#addressing the reader in the narrator voice is in the second person also

[whetstonefires]

main point of the post solid, but i thought that aside was a weird take about 'you' because who uses second person narration to be literally about the specific, unknown person of the reader?

'how dumb is that; who would do that? isn't it usually used to create a dissociative form of immersion, reminiscent of a dream, or other similar surreal effects? i think OP has failed to Get It.'

but then i remembered the entire XReader fic subgenre, where they do use the second person like that, and it is very weird. i just hate the basic premise of being asked to project myself into a shipping scenario so much that I never engaged with such a thing enough to notice the more subtle problem that I was of course being mischaracterized. ick.

so OP has failed to Get or possibly never encountered the normal literary uses of the second person, but they have an excuse.

The reason 1st Person POV is so derided in fanfic is because of characterization. In 3rd Person POV, you just have to convince us that the character would say or do that thing, and if not we’re sometimes willing to overlook it for the sake of the plot. In 1st Person, every single line of the story needs to feel In-Character, and OOC moments become grating faster because by sheer statistics they feel like they happen more often.

You basically have to find an author who perfectly vibes with your interpretation of that character and who’s a good enough writer that it doesn’t feel clunky. Original fiction doesn’t have this problem nearly so much, because there’s no pre-built expectations. “Ah, so this is what this character thinks when confronted with this thing? Good to know.” As opposed to fanfic, where the reader will often find themselves going, “No, that’s not what they’d think if they saw that. No, that’s not how they’d feel if someone said that. No, this narration is incorrect.” 

After being burned like that a certain number of times, lots of readers end up with a Pavlovian response. They see 1st Person POV, they see that first “I,” and they’re immediately annoyed because 1st Person POV stories have so often annoyed them in the past. They start avoiding them out of principle.

(This is not dissimilar to the problem with 2nd Person POV in any format, outside of maybe Choose Your Own Adventure novels. The author directly tells you, the reader, how you think/feel/react, and you, the reader, go, “WTF, no I don’t!” Which then jerks you out of the immersion & makes the story less enjoyable.)

None of which is to say don’t use those formats if you enjoy them. Just… I saw some people expressing frustration over the general distaste fandom culture seems to have for 1st Person POV, and while I don’t want to get involved in that argument, I did want to explain. For general information, I guess.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Novel Editing

Below are 4 different types of novel editing. Revising in the right order is essential if you want your book to be in the best shape possible.

Developmental Editing

Comes first.

Involves looking at the story as a whole.

Also called structural editing, or content editing.

Base components. Plot, structure, characterization, pace, viewpoint, narrative style, and tense:

Plot: Sequence of events that take the reader from the beginning to the end.

Structure: How the plot is organized. Even if B occurred after A, the reader might learn about B before the events of A are unveiled.

Characterization: How characters are represented such that we can make sense of their behavior as we journey with them through the story.

Pace: The speed at which the story unfolds. Effective pace ensures readers feel neither rushed nor bored. That doesn’t mean the pace remains steady; a story can include sections of fast-paced action and slower cool-downs.

Viewpoint: In each chapter or section, readers should understand who the narrator is—whose eyes they are seeing through, whose emotions they have access to, whose voice dominates the narrative. It also means understanding the restrictions in play such that head-hopping doesn’t pull the reader out of the story.

Narrative style: Is the narrative viewpoint conveyed in the first, second or third person? The choice determines a narrative’s style.

Tense: Is the story told in the present or the past tense? Each has its benefits and limitations.

Notes: On Developmental Editing

Types of developmental edits:

Full-novel edits in which the editor revises (or suggests revisions) that will improve the story;

critiques or manuscript evaluations that report on the strengths and weaknesses of the story; and

sensitivity reads that offer specialist reports on the potential misrepresentation and devaluation of marginalized others.

Different editors handle developmental edits in different ways.

One might include an assessment of genre and marketability; another might not.

Some editors revise the raw text; others restrict the edit to margin markup.

Check what you’re being offered against what you want.

Developmental editing isn’t about checking spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Line Editing

The next step in the revision process; it is stylistic work. 

A strong sentence elevates story; a poorly crafted one can bury it.

This level of editing revises for style, sense, and flow.

Also called substantive editing or stylistic editing.

Editors will be addressing the following:

Authenticity of phrasing and word choice in relation to character voice

Character-trait consistency and unveiling

Clarity and consistency of viewpoint and narrative style

Cliché and awkward metaphor

Dialogue and how it conveys voice, mood, and intention

Sentence pace and flow, with special attention to repetition and overwriting

Tenses, and whether they’re effective and consistent

Told-versus-shown prose

Notes: On Line Editing

Types of sentence-level edits:

Full-novel line edits in which the editor revises (or suggests revisions) that will improve the line work;

line critiques that report on the strengths and weaknesses of the line craft; and 

mini line edits in which the editor revises an agreed section of the novel such that the author can hone their line craft and mimic the edit throughout the rest of the novel.

Different editors define their sentence-level services differently.

Some include technical checking (copy editing) with the stylistic work, while some do the stylistic and technical work in separate passes.

Check what you’re being offered against what you want.

Line-editing stage is not the ideal place to be fixing problems with plot, theme, pace and viewpoint. Fixes are likely to be inelegant and invasive.

Copy Editing

The technical side of sentence-level work.

Editors will be addressing the following:

Chapter sequencing

Consistency of proper-noun spelling

Dialogue tagging and punctuation

Letter, word, line, and paragraph spacing

Logic of timeline, environment, and character traits

Spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation, hyphenation, and capitalization

Standard document formatting

Notes: On Copy Editing

Some editors offer line editing and copy editing together in a single pass. That combined service might be indicated by what it’s called, e.g. ‘line-/copy editing’. However, it might be called just ‘copy editing’ even though it includes stylistic work.

Check what you’re being offered against what you want.

Novel copy editing is best done in a single pass:

When an editor works on separate chunks of text, inconsistencies are likely to slip through.

One pass of a sentence-level edit is not enough to ready a novel for publication. Final quality control is necessary.

Proofreading

The last stage of the editing process prior to publication.

Every novel, whether it’s being delivered in print or digitally, requires a final quality-control check.

What a Proofreader Does

Looks for literal errors and layout problems that slipped through previous rounds of revision or were introduced at design stage.

Authors preparing for print can ask a proofreader to annotate page proofs. These are almost what a reader would see if they pulled the novel off the shelf.

Others ask proofreaders to amend the raw text, either because they’re preparing for e-publication or for audiobook narration.

Proofreaders are more than typo hunters

They check for consistency of spelling, punctuation and grammar, but also for layout problems such as (but not limited to) indentation, line spacing, inconsistent chapter drops, missing page numbers, and font and heading styles.

The art of good proofreading lies in knowing when to change and when to leave well enough alone.

A good proofreader should understand the impact of their revisions—not only in relation to the knock-on effect on other pages but also to the cost if a third-party designer/formatter is part of the team.

Notes: On Proofreading

A proofread is rarely enough, no matter how experienced the writer. It’s the last line of defense, not the only line of defense.

Be sure to clarify with an editor what you want and which mediums the editor works with. Proofreading designed page proofs requires an additional level of checking that a raw-text review doesn’t. And some editors work only on raw text, some only on PDF, and some only on hard copy.

Proofreading is about quality control. The proofreader should be polishing the manuscript, not filling in plot holes or trimming purple prose.

PROOFREADING CHECKLIST

Author:

Title:

Prelims

Title page. The title of the book, the author’s name & the publisher are correct

Copyright page. Check that author name and date of publication are correct, and that the copyright statement is present and correct

Dedication. The spelling/punctuation style are correct & consistent

Acknowledgements. The spelling/punctuation style are correct & consistent

Foreword. The spelling, layout and punctuation style are correct and consistent

Preface. The spelling, layout and punctuation style are correct and consistent

Table of contents. Check against all chapter titles & subheadings in main text for consistency of spelling/capitalization; Check page numbers against main text

Figures, tables, maps, plates. Check against all entries in main text for consistency of spelling/capitalization; Page numbers against entries in main text

List of contributors. Check consistency with chapters in main text Are the names spelled correctly and rendered consistently (e.g. A. B. Smith, AB Smith, A.B. Smith, Alan B. Smith etc.)?

Pagination. Check that all prelim pages are numbered consecutively and correctly in Roman (i, ii, etc. unless brief specifies Arabic); Check that size and position of page numbers is correct and consistent

Running heads. Check that running heads in prelims are correct and consistent (size, font, colour, position on page)

Main Text

Pagination

Check that all text pages are numbered consecutively in main text

Check that size and position of page numbers is correct and consistent

Check that first page of the first chapter starts on a recto (right-hand page)

Check that all odd page numbers are on rectos

Running heads

Check that running heads match chapter heads (or abbreviated forms of them)

Running heads are correct/consistent (size, font, colour, position on page)

Running heads and folio numbers have been removed from landscaped figures and tables

Check that running heads have been removed from part- and chapter title pages

Chapter titles and headings (incl. subheadings)

Consistency of font, spacing, colour, size & position on page for each heading level

Check that capitalization is correct and consistent for each heading level

Check that each chapter drop is consistent

Check that space above and below is consistent within heading level

Lists

Check that spacing above and below lists is consistent

Ensure line spacing of list entries is consistent

Check that bullet style is consistent within list type

Check that end-of-line punctuation is consistent within list

Page depth

Check page depth is consistent throughout

Look out for uneven page depths on facing rectos (right-hand pages) and versos (left-hand pages)

Page margins

Is the text area consistent throughout/adequate for printing/readability purposes?

Notes and cross-references

Ensure all notes are cued/numbered consecutively by chapter or through the book

Check that the note numbers given match the in-text note markers

Check each note appears on the appropriate page; if footnotes run over to the next page, there should be a short rule above the continuation (or other indicator as given by house style)

Check any cross-references in the text to chapters, figures or tables

Highlight any cross-references that still need to be completed

Ensure that in-text citations are presented according to preferred style and can be located in the book's references or bibliography

More layout problems to look out for:

Uneven spacing and leading

Irregular indentation of extracts

Crooked lines, especially in captions and headings

Wrong or inconsistent typefaces or type sizes

Bad word breaks that might trip the reader (e.g. cow-orker, trip-od)

Widows and orphans

More than two end-of-line hyphens stacked on top of each other

Paragraph indentation (first paragraphs in a chapter or section are often not indented)

Hyphens that should be dashes (e.g. when used parenthetically/in number ranges)

Double spaces after full stops (periods)

Rogue spaces at the beginning and end of paragraphs

Extracts

Check punctuation of sources

Check that extracts are set consistently (size, font, colour, position)

Query any missing acknowledgements/permissions

Figures, tables, maps, plates

Check that quality is acceptable

Is numbering correct and consistent?

Is the design consistent (font, size, colour, spacing)?

Check captions against lists of figures, tables or illustrations in the prelims

Check spelling, punctuation/grammar of figure labels and table column headings

Check alignment of columns in tables and positioning of ruled lines

Check that all illustrations provide a credit/source acknowledgement and query if any appear to be missing

End Matter

Notes

Ensure all notes are cued & numbered consecutively by chapter/through the book

If notes are grouped at the end of the book, check the text and the page numbers given alongside to ensure they match the main text and the contents page

Check that the note numbers given match the in-text note markers

If running heads include cross-references to page numbers, check these are correct, or fill in if required

Glossary

Is the list in alphabetical order?

Check that the layout is consistent

Afterword

Check that the spelling, layout and punctuation style are correct and consistent

Appendices

Check that the layout is consistent

Check that the numbering is consistent and matches any in-text cross references and the contents list

Bibliography/references

Is the list in alphabetical order?

Has the preferred reference style been used correctly and consistently?

Pagination and layout

Check that all text pages are numbered consecutively in the end matter

Check that size and position of page numbers is correct and consistent

Page depth

Check page depth is consistent throughout

Look out for uneven page depths on facing rectos and versos

Page margins

Text area is consistent throughout & adequate for printing & readability purposes

Running heads

Check that running heads match chapter heads (or abbreviated forms of them)

Check that running heads are correct and consistent (size, font, colour, position on page)

FINAL NOTES

Authors need to take their books through all the types of editing.

That doesn’t mean hiring third party professionals for each stage.

Writing groups, self-study courses, how-to books, and self publishing organizations are all great sources of editorial support.

If you decide to work with a professional, invest in one who can help you where you’re weakest:

You might be a great structural self-editor but prone to overwriting. Or you might have nailed line craft but need help with story development.

Pay attention to the order of play when it comes to revision.

Fixing plot holes at proofreading stage might damage previous rounds of editing.

Source More: On Editing

[generalhugsstan]

Currently working on a fanfiction written in the second person (an external narrator that addresses the reader as the character). I've been getting into fanfics in this style and have liked how they flow. I've decided to try it out. As of right now, I have a plan to pair an OC (the reader) with our favorite General.

This is a draft of the soon-to-be-named fic's first chapter. Any feedback is appreciated.

The alarm jolted you awake. You reach over to silence it but miss. The Crono falls to the ground. "Not again," you sigh as you rise out of the cot. The alarm gets silenced, finally, as you walk over to the sink to fix your hair. Your fingers run through the slight knots and tangles. You never liked your hair after you woke up. It always looked as wild as a forest on Ajan Kloss. After pulling it back into your signature pony, you check the time. You're running late as per usual. You rush into your uniform, the emblem of the Resistance polished on your jacket. After the briefest check in the mirror and grabbing your datapad, the sprint to work begins.

Two minutes to spare, and you're at your post at one of the open-air hangers. Today's tasks include ensuring the x wings are ready immediately and moving supplies off transports. The first hour or so was an average day for you.

Or so you thought. After storing the repulsor lift for the final time, you saw one of the pilots running towards you. "That's strange." you thought to yourself. You recognized him as Poe Dameron. People have referred to him as a shoot-first ask-later type, but when desperate times call for desperate measures, he was the pilot for the job. You admired him for all the missions with him as the commander. You, of course, understood why he has so many admirers. He is now in front of you. Taking a minute to catch his breath and straighten himself, he asks you, "Are you Tala?"

