#if you want to understand it go read a novel that was written 20 years later.

[lesbiangiratina]

Is there anything on earth harder than trying to give people advice on how to get into gg story probably not.

[frankendykez]

What r ur oc stories about?

OMG HIHI I NEVER HAD SOMEONE OUTSIDE OF MY CURRENT FRIENDS ACTUALLY ASK BEFORE UMMMM OKAY SO. i have 3! main oc stories that i Really care about at the moment but im Deeply fixated on mainly 1 of them but im gonna start with the one ive been liek "promoting" the most in a sense!! under read more cuz im gonna try to exlain all three of them bless. sorry if i seem overly passionate oops i was TRYING to summarise im sorry its so long u rlly dont Have to read All of it

Forgotten Man's Symphony

his (louis manoir) character is basically a spin off from a character mentioned in the novel frankensetin exactly (1) time by name in elizabeth's letter and by far he is the most organised oc of mine cuz we do actually have a clean, understandable summary doc (thought it is a tad bit outdated but its okay). shes like the most Normal narrative-wise i suppose so i'm not exactly sure on how to explain the plot of forgotten man's symphony it's just like??? him ruining his life in front of the reader and then #Healing?? i guess?? the story is an epistolary that starts with louis' Suicide Letter. so like. yeah. BUT!! i suppose i would say his story very much concerns the concept of like identity (including gender and such she would be considred either transfemme/bigender by the modern world but also idfk cuz i made her complicated and confusing on purpose) and also the lack thereof + the negative impact that comes with trying so hard to fit into the societal norms and what people Want you to be but you just Can't be, cutting away bits of yourself to fit through some sort of hole representing the perfect version of you until theres nothing left of Who You Are expect a palatable and small version yk?? and the the endless pursuit of wanting to be loved that leads yourself to changing and changing for people who just wont care or love you for realsies + @rosaniruby 's words "making it even like that so its not YOU who is loving and being loved but the dim visage of a version of you that fits the picture of what society loves; that it's not a love between individuals, it's the love for a society that cannot ever love anything because it was made to hate. and who believes that portrayal of love will not find it and forever be stuck. smth like society loves what it deems as perfect and hates the imperfect, since perfect doesn't exist it can only do the second one. and louis wanted to love perfect victor, hated his own imperfect self. but the perfect victor doesnt exists, and neither does any version of louis."

i like her he's great. sorry if that was less telling u WHAT his story is and more like Explaining the "themes" as theyre called of the story but idrk how to describe nromal stuff so TAKE WHAT U CAN GET!!! anyways,

Domus Carnis: The Transmutation of Guinevere Manor

idk if you're aware but i have a hyperfix on architectural horror and i DON'T MEAN SCARY GHOSTS AND SERIAL ILLERS IN AN ABANDONED HOUSE I MEAN HAUNTED HOUSES THAT ARE ALIVE THAT IS A METAPHOR FOR PTSD FROM CHILDHOOD TRAUMA ETC ETC!! this story By making it started my whole obsession with the House it's crazy... scary even.. (i recommend you watch jacob geller's video essay about houses) i really do like domus carnis but it's. Messy to say the least. i do feel as if i ought to change the time period it's set in to avoid talking about the wars going on in the time period i accidentally set it in without realising but im procrastinating on that rn. it was Suppose to be late 1800s to early 1900s..

in a few simple words: flesh-and-bone made lesbian sex house. does that get your attention yet. bless

domus carnis (which literally means flesh house in latin or something) will be written in the POV of a 40ish year old widowed woman by the name of harriet wren's diary entries, occasionally switching to the POV of her 20-something year old godson percival who is like old timey jake paul and hes like either a journalistt or a radio host depending if i choose to change the time period or not. we follow them after harriet's husband dies of whatever and they find out he has a large property in a foreign country of which they had not known of prior

