#but i love Something so much as a literary/plot device. it's so good it makes me unwell

[multifandomloverthrowaway]

What Sky’s Character Should Have Been

(And why her and Viktor needed to be canon.)

This is LONG, and just my opinion. Please be nice!

In storytelling, each character, each scene, and each literary device is crucial for the advancement of the plot. If any is over or under utilized, the story remains cluttered or incomplete. That being said, it truly is a tragedy how horribly the characters, especially the Zaunite characters, came to be treated in season two. The characters and arcs set up in season one are butchered, and Viktor’s story is particularly disappointingly miswritten by the authors and misrepresented by the fandom, and we see this in the narrative and to a certain extent even fan treatment of Sky.

Sky is a ghost. Her presence, while tangible in the story, is not fully realized to the audience. We do not get to know much of her besides her interest in Viktor and a small flashback indicating that they knew of each other in their youth. Thus her existence and her death are ultimately unsatisfying; we do not know enough about her to be able to connect with her, and so she is ultimately only perceived to be an object to propel Viktor’s descent, even though we do not know much of his feelings towards her either. This is an unfortunate misuse of her as a supporting character, especially when it has a good potential reason to exist other than to solely be Viktor’s love interest.

Before understanding what Sky can represent, let us first define her in the context of the setting, particularly in relation to the characters that she supports. I have touched upon this in more detail in my Viktor character analysis posted, but for the TLDR:

It is clear that Jayce and Viktor are foils to one another. The difference in their opinions on Hextech sets them up to be a parallel to an important aspect of the class struggle set up in season one: Even when the oppressed are “good enough” to compete with their privileged peers, the resultant treatment by the oppressor between both is starkly different. Where the privileged will be lauded and commemorated, the oppressed will only be served minimal acceptance and approval. Thus, their characters and how they interact with one another, as well as the characters of their immediate mutual contacts and their own corresponding interactions, should serve explore this struggle further, especially when it comes to Sky, Mel, and Heimerdinger.

So Sky, like Viktor, should show how Piltover can misuse Zaunites against their hometown. However, to keep her character separate from him, unlike Viktor, who loses himself getting out of this trap and back to Zaun, Sky must be lost to trap itself. She must show just how inhumanely far Piltover will go in exploiting Zaun to maintain its subjugation over the latter. Like we see with other innocent Zaunite background characters that are killed by Piltover on the battleground, Sky must represent those that are killed in softer, more covert methods: through the extraction of Zaun’s finest intellect and the resulting false diplomacy. We must eventually see how Piltover indirectly kills her for being Zaunite, even though we know she is killed by Viktor and the Hexcore.

Sky then needs to have a fleshed out background that indicates of her optimism, grit, and innocence. It does not have to be as in depth as that of the main characters, but the audience must be shown the following:

Her academic prowess that indicates how she can capture sponsors and spin her botany research to help Zaun into something that Piltover thinks it can also benefit from. From which councilors or patrons does she benefit? How and why?

Her motivations for Zaun. What does she view an ideal Zaun to be? What would its relationship with Piltover be? We know she wants to make it better by creating natural greenery, but why does she choose to do so in Piltover? What pushed her to apply to the academy?

Her relation to Viktor, the only other known Zaunite at the academy. Did they interact more than that one time in the river? Were they friends or mutuals? How did Viktor help her get a position as his assistant and why? We know she is fond of him, but what about the other way around? What are their experiences at the academy like? How do they interact with casual prejudice? Do they stick up for each other? Do they find support in each other?

We must see her struggles to successfully obtain funding and traction for her own research due to Piltovan pushback and prejudice. (In this case, she must be in the same research group as Jayce and Viktor, but no longer their assistant as a decade is far too long to remain as such. She will be tied to Jayce’s name but not under him or Viktor.) This needs to be shown to contrast Jayce’s ease in becoming a councilor and gaining enough authority to push out Heimerdinger to further his and Viktor’s research. We need to see her project take the back seat because it is not the project that Jayce is directly tied to. We must see her have to to be careful and planned in who she talks to, how, and what she is able to get from them. This would provide a perfect parallel to Mel and about how being outsiders provides challenges when it comes to change; one being born into power with an imperialist upbringing and getting past Piltovans gracefully to a councilor position to invite it, and the other having no power and so relying on the street smarts and a resource seeking mindset from a more impoverished background to scavenge for it… yet both using the same methods (smooth talking, strategic connections, etc.) to do so.

We need to also know her relationship with Zaun and her perception of Piltover. She must be shown to nurture her feelings about the unfair treatment of her home into a more determined and optimistic view of potential equality and diplomacy, and their growth over time with her and Viktor’s research and their duty to represent Zaun. We should see her friendship with Jayce. We should see her interact with Mel and Heimerdinger. This not only lets the audience sympathize with her by empathizing with the struggles she faces above and her defiance in face of them, but also contrasts Viktor’s internal anger about Zaun and Piltover that he lets fester with his growing ailments and erasure of academic and technical contributions. This contrast sets her up nicely to symbolize the “good that could have been” in the relationship between Zaun and Piltover, and thus by extension, between Viktor and Jayce - hence her initial role as their assistant, and something that is cast aside as each character grows more towards their goals rather than the partnership.

This also sets her up to personify Viktor’s humanity. We’ve seen them meet. Let us see them study together, build things together, perhaps even fend for essentials together. Let us see how and why Sky fell in love with the Viktor from her youth. Let us know of Viktor’s endearment of her as we see him choose her to be his assistant. Let us see how they interact after facing prejudice from Piltovans and band together. Let us see her meet him when he’s on the hospital bed. Let us see her and Viktor be protective of and vulnerable with each other as they face the enemy. Let us see them bond just like we have seen him do so with Jayce. With Sky, we can see Viktor’s insecurities and his empathy like no other character can; in her we can see what makes him human.

This is integral to Viktor’s character and his arc. Whereas Jayce can actively work towards a future for his life with Mel and his career outside of Hextech, Viktor does not have the same luxury due to his illness. He cannot pursue anything but Hextech because his life and the lives of his people are on the line due to Piltover’s control. And that is precisely why when Sky loses her life due to the technology, it isn’t just Viktor that kills her. It’s Piltover’s waste, Piltover’s luxuries, Piltover’s unfulfilled promises that do. And Viktor realizes that after. Sky, in all her optimism, is fundamentally what Viktor could have strived for had he not let his anger and urgency spiral. As a mirror to Mel and Jayce, Sky is not just Viktor’s past but also his hopes for the future. And he realizes that he and Zaun has lost what could have been.

By giving Sky agency, we see just how much she could have done for the plot. But seeing how much the story fumbled Viktor, it’s not surprising to see her get “fridged” twice. I hope I did her justice!

If you’ve read this all, you deserve all the desserts. Thanks for reading!

[fagdykevash]

i mean, i see why we didn't, but i rlly wish we saw basil's Something more. like got more detail on what he was feeling and why, yk? how it differs from what sunny sees... that typa thing

[so-many-ocs]

fifty creative writing warmups

1. search for lists of writing prompts, select one at random, and write from it for 15 minutes. the goal should be to write as much as possible, rather than trying to write something “good.”

2. read or watch a scene from a book/film/show/etc. and then rewrite it from memory.

3. choose one of the five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, sound) and write a brief scene focusing primarily on that sense.

4. write an interview as if it were occurring between yourself and a character you’re writing about.

5. rewrite something you wrote a long time ago.

6. shuffle your favorite music and write something based on the first song that plays. 

7. choose a scene from your least favorite book and try to rewrite it in a way that you like. pay attention to the changes you make and why, in your opinion, they improve the scene.

8. choose an object in the same room as you and write as much as possible about that object: descriptions, history, personification, etc.

9. choose an author whose style you like and read one of their works for about twenty minutes before sitting down to write.

10. write a short scene with no adverbs (words ending in -ly such as quickly, hastily, quietly, dimly, etc.)

11. reread a scene from a book you like and write down what you think the author did well: characterization, use of literary devices, foreshadowing, dialogue, etc. then write down the characters, goals/motives, and conflicts of the scene.

12. go outside or look out a window and simply write what you see.

13. write a scene with no dialogue.

14. write a scene with only dialogue.

15. choose a scene from your current work in progress and rewrite it from a different character’s point of view.

16. without editing, reread the last couple of scenes you wrote.

17. describe a room where you live.

18. learn a new word and try writing a few different sentences that each use that word.

19. reread something you’ve written out loud. pay attention to things like sentence flow.

20. write an alternate ending for a piece of media you’ve enjoyed recently.

21. write a short story based on a side character in a piece of media you’ve enjoyed recently.

22. rewrite a classic fairytale, but find a way to turn it on its head.

23. go to a random word generator and write a quick scene based on the first word that comes up.

24. describe your day as if it were the first chapter of a book.

