#all my prose is usually also From The Character's Perspective

[springcatalyst]

i try to keep my narration within the realms of the narrator so like. my writing style changes slightly depending on who is narrating. i only give u information they have but i also only give u thoughts that they reasonably think like. however i am a liar because sometimes i break this rule to write neat prose

[anim-ttrpgs]

Reading the book, and I'm already loving it. I agree with a lot of the things y'all say in it (players control the characters, not the narrator, etc.), but I was surprised at the strong insistence on 3rd person play.

Personally I like 1st person play because it helps me with immersion. If I play in 3rd person then my mental camera goes 3rd person, which feels more like playing a video game and removes that thrill of embodying someone else and living in a new world.

Usually I see people either take a strong pro 1st person stance, or a noncommittal stance, but this is the first time I've come across a game that insists on the 3rd person. I'm curious about the reasoning behind it. Was it just a philosophical decision, or did it bear out in playtesting that 3rd person was the better method? In the book y'all acknowledge that 3rd person play doesn't eliminate the threat of griefing from bad faith players.

Y'all clearly put a lot of thought into the game, so that really interested me. Could be a good learning opportunity!

I passed this on to one of our team and this is what she had to say:

In addition to our own home table just preferring to play in 3rd person, we believe that perspective is an important element of TTRPGs that doesn't get explored very often in the modern landscape. The games we play are composed of language - not just the words on the page, but the words we say at the table. Changing the verbiage will create a different emotional space, and a different experience. That zoomed out mental camera you describe is part of the point! In any TTRPG, players are always two things: participant, and audience. The narration we employ at the table affects the game world, yes, but we are also the only people there to see it play out. Eureka strongly emphasizes the "audience" side of that equation, and wants to frame the "participant" side as an act of authorship and discovery rather than one of inhabiting the world.

Just on a fundamental level, perspective is a defining part of any media - the camera angle in a movie or video game, the person of a book's prose, who tells the story, and who they tell it for. The way we frame a story changes the response it evokes. As you say, you've seen either strong pro-1st-person stances or neutral ones, but not a strong pro-3rd-person stance. I don't think that's because 1st person is inherently better for this sort of game, I think its because there is a tendency in the hobby right now - for a variety of reasons - to treat TTRPGs like a form of improv theater. That's not a problem in isolation per se, but I think it's one that limits what the medium can be or do. TTRPGs can be improv theater, but is that all they can be?

On a final note, we have also seen the insistence on 1st-person play and the approach of "embodying" a character occasionally cause real harm when the people involved have trouble separating player and character. That's also part of the reason we're so insistent about these being two separate people, because investigators tend to do some pretty messed up things (this being a horror focused game, after all), and we don't want people equivocating their friends with the characters they play when that level of emotional intensity is involved. Many people who play in 1st person are able to engage with that in a healthy way and understand the difference, of course, but I think it's hard to deny that the language makes that equivocation easier.

- @ashweather (person from out team who doesn't normally run this blog)

Adding on myself, another thing that I always like to bring up in this discussion is that first-person verbiage did not used to be so universal! Playing in the hobby even 4 or 5 years ago, you'd see (or at least I would see) a mix of third and first person verbiage at tables, and even people who used both interchangably. It's only in the past few years that third-person verbiage for TTRPGs has gone practically extinct, and i think most of the blame lies at the feet of big-budget "actual play" shows like Critical Role being many people's only reference for how a TTRPG can be played. Critical Role uses first-person, so therefor that's how TTRPGs are played.

I've even had people tell me on multiple separate occassions "that's wrong" when I'm trying to use third-person verbiage for TTRPGs, when playing with rulebooks which explicitly say in their text early on "you can use 1st or 3rd person to describe your character's actions"! (most, if not all, D&D edition rulebooks say this!)

In closing, yeah, if Eureka were a video game, it would be in third-person. Eureka doesn't want you in its world, it wants a character.

[2soulscollide]

10 underrated tips to become a better writer

hello hello, it's me again!

today i want to share some tips to improve your writing!

1. write in a different style

sometimes it's important to step out of our comfort zone, especially when it comes to writing. the next time you sit down to write for a bit, try to do something different from usual... try poetry if you always write prose; try fantasy if your thing is mystery; try adventure if you only write romance. it's up to you, just do it! who knows if you discover a new passion while trying this exercise...

2. write from a different point of view

i know it can be tempting to always write from a certain point of view, or to always use the same narrator voice, but (like on the first topic) sometimes change is needed to improve. you'll see things from another perspective, and maybe you can have a brilliant idea!

3. write with music

this one is one of my favorites! i love music, my spotify is full of playlists, one for each mood. try to create different playlists for your stories, and pick songs that motivate you, or that make you feel like you're one of the characters of your novel. this will not only give you a boost to write but also make you feel inspired.

4. set a timer

i always do this! it's a life changer. i started doing the pomodoro method to study and realized how effective it is. it's the same when it comes to writing: set about thirty minutes to write (it's up to you, depending on for how long you can be productive) and ten to fifteen minutes to relax. you'll see how much more work you can do with this method!

5. use prompts

you know how much i love prompts! i think they're so useful and help us so much to become more creative. they are a great way to step out of our comfort zone and develop someone else's idea in a span of a few minutes or hours.

oh, and if you're feeling adventurous, try this month's writing challenge!

6. write in a different place

guys! change your writing environment sometimes, especially when you're feeling overwhelmed or drained. i know it can be tempting to always sit on your sofa / bed / favorite chair, but sometimes we get so accustomed to the same place, that our creativity slows down, as well as our motivation. try to go outside to a park or a café, it can be so fun and you'll feel like the main character. or maybe, if you don't want to be in public, try another room in your house! just make sure you feel comfortable and don't have distractions around you.

7. change your writing support

do you always write on your computer? try to disconnect for a while, grab a pen and a paper, and let your imagination flow. it can be so freeing to write by hand sometimes, especially when you're plotting a novel! how cool it is to draw a scheme to connect all the characters and locations, and to doodle...!

8. find a writing buddy

personally, i don't have one, but i know it can be such a fun way to keep you motivated and to keep yourself (and the other person) accountable. it's great to have someone to share your ideas with, to give and receive feedback, and to lift you up to write when you don't like doing so.

9. write yourself a letter

trust me, it's amazing. it can be to your present self, past, or future, it's up to you. tell yourself what your writing goals are, what you are writing, how you see yourself in the future, what you're satisfied with your writing style, etc. just let it flow and re-read it whenever you feel unmotivated.

10. write with a sense of humor

i know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it can be so fun sometimes. try something less serious when you don't feel like writing. try to come up with a joke mid-dialogue, write a fun scene or re-write a serious scene in a less serious way. this exercise can be great to see things from another perspective, to try a different style, or to lift up your mood.

i hope this was useful! have a nice day!

[writingquestionsanswered]

I find that I am so focused on narrative that I leave out the creative part, and it's very dry and dull. How do I fix this?

Draft Feels Dull and Dry

Stories are a balance of action (things happening), dialogue (characters speaking/conversing), and exposition (explaining things.)

So, you can't really "focus on the narrative" while leaving out the creative part, because they're all part of the same thing. What you're probably actually doing is focusing more on the action and dialogue and are struggling with the exposition (aka narration or narrative.)

The first step to including exposition is to consider whose point-of-view the story is being told from and who is the narrator. Sometimes these are one and the same.

-- Third-Person Omniscient is a top down view of your story with a narrator who knows all and sees all. While this narrator isn't telling the story from any one character's POV, they do have the ability to communicate what different characters are doing, thinking, and feeling.

-- Third-Person Limited is a narrator that is limited to the POV of one character at a time--usually per scene or chapter. This narrator can only know and see what the current POV character knows and sees.

-- First-Person is when the narrator IS the POV character. Once again, this narrator is limited to their own POV and cannot tell the reader anything they don't know themselves, or show the reader anything they can't see themselves.

Figuring out your narrator/POV characters is essential in helping you understand what the narrator can communicate to the reader and how. For example, if you're using third-person limited or first-person, you know you will describe things like character appearance and scenery as the character observes these other characters and moves through the story.

If you're using a third-person omniscient narrator, you'll describe things that are relevant to what's happening but usually from a more distant/top down perspective. If you're using third-person limited or first-person, you'll describe things from the POV of the POV character.

You can work details in as character thought, internal dialogue, explaining things to the reader, as well as into action and dialogue.