"I am, yes. Is there something you need?" you reply. "General Organa asked me to give this to you. It's important." "For me? But I'm just a hanger tech. Surely she would want someone better qualified and equipped for whatever she needs?" Poe shook his head, "No, she's requesting you specifically. The flimsy will explain everything." You finally take the flimsy from Poe's hand. You unfold it and read the smooth and elegant writing. It says, "Tala, I have a vital mission. Meet me in the briefing room in one hour. This mission could turn the tide in our favor. I'll explain everything once you're here. Gen. Organa." Tala nodded in thanks and quickly finished some remaining small tasks while watching Poe walk away. You clocked out before quickly rechecking your appearance in a communal refresher mirror.

The walk towards the briefing room seemed long. You never had a reason to head over to this side of the base except to run the occasional errand for other techs or supervisors. The door can now be seen towards the end of the hall. You approach and check the time. You still have 5 minutes before you have to be in the room. Five minutes to catch your breath. 5 minutes to mentally prepare. The minutes passed, and it was time to meet General Organa. You hit the buzzer and wait. "come in." a woman's voice says. The door opens, inviting you into the room. You walk into the room. The table has some plans and datapads stacked on it.

Along with these are notes in flimsy and diagrams displayed on boards on the wall. General Organa and Poe Dameron were seated at the table and someone you assume to be Finn, as his appearance matches your co-worker's description of him. Also, at the table is an empty seat. Your seat.

[hereditaryconditions]

hiii can i have 3 and 15 for take a hammer to my galatea and 2 and 11 for summer dogs in heat for the fanfic asks?

take a hammer to my galatea

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

ok, it really isn’t anything groundbreaking and these are more lineS than a single line but definitely this part

Careful, Cassian. You nearly sound like you care too much. 

And you came back. Like a fleeting glimpse in a short-lived dream. Amidst a glittery, saccharine, decadent facade.

i was playing around with second-person a lot in this fic and wanted a sudden injection of the narrating voice. all throughout, cassian is addressed as you, but more observed than spoken to, like the narration is just behind luthen’s shoulder and imitating his voyeurism. so addressing cassian by name creates that sudden intimacy (hopefully) and captures that line between fantasy/dream-reality!

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

i think i learnt to deal with there being a narrative gap and how much information is necessary to give to the reader. ok so obviously cassian and luthen were separated at one point for some reason but there isn’t a thorough back story there on how and why (there’s one inside my head though teehee). i do like leaving a degree of mystique with such things and i think??? i learned to maintain a balance between too much and too little info.

summer dogs in heat

2: What scene did you first put down?

to be fair with this fic i went quite linearly—im not usually like this, i jump around all the time, but this one was absolutely based off the very premise of a hot, languid summer day in a pool, kendall in the sunbed and roman+shiv by the poolside, so the beginning of the fic is the first scene i started writing on.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

i really wanted to capture a certain atmosphere, a certain density. i like feeling like i can touch/taste/feel/hear/smell everything about a scene all at once and bringing out that sensory detail, which i did better in this fic than in some of my other fics, i think. also i like the summer. maybe not literally me in it, but in writing and in media. hot and bright and stifling, often more ‘yang’ and illuminated than the winter but capable of being painful still. ok that is absolutely a ramble lmao!!

hehe thnx for the ask <3

[this-is-not-a-slow-burn]

Wait people get them mixed up??

How though??

I strolled through the park to the bench per the directions in the letter.

is first person. As in the protagonist writing it from their POV. It's not YOU the reader, it's the character. Like they are journaling their adventures. First person is also the POV of non fiction autobiographies.

Michelle Obama did not write

For eight years, I lived in the White House, a place with more stairs than I can count— plus elevators, a bowling alley, and an in-house florist.

so you could think it was supposed to be you doing those things.

Second person POV has several ways of working. One is where someone else is narrating your movements. You are the protagonist and they are explaining what you are doing or what is going on around you, to you. Much like a DM for a ttrpg. This is often referred to as "reader insert" in fanfic. You know,. the ones where it's Reader/Character and often uses "y/n" to mean "Your name" (and not Yes/No as I always think at first) when the character addresses you.

Choose Your Own Adventure books are also second person. "You stroll to the bench as directed by the letter from Ops. The feeling of being watched from the shadows heavy on your back." Turn to page 15 if you stay seated on the bench. Turn to page 30 if you get up and leave.

The other method is where the protagonist is telling their story, but putting you in their shoes. The Sound of My Voice is a novel written this way. It is the main character's story but he's telling it like "imagine this was you"

You were at a party when your father died – and immediately you were told, a miracle happened. A real miracle. It didn't last, of course, but was convincing enough for a few moments. An hour later, you took a girl home and tried to make love to her. You held on to her as she pleaded with you: even now her distress is still the nearest you have come to feeling grief at your father's death. You are thirty-four years old; everything that has ever happened to you is still happening.

I'm sure there are names for these but I don't write in second person and rarely read them, so idk the right terms.

wait do people read first person stories and think they're the ones in the story???

Saw people talking about not liking first person, which is fair, but their reasoning was like "I would not do that" and I don't understand that mindset.

First person stories are still about a character. A character making their own decisions. First person isn't about you???? At least I thought it wasn't. What am I missing? I've always seen first person as just a more in-depth look into a character's mind and stricter POV. Not as a reader stand-in.

[jeremyfenn]

Narratives That Resonate: Elevating Your Craft with Timeless Storytelling Techniques

In the world of writing, the ability to tell a compelling story is akin to wielding magic. It's the difference between simply relaying events and transporting readers into the heart of a narrative, making them feel, think, and dream alongside the characters; for aspiring writers looking to master this art, understanding and applying fundamental storytelling techniques is essential. Here, we explore essential strategies to refine your storytelling skills, ensuring your narratives not only capture attention but also leave a lasting impact.

1. Crafting Intriguing Beginnings

The Hook: Your story's opening is its first impression, the gateway that invites readers into the world you've created. Begin with a hook—a compelling question, an intriguing character, or a dramatic event—that grabs attention and sets the tone. This initial allure is crucial for captivating your audience from the start.

2. Developing Complex Characters

The Soul of Your Story: Characters are the heartbeats of any narrative. Develop characters with depth, flaws, aspirations, and fears. These nuances make them relatable and memorable. A story thrives on its characters' growth, the challenges they face, and how they evolve. Let your readers see themselves in your characters, forging a deeper connection with the narrative.

3. Structuring Your Plot

The Skeleton of Your Story: A well-structured plot guides your readers through the narrative, ensuring a coherent flow of events. Employ the classic three-act structure—setup, confrontation, and resolution—to provide a satisfying narrative arc. Weave in conflicts and obstacles that challenge your characters and drive the story forward, keeping readers engaged and invested in the outcome.

4. Setting the Scene

The Canvas of Your Tale: The setting of your story provides the backdrop against which your narrative unfolds. Use descriptive language to paint vivid scenes, making the world you've created tangible to your readers. Whether it's a bustling cityscape or a tranquil countryside, the setting should enrich the narrative, adding atmosphere and depth.

5. Mastering Dialogue

Voices That Speak Volumes: Dialogue is a powerful tool for revealing character, advancing the plot, and injecting life into your story. Write dialogue that sounds authentic, capturing the unique voices of your characters. Use it to show rather than tell, allowing readers to infer character traits and dynamics through what is said—and left unsaid.

6. Embracing Conflict

The Engine of Your Story: Conflict is the driving force of any narrative, creating tension and momentum. Whether internal (character vs. self) or external (character vs. character, society, nature), conflict introduces stakes, compelling readers to root for your characters. Balancing conflict with moments of relief keeps the story dynamic and prevents monotony.

7. Playing with Perspective

The Lens Through Which You Tell: Choosing the right point of view (POV) can profoundly affect how your story is received. First-person immerses readers in the protagonist's experiences, third-person offers a broader overview, and second-person can create an intimate, direct engagement. Experiment with different POVs to find the one that best serves your story's needs.

8. Utilizing Themes and Symbols

Adding Layers of Meaning: Themes and symbols enrich your narrative, providing more profound levels of interpretation and reflection. Themes address universal human experiences, questions, or concerns, while symbols—objects, characters, or settings—carry additional meanings. Intertwining these elements subtly can add sophistication to your storytelling.

9. Honing Your Narrative Voice

The Unique Timbre of Your Tale: Your narrative voice sets the tone of your story and distinguishes it from others. It reflects the personality of the narrator or POV character, shaped by their experiences, attitudes, and emotions. A robust and consistent voice helps to engage readers, making your story memorable and distinctive.

10. The Art of Revision

Refining Your Masterpiece: Great stories are not written but rewritten. Embrace the revision process as an opportunity to refine your narrative, clarify your voice, and strengthen your storytelling. Seek feedback from trusted peers or mentors, remaining open to constructive criticism. Remember, revision is where much of the magic happens.

Mastering the art of storytelling is a journey of lifelong learning and practice. By integrating these techniques into your writing process, you can craft narratives that not only entertain but also resonate on a deeper level. Embrace the challenges and joys of storytelling, and let your narratives be a testament to the power of the written word.

[daisukitoo]

Since I have at least a dozen people in the notes wanting a report-out after I finish: spoilers below the "Keep Reading." If you have your own spoilers to add in discussion, please also hide them from new readers.

The payoff is nice but I do not know that it quite works without additional information, which either we infer or it is made explicit in a later book. Or some reinterpretation of what seems implied.

Specifically, Gideon says she does not have full access to Harrow's senses in real-time nor to her memories without conscious effort, so Gideon as a narrator only makes sense if she is telling this story to Harrow much later, having had a chance to sift through Harrow's memories. If that is the case, then we should further infer that both Harrow and Gideon are in some sense "active" after the events of this book, and for some reason Harrow needs Gideon to recount events that she should remember, and for some reason Gideon does so while maintaining the name block and also recounting hallucinations.

Gideon's voice as the narrator in her first-person chapters is also entirely different than Harrow's. The second-person voice is pretty clearly Harrow's or someone similar. If the whole narrative has been Gideon addressing Harrow, she has been doing so through Harrow's voice. On the one hand, that makes sense what with Harrow being active and Gideon suppressed, so we only get Gideon filtered through Harrow, and we get an entirely different voice when it is just Gideon. Also, Gideon was mostly not "awake" during the story.

It perhaps makes more sense to read the main narrative as Harrow talking to herself with Gideon as the occasional passenger.

My second theory, which I did not include in the original post, had been that the narrator was the voice of one of the souls that makes up Harrow, either Gideon or the genocided children. It certainly wasn't in Gideon's voice.

Perhaps later writing makes it explicit that Gideon is the narrator throughout, but Harrow is also explicitly haunted, and perhaps the spirit trying to take over her body (presumably Wake, but we already have many instances of strongly implying red herrings in this series) makes more sense as the narrator. That bombshell "me" at the 60% point is not explicitly said to be Gideon, and Gideon's narrative voice is a lot different when she narrates. It does not makes sense with Palamedes' smile. Also, there is a lot wrong in Harrow's head, so there is room for mixing these kinds of answers.

What I'm saying is that I am not satisfied with an explanation of Gideon as the main narrator. That strongly feels like Harrow's narrative voice, and I don't think we get adequate payoff for having it in the second person unless we can concretely and satisfactorily attribute the voice to someone else. At no point do we get a payoff of the second-person past tense specifically, apart from Gideon's chapters where she is explaining to Harrow what happened while Harrow was not occupying the body. We do not have a "why" for someone to tell Harrow the bulk of the story in the second-person, and we see that the disorientation and insanity work perfectly well in the third-person chapters, probably better there.

We could get the exact same payoff from revealing the narrator with the story in the third person, and in fact that might have been a better Wham because no one expects the narrator to suddenly drop into the first person 60% of the way through for one pronoun. The relatively few books where the narrator "steps out from behind the camera" most of the way through the book swing that moment like a bag of bricks.

In the end, the only thing we seem to gain from the second person (apart from the explicitly "this is Gideon talking" chapters) is the initial disorientation that seems to put some people off the book. Disorientation for its own sake makes sense here, but I don't think it is worth the cost.

Was the "Gideon" name block meant to be a mystery of any sort? It seemed kind of obvious, apart from the mechanism by which Harrow achieved it. I mentioned the suggestive gap in the Lyctor list for Anastasia; the ORTUS listing was IN ALL CAPS in case you didn't remember that he had a different name in the previous book, and the story starts pointing out the Ortus inconsistency as early as the second chapter.

The story says I was close but wrong on which A is in the Locked Tomb, versus the first jailor. On the other hand, I have no idea what it says in later books, and so far the series (1) sometimes strongly implies or foreshadows something and lets you fill in the details; (2) sometimes strongly implies or foreshadows something so it can shout, "red herring!" after providing a critical piece of information that changes everything; and (3) sometimes explicitly says something and then later contradicts it because characters are lying, wrong, and/or insane. For example, in GtN Silas Octakiseron suggests that the builders of the Locked Tomb were supposed to have walled themselves up within it and died instead of founding the Ninth House. Maybe he was wrong, maybe he was right and Anastasia was supposed to die in the Tomb, maybe the relationship between the jailor and the jailed is more complex than has been revealed. There is a clearly spelled out explanation in HtN, but it also comes in a chapter where the characters are talking about how they have been lying the whole time. And either Harrow or John has been wrong this whole time about whether Harrow did see The Body.

I was probably wrong in my guess, but I might also be wrong to believe the book's explanation at this point.

On the whole, I would say that Gideon the Ninth is a more successful book than Harrow the Ninth. Gideon has a more interesting narrative perspective and voice. The plot can get away with more on the basis of Gideon's inattentiveness than Harrow's delusions, and half-explained ideas in Gideon feel more acceptable from her perspective and from not being the second book of "we are setting up some questions and may answer them in a later book." The second book in a series usually gets to run with a story that builds on the worldbuilding of the first, but here HtN is burdened with more worldbuilding because Gideon actively ignored it in her narration, leaving this book with all the burdens of a first book in a setting while also bearing the story burdens from the first book.