25. choose a book from your shelf. find the fifth word on the fifth page and write something based on that.

26. go for a walk. or, if you can’t do that, try to find a way to move your body around.

27. choose an emotion and write a scene where that emotion is the central focus.

28. rewrite a scene you’ve already written, but switch the perspective—so, if your story uses first person present tense (I, me, my, mine), try third person past tense (they, them, their, theirs), or second person present tense (you, your, yours).

29. rewrite an important scene in your work in progress from the point of view of a complete outsider with no stake in the plot.

30. read three pages of a random book, making note of the author’s style, and then try to write a page in that author’s writing style.

31. write a news article about one of your characters. what is the headline? what is the article about?

32. in public, transcribe a conversation happening near you.

33. write a short dialogue exchange, then choose an emotion to highlight and rewrite the dialogue with that emotion in mind.

34. choose an object near you and describe it three times. each time, try to capture a different emotion or vibe.

35. if you’re within earshot of a conversation, write down 2-4 lines of that conversation and then continue it by making up your own dialogue.

36. write brief, 1-2 sentence descriptions of people you see in passing.

37. pick something you love and write about it as if you hate it.

38. pick something you hate and write about it as if you love it.

39. read something you wouldn’t normally read: an author, genre, style, medium, or subject matter you’d usually avoid.

40. write a goodbye scene between two people three times to capture different emotions: somber, cheerful, angry.

41. find a random photograph online of a person or place and write a story about it. what is the history behind the image? how did the picture wind up being taken—why?

42. find a random image online and write 1,000 words describing it.

43. watch a scene in a tv show or movie and try to adapt it into a written format.

44. read a few pages of a book about writing.

45. describe your main character’s home.

46. describe a day in your main character’s life.

47. set a timer for five minutes and list as many words as you can think of.

48. write a page of pure stream of consciousness. put down anything that comes to mind.

49. write a page describing the appearance of a side character.

50. choose one of your characters and create a new character based on them. for every trait your character has, this new character will have its total opposite—so, generous → selfish, cowardly → bold, short → tall, etc.

---------------------------

psst check out radio apocalypse

[spade-riddles]

The album and the Matty Healy of it all; the Allegory and a literary breakdown for you all :)

As an english girly, I am having the most fun dissecting this album. She wrote her entire story into the album. It’s an allegory, each song has two major interpretations, one is the obvious (matty/joe/travis/PATERNITY TEST) whereas the other is her truth. This is a literary device that has been used in writing throughout history since forever. Everything about this album is so intentional, especially the Matty Healy of it all. This album has been planned so meticulously, every move she’s made with the beards has been to directly tie into the songs and the references. She needed a heavily documented example, she wants people to believe it, so when she burns it all down she can say “look at how easy is was to construct a narrative, hide an allegory within it and watch no one get it, it’s happened my whole life”, this is why this album is so much louder to all of us than the rest of them, because we have always seen the second story but now she’s making it more obvious. But they will get it, the story in this album is so strong, she’s coming out and she’s made this so she can send people to look back at her music (lookin’ backwards/might be the only way to move forward- her entire catalogue is the manuscript) screaming “I told you, I laid it all out. You didn’t believe me!” This is the post mortem, every reason why she’s ‘dead’ (the inauthentic version) is laid out in the album.

For example, i’ll break down ‘Fortnight’ since we have the MV imagery too. On the surface is about her fling with MH. If you get down to the next layer it’s about the failed coming out & Karlie. About how she almost had it all “for a fortnight” (just a metaphor for a short time), how her plans got ruined and how she’s doing it over again. She was supposed to be sent away, she was meant to go stay in the asylum (the closet).

“Now you’re in my backyard, turned into good neighbours”.

She has Karlie so close to her, but hidden in her backyard, no one can see her in her backyard.

“Your wife waters flowers, I want to kill her.” There is something that is in the way of them being together, she wants it to end (her public narrative). Could also be a reference to JK, he gets to to be with Karlie, watering flowers in her garden (betty’s garden anyone) while Taylor watches, she wants to kill the perception of him as Karlie’s husband.

The rest of the song moves into Karlie & Taylor getting closer, they’re plotting a way out.

“Now you’re at the mailbox, turned into good neighbours, my husband is cheating, I want to kill him.” Again, Taylor’s husband is her public persona, she wants to kill it.

When you add in the music video, she’s breaking out of the asylum with her twin, then she was put right back in there and her twin is performing experiments on her. I think Post Malone represents both Taylor and Karlie at different points in the MV, because both of their own choices are also part of the reason they’re still closeted, she’s acknowledging this. But then something happens, one of them can’t do it anymore so they run away. This is the release of the album, specifically 2am 04/19 (fresh out the slammer), Taylor’s on top of the box, she’s out; this the endgame for her now, but Karlie is still stuck in the phone box (the closet). But not for long! 😘

Every single song is like this, there’s a very intricate but obvious second story. They’re not all about Karlie, there’s a lot about her childhood, other muses (thank you aimee is not about Kim, it’s about a hometown love), growing up, her fans, the industry, closeting, christianity, masters heist.

I’ll touch base quickly on ‘The Albatross’.

She’s coming to take down SB, i’m not sure 100% how but I think it has to do with the coming out and exposing everything he’s done to her to keep her in the closet for so long (it’s a lot darker than people think).

She is here to destroy him.

“Now you’re persona non grata” he’s not going to be able to work anymore, he’s going to be exiled from the music industry.

There’s always been the iffiness around the masters situation, people saying she was told prior, her insisting she wasn’t. The below is a confession (and a threat).

“Wise men once read fake news

And they believed it

Jackals raised their hackles

You couldn't conceive it

You were sleeping soundly

When they dragged you from your bed

And I tried to warn you about them”

She lied, she knew about the master situation but she said she didn’t. Her fans believed it though and they crucified him, she tried to warn him how powerful they were. She’s already embedded that image of him in their minds, so when the next thing comes out (lol), they’re going to raise absolute hell, his entire career is going to be over.

“thanK you aIMee”, the entire world right now thinks it’s about Kim Kardashian, because she capitalised ‘KIM’ in the title, there’s that line about her kid singing her song (which coincidentally did happen). It’s so obviously about her right! No, it’s another “blue dress on a boat”, something she has done throughout her whole career is splice monumental images of Taylor Swift ™ into her songs, so she can sing about her real life without being questioned. Except this time, she’s trying to make you question it, that’s why it’s so OBVIOUSLY 🙄 about Kim Kardashian. A red herring if you will 😉. It’s meant to point you towards one thing, when it’s really not about that thing at all.

tldr: everything about the album is intentional, she’s layered two narratives together on purpose. one at surface level, one a bit deeper.

Images are both Taylor’s & Aaron‘s words on the album, about hidden meanings and secrets.

And if you need any further proof, at exactly 4:19 of ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ title track, she says “who’s gonna troll you?”. The entire album is the troll, for the general public, it’s not about the men at all.

[violetasteracademic]

I know this has been said a million times in a million ways, but I humbly request an audience to September Virgo out for a hot minute and share my dissertation on why the "Three Brothers and Three Sisters is *lazy writing*" take is by far the WORST.

If you found me through my Lucien Vanserra's Hero's Journey breakdown (I'll link that at the end) then you already know I am an absolute nerd about book structure. I do not beef with the other ships and genuinely love and am interested in every character in these shipwars. But I get a little hot when I see this take!

The reason being is that 3 and 3 is not "lazy writing." Lazy writing is:

⚫ Conveniently de-escalating all current stakes and conflicts established in the service of a romantic pairing.

⚫ Poorly pacing a book because now we have to explain why a character was thinking about offering another character 1 ticket to ride his face, but now he quickly wants someone else instead that many people offline don't even know about. Structure wise- (we are talking three act structure here, again I have broken that down in the link I'll post below) this means that by the end of Act One, the act in which the lead of our story has been presented with all of the information and their story has been laid out, they are now crossing into Act Two with clarity and set up, (side note-the first act is typically resolved within the first 20% of the book (or less!) we must resolve an existing romance with one character that has not even gotten its opportunity to be told in depth (i.e. Feyre and Tamlin). And reasonably introduce a new romance. As well as the introduction of new plotlines to accommodate the new romance. It's just... it's a plot and pacing nightmare. I'm getting the sweats even thinking about it.

⚫ Ignoring years worth of details and foreshadowing in an act of fan service because the fandom decided they don't like your character, even if you, as the author, very much do.

⚫ Introducing a brand new plot in the middle of a smorgasbord of unresolved plotlines so a newly introduced side character who has already had a complete arc in service of another main character can now become the next main character, leapfrogging over the remaining main characters who have been around since book one with active storylines in development.

Three and three is not "lazy writing." Three is simply a motif. A motif is an artistic/literary device. Three sisters. Three brothers. Three mountains. Three stars on the night court insignia, ect.