Also: if you're someone who struggles with adding exposition, you might want to let your first draft focus on the action and dialogue, then work the exposition in on the second draft.

Here are some other posts that might help:

Guide: Describing Character Appearance and Clothing Guide: Showing vs Telling Showing a Character’s Feelings The Right Amount of Description (5 Tips!) The 3 Fundamental Truths of Description (And 5 Tips for Cutting Back) Description: Style vs Excess/Deficiency Weaving Details into the Story Writing More Meaningful Prose Horror by Darkness Horror by Daylight Avoiding Cheesy Character Description How to Make Your Description More Vivid Adding Description to Your Writing When “Telling” is Okay Balancing Dialogue with Action and Narrative Exposition, Action, and Dialogue, and How to Pace Your Story

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[pyrotechnicarus]

what's your experience re: the difference between writing prose and scripts 😭 i have to write plays for the first time for school and i miss my wife Purple Prose

Congrats on writing your first play! And I definitely empathize -- switching from one form to the other was hard for me, and something I still struggle with. Musical theater is arguably the novelist's crutch into scriptwriting because we have access to songs -- the kind of access to the characters' thoughts and intentions you get throughout a novel, you can inject into a song, whereas straight playwrights (especially realist playwrights) don't always have that built-in genre convention for theatricalizing their character's minds.

Unless you're working at a level of heightened text in your play that allows interior monologues to be spoken aloud or narrators to describe things (which, hey, you might want to consider!) then you'll have to really work on externalizing both beauty (your beautiful descriptions of things in your short stories? now someone has to say them out loud. Who would? What sort of person would speak this way? Would anyone?) and character development (often my playwriting teacher says that every shift in a piece has to be signaled through an action. A character can't just change their mind. That change doesn't exist to the audience until they do something with that new perspective -- hurt another character, avoid a situation, indulge in something they've opposed before, etc.) Writing for theater really forces you to make your character arcs visible in a way that prose doesn't.

On the other hand, you now have access to a ton of other tools that you didn't have as a prose writer! These usually fall under the broad umbrella of "theatricalization," but really just mean everything you can do in the theater that you can't do in any other medium. The intercut scene before Me, Myself, and I in Adamandi -- the casual, silent cohabitation of the past couple and the present couple at the start of Ghost Story -- the use of the edge of the stage to represent suicide in Adamandi -- all only work because the theatrical audience is willing to accept thematic intersections of space, time, and character because of the boundaries of the stage. When can two things happen simultaneously? When can your character make eye contact with an audience member? When can they leave the stage? What does having collective physical bodies perceiving your art allow you to do - when are they crying together, laughing together, when does their pulse race? Can you make them feel scared? Try out writing scenes that take place in the dark, in a spotlight, with a silent actor onstage, or with significant costume changes that can carry an equal amount of the story to your stage directions and spoken text.

Finally, I guess my overall advice would be to study plays you admire (my benchmarks are currently Is God Is, Escaped Alone, Streetcar Named Desire, M. Butterfly, and various Paula Vogel plays -- And Baby Makes Seven is my fave but The Baltimore Waltz is probably a gentler introduction to her) for their conventions and copy the shit out of them. Imitate their formatting, for a bit. Steal a staging that works in your context. Cut your dialogue down viciously -- words and exchanges that take a few seconds to read on the page take precious minutes to say out loud. Watch out for conversational cul-de-sacs -- ideally each line should advance the scene, advance the characters, and advance the plot. If your character is saying stuff like "What's your name?" then maybe the scene needs to start later -- you want every line to be one that only that character would be able to say.

Relatedly, and I think a failing of mine when I made the switch that is now getting better: don't rely on tone indicators to do the work of adaptation. Your actors and directors will ignore them, first of all, but also each line should contain its proper reading -- it should be clear from the context of the scene whether your character is saying "Hello." (angrily) or "Hello." (haughtily). I try to limit myself to 10-20 tone lines per 90-page musical script, if that's a helpful benchmark for you (this is different from stage directions, but you should also not be using stage directions to take the place of good dialogue. Anything inconsequential -- he paces or chewing his lip or with a sly grin -- ought to be cut.)

Anyway, overall, have fun and do whatever it takes (including disobeying all the advice above) to FINISH IT! You'll only know once you have a full draft A. whether you want to keep going with this medium and B. what your storytelling is Like; how you can improve it. Good luck!

[thetypedwriter]

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow Book Review

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow Book Review by Gabrielle Zevin

This book fell into my lap. I usually don’t put much stock into other people’s opinions on books, but I had sooooo many people tell me to read this book—people I admire and look up to. So, of course, when my fiance procured a copy for himself, I decided to join him. 

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a book by author Gabrielle Zevin about a boy and a girl who make games together. That’s it, that’s the whole plot. It always amazes me when authors can take such a simple narrative and turn it into a beautifully crafted tale. 

The book itself is exquisitely written, with elegant prose, tasteful pacing, enchanting characters, and a rich timeline that starts with the characters’ childhoods and follows them well into their late thirties. 

The two characters are the creative, yet self-deprecating Samson Masur and the lovely and brilliant Sadie Green. The two meet as children in the hospital where Sam is recovering from a horrific car accident and bond over playing video games.

Little does Sadie know that Sam hasn’t spoken to a single person since the accident. Not one word—until Sadie. 

Following these two characters well into their adulthood makes you feel like you really know them. They’re complicated and messy, traumatized and hopeful. They have likes, dislikes, annoyances, flaws, struggles, and dreams. 

The gift of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is getting to know these two characters as well as you could know a real life person—an almost unimaginable task for a writer to do.

Because the plot is so simple (albeit still fascinating to see the progress and evolution of video games from the 1990’s to the 21st century) Zevin can focus wholeheartedly on Sam and Sadie’s characters, a literary choice that pays off in droves.

The way Sam and Sadie’s relationship changes over time makes the reader reminisce on their own friendships, especially childhood ones. As a book, it highlights the beauty and nuances of having someone you can call a best friend–emotions and ties that can mean more than romance.

The way Zevin portrays their relationship is nothing less than art. That isn’t to say that Sadie and Sam don’t fight or have their issues because oh boy, do they ever. But that’s life. Life is messy and unpredictable and as human beings we are vulnerable to insecurities and mistakes. 

Having double POV’s isn’t always my favorite, but in this case it was crucial. Seeing both sides allowed you, as a reader, to see how perception plays a role in us all.

A situation from Sadie’s POV points Sam as uncompassionate and unfeeling. From Sam’s POV you gain understanding and empathy—you piece together why he is doing what he’s doing, altering your omniscient perspective on the whole situation. 

It was splendidly crafted. 

As I’ve stated many many times before, I am a character driven reader. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a character driven narrative all the way through.

More than magic battles or surprising plot twists, I found myself moved by the daily lives of two individuals trying their best. I was encouraged by their success and heartbroken by their losses. I felt like Sam and Sadie were my friends and I loved their story as if it were my own. 

If I were to have any criticism of this book it would be that all the problems could have been avoided if the characters just communicated with each other.

This isn’t a new issue. I have this problem with TV shows, other books, movies, etc. If people properly communicated, you wouldn’t have the challenges that arise (you also wouldn’t have a plot). 

While in some cases I can understand why Sadie and Sam would keep things from each other, for two people who spend an inordinate amount of time together you would think that they would���you know, talk more about their thoughts and feelings. 

I do think that Zevin took some liberties with how often Sadie and Sam kept each other in the dark while still proclaiming the other person to be the only soul on the planet who “really knows them” but it’s a forgivable error and one easily forgiven. 

Recommendation: If you like character driven stories as much as me (and video games to boot), then Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow will be your next addicting read. Like a video game, you’ll start it up, hit the next level, and be consumed until you reach the boss fight at the end. 

Score: 8/10

[vampire-apostrophe]

I can’t sleep and someone called my Alayne post Lolita core and I wanna talk about it. Sansa both is and is not like Lolita in a lot of ways. From an external view she is very similar. People treat her a lot like an object, never consider her inner thoughts or agency. Not one but three adult men creep after her each fitting her into a narrative she doesn’t want to be in. (Tyrion’s little wife, Sandor’s little bird, Baelish’s weird daughter wife named after his mom.) and she has to play docile and not agitate these men because they’re dangerous and like Lolita she has absolutely nowhere else to go.