HtN is much more successful at being a horror novel. I just didn't find GtN all that scary or possessed of horror elements other than all the bone set-dressing and the mysterious monster, both of which would fit fine in any fantasy adventure story. GtN had slasher elements, but HtN redoes them better. HtN has more and better monsters, more disturbing scenes of death and viscera, just more and better horrifying elements. Also, horror elements in GtN were muted by having a protagonist and narrator who clearly saw herself as an action story protagonist, whereas Harrow is leaning into as much body horror as she can.

The meme humor in HtN is amusing but feels out of place. The most successful bit is when the Canaan sideplot spins into fanfiction takes on the story, culminating in a coffee shop AU.

The story still has not confronted the implications of 10,000 years of time. Maybe society itself is necromantically preserved, because otherwise it beggars the imagination that society and language would be recognizably the same 10,000 years later. The Ninth is getting frozen colonists from 10,000 years ago? Someone from 1,000 years ago would not recognize modern English as the same language, nor would society, laws, mores, etc. be recognizable. 10,000 years ago is before the invention of writing. Think of what technology looked like 100 years ago, and think of how different it should look 100*100 years in the future. John's first crime against humanity is said to be genocide, but his ongoing crime must be the suppression of innovation for 10,000 years.

I am 15% of the way through Harrow the Ninth. There are no plot spoilers below.

"Second person, past tense" is a really weird choice for a novel's narration, and I will be disappointed if this does not pay off mightily.

Most pieces I see in second person POV are short stories. The goal is to establish intimacy and immediacy, and they are most commonly in the present tense. The notion is that the action is happening to you, right now, and you are finding out about it as you the reader go through the story. Occasionally you see such a story in the future tense, suggesting someone is prophesying to you.

Second person, past tense is someone telling you your own history. This is kind of weird. One assumes a Memento story with an amnesia premise, or similarly Merlin living backwards in time. The second person here raises the question of who is telling you the story. The past tense raise the question of why you need someone to tell you your own story.

That our protagonist is explicitly and demonstrably insane gives us a lot of "why," although the particular "why" depends on the "who." The most obvious "who" is that Harrow is telling herself her own story. We have already seen Harrow telling herself her own story within this story, so adding another layer of recursion seems obvious and later adding multiple seems fun.

But here we reach a fork that we cannot resolve this early in the book. Is Harrow in a moment of lucidity telling herself what she should already know? Is Harrow in a moment of insanity hallucinating a new history? Is Harrow just lying to herself because the ending of Gideon the Ninth was too painful?

Harrow the Ninth is sometimes described as gaslighting the reader about Gideon the Ninth. Someone is not telling the truth about something here. One character seems to have noticed, but it is hard to be sure when our narrator is unreliable and may be hallucinating and/or lying.

Gideon was a somewhat unreliable narrator not in the sense that she lied (except perhaps about her emotions, except perhaps mostly to herself) but in that she was not paying attention, like the meme post in circulation about a movie showing the start of World War I from the perspective of a pet pigeon. You can probably identify all the important plot points of Gideon the Ninth by how boring Gideon finds them.

Harrow is more classically unreliable. She has a skewed perspective, and within that perspective she hallucinates, and on top of those hallucinations she will deceive herself and others. This early in the book, we already have many examples of Harrow seeing things that aren't there. She tends to realize within a page or two that she is hallucinating. The big news at some point should be that those little hallucinations were within the context of a larger hallucination and/or lie.

And now I need to go finish the book so I can check my Tumblr notifications without worrying about spoilers in the notes.

[nincompoopydoo]

DEBRIS AND MISERY

CURIOUS MINDS THINK ALIKE ; PART 5 / ?

PAIRING: Loki Laufeyson x Female!Reader WORD COUNT: 3.1k SUMMARY: Through guessing games and walking on eggshells, it’s you and Loki that dance the strange choreography of two curious minds trying to figure out the other. A/N: Slow moving chapter! If any of you speak Norwegian and know that sentence is wrong, please tell me! I took a risk, not sure if it's worth it. Anyways, I promise there’s more stuff coming in the next chapters. Tell me anything about this chapter, what you love, what you hate. Enjoy xo gif from this gifset by@marvelheroes WARNINGS: Swearing? More paperwork. support my writing through ko-fi💖 MASTERPOST ; MASTERLIST

The narration of Miss Minutes accompanying the grainy animated graphics of a training video on how, why, and when a branch of a timeline is reset seems to be the source of Loki’s absentmindedness. If he is typically referred to as outrageously and mostly unnecessarily communicative, it is his mind that beats his mouth—the tumult of his thoughts is loud and overwhelming like the people who amass at taverns every evening to drink themselves silly whilst singing jolly drinking songs until the wee hours of the morning. Except, his thoughts are far from jolly. He, mastermind of language and a silver-tongue, has no words of any language to describe the complexity of his mind with accuracy.

Kraftig regn som faller i en fossende elv.

Like heavy rain falling on a cascading river. Water from the sky on water streaming through the ground—thunderous raindrops from above against the river that strikes every rock of every winding turn.

Those were the words of his mother.

Maybe, that’s how his mind should be described.

It’s the mechanical creaks of spinning wheels against the polished floor that pulls him out of his thoughts and finds that he had been staring blankly at a page of men riding jet skis of a magazine he'd nipped from the stack of junk on Mobius’ desk for the last minute or hour. A second or a day? He isn’t sure.

Time works differently at the TVA.

“Hey Casey,” he hears you chime, the cart squeaks as it pulls to a halt. “Do you have a paperweight or something I could use?”

There’s a sound of rummaging as the clerk searches the drawers. Loki restrains the urge to look.

“Uh, yeah...Here.”

“Thanks.”

Probably an infinity stone.

The clerk then wheels by, pushing the evidence cart as he casts a cautious glance his way.

Right. He did threaten to gut him like a fish earlier on although the threat was not as deadly as he intended but proved to be surprisingly effective. Yet, Casey is probably the type to be afraid of his own shadow, he would comply with any sort of threat even if it isn't death.

Pathetic. But amusing.

The training video continues to play in the background, and Miss Minutes’ stupidly charming and cheery voice is starting to sound like gibberish to him. At this rate, it’s white noise to him—attention elsewhere but somewhat listening to a certain extent. He loves multi-tasking and isn’t afraid to admit he’s great at it though it likely plays a huge factor in contributing to the uproar of his brain. It’s why he doesn’t get any sleep for most nights.

There’s just...so much to think about.

And now, it’s filled with the reminder of how you met another version of him. Somewhere. Sometime. An inferior Loki, obviously.

Suddenly, the jet ski magazine becomes less interesting, his mind fleeting.

Discreetly, he spins in his swivel chair and sees you through inked writings and diagrams on the glass partition of your cubicle. Your coat’s discarded, and you have your sleeves rolled up, looking less formal, less tense than before. Yet, still as fierce with that constant scowl of your brows. He watches you bring your fingers to scratch the left side of your cheek and notices a vague resemblance of a fading scar.

He hadn’t seen that before.

The glowing orange hue of the soul stone sits idly on top of a stack of papers beside you.

Loki makes some sort of contemptuous noise in his mind at the sight.

The TVA is a strange place. The thought of a cosmic organization that overlooks all of the time doesn’t make it any less weird and neither do the uniforms—dull color combinations and collars that never seem to end. And the Time-Keepers, well, he isn’t sure what to make of that. Things are a little too straightforward, too simple for handling such a complex matter of the universe—Time. It doesn't make sense.

You spark his curiosity. You had a connection with him. Another Loki trusted you to a certain extent. He wonders what makes you so special, that Mobius was willing to try everything to convince you to help.

He also wonders what your name is.

The clearing of his throat comes off as a sudden and disruptive sound that resonates clearly through the somewhat silent environment of the office floor. A subtle way to gaining your attention although it's proving ineffective. You continue to flip through documents, scribbling notes on a notepad.

He wheels his chair closer to you. For a moment, he catches sight of a white mug amongst the mess. It says, 'Rocket scientist at work.' There’s no way a person as intimidating as you have that kind of mug.

He clears his throat once more.

Still nothing. It’s like he doesn't exist to you.

Then, he notes your vague attempt to fight down a growing smile.

Oh. Oh. You—

Hm.

He scooches closer and taps on the glass partition a little too aggressively.

“I know you can hear me.”

His tone comes out in a sing-song manner. Finally, your eyes turn up to meet his. They are different from when you first saw him emerged into the hallway. Less angry and shocked. Now, you just look unimpressed.

Loki somehow thinks it’s a great idea to charm his way to you.

A grin finds his way to his lips, curving widely with oozing allure.

Or so he thinks.

“Pardon me, but I believe we haven’t properly met and I didn’t catch your name earlier on.”

You don’t say anything, only blink in response.

Tough crowd.

Loki shifts in his seat.

“...What is your name?”

He articulates his words with care, and he doesn’t know why he finds it a need to tread lightly around you. Like with a touch, you will transform into a fiery beast from his childhood nightmares and eat him alive.

You and Mobius are polar opposites—personality-wise. It’s a wonder how the two of you get along.

Do you scare him? No. Definitely not.

Do you intimidate him? Perhaps. But, he will never admit it.

Maybe it’s the way you’re gazing at him with that constant, deafening deadpan look.

Then, you finally give him an answer.

“Agent.”

And with that, you're back to scribbling notes on a notepad.

Agent.

Loki scoffs silently to himself.

Well, that turned out to be completely pointless.

He turns his back to you, returning to scanning through Mobius' jet ski magazine within his grasp.

Loki doesn’t see how you’re now staring at the back of his figure, tapping your pen against the notepad absentmindedly.

Curious minds think alike.

-

You needed a change of scenery.

With all the noise of the muffling narration of the training videos from Mobius’ desk, you began to feel like you forgot how to do your job. The only job you were created for. The disturbance seems to be putting your brain into a frenzy and it’s preventing you from getting your head straight on report protocols. Trying to think of better words to describe the things you’ve seen on Sakaar that weren’t words that meant trash and didn’t end up sounding unintentionally sexual, is where you draw the line.

Times are hard for the variant turned analyst.

The archives are serene amid your solitude. Extensive tables hidden between shelves of identical-looking binders that expanded throughout the hundreds of floors of the building. The spot that overlooks the three looming statues of the Time-Keepers is your favorite. The occasional swish of a passing elevator calms your nerves from all the frustration and pressure ever since you were released from your arrest. You’re just happy to be somewhere familiar although it’s not home.

Although all distractions are gone, you manage to find new ones as you gaze at the glowing ‘357’ signage from across the building as you decide to let your thoughts run for just a little while. You feel like you’re looking through foggy glasses and your brain feels like it’s about to shut down any moment.

Dream away the pain, then.

Then, you hear a voice from afar. Two voices. It’s Mobius; you’ll recognize that quintessential Texan accent anywhere from the times he would rave about a new jet ski magazine he’d found on a mission...something along those lines.

Much to your chagrin, you also hear Loki with that irritatingly posh accent of his.

You should probably move somewhere else. Run and hide before you're being pulled even more into this mess because you know Mobius is trying to get you to spend as much time with the variant turned analyst to gain trust.

You’re still not sure how it’s helping with his case. Loki has better trust in Mobius than you as far as you’re concerned.

Before you could even gather the mess of your files, the two men you’ve been trying to escape are already by the desk you’re sitting at. You suddenly notice the stack of files on the other end of the desk, not remembering seeing the archivist putting that there.

Crap.

“Let me park ya at this desk and don’t be afraid to really lean into this work...”

You look like a deer caught in the headlights, signaling to Mobius that you really don’t want to share a desk with Loki. He continues to speak to him, ignoring your silent plea. Then, he gestures to the seat across from you.

There’s still time to leave.

Mobius addresses you with the stretch of his pointer finger.

“You, keep an eye on him. I’m gonna get a snack.”

Well, too late.

With a turn of a heel, you and Loki watch him walk away and pass neverending shelves of the archives. Once again, the two of you are left alone in the silence and the white noise of the TVA.

You meet each other's eyes at the same time, struck with the thought that you and he will probably be seeing each other a lot until the Loki variant is arrested. Plus, you’re tired of giving him the cold shoulder although you believe he deserves it.

This is a different Loki. The one who’s still power-hungry. The one who still wants to rule.

Time to start fresh.

You notice he now wears a jacket, a color somewhere between green, grey, and brown with a striking image of the TVA’s official badge above his chest. The lapels of his jacket jut out in an attempt to replicate his sense of pride and confidence.

He must have been on a trip with Mobius to the Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin, 1985. Oh, how you would kill to tag along. Everyone who knows you knows about your obsession with Earth’s music pop culture, specifically the 1980s. It explains the cassettes you have lying around. Your apartment has more of it.

Unfortunately, you're grounded. That's reality.

Thus, you decide that Loki deserves a second chance because he’s also somehow looking at you for some kind of approval. You’re starting to wonder if this is the same Loki that was tapping aggressively on your cubicle earlier on.

With an open palm, you gesture to the empty seat surrounded by stacks of binders and folders. It's the first time he has experienced some kind of acknowledgment of his presence that you weren’t ranting or screaming about. Oddly calm. Oddly inviting. Momentarily, he shifts in his stance, eyes darting between a fading figure of Mobius rounding the corner and to the seat, across from you.

The air is tense. However, still breathable.

Loki slides into the seat, legs shifting under the desk as it brushes against your by accident. You shoot him a pointed look, and he responds with a coy expression, blinking at you innocently. It’s mischievous.

Classic Loki.

You turn back to your case file, ignoring the way his gaze seems to burn holes into the side of your face for a fleeting moment before flipping a binder open from the stack to his left.

-

You snore when you sleep.

Loki wouldn’t describe it as a snore; it's more of a wheeze. Soft and subtle but it’s there, cutting through the ambiance of the archives, drifting and resonating in his ears. Through turning pages, uttering words to himself for his amusement, and having an irritating lady shush him for that, he realized how it became a lot quieter. The grazing sound of pen furiously scribbling words onto the yellow notepad has stopped.

Then, he hears it. Your pathetic snores. Your cheek is unceremoniously pressed against the back of your hand while the other holds the orange pen that’s still pinned down on the paper, mid-scrawl. The tip of the ballpoint pen sits idly, halfway through the curved stroke of the last letter of the word, ‘debris.’ He cranes his neck, face tilting in an attempt to read the chicken scratchings of your handwriting.