somewhere in germany there is a house of ex-aristocrats that no longer live there that is Alive. the House becomes alive because it is in a sense "possesed" (not haunted) the ghost of kathryna von guinevere who was the last one to die in the house, who, in life, was incredibly obsessed with The House for reasons that i fear are too long to explain without boring you and going into info pre-story?? anyways, when she "posseses" the house, the materials of the house shift to flesh, blood and bone because it Materially becomes her body. now, it would be hard to accurately label what represents what body part, because it's all strangely jumbled up and isn't like really human anatomy either cuz kathryna Can in fact see inside herself?? anyways whatever. now, the house is now both her body AND her mind. i have taken the phrase "haunted by memories/trauma" and turned it literal. the house IS haunted, but most of the ghosts aren't ghosts, theyre mostly all manifestation of Memory from her life because she actively is replaying the speech and actions of other people IN her mind to process the (typically traumatic) events of which she's seen or experienced. the ghosts CANNOT do as they please because they only exist at all Due to kathryna remembering them in these specific scenes. the hauntings include scenes of people, sounds, and shadows. unless the "scene" has a mirror, you cannot see kathy directly because you are witnessin things through HER eyes, which makes memories from wee childhood interesting because im wondering if i should make the "people" seem wayy bigger than the viewer if stuff is replayed from childhood..

i really like the fact that a lot of this is based on memory because it opens a lot of doors to me when it comes to the appearance of hauntings. my friend showed me this video depicting neurons forgetting how a face looks like, and i feel as if i could use that in the story because well, realistically kathy isnt going to have a Pristine memory cuz she Was just a human before, not to mention the fact shes already suppose to have issues on facial recognition/rememberance (my friend with these sisues suggetsed htis). the alteration of the ghosts' bodies could be fucked with even more if i try to make use and research into the way that people (mostly children) can in fact like.... change the image of something traumatic in their brain and make it less scary bc the brain is trying to protect them? yeah. AND ALSO the fact that a lot of people forgets certain aspects of their trauma due to their brain trying to protect them as well but still have this feeling of Unease when it comes o specific things that they cant explain, i could incorporate this feeling in certain areas of the House, the strange uneasiness. i experience that myself so i hope ill portray it right!!

i Think that's it?? at least that should be the bare bones of the story... i have a pin board tho if u want to check it out!!

The Epinicium

THIS is the stupid fucking thnag thats ruining my entire life rn. i love it i hate it whagever man. THIS ONE ill keep short and simple because im too fucking mentally ill about it to explain in depth without being asked questions

so basically its fantasy world but not like. Completely new high fantasy i very loosely based the countries off of like real countries and stuff bc lazy as shite so its like mid fantasy maybe HOWEVER

basically its set in this world where theres a shit ton of religions and gods and shit and theres three categories of religions (the world is veyr uhnm. Categorical idk): earth, science and the arts. basically the arts religions are the majority and the gods of those religions are called the muses so thats what i'll be calling them from now on. the basic plot of epinicium is about the muses of the music religion declaring that humanity doesnt treat music as "holy enough" anymore and taking it away as a whole (songbirds go extinct as well which is importnat) which also fucks up the other arts religionsdue to the fact that artforms are very connected but they still exist yk and centuries later our main cast attempts to bring it back!!! we have this server with a channel that has the "summary" but its not a real summary its just an already outdated infodump but we are Trying to fill this doc but we're failing really hard but friendship is magic idk.

fin.

anyways thats. pretty much it i think im sorry its too long once again 😭😭 feel free to ask question esp on the epinicium!! id love to hear abt ur ocs btw ive yapped so much oops

[transit-fag]

@renegade4-13 Here is the current draft for the story under the read more, not all characters have been introduced yet, but this is what I have written so far

Today is the 3rd Sunday of the Month, this means that the city of Saltpeter’s oddities, mistakes, and rarities have come together for Brunch, the national pastime of this peculiar crowd, among them are 2 librarians, a museum curator, a traveling beekeeper, a pen crafter, and about 20 other peculiar fellows. Take great note on the pair of drab brown haired people sitting at the very back of the train station restaurant. These boring sorts go by the names of Danny Jones and Danielle Jones and hold absolutely no relation to each other.

The thing about Danny Jones and Danielle Jones that is so interesting is not the fact that they share a birthday or last names despite being unrelated in any way other than a lesbian aunt 7 generations back, is the fact that these are the 2 most dull and boring individuals you will ever meet. Both have the personality of sliced bread and they aren’t much better in fashion either. There is nothing special about either Jones, they both live completely ordinary lives as shopkeepers on opposite ends of town. The most eventful thing either will do in a month is a Sunday Brunch. And yet both have managed to obtain a loving relationship with incredibly interesting people. And more interesting still is the fact that both are going to wind up dead at the end of the month.