But unlike Delores we actually get Sansa’s POV and it is filled with the depth that others try to deny her. She is Sansa Stark of Winterfell. She is Catelyn Tully’s daughter. She is a sister and she is a lady. The part she plays for others is just that but they can’t take her internal world. Her narration and internal story is fasciniating. She talks like a Romantic character full of prose and ideals even as she learns that life isn’t like the songs. She gets hurt and traumatized but she keeps being brave and smart and strong. I like seeing Sansa from an outsiders perspective though because we usually don’t. I like seeing her as not Sansa Stark as we all know her but also the way she is perceived by outsiders. What would it be like to be Alayne Stone’s classmate when you change in PE and see scars running down her back? What would it be like to be teacher as she writes horrific stories about violence and childhood and grief? What would it be like to be Sansa Starks sibling and seeing her after years apart. Realizing that you’re happy pretty sister is still smiling and kind but is also haunted and messed up and so good at hiding it that you miss it for a minute? For a second you think that just because she slept on fine beds in big cities that she escaped the trauma everyone else had but no, pretty girls around vicious men are just hurt differently.

[underdark-dreams]

Can you please talk about your writing! how you write and revise and where you get your inspiration you are just so amazing! I could use some tips to get my writing to the next level. maybe some fic recs you find inspiring as well? only if you want too.

I sat on this ask for a while to mull it over, so thanks for your patience! I can definitely talk about my general process and link some fics that have inspired me.

I've also answered some other asks about writing process and technique. You can read those here if you like:

Emotional and feelings-focused writing

Writing descriptively

Fic writing: general process

First, it's good to have your opening and your ending in mind before you start. Even if it's just:

OC walks into Sorcerous Sundries

Rolan and OC fall asleep together

If you have the bookends, it's a lot easier to find the story's beats in the middle. (Or decide that you can't find the path from A to B after all & need to change one of them around)

Once I have those two down, I usually write out the main beats of the story next. These will be the parts that excite you most as a writer!! Like, they make you giddy to write about! Getting these down on paper has ALWAYS given me a burst of momentum to get through the drier/connecting bits.

So I encourage you to write out the story events/scenes that make you most excited first. Exposition will come later! Don't worry about 'setting things up' right now, unless you really want to start there. Remember that your first draft only has to make sense to you.

Inspiration

Damn if I could bottle the answer to this one, I'd be set for life! lmao

A lot of people start writing first and find the inspiration along the way. It's a valid and effective method!

I usually wait for ideas to come to me first, and they usually come when I'm totally disconnected from my writing computer. I swear, my strongest ideas for a fic setup or interesting scene always come when I'm at work or vacuuming or some crap

Best advice I can give is to keep a notes app on your phone or something similar. Rotate your characters around in your mind while you're doing other random life things, and good ideas will usually come to you. Jot down the framework or some dialogue or whatever strikes you before you forget it, then revisit it when you have more time.

Revising and editing

I'm one of those writers who edits a ton as they go, instead of drafting out a story and revising in one go. So this part is kind of difficult for me to answer...the two processes are unfortunately so interconnected in my head!

The main thing is to make sure you give yourself a few days between writing and doing your final edit. Even if you've been revising along the way, taking some time away from your fic lets you gain a fresh perspective.

I will admit, I also keep thesaurus.com open in a tab at all times. Like. I am addicted to finding just the right word

As with all of the above, your mileage may vary! The right technique is the one that gets you writing and creating. 💯

Fic Recs

Here's a list from back in December! Still in love with all of these!

Also:

Deeply and Immovably So by Cometra / @dutifullylazybread - Absolutely required reading for any Rolan x Tav fans! Tav is AFAB/she/her. Darcy's worldbuilding and imagery is incredible, very deep and meaningful. Just all-around excellence!

verso by aes3plex - Zevlor x m!Tav oneshot. This story like...made me understand who Zevlor was as a character. I don't know how else to describe it. Really wonderful backstory threaded through a present-day encounter with some of the best prose ever. Love!

But I will admit, I grew up reading Trek fics, and those stories and writers have stayed with me longer than anything else. I think old fandom + huge universe + writers with sheer decades of experience in fanon have a lot to do with the quality of writing there. Not relevant to BG3 but has definitely shaped how I write today!

[weaselandfriends]

in your opinion do there exist any ambitious fiction writers active today with interesting/good prose? other than you ofc :). re: your recent post i'm trying to think of plausibly ""great"" recent novels and there's i guess. the pale king (dfw [dead] 2011), middle c (gass [dead] 2013), against the day (pynchon [dead, for all we know] 2006). i think in the past few years the only long-form fiction i've been reading is yours which is yknow a deeply embarrassing thing to admit

by the way speaking of dfw have you noticed how modern cannibals (bavitz 2017) is like westward the course of empire takes its way (dfw [dead] 1989) in that theyre both antimetafictional(??) road trip stories written about (in response to? in the margins of...) another metafictional work (homestuck [hussie 2016], lost in the funhouse [barth (dead[!]) 1968]) and then the author of said other metafiction shows up as a character at the end of the road trip. which i think is a neat connection but maybe doesn't mean anything. oh i suppose dfw is namedropped in modern cannibals as well ("David Foster Wallace killed himself, you should consider it too" :/) anyways i don't think i ever bought into the whole new sincerity thing, i think it's basically fine to just dick around with cute formal experiments forever, masturbate fearlessly to death as you say, as the main character of デデデデdestruction says, i forget her name. idk if you'd agree. you seem to write a lot of characters who try to pose an alternative and then end up not getting what they want.

It's a dire state, I'd say. Anything past the 2666 cutoff that I'd even entertain as possibly of interest was written by an ancient author at the end of their career, like the late works of Pynchon or McCarthy (or Pale King, as you mentioned). Authors who became big at a time when literature still had cultural reach and simply persisted into a time when it no longer did.

Even ignoring the question of great prose, what works since 2666 have even been culturally notable, penetrating a broader cultural awareness and enduring even the brief span of time since their publication until now? The Road? Knausgaard's Struggle? Are there any other candidates? Even if we extend this question to just pop culture, after publishers went all in on the YA model, the stream of books that reached phenomenon level dried up in the early 10s after Twilight and Hunger Games. Has anything been written in the past decade to suggest literature isn't a culturally moribund art form in the anglosphere?

It's a meme that people always think art is worse today than it used to be, but with film, no matter how many slop Marvel movies there are, you can point to great, ambitious, culturally-penetrating films that came out recently: Parasite, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Oppenheimer, etc. Video games? AAA might be in a death spiral (and even there, you get stuff like Mario Odyssey or God of War) but there's some new adored indie game every year. Music? It might vary genre to genre, but there are songs coming out today, artists active today, that will be remembered 30 years from now. Can you really say that about any book from the past 10 years? How many books written in the past 10 years do you think the average person could even name? Maybe I'm overly pessimistic. Do keep in mind I'm someone who mostly reads literature written by dead people. My perspective might be skewed.

If I did have to point to anyone writing recently who might be worth reading - and I wouldn't call either of these authors great, just worth reading - I'd point to Marlon James (Brief History of Seven Killings) and Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation). These are mild endorsements.

There's more interesting stuff being written online, authors who show promise. Nostalgebraist is the first I'd point to, a lot of sharp ideas and with every work he seems to be figuring out his game more and more. He also has some impressive prose passages, which are usually missing from even the ambitious and thematically interesting web fiction I've read. Almost Nowhere was particularly good, I wrote an essay on it somewhere in this blog. I've been really impressed by Farnham's Questing Beast in terms of prose. Most of the other webfic I'd recommend would be more for its ideas and thematic ambition than its prose. For instance, I love Alexander Wales' Worth the Candle (unfortunately stubbed recently for an actual publication), but I would describe its prose as Sandersonian.

Regarding Westward, I've actually only read DFW's long fiction - Broom, Infinite Jest, and Pale King. Long fiction is certainly my interest, I'm not overly fond of short stories, especially not in the contemporary milieu of disposable entertainment and brief, gimmicky, unambitious literary fiction.

[the-bloody-sadist]

Hello! Fellow yanagihara hater here. Please share more of your views on a little life i beg because that book was so promising with its themes goddamn but then the writer had to fuck it up -

OH NOOOOO THE CHANCE TO BE A HATER WHATEVER WILL I DO.....

THANKS FOR ASKING.