0132: L1190 hauls me through the time door and I miserably land on Sakaar, the planet of wastelands and debris.

You are quite...miserable. In a comical way. And he knows how much you hated your time on Sakaar—Mobius warned him of your apparent irritation in reminiscent of being stranded and then having to resume paperwork immediately. He wonders if he, too, is the reason for another boiling rage.

Apparently, you were pardoned on behalf of not only Mobius but the Time-Keepers as well.

You, an agent, are recognized by the holy and almighty Time-Keepers.

You, an agent, who sleeps with your mouth agape.

The statues of the TVA’s creators loom over him like they’re watching his every step. Every movement. Every lingering thought. Right now, he has the urge to uncover, perhaps deduce, the holes within this whole mess. In a carefully calculated and discrete movement, he reaches to prod you on the forearm. You don’t move.

He prods you again.

You still don’t move.

Now, Loki is trying to chat up the archivist who watches him through narrowed eyes, glasses framing the austere and rigid structure of her face, in favor of files that turn out to be classified.

Classified, classified, classified. Only able to gain access to his own file.

His journey from the desk proved to be useless and unproductive although the much-needed stretch somehow made it a little worthwhile.

When he returns, you're surprisingly still asleep, brow twitching and lips still parted.

Aren’t you supposed to be keeping an eye on him?

The pen you held has now left your grasp, rolled over to his stack of binders. He notices the words inscribed on it, ‘Mars is there, waiting to be reached.'

Through your fury and chaos, he knows there’s a part of you that feels, a part of you that loves. And you love everything about the Midgardians’ space program. It's shown in the way you cling to collected memorabilia.

There are dark circles that adorn your shut eyes, barely hidden under your lashes. You’re exhausted, fractured.

Loki is having a difficult time trying to suppress how he likes the way the frizz of your hair glows against the glowing table lamps from the desk behind you. You’re raw, flaws presented on a silver platter for everyone to see. Maybe, that’s the reason why you entice him the way you do.

He’s staring. Right. Back to work.

Loki returns to running through neverending case files, engrossed in the pixelated monochrome images that accompany the monospace typeface of endless reports.

Then, he sees it.

‘Destruction of Asgard’ in big, bold, and red letters. It glares at him sharply, images of his once divine home of Asgard, crumbling at the feet of Surtur. Buildings, people, engulfed in the flames of the fire demon. The prophecy of the end, Ragnarok—it was meant to be.

His home, it still was. Although an untrue Asgardian.

He knows how it ends. He knows he dies. He wishes his true self, the one on the Sacred Timeline, could have done more.

He doesn’t realize the forming tears that linger. He doesn’t realize that in the sense of premonition, you’ve awakened. He doesn’t realize that even with sleepy eyes, you notice the grief that glints in his eyes.

“Are you okay?”

With three words, you’ve struck him with those eyes that seemed all-knowing. You see through the facade he has created, sealing the true nature of what is truly a child that is afraid of his destiny and to lose all he had ever known. His mother, father, and brother. His people. You see through it all.

You know that face. You’d seen it on Sakaar when he sat at the doorstep of your makeshift home, watching the splintered moon drift through the star-lit sky. You’d seen it in yourself through the dusty reflection of the screen of the tempad.

He longs for home. He longs for family.

For a moment, Loki sees Frigga in your eyes.

Then, his world shifts, hauling him back to reality. It’s you who’s across his way, not his mother. Loki blinks, partly to get his head straight with the excuse to blink away the sting in his eye. He shifts in his seat, rolling his neck and squares his shoulders.

“Yes. I’m alright. It’s just...”

Trailing off, he clears his throat. You follow his gaze and from your spot, you catch sight of those deafening crimson letters. Maybe, it was the spur of the moment. You blame your drowsy state, but there’s a growing warmth that spreads across your chest from the pit of your stomach. It’s subtle, a spark, but evident. Before you know it, you’re uttering words that leave your lips faster than your brain could perceive.

“I’m sorry.”

You don’t know when was the last time you said those words and meant it. Loki doesn’t know when was the last time he’d ever heard those words addressed to him, spoken from the lips of a stranger. Until now.

You mean it. He sees it in the curve of your brows.

Loki swallows, nodding curtly. For the first time, he has nothing to say. And as quickly as the moment comes, he brushes it off and so do you. Whatever is reminiscent of a residing unknown feeling, bubbling within, has disappeared.

He sees your hand reach for the pen and for a while, he thinks you’re about to reach for his arm.

But no, you’re back to scrawling notes on the paper and he’s back to studying useless documents.

It doesn’t take long for the two of you to fall back into your normal antics as you find yourself chasing after Loki, who abruptly left the desk with wide eyes.

Curious minds think alike. Mostly.

TAGLIST:

@lareinedususpense

@poubxlle

@mystoragehatesme

@the-maroon-panda

[persephoneyss]

Bad Movie.

Pairing: Jung Hoseok x f! Reader. Ft. Jungkook.

Genre: Yandere, dark themes, angst, gore a little.

Summary: ❝Looking for the person you love, beautiful woman.❞

Warnings: Yandere behavior, obsession, harassment / stalking, humiliation, forced marriage, non-sexual intercourse, abuse of power, implicit murder, drug use naming, minor past master / pet relationships, secondary character abduction, ugly hallucinating hoseok , beatings, blood, photos depicting abuse, mistreatment and death, bribery, sexism and humiliation (directly aimed at female prostitutes), hoseok mistreats and humiliates jk, awkward marriage proposals, use namjoon as a secondary character because it hurts more:(, etc.

Number of words: 6000+

︙Author's Note: This is my longest fic so far, I think. It took a lot for me to do it, especially since I didn't have a clear idea about the whole plot that would take and the role that each character would develop. So if you see Jungkook in a kind of strange character, blame my mind for including him almost last. Also, I hate Hoseok in this fic. Namjoon angel and fallen soldier, by the way let me know if they cried with his death, it hurt me to write it. Thank you very much for the 200 notes in my previous fic, I'm crying.

Read the Warnings well and enjoy!

(Sorry for any mistakes, my first language is not English and I am not fluent either.)

Puedes leer este fic y más aquí en español.

Confidence, a beautiful and treacherous feeling at times.

Feeling superior is a constant whisper of the ego within you, calling to be released and make others feel as what they really are, despicable and useless trash. It was fun laughing at losers when you haven't had that sense of defeat yet.

Hoseok fervently watched his rivals fall at his feet, laughing at his incompetence and stomping even more pathetic defeated form even though they were already dead in tears of pain. He smiled, he always did when he felt invincible and He bit his lip gently to hold back an excited laugh.

No one could be compared to him, and in his high sense of power he could never be alert when he struck him with a blast of vengeance.

It was you.

His eyes stared at you in horror and anger, his ego inside him hated you from the first moment. Because while despicable, he loved you for much more than his pride and winning sense.

He fell at your feet but he never made you notice it, behaving as he normally would around you even though he was always behind you.

Luck was her greatest ally, he always smiled at her and she helped him. It was fun to play with your opponents pretending to be the victim, the cornered mouse and then smash everyone with a snap of your fingers.

His mother looked at him with love and his father with pride, he was the only and favorite son of the Jung family. His success was never derived from love, much less, it was blasphemy in his family to say something so false and impossible.

Hoseok admired his family when they met in the great message of his parents' house, his grandparents smiled and his relatives brought out their most exquisite stories to entertain. They were all crows pretending to show interest in a prestigious place in the will of the family's monarch, his grandfather.

It was at one of those dinners that he got to meet you, he used to get bored of hearing his cousins ​​tell their anecdotes with prostitute women who mostly called, whores of a night. Mocking their shocked faces when they refused to pay them and threw them out of their big luxurious houses.

He rolled his eyes when a family friend, little Jungkook who was known to his father because of his prestige in his last name, chimed in trying to get into the conversation with a shy smile.

Lucky bastard, he thought bitterly. He didn't like the little idiot sticking his hands in boiling water, he wasn't even supposed to be there.

He hummed a goodbye as he walked out the front doors, walking aimlessly to his bored eyes. His feet stopped abruptly with a strangled sigh when he first saw you, you looked tired as you apparently searched for a key inside your bag. Could visualize the logo on your shirt from the grocery store where he assumed you were employed, He stood looking for what seemed like an eternity at you before you find the keys and rush through the back door. He snorted before lazily continuing on his way, however the next day he ended up following in your footsteps again and with even more confidence.

It took a few weeks for him to be able to enter the small commerce store and be able to look you face to face for the first time, it was expected that you would serve him with a smile asking if he was offered something. But he did not see you anywhere, he looked for you before another equally young woman approached him kindly, he sighed making a face of disgust surprising the she worker, his expensive shoes got dirty on the floors of the humble place with shame. His little investigation and search took him through many corridors of the establishment, he observed the shelves and each person who seemed to be wearing the uniform of the store thinking of finding you distracted with your work, maybe he thought of approaching you and asking for directions which he clearly didn't need. Knowing that  she you couldn't refuse because that was your job. In a way, you were there to serve him.

He let out a bored sigh, tired of playing hide and seek, he turned around ready to leave that place that disgusted him so much in a certain way, but once again he stopped in an instant. It was a moan. He clenched his fists, walking hurriedly to the place where the noise came from, he was sure it was your voice and that made him even more angry thinking that he would find you in a compromising position with someone.

He did not think that his lover would be such a stupid and dirty person.

You were crouched on the floor, grimacing with pain and exhaustion. You seemed very annoyed trying to lift a box with your arms, the scene was tender and certainly pathetic, she smiled noticing that you were so distracted that you were never aware of how I was watching you with carnal desire and painfully bad adoration.

"I-can I help you." He was surprised at his little babble, justifying himself later. Nobody ever managed to make him nervous, his father used to despise weak people and certainly he always sought his approval by doing things that were not correct. "They seem heavy."

Your face pale before the scare, turning into a face of shame quickly, you shook your head with a gentle movement, smiling still pained. "I'm fine sir. Can I help you? Maybe he got lost, let me guide-..."

"Actually, I do need help but not with your services." I speak in disagreement, you seemed confused but she nodded at his request. The customer is always right, right? How convenient. "I need you to allow me to help you with that heavy box, not to be rude or calling you weak miss, but you can't seem to handle it."

Lie, under his politically correct excuse was a dialogue about how insufficient you are even with things as easy and common as carrying a box, obviously you needed his help and Hoseok could give you that and more, much more. You just had to say it, it was so simple and fun.

"I -... I can do it, but i will accept your help sir ..." He smiled making an emphasis for he to give him his name, he let out a small laugh finishing his sentence.

“Hoseok, you can call me Hoseok, darling..." He mock imitating his position, your name left your lips like a melody and he immediately felt the sweet taste of it slide down his tongue. Beautifully perfect, indeed. "Now that we can finish the introductions please allow me."

Her expensive outfit crumpled as she bent down to lift the box with ease, you were once again oblivious to her incoherent and certainly crazy fantasies, it was like a romance comedy movie in her eyes. The charming fellow always stays with the girl. And likewise, no one could go against the fictional plot.

He was immersed in the beautiful narrative that you would be hers at the end of the credits.

It was not the last time she saw you, she returned to her same routine of continuing to stalk you with obvious impudence. The only thing that really changed was her new setting and her character, he was hiding between the shelves waiting for the right moment to appear in front of you with a charming smile. Over and over, he was locked in an infinite loop.

He was starting to get tired of just having you in his arms and sheets just in his heavy and lustful dreams.

"A date? How funny Hoseok."

His face twisted in annoyance, but he put on a fake smile again when you looked at him again. "Hobi." He corrected in a high-pitched voice, insisting that you call him that. "And she spoke very seriously my dear, everything is ready."

"Eh ... I -..." A simple wave of her hands was enough to shut you up, you frown in confusion and secretly disgusted.

"On Saturday, I'll send you the address of the restaurant. Goodbye, dear!"

You watch it for a few seconds but he's already gone, you resign yourself to continuing with your work of ordering the products on the shelves. Thinking and trying to remember when you gave him your number. A very characteristic noise distracts you, a call makes you smile with love and adoration.

The plot is taking an interesting turn.

Hoseok was charming by nature, his economic position made him even more desirable to the opposite gender and even his own. It was not strange to see people flirting with him or being suggestive with his proposals, he was on a pedestal and he enjoyed it. His subconscious whispered a little bored. I couldn't deny that he became boring in a way, but you appeared in the story as an extra who soon became a main character. You changed the script of his life already established and narrated.

You were so funny.

He smiled in front of the mirror when he thought of you, since he met you that day he started chatting with you secretly from your supervisor. You had told him several anecdotes to make him laugh, you were also naturally charming pulling out various expressions of adoration that you did not even notice. Oblivious to that, you'd better get ready for the climax of the movie.

The wind was strong in the streets of Seoul, your hair was noticeably messy causing you to let out a tired sigh. You should be planning your wedding banquet right now, but you honestly didn't want to leave Hoseok alone at the dinner he had organized. You put the invitation in your bag, thinking of giving it to her when the time was right with a smile. He seemed like a good person and undoubtedly a good friend in the future.

"You're on time, I was just about to order our food. Honey." The last word slid down his tongue with malice and arrogance, Hoseok inwardly chuckling at your disengaged expression.

"Thanks, but don't stop you can order for both." You say arranging your chair correctly.

The restaurant looked relatively empty, there were only three other people including a couple who ate dinner while chatting enthusiastically.

You smile unconsciously, thinking about what would also make you feel the same way.

"I was looking forward to this dinner, my dear. I also hoped I could tell you how much you have captivated me for a long time, specifically since the first day I saw you." And the others too, he thought shifting your posture.

"Thank you, I'm very flattered to cause that feeling ... in, good in you." You whisper clearly uncomfortable forcing yourself to stay calm. You were sure that you had never given a hint or anything else in Hoseok to establish romantic feelings. "But I-... "

"I know, darling. That is why I have to offer you the opportunity to be my girlfriend and my future wife."

Wife?