Writing is: Structure. Line level prose. Obstacles. Stakes. Character arcs.

I will absolutely allow the criticism that it is cheesy or corny. That is an opinion, and you are totally allowed to have it. We can respectfully disagree on that and it's no skin off my back.

However, Elriel (as well as Vassien) have the elements that *good* writing is comprised of. Characters with steadily increasing arcs. Obstacles at every turn. Incredibly high stakes. And in my opinion (though of course everyone is allowed their own opinion on this!) some downright BREATHTAKING one liners and line level prose in their interactions from ACOMAF all the way to the bonus chapter.

Please, I beg of you, understand that just because you do not like something does not make it lazy or poorly executed. Art is subjective, and when we use our taste to make objective assertions about things we don't prefer, art suffers.

For more on book structure and the possibilities of Lucien and Vassa's absolutely beautiful potential, hop on over here:

Thank you for your time 😂

[ultimateinferno]

The entire time I've been watching this season, I couldn't shake the feeling: Conrad is the Chosen One. Not in the traditional sense of a prophecy, but by and large Conrad is who the narrative revolves around. He's the one with the destiny to change Elias Hodge for good. It can't be anyone other than him. He's not the only one doing anything but in terms of the TROPES! this series so dearly loves, the plucky young kid on the streets who is destined to make big waves in his society. Frequently throughout the series people talk about how Conrad should have been the one calling the shots in this city. How he's the one that needs to be at the top. The rest of the PI's are important people, but people who don't have a destiny. Even if their jobs aren't quite right, they do know who they are and where they want to be, and are pretty damn close to it. Their role in the story is to essentially escort Conrad and position him in a way that eventually let's him achieve his destiny. They're not unimportant, and in fact, it's even more impressive. While Conrad is pushed towards greatness, the PI's chose it. Imelda chose to take the packet. The Fix chose to betray his contract. Elias needs Conrad more than anything else but Conrad needs them.

I find that interesting in a TTRPG setting. I don't know about anyone else, but the Chosen One as a literary device is often shirked. TTRPG's are collaborative storytelling so to be the one to declare yourself as The Most Important Guy, there's an underlying fear and implication that the rest of the party doesn't matter. A grab for the spotlight where it's expected to be shared. Sometimes characters get made where they're a Chosen One. Where there's a slim, almost specific task, they're destined to do but doesn't have much importance in the general frame.

Now I don't think Alex pitched Conrad to be a Chosen One. I don't think Brennan wrote down: "Goal: Make Conrad the Chosen One." This specific example arose likely from circumstance. However, it's such a cool plot when used well and I think being an ensemble show makes it even cooler. When it's done right, the rest of the party's role as the vehicle to deliver the Chosen One to their destiny is just as compelling if not moreso because they're the ones who stood up for the greater good because they wanted to. They all revolve around this boy but rather than curtailing to him, they're almost inspired. They see him as an example of maybe being greater than their current lives. They aren't passive participants along for the ride, in fact they're the ones dragging Conrad to his destiny.

He's not just a Chosen One. He's a catalyst. A push for them all to be better. The District Attorney was so preoccupied with the mirage of economical importance he would use everything as a stepping stone for it including the Big Guy himself. The PI's (and the Reflexes and other people of Mentopolis) meanwhile, are all achieving that significance because the little Con Schintz thought that maybe they could be doing something better, not for them, or Elias, but for the world at large.

Yet I think the rest of them will come out pretty great too.

[holmesoverture]

I posted another fic! Still restricted to AO3 users for now, but I've included a snippet below the cut. It even includes an indirect Hobbit reference for funsies :)

March 13, 1945

My dear Watson,

It has occurred to me that I was not as considerate as I perhaps should have been regarding the recent vicissitude in your personal habits. You were of course well within your rights to employ whatever methods necessary to escape Dedrick’s associate, even if those methods involved inadvertently sacrificing your facial hair. It is only that I have never known you to look any other way, and the idea that weeks will pass before your face is restored to its usual condition was a disturbing one.

In short, I apologise for yelling at you for shaving your moustache and I would like to offer a small token as a penance. I don’t know why you insist upon keeping written accounts of my adventures when you know I won’t allow you to sacrifice my anonymity by publishing them, but I know that doing so makes you happy. Therefore, to make amends for my behaviour, I will tell you how I reunited the pieces of the broken key, rediscovered the lost windows of St. Aidan’s, and almost rescued you from two aspiring art thieves.

Our misfortunes began two mornings past. We were working our way through both our breakfasts, such as they were, and a lively discussion on the literary merit, such as it is, of Nordic poetry.

“But this makes no sense,” I protested. “Just look at this passage here: ‘Nyi and Nithi, Northri and Suthri/Austri and Vestri, Althjof, Dvalin/Nar and Nain, Niping, Dain/Bifur, Bofur, Bombur—’ and on and on it goes! It stops in the middle of the narrative to list off dozens of dwarfs who have no bearing whatever on the story the author has just introduced.”

“That text is centuries old,” you replied. “Passages such as that one were probably intercalated from other sources. Bellows says as much in his introduction.”

“That is only an excuse for its gaucherie, not a cure.”

“Bluster all you like, you’ll never convince me these poems aren’t a perfectly lovely way to spend an evening. Besides, I should hope that I, the aspiring author, am rather more familiar with good writing than you, the man who finds muddy footprints more entertaining than an afternoon at the cinema.”

“Muddy footprints make more sense than those silly comedies you waste your pension on.”

You prepared to defend your poor taste, probably with something along the lines of how comedy is one of the only genres not to regularly feature gunshots and explosions, and how paying to forget the war for a few hours was not a waste at all. I in turn would argue that scientific journals provided the same effect without the implausible plot devices and painful overacting. Then you would shake your head at me, with affection I hope, and flop back into your armchair by the fireplace and read your intercalated poetry as obviously and as obnoxiously as you could without making a sound. Fortunately we were saved the trouble of re-enacting this argument by Mrs. Hudson, who announced the arrival of a new client.

I told her to send him up and she went to do so, pausing halfway down the stair to readjust her left shoe, which she had been a bit hasty about stepping into when she heard the ring of the bell. She spoke briefly with our visitor in a voice too low for me to clearly hear and then went out to tend her infernal chickens, so the man—it was probably a man, for few women wore boots so heavy and broad, or possessed a gait so long and loud—ascended the stair alone. His knock was confident and perfunctory, performed out of a sense of obligation rather than genuine courtesy, and he entered without awaiting a response. He wore a recently-purchased secondhand suit—he was saving his coupons for something else, then—and had stayed up working on papers of some sort rather later than he should have. I remember you saying later that he could have been handsome if not for the thick sinister brows and the slippery smile. He introduced himself as James Dedrick and insisted that his story would be well worth our while.

[arminsumi]

Hi my angel 😘😘 do you have any writing tips when it comes to plot and description and dialogue?

Becuz I have read so many of your works and each time I’m blown away with how much amazingness your writing has!! You’ve inspired me to write stories so I just figured I would ask you writings tips 🙂‍↕️ hope you have a amazing day lovey

aaa thank u sososo much?? i can't believe i've inspired u to write that's so cool... 💗🙈

i'm really not too good at writing or explaining but here's how i approach these things... i hope it's helpful!! 😗✌️

here is a resource that might help;

helpfulprofessor.com on writing skills and text types and tropes

and here is kerouac's advice to writers which i cling to.

plot ✨

i base a lot of things on real-life 👀 ...of course i turn it into fiction and i'm not writing autobiographical form on tumblr... lol.

i just mean some stories are inspired by real life experiences. personal experiences are very rich and the plot will shape nicely.

this year i've turned lots of experiences into stories, of course i totally romanticized them bc that's kinda what we writer's do ig since real-life is not poetic, it's just kind of a mess lol

also asking second opinions and sometimes even stranger's opinions can help clarify plot points that aren't adding up.

try to outline plots or they can become a messy web. you don't need to plan it out neatly, you just need some sort of guideline for yourself so that you don't go off the rails or forget what your purpose for writing is lol (i still do that sometimes bc i am extremely lazy and don't plan things very often bc... spontaneous writing is more fun)

description ✨

honestly just say it how it is bc descriptions that come from a true place will feel true if that makes sense??

lots of times i find myself deleting descriptions bc i worry that the reader is getting bored bc i can get pretty wordy. using too many adjectives is generally something i try to avoid unless it's working well — literary devices are worth learning about.

but if you feel like your descriptions are boring or too long-winded then i'd suggest employing alliteration or other literary devices (like metaphors) that produce rhythmic effects on readers. imo the beats of alliteration make it fun to read stuff word by word, i just rlly go to town on it bc i love it hehehe 🌷 anything with repetition really

keeping it short can be fun too. ik it's hard to find specific words but try talking to people or reading lots of different types of literature to get the juices flowing. sometimes a good conversation can spark my imagination because someone has used very specific words. i'd say reading classics is really good for helping vocabulary but also be wary of dated words lol.

