s a deficient or inferior interpretation & enjoying it = kowtowing/low standards even as it happens to not meet my standards. chemistry/development/characterisation is all more subjective than it appears (esp w inconsistent writing, as i think is attested by how divisive literally every aspect of lok is). everything in a show exists halfway between the product itself & its myriad different consumers, therefore there’s no ‘right’ interpretation. which characters/pairings/elements ensnare u is arbitrary anyway + ur interest then shapes what u see. so while korrasami doesn’t completely do it for me, cool if it does for you

tl;dr: I think korrasami is v poorly executed like most of lok (and still legit) & this is separate from/doesn’t preclude loving it & finding it important

[ravencromwell]

So Brown Girl In The Ring was one of those books it's difficult to talk about: I loved it with such ferocity that to try and articulate why only leads me into hyperbolic babble. It had such clear, elegantly simple writing but was somehow still so lush. It was a book I galloped through in less than a week, and post my depression meds that, gentlebeings, is an achievement, even for such a short novel. Hopkinson lets the narrative view and treat her characters with such compassion, even as the narrative examines the ways in which trauma begets trauma, the ways we break that cycle: redemption and regret and forging better paths for future generations. And those future generations taking those paths: grudgingly at first and then slowly coming into themselves: deciding that this world, this dystopian Toronto with all its beauty and solidarity alongside the ugliness, is worth fighting for and by God they're going to do it. With gentle, extended meditations on forgiveness and love: at its worst and best, and how we learn to distinguish the two. And it's all wrapped in Caribbean magic realism and I need y'all to go read it stat because I need a group of people to scream about this book with like I need to breathe.

But as I move on to The Association Of Small Bombs, by Karan Mahajan, I'm struck by the way these two masters of their craft use language in such divergent but skillful ways. * Hopkinson's style is simple: not spare by any stretch, but clear and economical. There's an excellent reason: much of the characters' dialogue is in marvelously unapologetic Caribbean dialect and unfamiliar English-only speakers are going to have to invest some time into picking up the linguistic ticks and rhythms. (Though OMG when you do, there's such a marvelous fucking return on investment, as particular characters adopt other characters' linguistic ticks to symbolize maturation in the most ingenious way--Nalo, just let me pick your brain for half an hour please; I'll become a thousandfold better writer--and the Caribbean dialect gives her this vast canvas of expression. There was such a power for me as someone insulated for so many years in the white English cultural bubble of being forced to not only absorb foreign concepts, but absorb them in their words, not tailored to my conception of the world.

The one drawback, if you can call it that, is that the way the coolest linguistic tricks Hopkinson uses require the full context of what came before in the novel to be fully appreciated makes it a profoundly difficult book to quote from out of context. Karan Mahajan, covering much more familiar subject matter, if from profoundly provocative angles, feels freer to use ornate language, equal parts gentle and so sharply incisive it feels like your skin is being flayed off. Lord help y'all, because I'm only three pages in, and I'm in love with the way they write and y'all's dash is like to be flooded with Mahajan quotes for the foreseeable future. Just look at some of these descriptions! On the way class effects even grief:

The two boys were the sum total of the Khuranas’ children, eleven and thirteen, eager to be sent out on errands; and on this particular day they had gone with a friend in an auto-rickshaw to pick up the Khuranas’ old Onida color TV, consigned to the electrician for perhaps the tenth time. But when Mr. Khurana was asked by friends what the children were doing there (the boy with them having escaped with a fracture), he said, “They’d gone to pick up my watch from the watch man.” His wife didn’t stop him, and in fact colluded in the lie. “All the watches were stopped,” she said. “The way they know the time the bomb went off is by taking the average of all the stopped watches in the watch man’s hut.” Why lie, why now? Well, because to admit to their high-flying friends that their children had not only died among the poor, but had been sent out on an errand that smacked of poverty—repairing an old TV that should have, by now, been replaced by one of those self-financing foreign brands—would have, in those tragic weeks that followed the bombing, undone the tightly laced nerves that held them together. But of course they were poor, at least compared to their friends, and no amount of suave English, the sort that issued uncontrollably from their mouths, could change that; no amount of sobbing in Victorian sentences or chest beating before the Oxonian anchors on The News Tonight, who interviewed them, who stoked their outrage, could drape them or their dead children in the glow of foregone success.