For a moment, you feel a rush through your body. You refuse to make a scene in front of all the few people present out of respect, you calm down by counting to ten slowly in your head, but it becomes very difficult for you as you continue to observe his comfortable smile and how he behaves. He seemed very sure of the affirmative respect you would give him, you snort angrily at the thought.

"I am sorry to have been misunderstood Mr. Hoseok, but I am not seeking a relationship with you and very sorry I reject any relationship beyond friendship." Your body lifts up, making Hoseok laugh well in advance of your final sentences. "I am engaged and my future husband is waiting for me, good afternoon."

Trembling, you leave the invitation in silence, leaving the luxurious premises in the same way. The waiters watching you with surprise, being an audience of rejection and humiliation on your part. Hoseok sighs, sipping his wine glass patiently pretending not to hear what the couple behind him are saying.

What a bad luck.

Life wanted to want to return all his damn vanity to him, making fun of him with your almost imminent rejection, obviously he knew that you were engaged and that you loved the poor man who had the bad luck to be his competition, but love is not always the important thing in a relationship or at least not of both parties. The voices of the waiters and the couple distract him from his plans for his next step, he clenches his fists angrily dropping the silverware on the plate calling the attention of everyone in the place.

"Filthy vulgar and talkative people, she will be my wife even if her words have been heard by her prying ears." He raised his voice, causing everyone to shut up. "It's just part of the script."

Maybe if the character who wanted to be the main loses the role of him, he should be the villain. The bad guy in the movie.

He read the invitation with meticulous delicacy, laughing at the little message you put aside. He thought about attending for a second, wondering if it would be nice to walk in to go straight to the altar and shoot your husband willing to take his place by your side. But that would be risky.

"Where are we going, sir?" He asked his driver with a smile.

"Take me to the best brothel in Seoul." He whispered delicately, smiling just as happily as before your rejection. I'd make you pay double the bill for your indulgence.

And likewise, the world is a truly small place. Jungkook nodded clearly uncomfortable obeying someone other than Mr. Jung. Hoseok cornered him like a helpless rabbit in the claws of a cunning fox, flashing his jaw in warning. He felt confused about his little assigned task, watching the direction pointing the right way to his chauffeur who only followed orders.

A small feeling of remorse ran through him, making him want to vomit when he remembered how Hoseok's face was so close to his with arrogance, as his hands roamed his arms gently. He was disgusting how he used his power to such a useless and demanding gain, sometimes without any realism.

"Little Jungkook, you have a very lovely name. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, you were so insignificant that you seemed pathetic to me." He whispered making her wince. "My father told me that you are good at obeying, I would like to test his theory." His cold hands were constantly running down his arms, making a shiver run through his body. "Still remembering well, I already did it before."

Jungkook was weak under his cloak of power, where he could so easily hide it. Lose it. "Yes, h-hyung." An inappropriate moan came from his lips causing him to cover her mouth in shame, a little touch near his crotch was enough to tempt him. Hoseok smirked, narrowing his eyes before walking away slowly wiping his fingers on his expensive clothes in disgust.

"I want you to befriend someone, don't ask, just do it. I'll tell you your next step when you're done." He ordered bored.

"We are here, young Jeon." Notice Jimin with a smile, Jungkook sighed wearily thanking him before getting out of the car ready to fulfill his mission.

I observe him for a few seconds standing in the entrance without doing anything, he was cleaning the windows of the building with force. He seemed like a nice person, certainly a bit humble. He approached making the man bow respectfully, even though he was older. Money can buy everything, they say.

"I am young Jeon, a new investor. May I have a chat with you?"

The man was surprised, no one who was someone by name and a few numbers along with several zeros would be able to notice his presence and at least greet him. A coffee sounded more intimate and undoubtedly inconvenient for him, but again out of respect he accepted the offer with a smile adorning his features.

"My name is Jungkook informally, but I like you and you can call me that." He spoke kindly.

"Namjoon, Mr. Je -... I'm sorry, Jungkook." He corrected sheepishly, making her smile.

He still didn't understand that he planned to do Hoseok with a building cleaner, but he didn't feel in a position worth asking. Furthermore, he would still not receive an honest answer.

He passed by the same place every day, pretending to enter the building only so he could meet Mr. Kim and talk about unimportant subjects. He gained his trust almost immediately, promising that he would give her a better job soon at his own company. He felt like an idiot taking advantage of the man in front of him in such a way for a simple whim from Hoseok.

He was an idiot, but he didn't want to go back to what he was before. A pet.

"I'm very happy, I think she will make a good wife." He responded with encouragement, seeing how Namjoon nodded looking for a picture of his fiancée to show him. He seemed excited, Jungkook understood his happiness after he explained that he saved for a long time to achieve his dream of getting married in a church. They were both in it together, in looking for a future.

He got lost in his thoughts, maybe if he lied to Hoseok about gaining trust from him, saying that Namjoon was a very cold and quiet man, he could make him forget about it. He sighed squeezing the coffee cup in his hands, Namjoon caught his attention by showing a photo of you smiling at the camera with a background of the bridge and the sun behind making a beautiful background.

Jungkook became alert, having seen that face before.

Hoseok had you as the wallpaper on his phone, he knew it was you because of your characteristic features and the scarf you wore in both photos. You were the new fad of a rich fool.

"T-is ... She's so cute, you're very lucky."

Namjoon nodded with a smile, apologizing before returning to his work upon being called by his supervisor. Jungkook put aside his cup feeling the bitter taste of his thoughts, Hoseok was planning something, he knew he was a son of a bitch who liked to keep his plans under lock and key and in a deep grave. He walked away calling for Jimin quickly, before being accosted by Namjoon who came running over, seemingly forgetting something of the utmost importance.

"I apologized Mr. Jeon, but I wanted to give you this personally. It is an invitation, in addition to the proposal to be the best man at our wedding. My fiancee said that it would be appropriate for me to choose someone and I decided that you were perfect, you can decline if you prefer. . " He spoke kindly, as always. Namjoon seemed to have no hatred in his heart, making his own feel heavy on his chest.

Could he bear the blame?

"It's my pleasure to accept her proposal, thank you for considering me. Good afternoon, namjoon-hyung."

He said goodbye by getting into the car as fast as he could, making Jimin look at him with derision. Obviously noticing his nervousness, Jungkook sighed hiding the invitation as much as he could before reading Hoseok's message ordering him to go to his house to sort out his affairs.

It seemed like a joke as he always looked so flawless, ready to humiliate him again.

"Jungkookie, I'm glad to see you again. Now, we'd better come in for our talk." He smiled making anger grow inside him, Hoseok sat on one of his expensive furniture before pouring himself a glass of wine. "Well, I heard from a little bird that you accomplished your task. Good pet."

"Don't call me that, hyung." He grunted in annoyance, making him laugh. "I can't go through with this, I did what you wanted. Leave Namjoon-hyung alone."

"Oh, they're close now really cute. But you forget that I can't fulfill your wish, because "Namjoon-hyung " is an essential piece in my little game." I speak mocking him as always. "Then we will move on to the next step ..." He thinking for a moment, before snapping his fingers. "Invite him to a bachelor party night at the brothel in the center, I already made the reservation. When they are there, leave him alone. A whore will take care of him properly, and maybe you can go make him a oral another yourself." He sneered evilly, reminding her of his past, Jungkook bit his tongue resisting the urge to respond properly. "Since you're clearly good at it, little pet."

"Yes, hyung."

Hoseok nodded saying for him to leave asap, tired of seeing his stupid face. He got up ready to do so, but his arm was taken tightly before bringing his face closer to hers, Hoseok let out a sigh, doing he could smell his breath of mint and wine combined. His hand lowered him into his pockets dangerously close to his crotch, he bit his lower lip to resist a moan escaping him, this had happened before and he begged it to stop forever. From his pocket, she pulled the invitation out, making her gasp in horror.

"Godfather of wedding, new facet of you... kookie." Rolling he eyes pushing him away from him, he fell to the ground before being met by a blow to his cheek. "What a shitty pet, you idiot."

Two days was enough for you to tremble at the thought. Your dress was proud to be seen, it was the most comfortable dress you could find at a fair price. Namjoon tried to enter but he was stopped by your friend who said that he will wait until you keep the dress out of his sight avoiding bad luck. A smile wavered on your face, everything was perfect up to a point.

Namjoon looked at you, a blush covering his cheeks before asking his obvious question. You didn't expect him to want a bachelor party, but you couldn't refuse because you simply trusted him.

Maybe it was your mistake.

You wished him luck, feeling an inexplicable emptiness. Your friends didn't offer to make one for you, they just sat on the couch in their living room talking about movies and arguing about what color the cake would be. It was the calm before the storm.

Jungkook felt a giant headache, the lights of the place were making him dizzy. Jimin had insisted on going with him to such an 'unusual' place to keep him safe. Namjoon had brought a couple of friends who seemed to be always close to him preventing the woman who did the job Hoseok had him do from becoming difficult.

He smiled, thinking that he would have no choice but to let it go. But Hoseok was not a good loser, and neither was he a good winner.

Hoseok:

He distracts his friends, and be careful what you say, kookie.

Received at 11:30 p.m.

He bit his lip, glancing around the bar, thinking he'd find him sitting somewhere spying on everything but nothing looked suspicious. He sighed, sending Jimin out for drinks with one of Namjoon's friends who he gladly accepted. He got up having pushed one away, the other who introduced himself as Jackson seemed more reluctant to leave his friend alone but with a few excuses about feeling bad managed to get him out of sight.

Believed that he would find Namjoon sitting right where he was before but no, he was gone. He felt a burning feeling of guilt, maybe if you didn't find out, nothing would happen.

"You're still the same as before, boss." Jimin sat down next to him, making him uncomfortable.

"Same as before? I am no longer a child."

"But you continue to obey as one. The manipulation they use on you is your greatest weakness, you are afraid, you obey without hesitation thinking about how this will indirectly affect you. But you never do anything to avoid it, you feel bad about this but you still sit here without doing nothing."

"What can I do, Jimin? I don't know if he really left by his will, or if they forced him. I don't want to enter a room in this dirty place and see him sleeping with another woman, because he wanted to and is a fucking infidel . "

Jimin ignored his words, falling silent after several seconds.

Feeling unhappy is a horrible feeling without a doubt. The curious eyes looked at you as if they themselves could judge your story.

Namjoon disappeared as quickly as the wind, many sharp tongues said that he eloped with a lover so as not to marry you. Others believed it was a kidnapping, maybe a robbery gone wrong and he was taken away or he was killed somewhere far away. A sob escaped you just thinking about it, the detective in front of you watched you cautiously.

"We don't know anything about him yet, but we will continue with the investigations."

You nod, without saying a word. Jungkook came in minutes later with a handkerchief in hand, he observed you before gently hugging you. You had the pleasure of meeting him after Namjoon disappeared that night, he introduced himself as a close friend from work and quickly offered to help you with the search.

Maybe he felt guilt.

"Thanks, Jungkook." You smile wiping the tears that escape from your eyes.

"They are looking for the best they can, they even alerted the Japanese embassies in case they might take him there."

"Japan?" Puzzled questions. "Why would someone take him so far? He's just a man with little money, that's ridiculous."

"We don't know, but I promise I won't rest until I find it."

Hoseok sighs bored, witnessing the moment. He had been bribing the bloody police force to hide the information from you about the discovery of your fiancé's corpse floating in the middle of the waters of the river where they used to go together. The only thing that was removed intact from his clothes was a small photo of you smiling, sitting on the banks of the same river.

The police mourned the death, but his faces left grief when they saw the money in his hands. He made fun of Jungkook as usual, who passed by him ignoring him when he went to his house to talk to his father, he knew that the useless little one was very meddlesome in the search for your future husband and ex-fiance. He rolled her eyes remembering how she used to look at him with discontent in meetings, suspicious of him.

He was a good detective, he couldn't deny the obvious.

"You didn't have to do this, a I'm sorry was enough." You say admiring all the bouquets of flowers that came to your house from him. "And I'm sorry for your loss."

He wasn't sorry.

"My dear, losing a loved one is something without a name. I can give you more than this if you promise to smile again, I love your smiles."

Jungkook snorts approaching you from behind, Hoseok to growl at noticing him so close and see how he puts his hand on your shoulder, apparently like support.

"Hyung, he didn't think it's a good time for ... That."

"But little kook, when is not a good time to express how you feel about your loved one?"

"When that person you say you love is crying over the loss of someone special because of evil people who don't know what remorse is. Do you understand that, hyung?"

"No, not really." He laughs cynically making you lose your patience, your little body comes between the two men, with one already furious and the other inadvertently giving up, you make a face of annoyance before speaking.

"Sirs!" You yell at him immediately, Jungkook steps back adjusting his tie. A mania that he had and that you noticed when he presented himself in front of you with regret, he did it when he was uncomfortable or nervous. "This is not the time to argue, I think you'd better leave my house if you're just wasting your time. Thanks for the flowers Hoseok, and Jungkook ... I, I want to continue the investigation on my own."

"That?!"

"What you heard, don't feel responsible for Namj's disappearance -..." You tremble correcting your words, making Hoseok scoff. "My husband, he was just at the wrong time in the wrong place. Thanks for your help, I'll see how to pay you very soon." Jungkook denies trying to insist but fails when you are already closing the door and giving him an apologetic smile.

Your breath feels heavy, you sigh falling to the ground sobbing again. You wanted to find Namjoon, but a large part of you was afraid of how. Dead, with another woman, with serious injuries or simply ... Alive but with trauma for life. You did not want to see him suffer, it was your judgment in life to see the person you love cry in his pain.

You observe yourself, telling yourself that you would be fine when you find it.

Your email seems to explode with thousands of messages received from people claiming to have seen a man like Namjoon near their homes. You ignore them knowing that most of them were false, the first few days you read all of them giving the police false clues that they quickly denied and dismissed.

You dry your tears, closing all the windows and cooking a simple instant soup, eating in absolute silence. It was overwhelming feeling alone at home, where you were supposed to feel safe indoors.

The rain, thunder, and evil outside seemed to be invisible within that place.