I'm really glad to hear from someone who was also angry at the book and its author! I tend to be more bothered than usual when any form of media is popular for so-called "trauma representation", held up as a classic, etc., and then when I consume that media, I find out that the way it's written is more of a pretentious normie's view of "suffering", which, in my opinion, is disgusting. NOW. PLEASE BE REMINDED THAT I HAVE STRONG OPINIONS, AND ALSO TAKE THEM WITH A GRAIN OF SALT, AS I'M PARTICULARLY TRIGGERED BY WHAT I FEEL IS HORRIBLE TRAUMA REP. And a second grain of salt, too, since I did NOT read all of A Little Life (because I got too angry, knew exactly where it was going, and said FUCK YOU YANAGIHARA, I'm going to watch a video essay breakdown of the plot instead so I don't kill myself), and also watched behind the scenes interviews that made me hate Yanagihara even more.

If you're curious what video I watched that broke down the plot and confirmed all of my expectations on this book, it's here! I remember not agreeing with a lot of what that YouTuber said, because some things are silly to complain about in fiction and I don't believe in the whole "sexual abuse should not be shown in graphic detail", which I think was part of his discussion?? Bad memory, sorry. What I think is ugly about the book is the pile-on of RIDICULOUS amounts of trauma for Jude, to a degree that makes it a parody, almost comedically, of real trauma. From a writer's perspective, I'm furious at the way she used it and the way it succeeded at it's one job--NOT to help people understand the effects of trauma and CSA--but to make them cry. It's cheap, it's gross, and it casts all of Jude's trauma (for me) in the light of "this author was proud of herself for how much she could stuff into one boy just to make SURE you were devastated, while paying no special attention to make sure these traumas were handled with care". It's enraging to see how low the standard is for professional books that A Little Life is held up the way it is.

Now, don't get me wrong, her prose, while bogged down by excruciating and needless detail a lot of times, is very engaging. It's part of why I was so mad that it failed in the most important areas. I wanted it to be good! I really did! And I loved Jude, he would've been a wonderful character if not for her amateur decisions. Had she picked one or two traumas to focus on, created a realistic background for him, and had his death make for better impact and purpose to the plot, I'd probably have the book on my shelf as a top ten. But instead, I listened to her speak about how she did ZERO RESEARCH ON TRAUMA for Jude, apparently doesn't have trauma of her own that she's referencing (because then, no matter how much I disliked it, I would be more forgiving if she's pulling from her own experiences), and just...is so FLIPPANT about how she wrote it. Plus, in my personal opinion, I don't like her attitude in general. She comes off like a cringe edgelord for the slop she wrote, and I know so many authors who aren't even professionals that write trauma WORLDS better than she ever could.

Also, I'm so sorry, but the COVER??? What a perfect representation for the book, honestly. That old photo of the dude making an expression of pain that looks fake as fuck to me, just...eugh.

You know those gacha life cringe videos where the characters are all gory and talk about fucked up shit that happened to them, but it's extreme and ridiculous? That's what this book felt like once it dove into Jude.

When I write my own characters, I try to pick a single trauma for them and a couple coping mechanisms. It's important to me that one trauma isn't just tossed in there without regard for how much it changes someone's life, behaviors, and thought processes. Other traumas exist, of course, but they fit within the theme for what the character will represent. And I think it's important to have characters around them that will balance that trauma, a caretaker, a friend, and some sort of hope. Even if it might be true in real life that some people do have out-of-this-world experiences of trauma, there's not a lot of ways to correctly convey that in fiction without coming off as silly or over-imaginative. It quickly feels like the author is jerking themselves off in how "good" they are at making characters suffer, when for me, it's about how good they are at portraying how even a "small" trauma can affect the character deeply. I respect it more when media explores the subtle aspects of trauma, incorporating multiple side-effects instead of just one. Again, I know not everyone is as picky as I am. I'm trying to have more grace for what others think is realistic, but A Little Life is WAY over that line. Whenever I read or watch something that has overdone, overdramatic, or unrealistic depictions of trauma, it's intensely triggering, and sometimes I've become suicidal for like a whole week afterwards LMFAO, so I'm super passionate about this subject, and I think it's because I'm both a writer and a trauma survivor. Having CPTSD and watching shit like Bungou Stray Dogs get praised for "good PTSD rep" with ATSUSHI????? Straying a bit from the topic, but I lose respect for anyone who expresses that opinion.

Anyway, as a closing opinion, Yanagihara just sounds like a teen fanfic writer who crams their story full of misery and thinks she's done a great job just because there was a lot of it and people went “aww, so sad”. It just felt like trauma is a spectacle for her, not a crushing psychological experience.

I already feel misunderstood enough, as is. I already feel like my trauma has been disregarded by anybody who hasn't shared the same type of trauma. The last thing I need is confirmation that it'll continue to be misunderstood because of media depictions like A Little Life.

THANKS FOR LETTING ME RANT, ANON! I hope I shared a lot of the same things you felt about the book!! I don't think I said everything as well as I wanted to, but I pushed the book out of my mind as much as possible after getting triggered by it, so I can't recall all of the details in full clarity. LMAO...

MUCH LOVE TO YOU!! And to leave on a positive note, I recently watched Room (with Brie Larson) and it was one of the BEST realistic representations of trauma I've seen in a LONG TIME. So that was nice!! It's in my favorites list now and I recommend it to everyone so you don't have to think about A Little Life anymore 🫵😡

[saintsenara]

🌋 Volcanic Eruption - What's your biggest flaw as a writer?

🌙 Eclipse - What's the most common / reoccurring theme of your WIP(s)?

💧Rain - What's the most emotional scene you've ever written?

❄️ Snow - Who is your coldest / most stoic character and how do they express themselves (if at all)?

💧Rain - What's the most emotional scene you've ever written?

For the wip weather ask game!

thank you very much for the ask, anon - and thank you for celebrating the start of autumn with the weather ask game.

🌋 volcanic eruption: what's your biggest flaw as a writer?

not proof-reading properly, purple prose, and overusing both em-dashes and semicolons.

🌙 eclipse: what's the most common / reoccurring theme of your wips?

History says, don’t hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme. So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge. Believe that further shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracles And cures and healing wells.

💧rain: what's the most emotional scene you've ever written?

let's pick scylla and charybdis from my currently updating wips... just so i can keep my cards close to my chest and say the most emotional scene in the whole thing is definitely snape discovering that lily's dead. of what's been published so far, it's probably snape's return to the fold:

‘Did you mourn me, Severus?’ the Dark Lord said, so softly Severus might have dreamed it. ‘When you believed you would never stand before me again…?’ And there it was. ‘Did you weep for me?’ In the midst of his lies to the Dark Lord, the grain of truth he’d spent fourteen years concealing from Dumbledore. ‘Yes.’

the most emotional scene i've written across everything though...? probably the ending of the shack at the end of the lane:

But then his expression morphed, as he realised why he was there, and the look of mingled shock and awe - even on his featureless death-mask of a face - was all Tom. It was the look he had worn the first time she had shown him magic. 'Mum?' he said, and the word sounded absurd in his snake's voice, and Merope was unable to stop herself from bursting into tears.

❄️ snow: who is your coldest / most stoic character and how do they express themselves?

let's go with subluxation for this one. and the answer is... percy.

he's the narrative perspective, so he's not cold in that we don't know what he's thinking. he's cold in that he's... kind of a knob.

i really don't vibe with a lot of fanon takes on percy - which often treat him as a poor little meow-meow who had no choice to work for a government which was committing genocide because his parents correctly pointed out that getting investigated for professional incompetence is not usually grounds for a promotion - but i also find - even in portrayals i've really enjoyed - that i don't vibe with the idea that percy spends the second war engaged in a campaign of covert resistance.

his defining traits in subluxation are apathy, mild irritation, a profound lack of empathy for anyone other than himself, and misguided belief that keeping his head down will be fine. that he has plenty of positive traits as well only makes him all the more fun to write.

[thebramblewood]

What advice would you give to a simmer just starting out writing stories with their sims? How do you build engagement with your posts? How do you write such addictive stories?

Wow! Okay. Buckle in because this will be a long one. I think the most important thing is writing for yourself first and foremost. Don't let your passion be driven solely by engagement (though it's impossible not to be motivated by it a little bit!) but by your own desire to see your project through. I've been a creative writer forever, and 75% of that writing has been written for an audience of one. But sometimes a character or concept will grab me by the throat and refuse to let go, and that's what keeps me invested. I unfortunately can't tell you how that happens. It usually feels like a happy accident. But when it does, it comes through, and readers will want in on it too. That being said, here are some tips for actual presentation:

Engaging visuals. I don't think Reshade or fancy editing is a requirement, but I can't pretend I didn't see a huge uptick in engagement when I started using it. Now, that may also be because I started thinking more about the composition of a shot. Diversify your angles and perspectives, and don't be afraid to zoom way in or out! Move that camera around as much as possible! I know very little about the technicalities of film and photography, but I think the more you practice, the better your eye becomes for what looks dynamic.