Just...look at that for a while. This marvelous meditation on class--and on the lingering, awful effects of British colonization--wound inextricably with such a wonderful, dreadful little anecdote about how you survive the unsurvivable.

There's another wonderful passage around the funeral of the boys:

At the cremation, which occurred on the stepped bank of a Yamuna River canal speckled with a thousand ripply eyes of oil, tendrils of overgrown hypochondriac plants thrust deep into the medicinal murk, Mr. Khurana noticed that outside the ring of burning flesh and wood, little snotty children ran naked playing with upright rubber tires. Behind them a cow was dreadlocked in ropes and eating ash and the wild village children kicked it in the gut. He shouldn’t have, but in the middle of the final prayers Mr. Khurana stepped out and shouted, shooing, the entire funeral party dropping back from the wavy black carpet of fire shadow. The children, not his, just looked at him and with beautiful synchronicity dove headfirst into the water, the rubber tires bobbing behind them, but the cow eyed him with muckraking glee and put its long wet tongue into the earth. The prayers continued but a tremor was evident: if the chanting had sounded before like the low buzzing of bees, the vocal swarm had now cleared and thinned as if to accommodate the linger of a gunshot. The exhilaration of Mr. Khurana’s grief gave way to the simple fact that he was a person, naked in his actions, and that as a person he was condemned to feel shame. He felt eyes rebuking him with sudden blinks between solemn verses. He stopped thinking of his two boys as they burned away before him in a flame that combed the air with its spikes of heat and sudden bone crack of bark. More ash for the cow.

That whole passage steals my breath every time: the insolence of the children, not so much cruel as bemused and grumpy. The way the weight of others expectations for how we're to deal with grief can be utterly crushing. All wrapped in a description of a part of the city as profoundly desolate as he is, as unable to get out of the cycle of desolation as he.

And one more, just cause it's my blog and I can damn it; probably my favorite so far:

Strange sights were reported. A blue fiberglass rooftop came uncorked from a shop and clattered down on a bus a few meters away; the bus braked, the rooftop slid forward, leaked a gorgeous stream of sand, and fell to the ground; the bus proceeded to crack it under its tires and keep going, its passengers dazed, even amused. (In a great city, what happens in one part never perplexes the other parts.)

He could, and probably is, as much talking about the way acts of terror are so often ignored in this vast, interconnected world of ours unless they target certain countries or people. But there's no condemnation there: it's just. a fact of life, and the rooftop incident is even used to levin the situation with a bit of gentle humor. Which makes it even more of a searing observation and indictment, makes you want to do better, pay witness and respect to more, just to live up to the gentleness about your failures in the past.

There's such kindness permeating both Hopkinson and Mahajan's tales. But Hopkinson expresses that kindness by letting complicated characters have their own povs to explain themselves and letting them have redemptive arcs and moments. Because she's being so careful with pros, her structure has to be her vehicle for reassuring us that yes, these characters attempts at betterment and redemption are being seen and will be rewarded. I don't know much about what Mahajan will do with their characters: I'm fascinated by so many questions about the victims and the bombers; there's so much grief the parents are expressing, but the why of grief, whether it's because they see their sons as whole people or extensions of themselves, is still murky. But I already adore that even the omniscient narrator exudes kindness and humor. They wrap you in these ornate sentences like blankets: yeah, the trip will be painful but see there'll be comfort along the way. It's just endlessly fascinating to watch such different stylists work their magic.

*Association is my first attempt to conquer the list of nonwestern litfic with badass voice and politics @tobermoriansass made for me. And damn, am I A. even more glad! she did and B. determined to devour it in its entirety this year after this introduction.

[radfeminist-suggestions]

i'm curious about radical feminism because i do agree with some of the things it offers, but i'm afraid to fully accept the bait since i do believe transwomen are women, transmen are men, ect. he reason i believe this is because transgender people have been documented in many nonwestern /european cultures (two-spirit, hijira, mahu, ect). (pt 1. sorry! when i tried to write more i wrote over the limit)

i've also met a transgirl irl & she was very sweet. i wanted to know about intersex people. should they be allowed to change their gender if they don't agree w/ the gender assigned at birth? what about the science stuff that says trans people have brains similar to their cis counterparts? btw this wasn't meant to be baity or negative at all, i truly do want to be informed. i'd love to know your thoughts on this esp radfems of different cultures, too! thanks so much

Hello anon! Let me start off with saying, I’m so happy that you’re asking questions. Asking us rather than blindly believing what other groups say about us is allll we ever ask for. 