A chill runs through you, the control of the television seemed tempting to calm that neat silence and avoid your boredom. You give up turning on the TV, you see the first channel, you keep changing looking for the unknown, you didn't know what you wanted to see. Maybe a newscast saying they found a tall man with dark brown hair and charming eyes unconscious, with a couple of blows to the face and a few scratches but okay, safe, alive and waiting to see your face waiting for him with a warm smile.

Swearing never ever to let go.

A couple of tears slide down your cheek, ruining your fast food. A few knocks on the door manage to scare you, causing you to bite your lip in anger.

"Who is?!" Questions in a shout.

Nothing.

"It better be good ..." You say in muttered, you open the door expecting to see a child running to his house laughing at his childish joke.

But no, there is no one at the door. Just a small envelope that easily slipped underneath, you take it hoping it's a letter from the police announcing good news. Maybe a simple identification of suspicious faces, or footprints at the club.

"I hate being the bad guy, it makes me feel good.

He's dead, I did it for you. For me. For us. I want to make you happy but it's so difficult when I don't know what you want, tell me what you want.

Love you. Love you. Love you.

My heart is so weak in your cold eyes, I feel that you look at me with ignorance of my feelings. Do you want to find it? Do you want to do it?! Okay. Good luck with it. "

It was everything, plus a picture of a golden ring with a large diamond shining brightly. You wrinkle the letter in anger, tossing it into the first bin you found nearby. It seems that in the end, someone did want to joke with you.

Your days remained the same, you went out to work and in the afternoons you called each of the investigators to ask for new news, it was almost always a solid wall, there was nothing really important to report and little by little, they gave up.

Jungkook knocked on the door, he heard some footsteps approaching making him have a little hope. But when the door opened he saw you with a worried face, he felt his heart squeeze in his chest when he tried to get closer but you avoid him by leaving in a hurry. You were dressed in a long black skirt and a white blouse, you were elegantly ready for something.

"Where are you going?" He ask stopping your hurried pace, taking your arm tightly.

"Yo, listen... He... Or her, I don't know who it is but ... You know, he or her know where, he's alive I know. I just don't have time, please."

Your mouth moves wiht fear, you were hiding something but not from him. You were willing to tell him but not now. Not at that time.

"Let me accompany you, I can take you and I will feel better if you are safe."

You nod, letting go of his grip and running down the stairs, outside there is a very elegant car, apparently waiting. The driver smiles at you as if he had known you before, you make an uncomfortable face trying to continue on your way but Jungkook introduces him saying that he works for him.

"Jimin, he's Jimin. He's a good person and a great friend, I've told him about you before."

"I see, sorry." You speak with a bow before climbing to the back, Jimin just smiles kindly, as always.

"Where are we going today?" He asks animatedly, Jungkook takes your hand for support making Jimin remove the smile from him. Your nervous state and your afflicted face are enough for him to understand the situation.

You give him an address, Jimin searches the map being unknown to the place. Your eyes sparkle when the lights of Seoul are reflected in them, Jungkook holds your hand tightly in fear of letting you go again. He felt sick when you stopped calling him, cutting connections with him totally to this day. He spend sleepless nights looking for more clues, the only thing I had until that moment was the identity of the woman, she was a prostitute without anything special, when he spoke with her he seemed indifferent saying that he did not know Namjoon and that the last time he saw him It was when he drugged him and left him in a room as ordered.

The whore made fun of him saying that he would give him this information if he did not tell the police anything, he obviously accepted. Now he repented, the woman disappeared after that and days later she was found in a garbage container. It seemed to be a suicide, the container was from her building, the window of her old apartment faced just where she was supposed to fall if she threw herself without thinking twice.

Right in the garbage.

The wheels of the car made a thud when it stopped, it was a cabin, the only one nearby. You came down quickly thanking Jimin who just made a flirty face. Your hands trembled with the cold, you look at the letter that tells you where and when you should be standing at the door.

"Wait for me here, if we don't go out or you hear noises, you know who to call."

"Yes sir!" Jimin obeys with a laugh at the boss's serious tone of him.

"Y-you should go, I can do this alone." Your voice rises in the echo of the silent place, Jungkook rolls his eyes before offering his arm to you, making his decision clear.

You laugh calming your nerves, the door opens just as you both step close to it. A man stops them, saying that only you can enter the next room. You stop Jungkook who was to protest, you calm him down by leaving your ring in his hands with a smile.

Your body disappears when another man closes the door silently, Jungkook sighs looking annoyed at the guards who ignore him.

A message coming to his phone distracts him for a few seconds.

Jimin:

Should I call the police, Mr. Jung, or the hospital?

Received at 9:35 p.m.

Smile ready to answer before hearing the door open again, he approaching you to ask everything and at the same time nothing. Your pale face is enough to make want to hit the person who was inside with you. Questions remain in the air, your arms surround him while you sob for forgiveness.

From the shadows Hoseok smiles, admiring the document in his hand, your signature shiny as gold is glued to it. He thought it would be more difficult to convince you to accept his marriage proposal, but the precious and expensive ring fit you perfectly. He raised his hand proudly admiring his own, the wedding would be planned as soon as possible making him jump like a happy child.

You had accepted, with the promise that he would bring you back to Namjoon.

But it was never specified in the contract that he would be alive.

The wedding was in a meadow, outdoors with distinguished guests and a few friends and family of yours. Hoseok greeted everyone, by taking your hand tightly introducing you as his wife immediately. It's as if he wants to show everyone that you now belong to him, as if you were a prize.

And maybe if you gave him the key to her success.

"You better smile my dear, nobody wants to know what will happen if you don't." Her lips brushed your hand before placing a chaste kiss on it. "I love you, my beautiful protagonist."

You sob, tears falling from your face as you melt into his disgusting caresses. The man in front of you, your un-predestined husband. The one who stole the position of your true love, he was kissing you delicately.

"Don't cry, decorate the room just the way you wanted. The photos were a special touch ..." His teeth bit into the sensitive skin of your neck, an involuntary groan of pain escaping. "Love you."

Your eyes move desperately to find a photo where the beaten, abused or dead body of Namjoon cannot be seen. You scream when you find one where you see blood everywhere, you are resigned to look down at the ground where Hoseok was crouching kissing the inside of your thighs.

Your mind tried to process the idea that Namjoon had been killed, mutilated and thrown into a river that washed away his body along with happy memories. Farewell to him was prolonged as your body faded in pain.

Hoseok enjoyed the sight of your eyes tightly closed, his cock throbbing inside you as she fucked you like his wife.

The head of the bed moved crashing into the wall, and unconsciously your walls tightened around it causing it to release a curse aloft to the sky.

We got to the end of the movie, smiled as he dazzled the credits by seeing Jungkook's lost name. His little bitch who was his toy for many years, laughed remembering how she did wonders with her mouth.

He pretended not to know him when her father introduced him, taunting her hurt face.

He held you in his arms tightly, you had been struggling to free yourself from his grip as he continued to abuse you over-stimulating your pussy. Your eyes closed falling asleep from crying so much.

He caressed your face, kissing your dry, chapped lips.

The end.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Do you by any chance have any mental health writing tips? I find that when I'm writing about mental health issues, which often come from personal experience (but not always), I find it difficult to translate these experiences into words in a way that genuinely conveys them to the reader, even if it's something I've felt myself.

The original showed up when you sent the new one, Nonnie, wtf.

This depends on a lot of factors, some of which you've addressed in your ask, but which I want to lay out anyway for others.

First, what kind of mental health issue it is? Personality disorders vs psychosis vs mood disorders, etc, are all wildly different not only in symptoms and presentation but also often in a person, character, or narrator's perception of themselves, their symptoms, and reality. And they all change the way a person thinks differently, which needs to be reflected in, well, their behavior, their voice, and their narration.

Second, what perspective and POV is the mental health issue being written from? Depression looks very different observed by an outsider than it feels. If someone is frustrated with symptoms of someone else's bipolar disorder, that's going to influence the way it gets written and discussed as opposed to someone being frustrated with their own. Or if someone is much more forgiving than the mentally ill person, or it's a psychiatrist, etc.

Third, what knowledge of the symptoms does the person have? If someone has been clinically depressed for twenty years, they’ve probably developed coping techniques and can recognize coming spells. If someone is having their first psychotic hallucinations but schizophrenia runs in the family, they're probably terrified, but they have some idea of what's happening and they've seen it from another angle before. If someone is just having a complete mental break from trauma, they have no idea what to do next. And if someone has a lifelong personality disorder, they might not even recognize their symptoms for what they are, because they have always experienced the world that way.

I tend to write very close third person POV, so I write what the character is experiencing how they're experiencing it (and first person, the effect is very similar). I pulled up the last time I wrote a PTSD event, because I remembered really liking it. It's too long to really shove in the post, but here are some techniques I used on reviewing it:

Started with thoughts that triggered the attack tumbling over and over in the narration without any filters or acknowledgment that they were slightly twisted from reality--but the pain came from an event the reader saw in a previous scene, so they would be somewhat aware that his mind is not a Good Place. The longer you can keep a character going like that, talking over and over and over themselves, can really give the impression of racing thoughts. Normally it's not great to have several paragraphs of internal monologue with no action, but in limited use and as a break from the rest of the narration, it really does emphasize that the character's mental state has completely removed itself from reality.

Followed with concrete physical symptoms of the attack: choking on air. Feeling like they were suffocating. Didn't say where or why they came, just that this is happening now.

Action--what's happening around him while he's freaking out, what triggered it and how it's interacting with his symptoms (making it worse; of course it's making it worse).

There's a plaintiveness to the narration at this point to show how much he's suffering and wants it all to stop. His thoughts have shifted now from the racing thoughts that spiraled him into the attack to desperation for escape and hopelessness because he doesn't think he can, but the narration is entirely focused on the trapped-ness of the situation.

Other things I've also done in similar situations is changing up the narrative style completely: switching perspective from third to first or using another kind of narrative voice that isn't present in other scenes.

Typically, when writing a character who is having a mental health break, what you want to do is write as if what they're experiencing is the only possible reality. Because that immerses the reader in what's happening to them. If you need to make it clear it's not, then you can have other characters in the scene react in ways that are diametrically opposed. If the character is hallucinating, everyone else is confused and not seeing it, or the reader can easily tell they're just being placating. If the character is having an anxiety attack for some reason, no one else is bothered. If someone is absorbed in their own narcissism, say, have them be violently confronted with the fact that other people simply are not viewing the world the same way.

I find that personal experiences can be very difficult to write about. I have a number of journals from my teenage years about my mental health and how I felt at the time and hoo boy, I was Going Through Some Shit, and it's very jarring to read now and know I genuinely felt every shred of that. And that's cathartic.

But writing something when you're feeling badly about it can also really immerse you in that pain, and it's not always a productive place to write fiction from. You may very well have to edit it when you're in a better space, knowing it's going to be confusing and not very effective writing. You may have to write it very slowly because trying to manage your own mental health and the clarity you need to write effectively is troublesome.

So there's also just the fact that writing mental health stuff is hard because it hurts, and pain hurts to get really close to, even in fiction.

And that I think ends this brief thesis on this topic. I hope you found it helpful. If not, yell for more.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

In something I'm writing, the narrator is explicitly writing a text for religious members about events that they experienced, so it veers between personal reflection, history, autobiography, hagiography, and religious instruction. before anything happens, the (internal and external) audience is warned that sections might be embellished or fabricated for the sake of religious values /1

the narrator might pull back, directly address the audience, and explain how what happened to them is applicable to current times. or perhaps just lecture them about values & strategies. The reader ends up presented with a narrative while also decoding much about the strange society depicted in the framing … which doesn’t always endear the readers to me. I appreciated your section about modulating the PoV and voice. To use your terms, it’s first-person voicy, mainly.

So it has made sense to pull back into that second-person ‘you’ directed to the internal audience, as i’ve found the readers can extract tons of information with very few words, just from the unspoken gaps.

Conversely, pushing forward into a third-person-close masquerading as first-person lets readers experience dialogue, action, and scenery vividly, without the cloying nature of the narrator. In one of your posts, you alluded to even more advanced tricks of PoV than the simple breakdown you presented. Would you mind sharing some?

Other parts are things like what you learn in Lit class:

reliability of narrator

Unique perspective (How filtered is it through this.) This is different from reliability.

Narrator's self-awareness. (People often think that a voicy narrator equals self-aware, but I've found people with solid opinions and no sense whatsoever of themselves.)

Narrator's sense of time

Narrators sense of place

Narrator's sense of detail

Narrator's senses in general--this might modulate on disability, for example. For example, those who are autistic and have PTSD, or C-PTSD might have say, sound sensitivity.

Narrator's sense of people

Narrator psychology

and so on. Because, as I alluded, modernism opened the door on psychology, there are a ton of tools to try to manipulate the reader. (If you need the Modernists, try Gertrude Stein, Steinbeck, etc--who got dumped on by the structuralists).

I should note that a character having a low sense of self while being voicy isn't well-received in USian market. (Not sure which one you operate in), so cutting all self-aware lines isn't that popular. I should also note, though, that the US's demand for a super voicy self-aware narrator is kind of ethnocentric and limits the writer down to pretty much writing individualistic narratives that have to be flowery, or super detailed to compensate, which I, personally, object to. I like the narration to follow the development of the character. And if the whole point is that the character becomes more self-aware, then this limits writers very much.

But mostly, the best way to learn is to read widely *outside* of your own culture AND inside of it. There some really cool third person omniscient narration techniques you can pull from older European Literature (Before late 19th century). And I read some Zimbabwe Lit that manipulates first person in a way I hadn't known that was possible. Capital L Literature (White European and white european diaspora), where it puts writing more about technique, etc v. classic, tends to miss out on some really cool overseas things that beat it hands down.

Of course there are seminal books that do PoV really well in really interesting ways and challenge your baseline.

Lolita, for example, is the well-known unreliable narrator.

Botchan plays with agency, time, place, etc. (Though if you're reading on Japanese Lit outside of anime and manga, you should also read outside of Natsume Soseki.) Botchan is super frustrating as a character. He's highly unlikable, but that's the point, because his narration illustrates a type of person from the time period that Soseki is talking about.