dialogue ✨

you could read this or watch this

i've gotten into the habit of analyzing the way people speak whenever i'm talking to them, even if it's just brief conversations.

the reason this helps with writing dialogue is because you start to understand how conversations actually flow, how people actually respond — it can help to make dialogue between characters more fluid and realistic and then in turn this makes it more believable for the reader. i like to observe what vocal inflexions people use and try translate it for myself as a speech tag.

idk i just sort of go about life with the attitude of like "how do i describe that with words" kind of like exercising your drawing skills by drawing anything you see day-to-day.

also i just want to say that it's not necessary to be talkative and extroverted bc you can also just like... gather this stuff from tv shows and literature and other forms of media too. i just yap a lot irl so it's my main mode of analyzing speech and stuff.

smth i'm just recently learning to employ more often in dialogue is implying responses from other characters.

so like character A says something, they're currently speaking to character B, and instead of switching to character B and writing a whole new line break for new dialogue, i just kinda wedge in a reaction into character A's dialogue like;

Character A: "nice weather we're having, huh? yeah, i know. i also like penguins."

ok this is like goofy and nonsensical, but it's just an example. so from the above text, you can gather that character B likes penguins without even needing to write their dialogue "i like penguins."

it's kinda neat and adds more diversity.

anyways ✨

i would highly encourage anyone to spend time learning how form, structure and language are used together in a text (literary analysis skills) bc even tho text analysis may seem boring and hard to learn, it will help with your writing and then u can do cool stuff 🍰

[riceball1759]

A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) Review

I did not plan on reading this book. Hype books don’t really work for me, but I’ve started listening to the podcast, Those Forking Fangirls, and they have this segment called ‘Chapter Chat’. They decided to reread ACOTAR and have a 20-ish minute talk about the next chapter near the end of each episode. So, I’m listening to this for a few episodes and thinking, “ok this sounds at least somewhat interesting”. ADHD dopamine kick started: let’s read a sample on Libby and see if it’s worth it. Because this book is so dang long (my opinion), I was able to reach midway through chapter 4. So, I became intrigued enough and got a physical copy from the library (Libby’s wait was stupid long). Read it in a few sittings. I went in expecting nothing. Why? Years later, the fandom-fueled hype is still going strong and I like to make up my own mind instead of expecting it to go one way or the other from the start. Well, I definitely formed my own opinions.

Here we go! This was extremely easy to read (this is NOT a negative criticism). I’d been mulling over this for over a week since finishing so I could explain this as best I can. Maas -at least in this instance- writes in a style similar to James Patterson. DON’T GO IN AN UPROAR! Hear me out:

the language isn’t a complex prose that is what I consider “typical fantasy verbiage”;

she writes in first person POV (Feyre is talking to you as her best friend);

it’s plot-driven: no multitude of literary devices, timelines, and backstories to distract you from what’s really important;

the chapters are easy to read through (not too long, not too short) and end in a way that encourages you to keep going;

plenty of conflict and dialogue, but nothing over-the-top or unnecessary; and finally,

Maas definitely did her research when creating a world based on Anglo-Irish folk religion and she seamlessly created an easy-to-digest world that she owns.

If you don’t believe me, just google “James Patterson writing style”. I’m sure I can’t be the first reader to experience this, but I might be the first to quasi rabbit-hole like this. It makes so much sense, though! I was only 5 chapters in when I realized that I wasn’t having my typical waning interest (as I’m wont to have when I read high fantasy) and was actually engaged in the story. AND I was BLASTING through like a hurricane! This never happens when I read higher-than-middle-grade-level fantasy. Generally: I pause, take a break, pick it up later…or never. Fantasy and SciFi require a lot of active reading from me (looking for plot devices, etc.), but ACOTAR didn’t. It’s easily digestible in that it doesn’t require any more from me than to just sit back and enjoy the show. If that doesn’t fit your bill, then this book is not for you.

Continuing the review: I love me a good fairy tale retelling and ACOTAR is an interesting take on ‘Beauty and the Beast’ without it being too obvious at first look. Here are the elements (I’m going to try to keep my snark from taking over): girl gets taken ‘prisoner’ by beast, she gets the awkward “welcome to your new home” speech, she learns about a curse affecting the land and told not to ask too many questions, she finds out that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and falls in love because you know why, he sends her back to keep her safe, she can’t stay away because she knows something’s wrong and returns to find him in danger. I think you know where I’m going with this. ANYWAY, that’s the skeleton outline. Everything else is completely made up by Maas and is brilliantly done. Do I want to get into more detail about the characters and other literary devices? Not really. There’s so much of that in other reviews that I think I’d be repetitive. In brief, I really liked the characters’ personalities and can see how they’ve endeared themselves to the ACOTAR fans. All the beauty/beast elements were woven into a unique story that I genuinely enjoyed. Will I read the next one? Most likely.

SIDE NOTE: this is technically New Adult: it features characters over 18 (consenting adults) and is considered a YA-Adult crossover. I’m not pro-censorship, but I do like giving honest feedback on what I think the true ‘age-audience’ is for books that have high crossover appeal. “Guided reading levels” just make for difficult and awkward conversations (remember, I’m a Teen Librarian). I prefer general age ratings similar to manga and video games: this would be 16+ (Older Teens).

Thank you for reading^_^ Have a good one!

[bonesandthebees]

I am in shambles but I am taking a W since I was right about Ranboo's general involvement in the escape plot. Was not expecting Aimsey to come in with a metal chair and absolutely lose their shit but it was satisfying as hell.

The reveal that Ranboo had even given information from Aimsey to Techno about the flora was rough. Aimsey is a good person though so I'm not expecting them to punch him in the face but I really hope that they rip him a new one when they get the chance.

Also I love the use of oil as a metaphor for Wilbur's guilt in place of the waves and drowning when he's overwhelmed and suffering. I love how it ties to the waves being used for his mental state and I just ugh. I LOVE COOL LITERARY DEVICES‼️‼️‼️

Speaking of Phil though, holy shit. Their entire confrontation was insane /pos. I'm really curious as to what Phil and Techno were going to say before the boys cut them off. It makes you wonder if they could have convinced at least Wilbur to stay, given that he was having doubts about it. We will never know though but it gave us Wilbur using his Voice on Phil and holy shittt. Phil's pride from this reveal is so <33. Everything that Wilbur has said about the Voice makes sense to them; Techno and Phil have seen firsthand how little the sirens care about Tommy and Wilbur, that they're men and half sirens, they don't belong. The reveal that Wilbur can use his Voice (assuming that Ranboo hadn't woken up yet therefore hasn't told them that Tommy can also use his) is shattering. Despite all the trust that Wilbur and Phil have and the reports Ranboo has been giving, Wilbur still kept one final card to himself. Ofc he's proud.

Also Wilbur's tear before the shuttle door close eueueueu. Stars!sandduo my beloved. You are so </33

But fuck Essempi just waiting for them. Heartbreaking but also I am going to try make this more lighthearted by imagining Sapnap just waiting in that huge fucking ship for months on the off chance that if Wilbur and Tommy leave, they'll use their own shuttle. Probably not what happened but this is how I'm choosing to cope.

I wonder how the AE is going to react when they find out that Tommy and Wilbur were caught immediately after leaving orbit.

Great chapter, I am distraught

🦈

LMAO YOU WERE DEAD ON ABOUT RANBOO'S INVOLVEMENT I READ YOUR ASK AND WAS LIKE OH THEY GOT IT

yeah, uh, aimsey is PISSED. they're not a major character in this, but i still wanted them to have their due part with this as well. they're ranboo's closest friend in the palace. they've been friends for a WHILE now. they trusted ranboo with so much, only to find out he's spying on their friends (and then finds out he shared private information they gave him with his mentor). ranboo lied to them, and they're very, very hurt by it.

aaa thank you!! I was very proud of the connection to oil. I wanted the guilt to be described as something gross and heavy in your gut, something you can't ignore. along with that, oil on troubled waters is an actual turn of phrase since sailors used to drop oil into the sea to calm the waves, so I thought it was a clever way to tie that in as well.

god i've had that confrontation with aeduo in my head for SO long. phil's proud smile after wilbur used his Voice on him was something I thought of over a year ago now when I was first brainrotting this au. it was so so fun to finally write out. phil is so proud of wilbur for holding that card to his chest for so long. he's so proud to see just how cunning his boy can be.