Now I’m going to break your question’s down into chunks for easy reading.

“...transgender people have been documented in many nonwestern /european cultures (two-spirit, hijira, mahu, ect)”

I have a few things to say to that. 1, just because nonwesterners practice it, doesn’t make it legitimate. Nonwesterners can hold harmful and negative beliefs just like westerners. 2, these people that you have listed...are complex. Transgenderism is a western concept. A extremely brand spanking new one at that. To compare a Hijra or Two Spirit is insulting and shows a lack of understanding and worldview. Essentially what you’re doing is lumping these vast, distinct and cultural identities and forcing them under the transgender umbrella to fit YOUR narrative. 

“ i wanted to know about intersex people. should they be allowed to change their gender if they don't agree w/ the gender assigned at birth?“

Let me start this off by saying, I’m not intersex but this is what I have learned from their community. Intersex people already have a sex at birth, male or female. Just because they’re born with conditions that affect their outward presentation and inner health doesn’t mean they’re some nebulous third sex. From what I understand, what intersex people really want is for the medical community to stop trying to mold them into something their body is not. Stop surgically creating artificial genitals if they were born without them or with ones that society wouldn’t deem pleasing. Stop removing sexual organs that were fine where they were and were at no risk to them. Stuff like that. If an intersex person wants to transition, that’s up to them, but I don’t think thats a main concern for the intersex community at the moment.

“what about the science stuff that says trans people have brains similar to their cis counterparts?“

This has been proven false. The Zhou studies have been found to not follow a good experimental style. A small group of transwomen were used (sample size is crucial in experiments) and said TW were on hormones for years. So whatever similarity was found was artificial and not something they were born with. It’s also false because brain sex is continually proven to not exist. Here are some links to that.

X

X

X

X (Scroll to the bottom response)

Hope this helps you out!! Thanks for asking.

[teresatranbooks]

Reading Ladders - Romance

Prompt: Following the ideas in the Lesesne readings, create a book ladder that takes readers from YA books to more complex texts. ��Share a rationale in your post that helps us see how your ladder works - and provides thinking on how the complexity of the texts scaffolds from one to the other.  You also will want to identify the grade level and reading level of the reader you've built this ladder to engage...  Post this to your blog (which means you can also be as visual as you'd like.)

Based on the Lesesne readings and other folks’ reading ladders, it seems the one genre or area that people haven’t touched or made a ladder for is...romance! (The best genre of them all (; ). When I think about romance, I think about how it shows up in practically all genres and stories, whether we intend for it to or not. Love unites us all, right? Love for other folks is what makes us human, right? And being human means we’re drawn to stories and storytelling about the various kinds of love we partake in and spread and practice. 

My reading ladder will be start off focused on romance as a plot element that appears in different genres, such as fantasy/sci-fi or contemporary, and then steadily lead to the actual young adult/adult romance genre. I’m constructing my ladder in such a way because while romance as a separate individual genre exists more so for adults, there is definitely a growing romance category within young adult literature these days, and I want to recognize that reality, while also hoping this ladder will show the wild breadth of romance that appears across different genres that are slightly more established in the young adult age category.

Grade Level: 6th - 12th // Reading Level: 5th - 8th 

Bottom/1st Step - Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens by Becky Albertalli - Contemporary

Simon Spier, a closeted gay boy living in Atlanta, GA, strikes up an online correspondence with a mystery queer boy, Blue. Contemporary genre. It’s a fun, quick, and relatable read. It offers a diverse perspective of a gay kid trying to find love for himself that many young queer kids can relate to. It’s a good starting point for young kids who want to read books about a young boy coming into his own through the lens of sexuality and romance -- and also for kids who aren’t totally into romance for the romance element in Simon is only 1/3...maybe even 1/4 of the plot. 