Kokoro from Natsume Soseki also is interesting. (Again, read more than Soseki and manga from Japan, but I'm not giving you a list)

You can also read some Light Novels online from China--often they get translations.

Moon Embracing the Sun, (though I know it doesn't currently have a translation) was a book and I rather liked the narration techniques in it. (The way time is split has a mudang PoV, which doesn't work for TV well) I read part of it myself, in Korean, to practice translation.

BTW, I read Hong Gil Dong in Korea v. the translation (from Penguin) and I prefer the original more. The translation doesn't do the original justice. (Again, practicing reading Korean)

In another words, if you want the more advanced techniques, you need to read, interact with people (safely and with consent), and occasionally break your comfort zone (again, safely and with consent.) I'd also suggest if you are monolingual to try other languages because the difference in thought processes between languages can open your world to other ways of perceiving the world. Even one year of a language can make your perceive the world differently.

So explore more, experiment and see what works for your story in front of you. If it's not working, try again, rewrite the scene or section again, and consume widely until you get the effect you want with your test audience.

Also, learning some literature history won't hurt you either. (from whatever country you're targeting to learn). Often the context will help you understand the contemporary lit better.

Also, learn to question that history once you become more advanced... but I suppose I've been doing a lot of that with the Worldwide Story Structure post/series of posts. Remember, everything in human history has an origin. 'cause humans weren't around for forever, and writing is only 5,000 years old. and a ton changed in 5,000 years of 200,000 years of human history. And humans love retconning.

[ladyhindsight]

There’s some weird narrative trickery here but then again, when there isn’t?

Period. Jace asking and it being dark enough to see his reflection are not connected thoughts.

If there ever was a bias present in this series... Jace looks like an avenging angel and Alec’s hair is really black. Also, are the runes scarlet or red-gold?

→ the white jacket Jace wore had red-gold runes woven into the material...

→ Alec was dressed the same way, all in white with the same runes traced...

What does it tell you about Jace’s character when he is (half-)expected to snap at people over anything that is said. It’s nice to have a friend around whom you have to walk on eggshells.

*Mom and Dad

Isabelle’s grief is pretty palpable the previous chapter taken into account. Jace is being broody over the window and gets to angst about Max later, but all that is said about Alec’s grief is that he looks very sad.

Also no comma, same subject.

[additional reading]

Hodge’s “crackpot” mirror-lake theory when their most famous depiction of Raziel is of the angel rising from the lake Lyn with the Mortal Cup and the Mortal Sword. These people can’t really put two and two together, can they.

I don’t get why didn’t Sebastian kill Isabelle. Obviously Sebastian knew he didn’t kill her since what he said to Alec implied that he had only killed one Lightwood. There wasn’t reason to leave Isabelle alive when she knew about Max.

I’d like to go back to a point made previously somewhere on this blog:

Clare knows that the glaring flaws Jace’s character could be–and are–faced with criticism, so with the dialogue she attempts to deflect that criticism against Jace by showing that it is intentional for him to be like this. As if by addressing it exempts her writing or Jace from receiving that dislike and critique. As if addressing and acknowledging it (but doing absolutely nothing to develop the character or make him a better person in those regards) deflects everything negative that could said against her work.

Here Clary narrates Simon’s character just so what Clare though as subtle changes wouldn’t be missed by the readers. 

The first part is entirely ridiculous. Clary ropes Alec into this as if Alec throws anything at Simon whereas Jace does all the time. The second part is equally ridiculous because not once has Simon been afraid of Jace or Alec. Jace sure has made Simon uneasy on one or two occasion, but to make this seem like both Jace and Alec are both responsible for it and equal amount is entirely untruthful.

Simon has barely changed as a character. He has just stopped pining after Clary. He has always quipped back at Jace and been derisive over Alec’s obvious feelings and behavior around Magnus.

It is factitious to talk about Jace and Alec like this as if they’ve ever been on the same level as to treating Simon.

“Earlier slighting of Simon” was Alec wondering why would Simon think Isabelle wanted to talk to him when she didn’t want to talk to her own family. What a fucking slight that is. Grovel, Alec, grovel at Simon’s feet.

→ “Partly because she was being unreasonable, and partly because there was a look on Jace’s face as he gazed past her at Simon [...] It was amusement mixed with gratitude and maybe even a little bit of respect.”

(less filtering because we knooow this is Clary’s point of view)

There is at least two mentions of this scar on Jace’s temple in this book, but I don’t think there has been one before or after. It’s just interesting to note because we don’t see any of the Shadowhunters applying Marks on their face.

→ “A line of metal glittered at his throat where the Morgenstern ring...”

Claaare. Are you again telling me stuff about subtle nuances of your writing so I would miss it?

It’s good that Clary tells us this because those extra quotation marks surely didn’t.

→ “Jace said, half-mocking tone in his voice.”

AND YET. Yet no one says to Jace: “Jace, it’s bad for your eyesight to have your head that far up in your own ass. Stop being a walking, talking self-fulfilling prophecy and get a grip, you twat.”

Stop unnecessarily pausing the sentence. We don’t need these commas.

I don’t think Simon has seen Isabelle that much at all to make such a statement.

This is Simon’s point of view, if you didn’t notice. Just saying.

→ “Despite her angry glare, she looked younger than usual, her eyes huge and black in her pinched white face. White scars traced her light skin, all over her bare arms, her back and collarbones, even her legs. If Clary remains a Shadowhunter, one day she’ll look like this, scarred all over, Simon thought, though it didn’t upset him as once it might have done.”

→ “She was turning something over and over between her fingers. It was a small something...”

As is evident as Isabelle just keeps talking anyway. And no comma.

Don’t tell when you show right after anyway. The first clause should be left out.

Max had already told everyone what he had seen! What more could it do when Max had already spoken about it. Max didn’t know it was Sebastian, otherwise he would’ve asked why was Sebastian climbing the towers. He just saw someone and Sebastian immediately went and incriminated himself further, basically blowing his cover. No one would’ve known it was Sebastian if he did nothing. There would be no proof, and the cut in Sebastian’s hand is no proof at all when none of these characters even know how to connect the dots.

Isabelle can’t seize and yank at the same time. 

→ “Their faces were inches apart. The skin below her eyes shone with the marks of recent tears.”

I don’t want to tell people how to grieve. But I also can’t imagine being horny in any way after such incapacitating loss.

Same subject, no comma.

Well, yeah. Neither of them has really tried to hide anything. For once I agree with Jace.

I detest love at first sight. Because this is the very basis of Jace’s love for Clary and their relationship, it has no basis at all. There is nothing romantic about a complete stranger fantasizing about you and how they should be your romantic partner and be with you. And isn’t Clary just special, the only girl Jace has ever wanted. I could vomit all over this because it makes me sick.

Even though Clary is going to the same exact emotions about Jace, the writing fails to bring such “pain” and focus for her like it tries to do here with Jace. And of course, welcome to the pity party for Jace because everything in the world is against him, he thinks he is so undeserving, boohoo.

Of course Clary thinks that. She said it, asked Jace about it, but Jace refused to answer her and instead glowered at her and got angry because Clary no longer wanted to make out with him.

Jace is also so intelligent that he still isn’t putting things together. Demon doesn’t do these things that I do but I still must be monster for loving and caring and feeling things that demons are incapable of feeling.

Clary and Jace both saw the same vision of Lilith saying how the blood will burn away the child’s humanity. Have either of them considered that? No. For the sake of the plot, neither Clary nor Jace discuss the fact that does anything in this make sense, because if they did, even they would realize how little water this whole plot holds. It’s easier to have them believe incorrectly than make them question what they regard as the truth.

Though Clary really hand’t.

Because they’ve done such bang-up job so far.

The amount of times Clary has realized in surprise or with surprise is probably enough to fill a book on its own.

→ “He really hadn’t expected me to say yes, Clary thought. A moment later he had caught her...”

That “Clary...” just digs somewhere deep and fills me with repulsion and cringe.

[bellaslilpapercut]

Eclipse reread part 2! This is gonna cover a lot of chapters because I forgot to include stuff from chapters 4, 5, and 6 in part 1 (in my defense your honor, this book is very grating to read). Awayyy we go:

1. so chapters 4-6 really could have been one chapter tbh since the plot is: Bella ditches work at Newton’s Outfitters to hang with Jake and then writes some graduation invites with Angela. She pushes her rusty old behemoth as fast as it can go through driving rain but then hangs outside with Jake the whole time so I don’t really know where the rain went. She also manages to hear Jake gasp through her closed car door! Super sonic! Anyway, Bella insists that Edward is a good guy, Jake makes Bella hold his hand, Jake explains imprinting (yuck we can skip that), and then Edward drives threateningly past Bella while she’s on her way to Angela’s house. Angela reminds Bella that, at his core, Edward is a teen boy who is Totally Jealous of how Ripped and Sexy her 16 year old best friend is. Then Alice kidnaps Bella. Fun times!

2. During the imprinting convo it becomes very apparent that Meyer thinks the worst thing that can happen to a girl is getting broken up with. Somehow Leah got the “worst end” of the Sam/Emily/Leah fiasco despite Sam turning into a “monster” and Emily getting literally mauled in the face. What’s worse is later in the book, during the “Legends” chapter, when Bella wonders if Leah thinks Emily’s scars are a form of “justice.” Yea, Bella, that’s justice. 

3. I love this Rosalie quote but hate the entirety of they way meyer writes her story. Others have mentioned it before but Meyer writes Rose's dialogue there as if Rose is an author and not like...a person telling a story. An easy fix would be to format Rosalie's story "flash back" style rather than have her narrate all the way through. Then you can include all the superfluous details of exactly what everyone's voice sounded like and all the excessive dialogue tags you want.

I also Violently Abhor this quote here:

Yea, meyer, the Hot Girl hates your self-insert because her stupid ass brother didn't have the hots for her. It just reads like weird middle school revenge fantasy "I only hated you because you were so Special!!!" Sure, sure. Also "all those females!" People don't talk like that @stephanie

4. I do love the scene when Bella “escapes” from Alice with Jake (I don’t know why i put escape in quotes, Alice could definitely murk Bella) but then that whole adventure ends with Jake telling Bella he’d rather she die than turn into a vampire. And yeah, fair buddy, but also you’ve known Bella for a long time. This should not be a surprise to you at all even a little bit. a) she mentioned it before, b) you knew she would never get over Edward even if your plan in NM had worked, and c) you’ve known that she’s fully obsessed with the Cullen’s since you started hanging out with her again. The last time you guys hung out she went on an impassioned rampage about how lovely and good and fantastic Edward is (footage not found) I really don’t know why you’re surprised that this hard-headed girl is prepared to commit to vampirism for him. She is not normal lmfao.

5. The legends chapter. Oh boy. Stephanie, Meyer, Smeyer. Honestly it might have been less offensive if she had just made up a whole new tribe to give these backstories to, for all that they have in common with real Quileute legends but actually that would still be offensive and terrible anyway. I don’t know how to describe this adequately but if you’ve ever seen G.I. Joe’s portrayal of indigenous people that’s exactly what meyer made Old Quil and Billy’s dialogue sound like. Just absolutely dripping with Mystical Native/ Magical Native trope from the content to the tone. https://mthg.org/ Because it can’t be plugged enough.  

6. The legends chapter ends with this Wuthering Heights quote:

I have no qualms with it's inclusion, if you really want to push the Edward is Heathcliff and Bella is Cathy agenda, I don't believe it but fine, whatever. But those last two paragraphs are such a dumb way to end a chapter. Every chapter ending should make the reader want to turn the page: this makes me want to shut the book (actually I did take a long break after this lmfao). Anyway, just end the quote on "drank his blood," bold those three words, and end the chapter there. Don't go back and say "the three words that stood out were... Anyway it could have fallen to any page I believe in coincidence teehee!!" That's just annoying.

7. Okay guys I hate to say it but Edward does get a lil bit of ~character growth after the first few chapters. He comes home after having Bella kidnapped (she decides not to be angry, surprise surprise) and is all "so I've been thinking about it and you're right my Beloved Angel Face or whatever, please hang out with Jacob but also wear a helmet on your motorcycle my Beloved Dumb Idiot or whatever" (paraphrase). And he also says this in chapter 12:

Which is like, man I hate when I agree with Edward but I agree with Edward here. Now I know from MS that he only wants Bella to stay human because he's creating an Unfolding Drama in his head but this bit of dialogue is really sweet. And it's funny that he thought Bella didn't want to marry him because she just wanted to use him for immortality but it's also a Dark Reminder that he's literally only romantic with her because he can't read her mind and can't tell that she's just as obsessed with his looks as the other Teen Girls TM.

8. uuuh Jasper’s Backstory Time. This is so infuriating to read for so many reasons. So we know that smeyer got Jasper’s name from a confederate memorial/ listing (from a New Moon Q&A but the link isn’t secure so I can’t share) so I know that his backstory was always meant to be Confederate Soldier which makes everything else about his characterization just baffling. Again, he was the only Cullen that was genuinely kind to Bella besides Carlisle for the entire first book and he’s still incredibly kind during Eclipse (which is another issue I have though because no one mentions again that Jasper tried to eat Bella and they stand close to each other and hang out and Bella’s never like “this is scary, this dude tried to kill me” but i digress). The point is: smeyer knew he was going to be a confederate from book 1. She never addresses that this was bad, she never has Jasper mention that he regrets his role in the war, he is the only Cullen that’s actually capable of empathizing with humans anymore (Carlisle cares but I would not categorize him as empathetic), it just... None of these pieces fit together. This is a fraught and bloody history that smeyer throws in with no thought to how it might alienate black readers (though tbh she constantly emphasizes “white beauty” throughout the series so I doubt she cares) and the editors don’t question it either. No one, at any point in time, said “Hey, steph, you know confederates fought for slavery, right?” Every black american deserves reparations. White women and men who glorify the civil war should be the first to pay up. 