Now to understand why this will happen, you must understand Saltpeter, importantly there are 4 cultural institutions in the city of Saltpeter, Firstly is the Library, it is one of the 3 which is actually known to the people of Saltpeter, and houses exactly 17,943 books and 67 are currently checked out. Next is the Museum of Maria Fernando, a town crazy lady who runs a museum on the way things used to be, this is the institution people like to forget, despite mattering quite a lot to the city, it has received exactly 17 visitors this month and stays afloat via Maria’s wife’s second cousin’s generous yearly donations in exchange for copies of old novels. The 3rd cultural institution is the rail station, it is on the route of the oldest train in the nation, the California Zephyr and is run by the best chef in the city, Leaf Ann Smith, capable of both killing a man and cooking in Omelette in under 20 minutes. Finally there's the Pen shop, they sell pens, specifically fountain pens, each are hand made by a Saltpeter craftsman, it made the list because we were paid 72$ to add it. If someone wants to stretch the definition of an institution, they could get it up to about 20 institutions and a playhouse worth of cultural amenities, but they would also have to include the brunch of the misfits of Saltpeter, which really shouldn’t be added on principle since it happens in Leaf Ann Smith’s train station anyways.

Now back to the Brunch, something very important is about to happen, There will be a rather large toast to the group. This is on account of it being the 3rd anniversary of the start of the groups monthly meetings. Somehow that is a point of pride among the members due to how it is the longest any Brunch group in Saltpeter has lasted after the Infamous Brunch fights 20 years ago. The Brunch fights were a rather dreary matter for such a pleasant pastime. 27 dead and 63 injured over a week. All because of bad French Toast at an upscale restaurant near downtown Saltpeter. And when I say bad, I mean bad, it was soggy, barely toasted, and didn't have any fruits except the one eating it. It's not even like Saltpeter doesn't have any strawberries, it was built on the largest strawberry farm west of the Mississippi. How do you fuck up French Toast that badly? How?

Oh right, the Toast to the Brunch crew, A tall woman in a Green Dress, a leather Jacket and Gold Hoop earings stands up, her hair is cut in a pixie cut. She grabs a Mimosa off the table and begins to talk. Hurricane Jane Rivers as they call her is many things, a lesbian, crazy, a storm chaser, dangerous, a purveyor of Pancakes, a painter and an aerial ace, but one thing she is not is consise. It would take 7 paragraphs to summarize her speech to that disparate group of oddities. In short though, she was thanking them for the best 3 years of her life. Little did she know, only half of them would see next month.

As her glass hits the glass of another member of the Brunch, a whisper rings through the air.

A tick of a second

And Bang, the train comes to a screeching halt outside the station, passengers get off as Leaf Ann Smith scrambles to hide her current mess of a Diner from the view of the wealthy tourists from downtown the tracks. The train is early for once. Precisely 17 minutes and 6 seconds early, something that should not have been possible given the fact that the train tracks were under repairs between Omaha and Saltpeter. And the train had a 2 minute delay when it arrived at the last station. This is all irrelevant if not to show how off guard it caught Leaf Ann Smith who usually manages to keep incredibly on top of the schedules of the train so she can run the station and Diner at once. Leaf Ann Smith is a busy Woman between the Diner, the Station and her time moonlighting as the union negotiator for between the carpenters guild and Sylvia Ink the sole crafter of fountain pens in Saltpeter and a person notoriously bad at paying their union dues. Now in a hurry, she rushes to kick out the Brunch party and clean up the messes left behind in her diner today. She had to rush the 20 people ot for a rather simple reason, she needs money to run a diner and the train is what brings her the best customers each day. As the crowd of weirdos and homosexuals scurries away. One Slyvia Ink bumps right into a Jim Halder. The only man in the city who still knows their face.

Jim Halder is a professor at the University of Saltpeter and has 40 years of Tenure there, starting as a professor at 31, despite being in his 70s, he looks rather young, with a smooth face and deep black hair, this however is a lie. If you look closely at his hair, you’ll notice a long white steak and an indent on his face above his left eye. This is because Jim’s face is not his first, while studying in the mines of Saltpeter, his face was burned off, and a new wooden one had to be constructed by Sylvia Ink, one of the only 4 things they ever made that wasn’t a fountain pen, the other 3 are another less lifelike mask, the hilt of a blade, and pen holder to hold their pens. Jim is a man of learning, giving every book he writes to the library after he publishes it, 14 of the books that are currently checked out were donated by him. If you were to inspect Jim closely you would also find that you could knock him over quite easily with a single punch due to his slim frame. The university that he works at is not considered a cultural institution by even the most generous people in Saltpeter because nothing of interest has been produced in the for 67 years. Well apart from Sylvia Ink and Jim Halder, and their incredible works of course, the two little wooden people of Saltpeter.