(ranboo hadn't woken up by that point so yeah, that was a shock for both him and techno to find out)

LMAO ngl essempi kind of has just been waiting for months to see if they leave the planet. sapnap wasn't necessarily there the whole time, but they've had eyes on the planet for a while. like, they knew the brothers were on zephys iv. they knew eventually they'd have to leave, and there was mostly just some surveillance on the planet to see if the brothers ended up leaving with a full military in tow so they'd know if they needed to prepare for an invasion. but then the brothers just left on their own! all alone! perfect opportunity to scoop them up :)

oh aeduo are not gonna be happy with this development

[trashlie]

this is a bit unrelated to i love yoo but i want to be able to discuss things as well as you do! i am kind of a passive reader and once i finish something i move onto the next thing and i want to be able to do something about it or create something out of it! i know this is a bit of a loaded question but do you have any tips for this?

Ahhhhhhh this is such a difficult question for me to answer, but I'll do my best! Like, admittedly for me, part of it is that ILY is 100% a hyperfixaton. My lil gremlin brain went 'oh shiny i'm gonna think about this 24/7' and it just DOES and as such I've read it over and over so many times that it becomes incredibly familiar to me and thus things I've never picked up on before start to stand out. But that doesn't mean people can't learn to be active readers because there are whole classes dedicated to this! It's something we spend a lot of our time in school doing.

I think part of it is what you said - you tend to finish something and move on, so you aren't allowing yourself time to really ruminate and fixate on things. It's really the re-reading that makes discussions more possible for me, personally. When I read, I tend to have my initial stream of conscious reaction - it's the taking things in the moment, often at face value. Sometimes when it's a particularly juicy episode where my brain starts running, I start writing up my initial thought dump for reddit - initial reactions and questions. And then once I finish my first read, I go at it again, this time trying to pay more attention to the art, to bolded text, to things that tend to have secondary meanings. This is where it gets more.... not so much tedious but it helps to really understand how quimchee writes and slips in her foreshadowing and subtext. I kind of get into that a bit in this post but honestly I think part of it comes from a lot of discussions and what people are picking up on and what turns out to be true. Looking for the literary devices - like the number of times Nol and Shinae are mirrored right down to having overlapping thoughts! - or how characters are set up as foils and mirrors. There are certain patterns I think I tend to notice, whereas sometimes other people have to point out details I completely miss because it's not something I'm paying attention to.

So the best advice I really have for is to try to push yourself to be more active. Read the episode and take down some of your initial thoughts. You don't even have to share this! What are your initial thoughts and questions about the episode. Does it feel like nothing really happened - and is that true? Did nothing really happen or was a lot of it unveiling information vs active plot? Is there anything that stands out - something in the dialog that feels a little worth questioning? Quimchee has a tendency to bold text that is important, whether it's that the character themself is emphasizing something or it's subtext for us as readers. Nol as nobody is a really good example of this - try plugging in "Nol" in place of nobody and see what changes lol. Think about colors! Now, I'm not really great at color theory myself, but sometimes you can get a FEELING from the colors rather than what it represents. Is the background on this panel cold, jarring, soft? Look for repeated motifs. The Shinlyssa flashback introduced the concept of sunsets and sunrises regarding relationships - what can that imply? What do sunsets and sunrises represent?

I think honestly once you get into that practice, you stop having to feel like a teacher prodding yourself to read into an episode! And sometimes it really isn't that deep! Sometimes what we need to glean IS right there for us to see, so part of the fun is just discussing how it impacts plot or what it signifies. For instance, when Hansuke confessed to Kousuke that he stole Kou's blood viles after Yui demanded he stop his tests - we expected Kousuke to be angry but he wasn't. What does that tell us about Kousuke's current state? He's worried enough about himself that he agrees he should be tested, that he knows something is wrong, even if he can't quite peg yet what it is.

Ultimately, I think active reading just really requires re-reading and ruminating! It's so easy to be a passive reader and there's nothing wrong with that because often we are reading for fun or for pleasure, and you want to get on to the next part. Just sitting with what you've read, giving it a re-read, mulling it over, is a really good start! Engaging in the discussions going on (reddit is good for this, or the ILY discord) helps, too, because honestly, so much of my thoughts are formed by the conversations I have around an episode. We all bring something different to the table and interpret it together and you really start to feel the community helping to fill in what you feel you're weakest at! So basically: sit with the episode, engage with it, and ruminate on it before you move on to the next thing!

Please let me know if that's helpful at all! And happy reading! <3

[writingwithcolor]

What Does Our "Motivations” PSA Mean?

@luminalalumini said:

I've been on your blog a lot and it has a lot of really insightful information, but I notice a theme with some of your answers where you ask the writer reaching out what their 'motivation for making a character a certain [race/religion/ethnicity/nationality] is' and it's discouraging to see, because it seems like you're automatically assigning the writer some sort of ulterior motive that must be sniffed out and identified before the writer can get any tips or guidance for their question. Can't the 'motive' simply be having/wanting to have diversity in one's work? Must there be an 'ulterior motive'? I can understand that there's a lot of stigma and stereotypes and bad influence that might lead to someone trynna add marginalized groups into their stories for wrong reasons, but people that have those bad intentions certainly won't be asking for advice on how to write good representation in the first place. Idk its just been something that seemed really discouraging to me to reach out myself, knowing i'll automatically be assigned ulterior motives that i don't have and will probably have to justify why i want to add diversity to my story as if i'm comitting some sort of crime. I don't expect you guys to change your blog or respond to this or even care all that much, I'm probably just ranting into a void. I'm just curious if theres any reason to this that I haven't realized exists I suppose. I don't want y'all to take this the wrong way because I do actually love and enjoy your blog's advice in spite of my dumb griping. Cheers :))

We assume this is in reference to the following PSA:

PSA to all of our users - Motivation Matters: This lack of clarity w/r to intent has been a general issue with many recent questions. Please remember that if you don’t explain your motivations and what you intend to communicate to your audience with your plot choices, character attributes, world-building etc., we cannot effectively advise you beyond the information you provide. We Are Not Mind Readers. If, when drafting these questions, you realize you can’t explain your motivations, that is likely a hint that you need to think more on the rationales for your narrative decisions. My recommendation is to read our archives and articles on similar topics for inspiration while you think. I will be attaching this PSA to all asks with similar issues until the volume of such questions declines. 

We have answered this in three parts.

1. Of Paved Roads and Good Intentions

Allow me to give you a personal story, in solidarity towards your feelings:

When I began writing in South Asia as an outsider, specifically in the Kashmir and Lahore areas, I was doing it out of respect for the cultures I had grown up around. I did kathak dance, I grew up on immigrant-cooked North Indian food, my babysitters were Indian. I loved Mughal society, and every detail of learning about it just made me want more. The minute you told me fantasy could be outside of Europe, I hopped into the Mughal world with two feet. I was 13. I am now 28.

And had you asked me, as a teenager, what my motives were in giving my characters’ love interests blue or green eyes, one of them blond hair, my MC having red-tinted brown hair that was very emphasized, and a whole bunch of paler skinned people, I would have told you my motives were “to represent the diversity of the region.” 

I’m sure readers of the blog will spot the really, really toxic and colourist tropes present in my choices. If you’re new here, then the summary is: giving brown people “unique” coloured eyes and hair that lines up with Eurocentric beauty standards is an orientalist trope that needs to be interrogated in your writing. And favouring pale skinned people is colourist, full stop.

Did that make me a bad person with super sneaky ulterior motives who wanted to write bad representation? No.

It made me an ignorant kid from the mostly-white suburbs who grew up with media that said brown people had to “look unique” (read: look as European as possible) to be considered valuable.

And this is where it is important to remember that motives can be pure as you want, but you were still taught all of the terrible stuff that is present in society. Which means you’re going to perpetuate it unless you stop and actually question what is under your conscious motive, and work to unlearn it. Work that will never be complete.

I know it sounds scary and judgemental (and it’s one of the reasons we allow people to ask to be anonymous, for people who are afraid). Honestly, I would’ve reacted much the same as a younger writer, had you told me I was perpetuating bad things. I was trying to do good and my motives were pure, after all! But after a few years, I realized that I had fallen short, and I had a lot more to learn in order for my motives to match my impact. Part of our job at WWC is to attempt to close that gap.

We aren’t giving judgement, when we ask questions about why you want to do certain things. We are asking you to look at the structural underpinnings of your mind and question why those traits felt natural together, and, more specifically, why those traits felt natural to give to a protagonist or other major character.

I still have blond, blue-eyed characters with sandy coloured skin. I still have green-eyed characters. Because teenage me was right, that is part of the region. But by interrogating my motive, I was able to devalue those traits within the narrative, and I stopped making those traits shorthand for “this is the person you should root for.” 

It opened up room for me to be messier with my characters of colour, even the ones who my teenage self would have deemed “extra special.” Because the European-associated traits (pale hair, not-brown-eyes) stopped being special. After years of questioning, they started lining up with my motive of just being part of the diversity of the region.