Legible captions. I'll be brutally honest: when I'm scrolling the dash, I'm less likely to stop for story posts if the text on the images is not immediately readable. I've by no means perfected this, but I've tweaked my own text over time to make it larger, and I find that very light colors with a black border is almost always the best option. I also try to visualize leaving space for the text to fit as I'm taking shots (though I sometimes forget).

Text-only transcript. My controversial opinion is that I don't like reading transcripts because it's easier for me to engage and follow along if I can see the images and words interacting. BUT I still think it's important to include them, so I always have one under the cut. If you'd rather not do captions on images at all, I personally find it more engaging for the text to be broken up throughout rather than in a big chunk at the end. This is especially helpful if you're writing more descriptive prose, as most people (including me) unfortunately have very short attention spans.

Adaptability! It's helpful to have an outline (whether it's in your head or written) of where you want to end up and how you're going to get there, but the most fulfilling part of writing for me is in giving myself license to follow new ideas or let old ones evolve, even if that means going a bit off-track. Also, it's tempting to establish a formula and lock yourself into an aesthetic from the start, but if you feel like something isn't working, don't be afraid to change it up! You'll be unhappy if you stick with it just for consistency's sake, and you'll rob yourself of opportunities to experiment and have fun. I think readers also appreciate a shake-up so that things never start to feel stale.

That's a lot, I know, but hopefully some of it helps. I've only been doing this here for a few months, and I'm also still figuring things out!

[twistedtummies2]

Top 12 Edgar Allan Poe Stories

October has come ‘round, everyone! Usually I have some kind of big Event for this month, but this year, I decided to take things a bit easy on myself and instead do a bunch of single-post lists throughout the month, which are thematically tied to the time of Halloween in some form or another. With that in mind, we’ll kick this month off with a tribute to my favorite author: that Master of the Macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was the quintessential “tortured artist.” His life story is a tragic and strange one, just as dark and filled with despair as many of the things he wrote. But for all of its pitfalls and distressing points, there was more to the man than doom and gloom: his writing reflects that, as Poe not only was and still is considered the master of the Gothic horror story, but also was a gifted romantic poet, and even wrote many pieces of humorous satire. One of his greatest contributions to literature was the invention of the modern detective story! Works like “The Phantom of the Opera” and characters like “Sherlock Holmes” simply would not exist if it hadn’t been for the prose and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe. Ever since I was young - perhaps too young to fully appreciate the intricacies of his work - I’ve always admired and adored this writer, and so I figured now was as good a time as any to show my appreciation for all this fellow gave to the world of literature. Most of the stories on this countdown will be Poe’s classic horror stories, but there will be some other pieces as well. I WON’T be including any of his poems, however; I’m saving a separate, shorter list for those. With that said, let’s waste time nevermore! These are My Top 12 Stories from Edgar Allan Poe.

12. Descent Into the Maelstrom.

Many people credit Poe for the invention of the modern detective story, which is true and good. However, there’s one thing I think people could credit Poe for creating that has yet to be officially stated as his invention: the creation of what might be called modern “Survival Horror.” These are stories where the fear comes from the protagonist being thrown into a perilous situation, and the audience - usually in the role of said protagonist - just has to go through it and survive, plain and simple. The horror comes from the helplessness of the situation, and the desperate urge to escape, combined with the perspective being done in such a way that the readers (or viewers, or players, depending on the medium) are the ones who are put through it. “Descent Into the Maelstrom” can sort of be seen as a precursor to this style. It is a story within in a story, told largely from the perspective of a fisherman, who relates to a young friend about how he survived an encounter his ship had with a monstrous whirlpool, out in the open sea. It’s revealed that the sailor’s experience was so shocking, it has turned his hair white and made him appear older than he really is. There’s not much else to the story beyond that, but that’s really all it needs: while we know the fisherman obviously survived, the tension remains as we wait to see how he did it, and learn just how close to his own end he nearly got.

11. Never Bet the Devil Your Head.

Like I said, Poe didn’t just write gruesome tales of the macabre and morbid. He also had a sense of humor, and wrote several works of satirical comedy. “Never Bet the Devil Your Head” is my favorite of his comedic works, partially because it is one of his darkest satires; it’s one of a few stories that feel almost like he’s spoofing himself, in some ways, and strangely reminds me of the work of another great author I love, Washington Irving. (Whether this was intentional or not is anybody’s guess.) The story spoofs the idea that all good short tales should teach some kind of moral lesson, as it begins with the Narrator expressing frustration at the fact his critics have judged him for apparently not including a moral in any past works. He thus relates the tale of a friend of his, Toby Dammit. (Yes, you may laugh at that name as much as you like.) Toby is a man who likes to make rhetorical bets, and is particularly fond of declaring, “I’ll bet the Devil my head!” whenever he does so. One day, the Devil himself comes calling, as he stops Toby and the Narrator at a bridge. Toby, not recognizing Old Scratch, makes the rhetorical bet he always does, claiming he can leap over a turnstile in the center of the bridge. The man makes the jump…and has his head lopped off by a hidden blade (“what might be termed a serious injury,” Poe writes), which the Devil then carries off. As a final indignity, after the bill for Toby’s funeral expenses are paid, the Narrator is forced to have his old friend dug up and turned into dog food. This story is as ludicrous as it is morbid, and while the satire is not by any means subtle, it is pretty funny. It’s the only direct comedy tale of Poe’s on this countdown, and not without good reason.

10. The Black Cat.

Many consider this one of Poe’s most noteworthy masterworks. While it doesn’t sit as high for me as some of his other stories - it feels a bit too similar to some other works of his that came both before and after it, which I feel did the concepts involved much greater justice, personally - I do still very much enjoy this story. The tale is told from the perspective of a murderer, awaiting his date with the executioner. The killer relates the details of his ghastly crime, which began when he murdered a black cat that he and his wife once owned, named Pluto. Sometime later, a second black cat came into their lives, which the killer believed was the reincarnation of the first pet, and feared. One day, when trying to kill this second feline with an axe, the narrator accidentally murders his wife in the process. To cover up this heinous deed, he attempted to brick her up behind a false wall in the cellar…but needless to say, things didn’t exactly go the way he expected, once the police showed up. Extraordinarily brutal and highly disturbing, “The Black Cat” is one of Poe’s most ambiguous and unsettling stories, and deserves all the recognition it has garnered over time.

9. Murders in the Rue Morgue.

I have said a couple of times now that Poe is credited with inventing the modern detective story. Poe referred to these tales as “studies in ratiocination;” he treated them more like essays than typical pieces of literature, where the focus was on showing the power of deductive logic in an otherwise inexplicable situation. There were three primary stories in this bunch, two of which are on this countdown. “Murders in the Rue Morgue” was the first and arguably the most well-known and beloved of the bunch, as it combines the elements of a classic piece of what we now recognize as detective fiction, with the trappings of Gothic horror and an almost satirical absurdity, which are so uniquely Poe. The story focuses on gentleman sleuth C. Auguste Dupin, who is called upon to solve a mysterious slew of hideously brutal slayings in Paris. The solution to the crime - SPOILER ALERT - turns out to be that the killings were the work of a sailor’s wayward pet orangutan, who accidentally killed the victims while attempting to shave their faces, the way it saw its owner do numerous times. I love how the solution to this crime is honestly kind of hilarious (in a very twisted way, mind you), as well as totally bonkers, yet the story goes out of its way to make such an utterly insane answer sound surprisingly plausible. You can easily see where future great writers of murder mysteries and sleuth stories, such as Arthur Conan Doyle and G.K. Chesterton, might have taken inspiration. It was a great start to a great genre, and is more than deserving of recognition for that fact.