Jim was naturally surprised to see Sylvia at the station, but glad nonetheless to see that young fellow out of the workshop. When they bumped into each other, quite literally, as Sylvia had been too focused on a croissant to notice the man ahead of him. He proposed to the young carpenter that they go over to the old river park for a stroll to discuss the terms for the new project.

Despite being a chilly 50 degrees out, if you were to head across town from the rail station, over to the river. You will find 2 men on the banks of the river. One is sitting in a rather large Sycamore tree, reading a book, when he hears the train rush past. He is wearing a blue sweater and long pants, the other man is dressed quite poorly for the weather, he is wearing nothing but a swimsuit and his golden locks of hair. He stupidly planned on Swimming in the river today. He is 6 feet tall and somehow not freezing. These peculiar fellows meant to be at the brunch but the one in the Sweater, Alex Cela had set his pocket watch 3 hours behind. Even knowing this now, he was still caught off guard by the train crossing over the river since the train had not been early in 3 months. Despite being totally different, one a bit of an idiot and the other a top marks student at the University of Saltpeter, they have been dating for 2 months, and six days if either had remembered to keep track of that. They met at the park, Alex was trying to paint the trains and Damien had been trying to teach a cat how to swim, the pair of them instantly became friends after Alex stopped trying to attack Damien for ruining the painting. And the two started dating a week after they met, when Damien kissed Alex under an Oak tree in the town square. These 2 lovers were not however the only people in the park. There were about 400 give or take 27 people in that park on this chilly morning. But none of them Matter, None of them except for Emily Rock

[maceysbookclub]

Advice for Motivation

I have learned a lot over the last two years so I want to share how I keep myself motivated on projects

Why are you writing what you are writing? Is this the story you have been thinking of for years? Your magnum opus? is this your first book? - This is a bad combination. I know this is negative, but I fell into this trap too. I wanted to write the 20 book series I had imagined, but I struggled when I realized I didn't have the skill to pull it off or do it justice. I hated that I couldn't communicate the ideas from my mind to the page.

Start from nothing - Come up with a concept right now, then begin writing. My first novel Wizard was started this way. Wizard isn't the best book, and I know that, but I needed to start somewhere. Somewhere I wasn't afraid to make mistakes. Somewhere I could experiment. Somewhere I could look back at and say, I have made it a long way from that moment.

Goals - Goals are great! Be weary though, goals can cause a lot of stress. Avoid time limits and be reasonable. When I wrote my first book, I mad 3 unconnected goals. I found a book that was reasonable and cut it in half. goal 1. 150 pages. Goal 2. 10 chapters. Goal 3. 20000 words. These goals were all met at different times and because they were well below the general length of a novel, they were achievable. Wizard nearly doubled all of these goals. Don't follow these goals though, they were arbitrary and might not fit with your plans. One goal I left out is 20 page chapters. Do not set your standards the same as others. This goal was retired as I experimented with chapter length and realized this was a ridiculous standard that ruined the pacing of the first three chapters of Wizard.

Write more than one story - Why did you stop writing? Did you hit a bump and now you can't figure out the next step? Don't stop, Pivot to another project. When I started my second novel, I also started an ongoing series. When I can't think of what comes next I work on something else and come back to it later with a fresh mind and new understanding. When you stop, you stop learning, and that means you can't learn to fix the block. Change things up, write a different genre. There is a YouTube chef - Adam Ragusea - who taught me an important word - Heterogeneity - The mixing of more than one texture to keep interested.

This one comes from YouTube as well, though I forgot who said this. Don't release work as you go - You want to release a book chapter by chapter? Great! Write 8 chapters then start releasing weekly. Can you even write a chapter a week? Did you run into writers block 3 chapters in and miss a deadline? Did you loose enthusiasm? Write in volumes. 8 chapters released one per week only after they have all been written. that's 2 months of content and it gives you a buffer to write the next set. Another issue with weekly releases when you start out is feedback. No one is reading the first 2 volumes because there is no guarantee it will continue past chapter 3. You will be working for a long time before anyone notices your work and a weekly schedule can make you feel like garbage if you get no likes, comments or gives feedback. Chasing content and schedules is hard work, and you will be prone to slowdowns.