Motive is important, both in the conscious and the subconscious. It’s not a judgement and it’s not assumed to be evil. It’s simply assumed to be unquestioned, so we ask that you question it and really examine your own biases.

~Mod Lesya

2. Motivations Aren't Always "Ulterior"

You can have a positive motivation or a neutral one or a negative one. Just wanting to have diversity only means your characters aren't all white and straight and cis and able-bodied -- it doesn't explain why you decided to make this specific character specifically bi and specifically Jewish (it me). Yes, sometimes it might be completely random! But it also might be "well, my crush is Costa Rican, so I gave the love interest the same background", or "I set it in X City where the predominant marginalized ethnicity is Y, so they are Y". Neither of these count as ulterior motives. But let's say for a second that you did accidentally catch yourself doing an "ulterior." Isn't that the point of the blog, to help you find those spots and clean them up?

Try thinking of it as “finding things that need adjusting” rather than “things that are bad” and it might get less scary to realize that we all do them, subconsciously. Representation that could use some work is often the product of subconscious bias, not deliberate misrepresentation, so there's every possibility that someone who wants to improve and do better didn't do it perfectly the first time. 

--Shira

3. Dress-Making as a Metaphor

I want to echo Lesya’s sentiments here but also provide a more logistical perspective. If you check the rubber stamp guide here and the “Motivation matters” PSA above, you’ll notice that concerns with respect to asker motivation are for the purposes of providing the most relevant answer possible.

It is a lot like if someone walks into a dressmaker’s shop and asks for a blue dress/ suit (Back when getting custom-made clothes was more of a thing) . The seamstress/ tailor is likely to ask a wide variety of questions:

What material do you want the outfit to be made of?

Where do you plan to wear it?

What do you want to highlight?

How do you want to feel when you wear it?

Let’s say our theoretical customer is in England during the 1920s. A tartan walking dress/ flannel suit for the winter is not the same as a periwinkle, beaded, organza ensemble/ navy pinstripe for formal dress in the summer. When we ask for motivations, we are often asking for exactly that: the specific reasons for your inquiry so we may pinpoint the most pertinent information.

The consistent problem for many of the askers who receive the PSA is they haven’t even done the level of research necessary to know what they want to ask of us. It would be like if our English customer in the 1920s responded, “IDK, some kind of blue thing.” Even worse,  WWC doesn’t have the luxury of the back-and-forth between a dressmaker and their clientele. If our asker doesn’t communicate all the information they need in mind at the time of submission, we can only say, “Well, I’m not sure if this is right, but here’s something. I hope it works, but if you had told us more, we could have done a more thorough job.”

Answering questions without context is hard, and asking for motivations, by which I mean the narratives, themes, character arcs and other literary devices that you are looking to incorporate, is the best way for us to help you, while also helping you to determine if your understanding of the problem will benefit from outside input. Because these asks are published with the goal of helping individuals with similar questions, the PSA also serves to prompt other users.

I note that asking questions is a skill, and we all start by asking the most basic questions (Not stupid questions, because to quote a dear professor, “There are no stupid questions.”). Unfortunately, WWC is not suited for the most basic questions. To this effect, we have a very helpful FAQ and archive as a starting point. Once you have used our website to answer the more basic questions, you are more ready to approach writing with diversity and decide when we can actually be of service. This is why we are so adamant that people read the FAQ. Yes, it helps us, but it also is there to save you time and spare you the ambiguity of not even knowing where to start.

The anxiety in your ask conveys to me a fear of being judged for asking questions. That fear is not something we can help you with, other than to wholeheartedly reassure you that we do not spend our unpaid, free time answering these questions in order to assume motives we can’t confirm or sit in judgment of our users who, as you say, are just trying to do better.

Yes, I am often frustrated when an asker’s question makes it clear they haven’t read the FAQ or archives. I’ve also been upset when uncivil commenters have indicated that my efforts and contributions are not worth their consideration. However, even the most tactless question has never made me think, “Ooh this person is such a naughty racist. Let me laugh at them for being a naughty racist. Let me shame them for being a naughty racist. Mwahaha.”

What kind of sad person has time for that?*

Racism is structural. It takes time to unlearn, especially if you’re in an environment that doesn’t facilitate that process to begin with. Our first priority is to help while also preserving our own boundaries and well-being. Though I am well aware of the levels of toxic gas-lighting and virtue signaling that can be found in various corners of online writing communities in the name of “progressivism*”, WWC is not that kind of space. This space is for discussions held in good faith: for us to understand each other better, rather than for one of us to “win” and another to “lose.”

Just as we have good faith that you are doing your best, we ask that you have faith that we are trying to do our best by you and the BIPOC communities we represent.

- Marika.

*If you are in any writing or social media circles that feed these anxieties or demonstrate these behaviors, I advise you to curtail your time with them and focus on your own growth. You will find, over time, that it is easier to think clearly when you are worrying less about trying to appease people who set the bar of approval so high just for the enjoyment of watching you jump. “Internet hygiene”, as I like to call it, begins with you and the boundaries you set with those you interact with online.

[writingonesdreams]

What I learned from“A Little Life”

This books felt traumatizing and life changing. It’s hard for me to describe what I’m feeling, because after the onslaught of suffering and feels I just feel numb after finishing.

The writing is unique. It’s filled with long sentences and descriptions of places in incredible detail and vivid metaphors. Marvelous how much you can explain a feeling through metaphors. It felt more engaging and understandable and horrific to imagine the metaphors as feelings instead of figuring out what the bodily sensations were supposed to mean.

The long sentences help with the feel like you are inside the character’s thoughts. As they come, long, illogical, associative. It felt incredibly immersive and it makes the book powerful for it. It’s almost impossible to put down, once you get charmed, and I kept coming back to it, despite knowing it would only get painful and frustrating as it went.

The honesty of those thoughts. I believed this was a deep true insight into someone’s head, because the thoughts were at times very difficult, dark, selfish, unfair, honest. Or about people being honest about not being honest and how they felt and achieved their hidden honesty. Mindboggling.

The structure and choice of pov really hightlights how much can be done through literary means to tell the story you want to tell. How much you can use storytelling devices to strenghten and express what you want. The structure was so untypical, so misleading on purpose, it was excellent and changes how I see structure in books. Beginning, middle, end, what characters you introduce, what you zoom in, what you promise and who you actually deliver being played with, subversed, turned on its head. Totally different than the schemas most writing advice teaches. It really is for beginners I guess. Masters know how to break it to their advantage.

Setting. Pov. Voice. Tense. Form. Prose. Flashbacks. Chronology. Everything was so different, breaking rules, jumping around, being unpredictable but then coming together for a united whole.

I have been attracted to this book for its promise of close male friendships and pain that would get comfort. The book delivers and exceeds any limit, throws itself into tragedy and meaninglessness agony and living with it, but the author had very clear messages and themes in mind. She knew what she wanted to say. I realize now my frustration comes with disagreeing with lots of it. But that’s what books, are right? Not here to tell the one and only universal truth, but to explain and argue a point of view. An opinion. An option for living and seeing life. I understand and felt the argument and I still choose to disagree and that’s all right and good.

But it was incredibly insightful. There are wisdoms about human life, one so deep it gave me a puzzle piece I longed for for a very long time.

This book changed how I view pain. Not just a plot device, not just a moment in character life or point in their arc, but as state. Pain can be a state of being, physical, mental and emotional, social and personal, past and present. Pain doesn’t have to be just a singular occaurnce, something to get rid of, it can be chronic, long lasting, spiralling, a way and part of life.

The statement I guess that’s about radical and a bit hard to live with and I’m not sure what to think about. That some things will stay broken. That a person you love can be sick and never get better. And you can give them all the love and care and effort you have and more and it might not be enough and if doesn’t have anything to do with you. Some things just can’t be fixed.

The bonds of friendship. I liked how it got celebrated and centered on, even if I felt a bit betrayed they made Willem and Jude have a romantic relationship in the end after all. But it was an interesting study of the difference and transformation from friendship to romance. What changes, when you have already been close and known each other for decades? What changes from one kind of love to another? Expectations from the outside? That people can’t justify the time and effort you spend on friendships and need labels like romantic partners and family?

It was beautiful though, how the characters made thier own rules. How the four core friends never had kids and most didn’t marry, being sustained emotionally by their friendships. That friendship can be that close and nutricious and life-defining.

The theme of how no person can give you everything. How hard, embarrassing and stressful it can be to get close to someone, so who is worth such an effort? Being with others is in some ways do much harder than being alone. Why do we do it? What do we look for in others that we can’t find in ourselves? What do we give them? How do we find people who appreciate the best of what we give, give what we need back and we all value the same things enough to stay together and look for the mixing pieces somewhere else?