9. I’m gonna jump back to chapters 9 & 10 here (target & scent, respectively) to say: no tension is being effectively built. I get it, someone stole your clothes. You’re annoyed because you have nothing to wear and Victoria is scary. But where is she? Where is the volturi? Move it along, please! This is one of the challenges of 1st person narrative because the author is stuck in the eyes of, usually, the person who knows the least. Meyer is not a talented enough author to make this interesting. Not to bring up THG again but Suzanne Collins really knew how to work 1st person. Everything that Katniss asserts with certainty throughout the series gets either confirmed or denied by the narrative, keeping it interesting. She assumes the worst of the people around her so we’re pleasantly surprised when people violate those assumptions. We’re kept on edge by how little Katniss knows and SC never gifts Katniss with more knowledge than she could be expected to have. Bella is constantly gifted with knowledge and her assumptions are rarely proven wrong. You can dig into the canon a little bit more, read the lexicon and the guide, and find all the examples of Bella being unreliable or making wrong assumptions. But within the narrative she is rarely incorrect. She doesn’t get opportunities to grow out of her false assumptions (while Edward does, at least in Eclipse). So to keep the Victoria debacle interesting, smeyer has to plant seeds like- during these two chapters- Bella thinking of Laurent and Victoria while the cullens discuss who could have been in Bella’s room. That just doesn’t cut it for me. 

This is hella long and I’m only halfway through the book. I probably should split the second half into two parts as well but based on how talented smeyer is at stretching out the mundane, especially just before the climax, I probably wont need to. 

[jenner-benjamin]

Everything that I’ve wanted to say but haven’t had the confidence to until now

‘Everything that I’ve wanted to say but haven’t had the confidence to until now’ publication.

The ethos of this module has been to discover creative ways in which I can connect with my audience. Since the cancellation of this year’s end of degree show I have been conflicted at the prospect of a digital showcase and have been researching ways in which my work can be received in the physical sense. In a world where we scroll past artwork and give thoughtless ‘likes’ and ‘thumbs ups’, I wanted the reception of my work to be more considered and thoughtful and make my audience slow down for just a moment.

For months I had thought about making a publication at the end of the year that would consolidate my third year work in the form of a newspaper. My interest in the newspaper as an object was peaked by Guy Bigland’s workshop where he explained that the newspaper was a dying medium. I think this resonated because of the research I have carried out with handwriting falling under this same seemingly antiquated umbrella. On reflection, I felt that the newspaper carried with it connotations of either formality and seriousness or gossip and celebrity culture. These associations are difficult for audiences to disassociate with, despite what the actual subject matter of the publication may be, and so I decided to rethink my ideas of how to present this collection of works. I think because this publication is taking the place of an exhibition I had ideas of it needing to be grand and formal, when in essence this would detract from what the work is actually about.

I had samples from The Newspaper Club sent to me in the post which gave further insight in to how my publication might look. One such sample was of a zine, which I began to think might be more appropriate for what it was I was trying to say. The paper quality is of the same standard as a newspaper, so the audience reception would be similar to how they might approach this traditional form of relaying information. However the size is smaller, and as a result is much more intimate. 

The works found in the publication are a personal account of the pandemic. This includes the relentless lockdowns and periods of isolation, the loneliness that ensued as a result of these, the dire predicament of working in the hospitality industry throughout the whole ordeal and my feelings towards this, and finally the rare moments of quiet in between the anxiety, and how my creative practice has been a constant crux right from the beginning of the pandemic.

I feel that experiencing this work in a tangible way is paramount to reading the emotive content it offers. Contemporary society is oversaturated with digital media across a great many platforms and I did not want my story to get lost in a split second of someone’s screen time. Social media and virtual showcases will be used to share the work but these will only communicate so far. The publication will undoubtedly exist on multiple platforms, but I would like it to predominantly be experienced in the physical. 

‘Everything that I’ve wanted to say but haven’t had the confidence to until now’ is how I described this collection of drawings, prints, poetry and performances in a presentation that I gave earlier in the year. I noted it down as I really felt that it rung true to where I currently stood, not only as an artist but within myself as well. 

‘Everything that I’ve wanted to say but haven’t had the confidence to until now’ publication front cover - monoprint on paper.

The format of the zine itself communicates various aspects of my practice. It is divided in to two sections, Side A and Side B, a reference to cassette tapes. Dividing the publication in to chapters alludes to the sense of narrative that is present in all aspects of work. Side A addresses the negative moments of the pandemic and Side B has a much lighter tone. At the beginning of each section is a playlist, a reference to the layout of my sketchbooks. At the beginning of each sketchbook I begin a playlist that is personal to that book. When I reflect on past sketchbooks I know how I was feeling and what I was thinking by looking through the playlist. Side A is comprised of songs that I listened to when I was feeling down, and Side B was during the times I felt more optimistic and motivated. I have also made a QR code for each playlist so that the reader can further interact with the zine and listen to what I was listening to when when making the works that they are flicking through. QR codes are also very topical at the moment as they have become a part of our every day life, from checking in to locations with the NHS Test and Trace app to reading and ordering from a menu at a pub or restaurant. The inclusion of the QR code adds another dimension to the publication that combines traditional ideas with contemporary purposes. 

‘Side A’ playlist - monoprint on paper.

The zine contains a narrative of asemic works that respond to the current global crisis, some of these responses address the days where I struggled within myself and became outward reflections of inner feelings, and some respond to the hierarchical dynamic that became apparent in the hospitality industry. A few of the asemic works have been paired with poems that I have written in the last year. I chose to appropriate these as monoprints, a nod to the work I made before I rejoined the course (and have continued to explore throughout),  a further reminder of how far I have come and how much work has progressed. 

Side B offers works from my performative explorations, where I began to utilise my practice to cope with and overcome my lockdown struggles. The first of which is from the ‘Exhale’ performances and the second from the ‘Letter of Resignation’ performances. I wanted to include screenshots from the videos so there was a feeling of animation and movement as the reader journeys though the pages, but did not want the appearance of these to distract from the aesthetic of the publication. Therefore I printed these on the offset lithography press. The finished prints almost look like mid-20th Century American high school year book portraits - adding to the traditional tone I was hoping to achieve. 

Screenshot from the ‘Exhale’ drawing performance - offset lithography on paper.

I understood that in order for the publication to be assessed and meet the criteria for the newly adopted blended learning approach to teaching that I would have to decide upon a method of digitising the zine somehow. I thought that scanning in each individual page or submitting it as a .pdf document would completely undermine what I was intending to achieve, and so I collaborated with filmmakers, Tom Crane and Lianna Denwood who documented the zine in their own creative voice. I gave Tom and Lianna a copy of the zine and allowed them to produce a short narrative that highlights the quiet tone of the book. They included fragments of songs from the playlists that give prominence to how the audience might engage with the QR code playlists, in effect the soundtrack is both narrational and instructional.    

I am incredibly proud of this piece of work. It is my largest edition to date, sitting at 150 copies. I intend to circulate these amongst my audience as invitations to a moment of reflection and poignant human think time, away from internet instantaneity. I am unsure as to the reception that the publication will meet, but it would be my hope there are moments in the pages that encourage the reader to consider and muse on.

[1-800-roflmao]

I'm not sure how I write, but it's a big bunch of combinations.

I'm sure you know what third person is, but the limited factor means that you only get introspective into one character at a time. So, the reader would only be privy to the current MC's thoughts and reasoning. It's good for building suspense and interest as the reader discovers information alongside the characters.

Third person omniscient gives introspective on multiple to all characters involved. The audience is privy to every character's thoughts and reasoning. The narrator can also give opinions of their own if they want.

Third person objective is the most neutral. The narrator does not have access to the characters' thoughts and feelings. The tone is very observational. A birds-eye-view if you will. You get to "see" what is happening, but have no inside knowledge to understand why it is happening. You're a stranger standing to the side people watching.

Then you have first person, which uses "I," "we," "me," and "us." The story is usually told from the MC's perspective. It is the character's voice. They are telling this story. The reader is only privy their thoughts, feelings, and knowledge.

Second person uses "you." Popular for inserting the reader into the story as it addresses the reader directly. It implies the reader is the MC and all events are happening to them.

Each pov has it's pros and cons, but it can also depend on what you're comfortable with.

[wearethekat]

July Book Reviews

Gideon the Ninth: I have no thoughts, only incoherent screaming. AAAAAAHHH! Gideon Nav is perfect and I wish to read more of her. now. to be fair, this is an extremely odd book. But all of the oddities-- nuns, space goths, country house murder mystery, a truly excessive number of skeletons-- are thematically relevant and organically linked. This is the sort of book you either love or hate, probably depending on how well you get along with Gideon’s distinctive narrative voice.

Harrow the Ninth: *INCOHERENT SCREAMING INTENSIFIES* reading this book was like engaging in psychic wizard battle with the author, what with the partial second person narration, Harrow’s assumed insanity, and the attempts to gaslight me about what happened in the first book. but in a good way? I liked the overall series better after reading this book, if that’s possible. adding Harrow’s perspective added unexpected depth to the story. also, SOUP. bone soup... still, after some thought, it might not exactly be good form for an author to spend so much of the book trying determinedly to lose the reader. but I love it regardless, despite its dirty attempts to confuse me.

Fugitive Telemetry: my most belated library hold arrived! another fantastic Murderbot novel, this one set slightly before the last release (Network Effect). A little sad that ART wasn’t in this one, but it was lovely to see Murderbot solve CRIME and be delightfully, passive-aggressively competent at Station Security. despite the fact it only knows about solving crime from media. 

The Assassin’s Curse: reread. last month I read another novel by this author which very disappointingly lacked pirates, assassins, and curses. So I amended this issue this month.  Ananna is a very definite personality and a joy to read, especially in first person POV. book was as charming as ever.

The Pirate’s Wish: reread. the sequel of the previous, since it ends on a cliffhanger and I had to finish.

Any Way The Wind Blows: finishes up the series starting with Carry On. These were always about recovering from the trauma of being the Chosen One. or associating with the chosen one. and in this book we get to see the main characters become slightly more recovered. However, the Angst between Baz and Simon was slightly annoying-- it made me want to smash their heads together and say GET OVER IT ALREADY. and I can’t believe that whatsisface managed to get engaged to demon. I mean, how?? Terribly fluffleheaded thing to do.

His Majesty’s Dragon: Read on recommendation of @cricketnationrise​.  I’m fairly sure I’ve already reviewed this here, but I’ll repeat the main points: Laurence is period-appropriately a stuffed shirt (good, but unlikeable). Luckily he is transferred to Dragon Warfare, which loosens him up a little and also contains DRAGONS. I will be reading the sequel. hopefully it will be addressing the issue of dragging in a sentient species to fight really stupid human wars. 

The Orphans of Raspay: finally received after I placed it on hold last year. (covid delay). This is a Lois McMaster Bujold book. need I say more? I feel like I’ve skipped at least one book though, I don’t remember Pen being married. if only my library was better about buying these...

The One Kingdom: read on recommendation from @elucubrare​. This was very soothingly high fantasy (rather than grimly and depressingly high fantasy). Reminds me a little of the books of Rachel Neumeier. However, my promised marriage of political convenience did not occur in this book. I spent the entire book mentally screaming at Elise to marry TOREN RENNE, not that useless and politically catastrophic flibbertigibbet Prince Michael. I will be reading the sequels, if only to see if Elise will manage to marry said member of the rival house and prevent a catastrophic war. 

Something Light: yet another Margery Sharp novel, from an author recommended via Jo Walton on tor.com. Charming, faintly Wodehousian, yet immensely frustrating, since the MC spends most of the book chasing men who are obviously wrong for her.

The Flowering Thorn: socialite leaves unsatisfying life in the city to raise someone else’s six-year-old on a whim. There’s something very soothing about Sharp novels, but they have a bad habit of ending very abruptly at what would normally be the 80% point. both this book and The Nutmeg Tree suffer badly from this. 

The Nutmeg Tree: rather disreputable woman must pretend to be reputable in order to reunite with the daughter she left twenty years ago. unfortunately, she falls in love with the daughter’s godfather, who is considerably higher class. Fun romp, abrupt ending. 

Spoiler Alert: nabbed this one from the library new books shelf, which was really a steal. Solid romance story set against the backdrop of the fandom of an imaginary TV franchise based on Homer’s Aeneid. but it’s obviously based on this author’s own experiences in the Game of Thrones fandom (and bitter disappointment at its ending). at least, I would bet good money that was the case. 

Rosaline Palmer Takes The Cake: absolutely charming Alexis Hall romance novel about a bisexual woman in a pseudo-Great British Baking Show. aaaahh, this book is so charming and so soothing. I’m very happy that the author is already booked to write like two more of these.

Pride Prejudice and Other Flavors: (very) loose retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in modern day Bay Area. however, one of the main plot points revolved around convincing a woman to get a life-saving brain surgery despite the fact it would make her go blind. and I’m not sure this was handled very well. not sure if I’d read another book by this author.

For Real: another Alexis Hall book. I had been avoiding this because I assumed it was not my cup of tea, but I was so charmed by Rosaline Palmer that I figured I’d try it. Reader, this was a mistake. This is a BDSM erotica novel, and I am very ace. it was very well done, it was a genuinely sweet romance, it very cleverly subverted a lot of tropes. but it was also 80% sex and this does nothing for me.

Martha in Paris: more Sharp. This might have been my favorite of the Sharp novels. Thoroughly unconventional MC ruthlessly pursues her art career at the expense of all else-- and isn’t narratively punished for it, either. Martha read as alloaro to me. 

Martha, Eric, and George: continuation of the last novel! Martha continuing to flourish in her very nice art career, while meanwhile the ex-lover deals with the consequence of his folly. honestly I’m surprised this midcentury novel manages to swap the traditional roles so very much for The Illegitimate Child trope.

Brat Farrar: I think this was another recommendation by Jo Walton? anyway it was very good. not quite a thriller, not quite a mystery novel, not quite an English countryside novel. The whodunnit was obvious from near the beginning, but that wasn’t the focus of the book. Also, this book is full of loving, exquisite detail about horses. I will be reading more of Tey. Her only fault is that appalling British snobbishness. It’s more obtrusive here than in Sayers, which I think is because Tey is upper-middle class attempting to ruthlessly crush down the lower-middle class. whereas Sayers is safely ensconced somewhere around the upper class and can afford a little kindness and noblesse, if condescendingly so.