2nd Step - To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han - Contemporary

Lara Jean Song, a Korean American girl writes five secret love letters to five different boys. One day, the letters are sent out. Her life is then turned upside down as she enters a fake-dating relationship scenario with the popular boy named Peter Kavinsky...where she ends up falling for him! Also contemporary genre. It’s a perfect follow-up to Simon because (1) it also has a book to movie adaptation, (2) it also contains a coming-of-age narrative, but this time with a Korean American girl protagonist and (3) it contains romance, but the romance doesn’t overtake the entire book. TATBILB offers a different, fresh diverse perspective on a person experiencing young love for the first time, but is easily on the same reading level and similar writing style as Simon, so it’s perfect for kids who want something close to Simon, but a little bit different in experience.

Grade Level: 9th - 12th // Reading Level: 9th - 12th  

3rd Step - Emergency Contact by Mary H. K. Choi - Contemporary

Penny Lee, a young Korean American college student and aspiring writer far from home, enters her freshman year of college for the first time. Sam, a young white college drop out working at a cafe looking to make ends, has dreams about being a famous film director. Both meet and it’s less of a meet cute and more of a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Also contemporary genre. This book naturally builds off of Simon and TATBILB with its romance acting more as a subplot and as a vehicle for individual character growth, but instead it takes place in college. The book also contains one Asian American girl protagonist and a white guy protagonist, as well as contain a meet cute and conversations over text, so it’s a nearly perfect combination of Simon and TATBILB. This book is perfect for readers who want a peek at college life and a slightly more complex text with a different sense of humor from the previous two books, but still experience the emotional ups and downs of young people finding themselves through their passions and the people/partners they meet that we often see in contemporary romance books with younger characters.

4th Step - Warcross by Marie Lu - Sci Fi Thriller 

While I haven’t read this book yet, I’ve heard so many good reviews about it that I had to include it on the list! Emika Chen, a Japanese hacker and bounty hunter, is whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune as a hired spy in the Warcross game. But soon her investigation into the game uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire. Sci Fi thriller. This book has a slightly more mature romance arc compared to the previous books, but it’s still age appropriate for high schoolers. It offers a different genre for readers who want to read some romance, but want a sci-fi twist to it. It also is written by an Asian American author and stars Japanese characters, so it’s a perfect next book to read after reading a couple of books that star Asian American characters entering romances in a different genre. 

Grade Level: 10th - 12th // Reading Level: 10th - 12th 

5th Step - Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan - Gothic Fantasy

This book is a bit of a departure in the romance ladder. It’s about Nadya Lapteva, a young orphan who can talk to the Slavic gods and has powers granted to her through prayer. She enters an enemies to lovers romance with her enemy Malachiasz, a blood made who is an atheist and is the leader of a cult. She works with him in an attempt to end a centuries long war, and in that process, falls in love with him. This book contains a different type of romantic arc, the enemies to lovers one, and is a more complex read, so it might be an interesting challenge for readers who are more used to simpler, gentler romances. I’d also recommend it for high schoolers who want something different in their romance, a push and pull in the dynamic across the backdrop of different genre (this time, it’s fantasy!) with an exploration on topics hardly explored in YA such as theology, pantheon of nonWestern gods, and morals. I’d also recommend it for more mature readers, as it contains some graphic images of violence and blood, but that is to be expected with the topic of young kids fighting in a war. 

Grade Level: 11th - 12th // Reading Level: 10th - 12th 

6th Step - Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo - Fantasy

This book is definitely a step up in complexity as it contains more intricate world building and plot development than any of the previous books on this list. It’s about Kaz Brekker and his band of criminals (some with magical elemental powers and some with other fighting skills), who are tasked to break into the most secure place in the this fantastical world and extract an important person from it. The content and twists of the heist are super interesting and action-packed, and will definitely pique all different types of readers’ interest. Its romance is subtle and slowburn and contains three different types of romantic arcs varying from enemies to lovers, to co-workers to lovers, to idiots to lovers. There’s also queer representation. It’s really all encompassing and has something for everyone’s romantic tastes. I’d recommend it for readers who want the same kind of dark fantasy vibes as Wicked Saints, but a slower and more diverse set of romance arcs. 