What I didn’t like about the opinions of this book was that comfort and deep affection only came with great pain. As if only horrendous suffering justified men in crying, needing touch and comfort and allowing themselves to get any. 

Other thing I was confused about was what Jude and Willem changed about their relationship, when it went from friendly to romantic. In a way the narrative defined deficencies of friendship, while preaching about its uniqueness and importance. So men are not allowed to touch and be that comfortable and physically intimate with each other, not allowed to randomly hug or sleep beside each other or snuggle, when it’s not with their romantic partner? I thought the shift would be mainly sexual, and that aspect gets thematized (and is hard and troublesome for Jude’s trauma about it and his unwilligness to disclose his suffering about it to Willem to not lose him to percieved societal obligations). I don’t know what exactly it is that I’m looking for, but I found it lacking in this story, despite its focus on friendship. 

I don’t get where the characters got so much time from. They managed to work overtime, cook too much, play instruments, meet friends, have fancy dinners and meetings, visit threathers and art, travel, have introspective debates about life, watch movies, drive long and slow, swim in the morning for two hours, regulalry visit doctors, work through the weekend, buy several apartments, reconstruct them and then build a whole new house…like what? That’s not humanly possible to achieve. I’m either that bad at time management, or the characters had way too much energy or the author didn’t really check how much hours a day has. 

All in all, this was a powerful book and I can see why it’s called a modern day classic, why it won awards, why it is so popular. I don’t regret reading. I don’t think I would do it again though. I want to read more famous and awarded books, want to observe masters at the craft of writing, but I don’t want it to be tragic and hopeless like these. Why do so many classics end tragically? Is there nothing deep about life than suffering and bathing in its pointlessness?

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation (And a whole lot more)

Author: A. A. Attanasio

Rating: 4/5 stars

One of the few really good pieces of fiction I read this year (maybe my best ever -- or only novel I can recall enjoying in a way this intensely).

I'd heard that A.A. Attanasio is not the kind of writer most readers want to be reading, but somehow this was the A.A. Attanasio I read.

I don't know how else to summarize this short book, because the only thing that I would call a "plot," at least in the kind of fiction that interests me, is just the whole thing. The plot is just a series of vignettes that happen to involve people doing stuff together and getting in various kinds of trouble, with a bunch of peripheral people who are involved or involved-adjacent (or maybe in one or more of the vignettes only a little bit). The whole thing happens so quickly and the characters are so fully developed that the reader is never at a loss -- the plot is as complete in my head as the plot of real life. It seems to me that if you took all this stuff out -- which you could do, because this isn't a novel or anything -- you'd still have something pretty substantial, with interesting people doing things together. The whole story has a kind of "unexpected plot twist" quality, which feels like a kind of artfully done trick -- a kind of clever literary device to make the reader go "wow, what the fuck just happened?" It's just... the whole thing, but with some of the peripheral characters and story elements left in.

I wish I could summarize this the way I summarized A. A. Attanasio's short story about a guy who gets hit on the head by his car. You can't really, because in some ways the short story feels like it's a lot less than what it is, while in other ways it seems very much like a lot more. I couldn't give you a sense of all that in a few sentences, but it's true.

The whole "experimental" thing in the short story is one of the big things about the novel. Another is that the story, unlike Attanasio's short story, has a real beginning and a real ending. I've read many short stories where you can't tell at all what's going on until the end, but Attanasio, having chosen an ending for his story, makes sure that the ending of his story is an ending.

I don't know what any of this means, but when you see the word "experimental," it is a good idea to ask yourself what that word may be leading you to expect. If you're looking for a plot, this book probably won't be it -- as I said, it's "just the whole thing," with one of the characters omitted. But if it's a different sort of thing you want, or at least if it's a thing that you want to see more of, then you'll probably love it.

[lucere-aeresta]

Gay Sherlock Holmes Pastiches Review - Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: The Night They Met

Purchase link here.

My score: I don't get it.

Yep, I don't have a star score for this book because it is not for me. It so not for me that I barely finished it by skimming through and skipping bits and pieces. Personally, I would have given it a very low score, but I don't feel it is fair for the book.

Book reviews are very likely to be subjective, and the stars, for example, on Goodreads, represent how much you like the book, not an objective judgment of how good or bad it is.

But you know there are some books that are just...not working for you, and you can't really say it is bad or you hate it or something like that. It is like the premise is not a fit for your taste, or the entire thought process of the writer never clicks. It is not like "ugh this is so terrible/boring/offensive/stupid/etc." but more like "why???? why on earth????"

This book is a collection of short stories about how Sherlock and John meet each other, and how they fall in love, in various AU settings. Sherlock is a character who could easily fit into all sorts of backgrounds as long as he is a detective or mystery solver in general. And pondering on and creating narratives of all the possibilities and potentials is a very attractive idea.

However, it turned out to be...not for me.

The style of writing is the thing that bothers me the most. It is a mixture of modernism literature with a hint of experimental narrative and a TV show style graphic, motional depiction of scenes. It consists of a collection of wittily structured sentences and smart literary devices and rhetoric.

It sounds really cool, and it reads really cool. The only issue is when the entire book, every single story, is made of nothing but these. It is like an entire dish made of but flavors.

I found it very hard to read. The logical connection between sentences and paragraphs is loose and the streams of thoughts--or I would call it flights of thoughts--are random. I found the narrative jumpy and they easily lost me. It tries to convey the story with a sensational, feeling-driven way, which does not make any sense to me.

I am not saying the stories themselves make no sense. I know if you like this style and can resonate with it, that would be a great reading experience for you. But I just can't. Imagine that meme in which the joke/meaning flies over the guy's head. yeah that is what I feel about this book.

I found this book not digging deep enough into the characters, nor are there enough plots that most of the time I feel nothing really happens in a story. But it could be just me getting lost in the maze of narrative style that I just cannot fathom. I can't get anything out of it.

But I know, based on my reading experience and communication with other readers, that this kind of style is highly personal. You either love it to the bones or get totally confused and walk away. So I won't say it is bad because I don't like it--no, I can't even say I like it or not because I simply can't--not capable of grasping the meaning of narratives like this.

But it is a great book to learn some witty ways of saying things, I guess. I can learn something from it.

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Phoenix Mountain Kiss and Consent/Boundaries in MDZS

The following opinion, expressed in the recent mdzs controversial opinion thread on twitter, is actually one I’ve meant to address for a while:

Even if most of fans loves the 'stolen kiss scene' in the Phoenix Mountain in the novel, that was a sexual harassment.

People in the fandom, especially those who were introduced first to the novel through cql, have a tendency to criticize the Phoenix Mountain kiss scene, saying it was non-consensual. My problem is not that they are wrong. The kiss is (or starts as, at the very least) non-consensual. My problem with this criticism is that people point this out as if it were a mistake. As if mxtx had meant to write a romantic kiss and had instead fumbled it all up and made it not consensual by virtue of not being woke, not being a good enough writer, or being too influenced by bl tropes. And that readers are too unsuspecting or not educated enough to realize the wrong mxtx committed. 

Here’s my hot take: The kiss is non-consensual because it was written to be non-consensual. mxtx is not trying to pull the wool over our eyes. The reason why we, as readers, can infer that, is because the non-consensual aspects of the kiss are important to the events of the plot, some of themes explored in the book, lwj and wwx’s relationship after wwx’s return, and lwj’s character arc. mxtx uses this moment and its aftermaths, amongst others, to make a point about consent and communication in relationships--one of the central themes of the novel. Shocking, I know. Arguing that consent and communication are a main theme in mdsz: now that's a controversial opinion.

Now, I won’t argue mxtx always manages to develop this theme with utmost finesse. You can critique and disagree with her treatment of the theme throughout the novel (taking into consideration, as well, how it’s not just explored through lwj and wwx’s relationship). That being said, isolating events in the novel like the Phoenix kiss scene to mark them as Good or Bad without considering the context in which they happen and are explored within the novel is just bad literary analysis :/. 

Let’s first consider this simple statement: the non-consensual aspect of the kiss is not accidental--mxtx knew it was non-consensual when she wrote it, and she wasn’t trying to hide that fact. 

By the time we reach the Phoenix Mountain competition, lwj has accepted his feelings for wwx, and that these feelings will not be returned. After all, in the xuanwu cave, wwx took great pains to ‘reassure’ him that he is super-straight-and-totally-would-never-flirt-with-him. Yet, wwx continues to ‘flirt’ with him--tossing a flower at him just before the competition--which we can gather is a source of, um, great torment for him. 

We are not privy to lwj’s thought process leading to the stolen kiss. What we know for certain, however, is how he reacts to and perceives his own actions after the fact.  Through wwx’s unreliable narration, we can still understand that lwj immediately regrets his actions and feels uncontrollable anger towards himself and his lack of self-restraint. While wwx has more complicated and contradictory feelings bout the kiss, lwj clearly sees his actions as wrong and disrespectful. He is scared of what he has been capable of doing unto another person--pushing wwx away the moment he sees him after the kiss. 