8. The Pit and the Pendulum.

Yet another example of Poe arguably inventing the “Survival Horror” genre, and honestly, this is probably the very best said example one could have. Once again told from the point of view of the narrator (as most of Poe’s stories were), this tale recounts the experiences of a poor prisoner, being tormented by the Spanish Inquisition. He relates all the ways he was physically and mentally tormented by the Inquisitors, and his cunning attempts to escape his captors. The most notable examples of his torture are a seemingly bottomless pit in the center of his cell, and then later, being stuck under…(pauses)... “Oh. Look. There’s the pendulum of doom! What’s the pendulum of doom doing there?! I did not order the pendulum of doom! It’s overkill! Get rrrrid of it!” (Ahem…sorry, I freaking love that line. XD ) In all seriousness, I can’t recall if the “Pendulum of Doom” concept ever even existed before Poe wrote this story; to my knowledge, it wasn’t a real method of torture/execution, and I can’t remember it being brought up in fiction before this. So, if nothing else, Poe created the original supervillain death trap, and showed just how scary it could be in the process. Doesn’t that earn placement in the Top 10, if nothing else? I thought as much.

7. Hop-Frog.

“Hop-Frog” was Poe’s final story, but you probably wouldn’t guess it from reading this violent tale of vengeance. The story - for once NOT told by an unnamed narrator - focuses on a wicked king and his courtiers, who delight in mocking and abusing their servants. Most notable among their victims are the King’s jester, a hunchbacked dwarf named Hop-Frog, and a dancer by the name of Trippetta, whom Hop-Frog is in love with. The King and his cabinet are fans of practical jokes, so, one day, Hop-Frog offers them an idea for a prank: the King is to host a masquerade ball, and he and his friends are to dress as a horde of orangutans (wow, Poe really liked those, didn’t he?), to scare the other partygoers. The King and his cronies take the jester’s advice, thus falling for Hop-Frog’s trap: the harlequin gives them costumes made out of flammable materials, and, as part of the prank, chains them up and hangs them like a chandelier over the assembled partygoers…before setting them all on fire. As they are burned alive before the horrified revelers, Hop-Frog escapes with Trippetta, pronouncing his vengeance with the words: “this is my last jest!” There is great irony in the fact that Poe probably had no idea this last great declamation against cruelty and prejudice, with a side of Gothic chills, would, indeed, be his last great jest.

6. The Purloined Letter.

This was the third of Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin mystery tales, and it’s the second of the two I mentioned would be on this list. While “Murders in the Rue Morgue” is certainly the most iconic of these tales, I actually think this story is even better. It lacks the sense of Gothic horror and slightly satirical humor the first story has, but it makes up for it by being…well…a darn good detective story! Dupin is called upon for help by the local Prefect of Police, referred to simply as “G.” G wants Dupin to recover a stolen letter, filled with incriminating information, belonging to none other than the Queen of France herself. The police know who is responsible for the theft - an unscrupulous minister simply referred to as “Minister D.” who is using it to blackmail Her Majesty. The problem is that they can’t seem to find the evidence to convict him, nor the incriminating document, even after searching the man’s house. SPOILER ALERT: Dupin later reveals that the letter was in plain view all along. Minister D. had presumed that G. would be searching high and low, so he hid the letter by making it simply seem like junk lingering around in the room, instead of tucking it into some super-secret hiding place. Dupin simply arranged a distraction to make sure Minister D. wasn’t looking, then switched the incriminating letter with a phony, before giving the document to the police. Simple but utterly brilliant; definitely one of the best detective stories ever made, in my books, as well as one of the first.

5. The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.

This is arguably the single most gory and explicitly grotesque of all of Poe’s stories, as well as one of the most unnerving. I can’t help but feel this particular tale had to be an influence on later writers, most notably H.P. Lovecraft, for its combination of surreal, nightmarish, and viscerally deplorable elements. It’s also one that taps into some primal fears and questions, regarding the eternal mystery of what really separates life from death: a concept that forever fascinated Poe in his works. The story tells of M. Valdemar, an old man who agrees to allow a friend of his - an expert in hypnosis - to induce a state of hypnotic slumber on him while on his deathbed. Valdemar dies while under the hypnotic influence - unnervingly, he is able to speak to the investigators, even after he is dead - but as long as the hypnosis is left in place, his body remains totally intact, as if he is arrested in a state of suspended animation. It is hinted that until his soul is allowed to pass on, his body cannot pass, either. After conducting several experiments on the man, the hypnotist and his colleagues attempt to wake M. Valdemar…and - this is the disgusting part - the man suddenly rots away and decomposes in a matter of seconds before their eyes, literally falling apart at the seams and being reduced to a gory mass of decaying flesh. So gross, so unsettling, and so utterly, utterly horrific…I LOVE IT.

4. Fall of the House of Usher.

This is one of Poe’s earliest horror stories, and it’s widely considered to be the first truly great piece of Gothic literature he ever wrote; other stories before this, such as “Ligeia” and “MS. in a Bottle" do have their values, but “Fall of the House of Usher” is widely regarded as the first actual masterpiece Poe wrote. It is a story that has been adapted and reimagined countless times, and is widely considered one of the author’s most definitive pieces of work. The story focuses on - you guessed it - an unnamed Narrator, who goes to spend some time with a childhood friend, Roderick Usher, as well as Roderick’s beloved sister, Madeline. The Ushers live in a dilapidated mansion, situated on a tiny island in the middle of a murky lake, perpetually surrounded by long-dead trees. Roderick claims to suffer from a medical condition that heightens all of his senses to an alarming rate, while his sister spends much of her time in bed, fighting a terminal illness. The events that occur inside the spooky old mansion will forever traumatize the Narrator, and leave both Roderick and Madeline dead. This is one of Poe’s longest and most complex stories, plot-wise, so I don’t want to give too much away. Suffice it to say, this story has a lot of the hallmarks of later Poe pieces: the themes, motifs, and phobias present are among the most frequently visited in his works following this one, and one could easily make the argument that the House of Usher itself was the inspiration for many a famous haunted house and haunted house story in more modern times. I actually like this story more today than I probably did when I was younger, and it has more than earned its place in my personal top five.

3. The Cask of Amontillado.

This was one of the first pieces by Poe I ever read, and it remains one of my favorites. Once again, our Narrator is a killer, only this time he’s actually given a name: Montresor. It’s indicated that Montresor is a nobleman who lives in Italy, and he has vowed to gain revenge (for reasons that are never made entirely clear) against a former friend of his: a wine-loving gourmet by the ironic name of Fortunato. One night, during Carnival time, Montresor entices Fortunato into a wine cellar with the promise of tasting a rare vintage of amontillado. Montresor claims he wants Fortunato to assure him of the beverage’s authenticity. Once there, he shackles a stupefied Fortunato into a shallow alcove, and proceeds to brick up the place, effectively burying Fortunato alive. The murder plot and the way it is carried out are deeply disturbing, but perhaps the thing that makes the story so particularly fascinating is Montresor himself: Poe leaves some subtle implications of what might be at the heart of this feud that has turned so deadly, but he never gives a clear answer as to why Montresor is not only so intent on revenge, but on using such an extreme method as immurement for his vengeance. It invites the the reader to play detective themselves, in a way, pondering the circumstances around the crime, even as the confession is laid before us.

2. Masque of the Red Death.

In many of Poe’s stories that involve supernatural elements, it’s left ambiguous how much of them are real or imagined. This is not the case with “Masque of the Red Death,” and if that’s not unnerving enough, the actual subject matter of the story will be. To a greatly unsettling degree, this story is arguably more powerful today than it’s ever been. Unlike so many other Poe tales, this one is written in the third person (much like “Hop-Frog”), and tells the legend of a horrible plague that swept across a far-off kingdom. This plague was called The Red Death: it caused its victims to sweat blood, and killed within half an hour. To try and escape the scourge, the “dauntless and sagacious” Prince Prospero has himself, his courtiers, and many of his fellow royals and noblemen take refuge in his castle, where they party and cavort, even as the populace beyond the palace walls are left to die from the epidemic. One night, while holding a masquerade ball, however, the Prince and his allies are visited by a mysterious stranger, who is ultimately revealed to be the Red Death itself. You can probably guess how things go from there. The story is a cautionary tale against the inevitability of death, and how no matter what one tries to do, no one - however smart, rich, or powerful they may be - can truly escape it forever. Haunting and unsettlingly truthful, it is easily one of Poe’s most iconic pieces.