7th Step - The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller - Greek Mythology/Historical

Warning: This book is devastating and will make you cry. Achilles, “the best of all the Greeks,” son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, and hero of the Trojan War, falls in love with Patroclus, awkward young prince exiled from his homeland and brought to live with Achilles. This book is definitely more mature in its romance, as its probably the first book in this ladder that depicts a sexual scene, albeit a very short one. I think YA readers should be able to read this book with no problem. I believe YA readers should have access to these kinds of scenes/books in order to figure out if they like them and if they do, we shouldn’t shame them. Sexuality and sex shouldn’t be taboo subjects! This book definitely is also much more emotionally heavy and centers the relationship/romance aspect as the main focus. I’d recommend it for my older, more mature readers in the 11th-12th grade. 

8th Step - The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken - Dystopian Thriller

If readers want a break from the super fantasy/rich romances of the previous books, I’d recommend taking a good break with TDM. TDM is about Ruby, a young girl who has mind-reading abilities in a post-apocalyptic America. She escapes a camp designed to control and lock people with abilities like hers and travels with a band of kids like her to a safe haven. It builds off of the emotional complexity of The Song of Achilles, but in a different, more relatable way. Because it takes place in a post-US world, the characters’ dialogue is reminiscent of ours and so readers will be able to really relate to the characters and become really invested in them. The romance in this book is slowburn, a good followup to Six of Crows and The Song of Achilles, but the romantic dynamic is similar to that of earlier contemporary books like Simon and TATBILB and Emergency Contact. So, this book is not necessarily more sophisticated than the other books, but it is a different choice that readers can make when choosing books with romance to read and offers a breath of fresh air to the previous more prose-y books. 

9th Step - The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh - Fairytale/Historical 

A classic young adult retelling of the Arabic/Middle Eastern fairytale of One Thousand and One Nights, where teenager Shahrzad volunteers to be Khalid’s, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, new wife, after her best friend died at his hands. She is determined to not only stay alive, but to end the caliph’s reign of terror of killing young women brides once and for all. This book is really romantic-heavy and is similar to Wicked Saints with its’ enemies to lovers arc and dubious dynamics. However, it’s compelling and exciting with its fairytale elements and offers a diverse romantic story for readers who want something new and who want to stretch themselves beyond American-centric romantic stories, a callback to Warcross, which takes place in a futuristic sci-fi version of Japan. Because this book is heavier on the prose, I’d recommend it for readers who also want a slightly more complex read on a sentence-structure / description level.

Grade Level: 12th and older // Reading Level: 10th - 12th

10th Step - A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas - Romantic Fairytale Fantasy

From this point forward, these books will contain explicit sexual romantic content. While many folks will argue that there is no room for these kinds of scenes in YA books, I’d argue that by omitting access to such content (specifically explicit sexual scenes where consent is displayed), students will go out and find books that will show explicit sexual scenes that don’t show consent and they will learn from them. I think it’s better to not limit certain books from readers and let them decide for themselves if they’re uncomfortable with it or if it’s inappropriate for them. This book is perfect for folks who want a fairytale fantasy twist on the classic Beauty and the Beast story. It stars Feyre, a huntress, who ends up being kidnapped by the Faerie High Lord of Spring, Tamlin, for taking the life of a faerie. Once in the land of the faeries, she enters an enemies to lovers romance with Tamlin and discovers there is more beneath his exterior/mask. I’d recommend this for folks who want an extremely romance-centric story with one sex scene and an enemies to lovers arc. It’s also in the same level of complexity as The Wrath and The Dawn; it just centers around a different fairytale. 

11th Step - Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey Mcquiston - Adult Romantic Contemporary

This book has multiple sex scenes. This book takes place in an alternate 2020 where Trump never became president and stars a man-loving-man relationship. Alex Claremont is the first biracial, bisexual Son of the First Woman President of the United States. He enters a secret romance with the Prince of England, Prince Henry, who is gay. This is one of my favorite books ever, if not my favorite book ever! I’d recommend this for anyone who wants an escapist rom com from the trashfire of a world we live in right now. I’d also recommend this for older, more mature high schoolers who want to understand American politics better and read contemporary, relatable, funny dialogue with a rivals to lovers romance. And lastly, I’d recommend this book for readers who want a callback to the first couple of books on this romance ladder, but with a more complex/sophisticated plot and character work.