The person spun around. It was Lan Wangji after all. However, right now, his eyes were bloodshot, his expression almost frightening. Wei Wuxian was startled, “Wow, so scary.”

Lan Wangji’s voice was harsh, “Go!”

Wei Wuxian, “I just came here and you want me to go. Do you really hate me that much?”

Lan Wangji, “Stay away from me!” [chapter 69]

As readers, we are told that the Phoenix Mountain kiss, nor its implications, is not something to consider lightly. The fact that lwj’s reaction after the kiss is written in, and that it is so intense for someone usually so reserved, or the fact that we learn that more than a decade later he is still ashamed of himself and describe himself as having done something wrong (or, very wrong 很不对 ), all prove that the non-consensual aspect of the kiss is not an accident and is not downplayed as something to expect from someone in love with another person. 

蓝忘机闷声道：“我，那时，自知不对。很不对。” [chapter 111]

I can already hear some people ask: even if it was not an accident, why chose to include a non-consensual kiss between the two romantic leads? if not because it is a bl trope/weird kink, why did mxtx chose to put this in her novel? what do we gain by including dubious consent or non-consensual interactions in our fiction?

The long-short answer is: because the act of crossing boundaries is a very productive story-telling device for any piece of media focusing on any type of interpersonal relationships. Crossing boundaries--willfully or unintentionally--is a source of conflict, internal and/or relational, which can drive the plot forward, shape character development and relationships, as well as be useful for certain thematic discussions. 

Current discourses regarding consent in English-speaking, mostly-western spheres of the web tend to be very polarized, painting people who cross boundaries as bad. The solution presented (i.e. how to not be a bad person) tends to be an invitation for everyone, within any relationship, to constantly negotiate consent verbally and honestly: to constantly disclose boundaries, to constantly ask for permission, etc. While I do not dismiss the value of these suggestions, it is an ideal representative of certain socio-temporally specific cultural expectations of what communication is, how communication should happen, and how relationships should be like, etc.. Human relationships are messy, people are flawed and hurt each other, and we have complex internal lives (for instance, someone might not realize their wants or limits until they are faced with them). Instead of having media show us only a specific type of idealized relationships where boundaries are never crossed, ever, they allow us to explore the implications of boundaries within interpersonal relationships. Or, sometimes, media and fiction just aim to represent or are influenced by this very real part of human relationships, and use it as a way to create conflict within the narrative and relationships (sometimes in a interesting manner, sometimes in a very gross manner).

In mdsz, the Phoenix mountain non-consensual kiss is a two-fold source of conflict:  internal (lwj) and relational. While wwx remains unaware until he and lwj are together of the identity of the person who kissed him, the implications of the kiss ends up shaping their relationship both before and after wwx’s rebirth. 

A source of (unknown) conflict between lwj and wwx after he is summoned back from the dead is the fact that lwj believes wwx is aware of his feelings. But this conflict is further compounded by the fact that lwj has once forced his feelings unto wwx, and is utterly afraid that he would dare to ever do it again. That is why, every time wwx initiates physical contact, or flirts very deliberately with lwj, lwj never goes further than what wwx has initiated. Sometimes, he even de-escalates their proximity or level of intimacy (usually by asking wwx to “ 别乱动”  or, famously during Drunk#2, by literally knocking himself out) --out of fear that he, again, would lack self-control and do something wrong to the man he loved.  He never presumes he has the permission to push their relationship further than what wwx is offering. Without that added source of conflict, would it have been reasonable to expect lwj and wwx to have realized their mutual feelings earlier, even with the issue of lwj not being aware wwx does not know of his feelings?

“In the beginning, the reason for behaving in such a manner was to let Lan Wangji be disgusted with him and kick him out of the Cloud Recesses, and they would never have to meet again, going their separate ways. Lan Wangji couldn’t possibly tell what his real intentions were. Yet, [..] even when faced with Wei Wuxian’s various actions, tricks, and pranks, Lan Wangji never once lost his temper, reciprocating with restraint and courtesy.” [chapter 99]

That is all true, of course, until Drunk 3. Here again, the ghost of the stolen kiss plays a part in accentuating the conflict. Without it, would lwj have jumped to conclusions as quickly? And, plot-wise, the shared perception of wwx and lwj that they have taken advantage of the other is a source of conflict that does multiple things--it gives wwx an incentive to go look at the temple at night to distract himself from his guilt and sadness, instead of going the next day with lwj (at which point jgy would have had perhaps already left) and it keeps wwx in the dark about lwj’s feelings until lxc reveals to him the events of the past he has forgotten. Here again, issues of consent are clearly taken into consideration as a source of conflict, shaping both characters’ motivations and the events of the plot.

Finally, the theme of consent/boundaries is an important aspect of lwj’s internal struggle, particularly in relation to his father’s choices. The kiss is part of his journey. 

It is not coincidental that the Lan motto is “Be Honorable”/”Self-restraint,” and that lwj is presented as the model Lan disciple. This element is part of the context that gives narrative and thematic meaning to the non-consensual kiss. When lwj forces a kiss on a blindfolded wwx, lwj goes against the values he holds dear and the teachings that were imparted unto him--prime internal conflict. 

But what is also interesting, to me in any case, is how consent is the thing that ultimately differentiates lwj’s choices from his father’s. 

How willing was Lan-furen to be saved by Qingheng-jun? to be taken to live in seclusion in the Cloud Recesses? to be married to him? to have children with him? The novel never tells us clearly. However, the novel gives us an idea of how lqr, lxc and lwj perceive their parents’ relationship. For lwj, we are given an insight into his perception indirectly during the following conversation between him and lxc.

[Lan Xichen] spoke, “Wangji, is there something on your mind? Why have you been so tense?”

Of course, in most people’s eyes, the ‘tenseness’ probably looked no different than Lan Wangji’s other expressions.

Lan Wangji’s brows sunk low as he shook his head. A few moments later, he replied in a low voice, “Brother, I want to take someone back to the Cloud Recesses.”

Lan Xichen was surprised. “Take someone back to the Cloud Recesses?”

Lan Wangji nodded, his expression pensive. After a pause, he continued, “Take them back… and hide them somewhere.”

Lan Xichen’s eyes immediately widened.

[…]

“Hide them somewhere?”

Lan Wangji frowned softly. “But they are not willing.” [chapter 72]

Indirectly, we come to understand that lwj draws parallels with his father situation: they both want to protect someone by taking them to the Cloud Recesses, but these persons are unwilling. The unsaid question here is, would I choose to do as our father did? 

The non-consensual kiss is part of lwj’s journey, through which he comes to understand that, despite his strict upbringing and disciplined lifestyle that was supposed to keep him from becoming like his father, he is capable of being his father (or at least who he thinks his father is). He learns that he can understand what sort of passionate feelings could bring someone to do something that goes against not only the wishes of his clan members, but the very wishes of the person they love, for the sake of keeping them safe or for the sake of having them by their sides. And at the end of that internal journey, lwj chooses not be like his father--to put wwx’s decisions and wants and needs first. After buyetian, lwj offers his protection and confesses his feelings--and wwx rejects him. lwj respects wwx’s choice, while still going against his clan to protect him. He brings wwx back to Mass Grave Hill knowing full well that wwx would not survive long the wrath of the four great sects seeking revenge against him, and goes home to receive his punishment.

Overall, what I tried to say in many many words, is that the Phoenix Mountain kiss is not non-consensual by accident. It is not because mxtx is an awful person or is not educated enough, or because she thinks dubious consent is romantic. The fact that it is non-consensual is addressed within the narrative, fuels internal and external conflicts, and is as well woven into the plot structure and the themes of the novel. The kiss is not an outlier element, added to titillate a readership--it exists as an integral part of the novel.

I’m not saying it’s not okay to decide that you do not want to engage with any content that includes non-consensual interactions or dubious consent because that triggers or irks you regardless of the way it is handled. It is totally valid to not personally enjoy or have criticisms about choices mxtx made in exploring these themes, in presenting the internal and relational conflicts around consent/boundaries, or even in the way she decided to write the scenes that figure dubious consent. However, it is not really helpful to divorce an event from its context within a piece of media in order to brand it as either Problematic or Unproblematic, Good or Bad.

Note: Much more could be said about the theme of consent/boundaries in mdzs; this is not exhaustive in the least. 

Note2: Much more could be said, in relation to the question and theme of consent, about: the cultural limitations of Westerners to engage fully with a text written for a chinese audience; the limits of fan translators to fully understand  the nuances and themes of a novel and to communicate them in a different language; about the place dubious consent and non-consensual interactions has had in the romance/erotica genre for a long time, and no, not only because Misogyny or Homophobia.