1. The Tell-Tale Heart.

Believe it or not, I first learned of this story because of - out of all things - an episode of Spongebob Squarepants. No, that is not a joke: there’s an episode of Spongebob that directly spoofs this short story. Naturally, of course, I prefer the original, but I figured that was worth sharing for the amusement of it. ANYWAY… “The Tell-Tale Heart” is considered one of Poe’s darkest and most delightfully ambiguous pieces (and that’s saying a lot), and for good reason. Once again, our unnamed Narrator is the protagonist…and also, much like in “Cask of Amontillado” or “The Black Cat,” they’re a murderer. However, the killer has a specific agenda in this case: he’s trying to prove that he ISN’T insane. How does he do this? By telling the reader the story of how he murdered and the dismembered a helpless old man that he cared about (it’s left unsure if they are his father, his employer, or something/someone else), because the old man had a weird eye that gave him the heebie-jeebies. (pauses) Yeah. Great way of professing your own sanity there, big shot. In all seriousness, though, that’s the brilliance of Poe’s story: as the tale goes on, it becomes clearer and clearer to the reader that the protagonist is absolutely out of their mind…and that makes the big event - when he swears he hears his mutilated victim’s heart beating under the floorboards - all the more ambiguous. We can reasonably presume it’s a hallucination, but it’s not directly stated to be so. There’s also the possibility it’s a manifestation of his guilty conscience. On another note, just like Roderick Usher, this narrator claims to once again have heightened senses; could he be hearing something else and making a mistake? Or perhaps…just perhaps…it’s the old man’s ghostly specter, haunting him and forcing him to admit to his crime? None of these answers would be out of the realm of possibility where Poe is involved, and all of them are interesting to ponder. However you read into it, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is a gripping and profoundly troubling tale of madness, murder, and many strange, unanswered questions…in other words, all the things that make this author’s work in the fields of horror and crime so renowned. It is no surprise this takes the cake as My Favorite of the Works by Edgar Allan Poe.

HONORABLE MENTIONS INCLUDE…

Morella.

The Gold-Bug.

The Oblong Box.

The Premature Burial.

[smileomega]

Warioware Tabletop Headcanons

Wario: HUGE Loot Goblin. Will get into fights the second he's not allowed to have all the loot (he usually loses and leaves). Jimmy T.: He's a DM, but a really chill one. He doesn't really put a whole lot of forethought into his campaigns, usually borrowing them from online sources, but boy is he flexible. There is almost no way to break a campaign he can't adapt to, but he also is generally not into long campaigns, sometimes leaving the experience unfulfilling at the end. Dribble And Spitz: Really fun guys to play an RPG with, but constantly forget having to roll for ANYTHING. They'll frequently say things like "I hit him with my sword!" and "I intimidate the guard" and assume the game will let that happen. Sometimes, the DM will just let them have it because, darn it, they're just so fun to be around, and it'd be really funny. Mona: Another generally really cool player to be around, acts moderately well, but will NEVER play the same character in 2 different sessions. EVER. She always has to roll a new character, even in the middle of the campaign. 9-Volt: Min-Maxer. Probably running a Murder Hobo that is also somehow game-related despite games not existing in-universe. The DMs usually let him have this. Orbulon: Barely exists as a player, is mostly here to socialize and eat food. Occasionally tries earnestly to engage with the game for the heck of it and suddenly the train flies off of the rails. Dr. Crygor: Another DM, the polar opposite of Jimmy T. Has an entire atlas of the game's world, and has sharpened every single tiny detail about the setting, its countries, its history, its religions, its conflicts, its past conflicts, and every single dungeon he will unfortunately funnel you into regardless of how you feel about it. Kat & Ana: Orbulon, but only the first sentence (they're kids, what'dya expect?) 18-Volt: Will ONLY play with his custom bard character that Raps for all of his spells. Generally okay otherwise. Ashley: Her Character is the darkest flavor of spellcaster possible in the game, and their name is something like Deathdarkness Moonbladereaper, and she will play this character like her life depended on it.. Despite this, she's not actually DISRUPTIVE, and adds a unique perspective to the party, though occasionally has a habit of cursing NPCs that seem suspicious or having towns be angry at them because she doesn't care to hide her undead minions. The prose she uses during some of her actions also makes it really hard to take her seriously sometimes. Red: Will play a healing class, but will almost exclusively focus on keeping Ashley's character alive and as well as possible, completely ignoring everyone else. Ashley doesn't even want him to do this, it's just a thing he does, and nobody's happy about it. (Part 2 coming maybe)

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #1 – How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

I read the overwhelming majority of this book in 2023 but I finished it after new years so review #1 of the new year it is! Despite it by all accounts being very critically acclaimed and well-reviewed, I had absolutely never heard of it before opening up the packaging on a ‘blind date with a book’ thing a bookstore was doing (incredible gimmick, for the record). Overall a great book, if rambling at points and with a somewhat weak and confused ending.

The story takes place in Kosawa, a village on the western periphery of a fictional west African country, with the incredible bad luck to have been built atop a fortune in oil. The story is told through several POVs, and follows the villagers struggle against the Pexton corporation and their country’s de facto neocolonial government to try and have their home restored to what it was before the river and soil were poisoned and children started dying. It’s told on a generational scale – stretching from the ‘80s to the mid 2000’s – and follows the main cast of characters from childhood into their forties, As might be expected from that, it’s not exactly fast-paced or full of heroics – lots of promises and reassurances being given and never lived up to, and dramatic actions being taken and leading to awful tragedies or only compromised half-successes. The book really beats in the theme that if you’re really powerless and the ones fucking you over have all the cards, a lot of time there really isn’t a winning move. Well, and maybe that the heroic, principled attempts at violent resistance repeatedly got everyone involved killed but did win real concessions and aid for the other villagers who were willing to play along (or just to sell out or give up Kosawa for dead), though I’m not entirely sure that’s how the story’s intended to be read.

The prose isn’t usually eye-catching, but it’s extremely well-constructed, and beautiful at points. The story does a lot with shifting points of view, jumping from a corporate one of a particular age-group of children whose lives parallel the story, and closely individual ones from different members of a particular family whose daughter Thula ends up becoming the moral/intellectual heart of the resistance. Each voice feels incredibly distinct and focused on very different things, in a way that really worked for me. The massive timeframe covered also lets the book really indulge in showing what the day to day life of the villagers looks like – how they sustain themselves, the social rhythms of life, the rituals of adulthood, marriage, and childbirth, how widows and children are treated, and how the poisoning of the environment around them weighs down but doesn’t destroy any of it. It even does a great job of really selling the perspective and world-views of people for whom the world is enchanted and spiritual rites have real direct physical effects, which in my experience the vast majority of books about religious/spiritual characters totally fail to.

The tone of things is pretty overwhelmingly melancholic – this is a story with a deep sense of history, which also means a very tragic imagination. Characters who really dedicate themselves to trying to change the world are portrayed as deeply admirable but almost certainly doomed and even likely to cause more harm than good. You see this most prominently with Thula, whose basically a genius and devotes her entire life from childhood to activism and social change with saintly (if not near-inhuman) purity and focus, and dies in her forties having not won much at all. The ones who take what they can, get government jobs and use the opportunity to become exactly as corrupt as the men who came before them and loot the country for the benefit of their friends and families meanwhile – well, they definitely aren’t making the world any better, but they’re shown as very human and sympathetic and they mostly end up with exactly the lives they were hoping for.

[absolutebl]

BL & Critical Analysis

Pop culture critique & a how to do it... or something

This meaty question came from the lovely @huachengeye Thank you!

Codicil: I do not get paid for pop culture critique (although I once wrote book reviews professionally, long story). So I’m entirely a dilettante. 

The Question!

Q1: Can you can shed some light on your process (of critical analysis)

This is a little like training your eye to edit a document (I bet you can tell that's not one my strong points). Or training your mind to look at data and data collection in terms of the results it may yield and what the initial survey says about the questioner's bias (or can bias results).

First, I have to ask... 

Do you really want to train your eye to critique?

Because it will become a lot harder to immerse yourself in a piece of media if you constantly feel obligated to step back mentally and think about it from various perspectives. 

In other words, you may enjoy BL, or all live action dramas, LESS if you try to think about them critically.

I have an intimate who is a pretty well known writer. She mostly writes humorous fiction. She's open about the fact that this means every time she laughs, she stops and thinks about why that happened and whether is could be used in her prose. She never gets to be fully absorbed by narrative ever anymore because her critical eye is always turned on, especially for the written word.

What you may sacrifice for critique, is a certain level of childish wonder. 

I’m not sure i would necessarily advise doing this. 

My Process 

My process is essentially now visible in this blog. As I watch a show I take a few notes on it (which show up in the weeklies) and then at the end I go through those notes, consolidate, try to be witty about it, and write up a review.

The review usually has something about:

characters, tropes, plot 

narrative & story structure & pace

how this BL fits in with the greater BL genre & history

any thoughts I have on the quality of the production, acting, and/or directing 

my own personal feelings about the show

Thus my reviews tend to take into account several criteria.

For #1-2 I have a background in lit crit as an undergrad (and, like I said, I did once review books for a living) so these are kinda ingrained in me. I’m working on seeing the influence of soap operas, fan fic, and non-western story structures as critically valid, so these are the things I’m actively learning more about the most these days. 

For #3: How does this fit into the history of BL? Since I’ve made it point to watch pretty much all BLs, I feel like I’m set up to think and talk about this. AKA the spreadsheet made me do it. But since I also have anthropology in my academic history, I’m very interested in how a BL represents for its country’s BL oeuvre. I try to judge KBLs against other KBLs (and Kdramas) and look for patterns and trends in how that country’s interpretation of what it “means to be BL” shift over time. 

For #4: my IRL job is tangential to the entertainment industry so that’s accidentally trained my eye for film. I don’t know that I like this part about myself, but it’s happened whether I like it or not. And I don’t have a proper background in film critique. 

Final #5: will discuss further in a bit.

Suggestion? Establish A Rating System 

Come up with your own personal 10 star (or 5 star) rating system.

Write it down. Don’t be afraid to modify or adjust it. It’s yours, your tastes change, nothing is set in stone. 

Pick one ideal example BL for each category that you’re very familiar with for your reference point. Then you can ask yourself, after you’ve watched a new one, whether you liked it more, less, or about the same as that show. (relative rating, similar to grading on a curve) 

I change my examples regularly as my taste changes and as new BLs are added. The bar gets shifted, so to speak. 

My Rating System 

Your reasoning for rating a BL will be different from mine, but here’s mine as an example. 

(Also I never feel bound by this, sometimes I give a show a 8/10 just because it feels like that’s what it deserves.) 

10/10 - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - my favorite precious squee!, faithful to tropes, happy ending, good chemistry, few flaws, high rewatch potential, makes me happy, examples: Semantic Error, Until We Meet Again 

9/10 ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED - loved it and good rewatch potential but probably a few pacing issues or one big flaw, still made me feel good/comforted, examples: Cherry Magic, Bad Buddy

8/10 - RECOMMENDED - some concerns around tropes (like dub con) or story structure/filming but still satisfies as BL, moved me emotionally, rewatchable in parts or not rewatchable but important, examples: Love By Chance, Between Us

7/10 - RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS - i.e. isn’t quite BL, convoluted, not strictly HEA, too short/long, and/or chemistry issues, may have impact on other BL fans but not me (or on me but not others) examples: Make it Right, KinnPorsche

6/10 - WORTH WATCHING BUT FLAWED - probably around the ending or in narrative structure/cohesion or censorship, disappointed expectations, unlikely to rewatch, examples: My Gear and Your Gown, Love Mechanics

5/10 - WATCH IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO - but don’t expect much, it’s a total hot mess interesting only because it's BL and I'm probubly pretty conflicted about it, examples: Advance Bravely, Even Sun

4/10 - FATALLY FLAWED - but still basically BL, however... do we want to support this kind of behaviour? examples: Precise Shot, Work from Heart

3/10 - I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM WATCHING AND NEITHER DOES IT, just seriously why did this get made? examples: Blue of Winter, Physical Therapy 

2/10 - IT'S DEPRESSING - they killed/tortured/etc the gay, save yourself, examples: The Effect, HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count

1/10 - IT'S AWFUL, I WATCHED IT SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO, has all the flaws of 4-3 plus something even more egregious, personally triggering, example: My Bromance series, Round Trip to Love

dnf - self explanatory, but usually I drop because I feel like the narrative is already a #3 and/or headed for a #2 or #1 and then I’m told later that is went there, example: My Tempo

I hand out the fewest 1s & 10s. The most 8s and 7s. Everything else is pretty much on the bell curve you’d expect. 

Q2: What resources do you use to build your reviews?

I listen to a lot of pop culture review critiques in podcast form, often about stuff I'd never watch. But I like the way professionals talk about these things, even if they aren't MY things or don't jive with my personal opinions.

Mark Kermode is my favorite film critic and we like the opposite stuff, but the way he talks about film is very interesting to me. His podcast mini series on the "business of film" is probably one of my must listens. For his main podcast (Kermode & May’s Take), I always skip over all the interviews, people talking about their own films bore me to death (especially if they are actors on the promo junket, save me please). His rants are some of my favorites of all time (try Pirates 3 or Iron Man 2). Someone else’s list. 

I also like Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR because it brings in multiple perspectives and varied cast of critics who often disagree and the "things making me happy" is a grab bag of fun.

The Bechdel Cast is a feminist critique podcast from Hollywood insiders and they do recaps as well as critique, and it's always fascinating to me to hear what people latch onto in a narrative. However, I only listen if I am already familiar with the film they are discussing.

My background is in anthropology and I've lived all over the world so that helps train me to think in terms on culture's impact on narrative as well as linguistics and so forth. As a personality I’m also quite reserved and deadpan, grumpy, stiff, strict, and kinda cold. I think I gravitate to being an observer and an outsider which helps if you want to analysis stuff. Which is not a claim to objectivity, I don't think there can be objective analysis of pop culture.

But it does make me pause to think, "that made me FEEEL something" why? What am I feeling? How did the actor do that? The script? The direction?

These shows are meant to entertain, whether they are successful or not, for me (and what "successful entertainment" means to me) and how they are doing it is the first question I always ask myself.

Q3: What are the things you look out for when watching a BL?

I ask myself a lot of things I would when looking at any piece of art. Or even when shopping for clothing or a new car or reading a book.

Did I like it? Why did I like it?

Did it move me? Why did it move me? 

Did I react? How did I react? To which bits? Why? 

What tropes and narrative beats was it using to manipulate me and my expectations? Did it meet those expectations? The promises it set up at the start? Did it fulfill the watcher-contract during the course of the narrative? 

Did the filming successfully telegraphy the journey I was meant to take? Did the actors? 

But also... would I rewatch it? Am I tempted to do so the moment it ends? For which bits?

The statistician in me wants to point out that these questions say a lot more about me and my relationship to art than it does about the art itself.

For example

Did I like it? Means... I'm motivated by pure taste and personal preference and complete subjectivity. This is in part formed by a person's background, life state, whole experience with culture and pop culture and society, family, friends. Taste is also just "that" bit. You know, that bit? Likes lemon deserts over chocolate ones, gravities to spicy food, favorite color is green, decorates with potted plants. Just my taste is my taste. I like what I like. 

Yes I have some criteria that subconsciously come into play: I look for clever story structure, subversion or manipulation of tropes, parody, not hitting any of my dislikes (like dub con). But also I have other biases impacting whether I like it (like physical appearance) which I can try to check but usually can't fix. (For example GMMTV's Gawin/Fluke looks so much like an ex of mine I really struggle with his screen presence.)

Did I like it?

The fact that this is the first question I ask myself also should tell you I'm motivated by the emotion these narratives engender. I want them to transport me and move me. I my case I want to feel comforted and satisfied and happy. The ones the make me feel discomfort, especially for too long in the narrative, I am simply going to like less. Sometimes less than I feel like I should (see my struggles with masterworks like ITSAY, YNEH, or The 8th Sense). The very BLs that most professional critics would tout as the best examples of the genre for a wider audience often turn out to be the ones I struggle with the most. (They are also, fortunately for me, the least representative of the bulk of the genre.)

In other words there is ALSO a part of me that genuinely likes and enjoys the trashy stuff. Even the trash I trash watch.

So I would advise you to come up with your own questions. Ask yourself what you want from these shows when you watch them. 

What motivates you? 

Why are you watching them at all? 

What brings you joy from an art or entertainment experience? 

What do you want them to do for you? To you?

You are going to experience them (and therefore analyze them) from this perspective whether you like it or not. So understand yourself is paramount. It's about your relationship to the art, not the art itself.

If I were to give you an assignment I would say start with one BL you really enjoyed, perhaps not your favorite but one level down. And then do one you really did not enjoy. And think about why... 

Happy analyzing! 

(source)