Dealing with no feedback - I have been writing for 2 years now, I have released 1 novel, working on 2 more, and have 2 ongoing series. No one, not even my family read my work. I work hard, and want people to criticize me. My plan has been to offer my finished projects for free, but no one has noticed my work. The only thing you can do is write for yourself. Don't chase what's popular. Write the stories you like. There are countless people in the world, there will be someone who likes the same things you do. It just takes time. Be patient.

I hope this helps, I might post more stuff like this in the future.

[twig-tea]

Love in the Big City Part 1: Reliable and Unreliable Narration

This post will be a ramble capturing of my reactions and thoughts and linking other meta where it applies. I did think about the discussion questions by @bengiyo but haven't set out specific question-by-question answer per se.

[if you don't know what this is about, check out the initial post about the book club, and if you'd like to join, here's the post with the overall schedule]

First, I am just going to acknowledge that I struggle with stories written in the first person, but this book is good enough that I got over this hang-up pretty quickly. I really love how both the narrator's self-awareness and his lack of self-awareness comes through in this writing style--he is very reliable a narrator around his own faults (as he brags to his readers), but unreliable about his own feelings. This is reflective of his emotional intelligence and lack of self-understanding or self-interrogation around his emotions. A few moments stand out to me around this: He mentions explicitly that he often laughs when he is actually angry and only realizes he is mad after the fact; He is also shocked at the level of hurt he feels at Jaehee's betrayal, and doesn't understand his own reaction; and he similarly gives no indication of having any emotional attachment to K3 in terms of how he talks about him, though he keeps and returns to his last text message and thinks about how he had imagined K3 remaining in his life through his future.

All this is to say, once I realized the disaffected tone was intentional and also unreliable, I got really invested in this novel and enjoyed Part I a lot!

I agree with the read of the narrator and Jaehee's relationship as a Queer Platonic Relationship as @doyou000me wrote here, and I agree with @lurkingshan that this relationship went unrecognized in the novel because these characters did not have the words to understand or characterize the relationship they were in. I can also relate; my roommate and I in my 20s were both queer, on the aroace spectrum, and were one another's plus-one for everything from work parties to family events. We lived together for ~4 years. We shared cooking and cleaning duties, spent every evening together, vacationed together (we even went on a vacation just the two of us while they were dating other people), and it was only when we realized (without realizing that's what we were realizing) that we could not have further emotional intimacy with one another and we "broke up" (by spending less time together, no longer sharing meals, it was all very avoidant and immaturely handled lol) that they eventually got serious with someone else and moved out.

I now have a few queer platonic relationships that I'm in consciously that are as close as Jaehee and the narrator, where we share all kinds of intimate details about our lives and plan major things like where we'll move to around one another; and my awareness is much better for managing and understanding my emotions around them. This is part of why I think this read is so compelling; it helps explain some of the disaffected writing style overall in this part, because when I didn't have words for the relationship I was in, I didn't understand and sometimes didn't acknowledge the feelings I had about it. And the way Jaehee slowly but easily transitioned into putting her relationship with her boyfriend/fiance/husband first; @my-rose-tinted-glasses connected this to atanormativity in her post, and that resonates for me too.

This connects also to something @lurkingshan talked about here around life stages and how these two people only worked while they were in the same life stage, and since the expectations they had on their own lives and that everyone had on them were so different, those life stages did not align and would not align forever. The way the narrator talked about not ever wanting to be married and not understanding why Jaehee, who seemed to feel the same way he did about life and love, would want to get married, really resonated with me as a queer arospec person who has always struggled to understand why other people want the things they want in their lives, and always feeling out of step with where they're headed. It's been interesting actively trying to keep friendships with people who got married and had kids, for example. I wrote a list of my own list of alternative milestones for anyone who falls outside of allonormative and atonormative lives.

One thing I wanted to highlight that I think @my-rose-tinted-glasses also alluded to was that the betrayal the narrator experiences when Jaehee shares their secret and outs him to her boyfriend was a betrayal because Jaehee puts her boyfriend's needs over the narrator's. This happens again with the wedding planning, where she assumed she could ask the narrator to be her emcee and then had to renege on the request because her fiance had someone he wanted to use and it was 'traditional' that the groom's side get to set the emcee. The narrator basically shrugs this off but we can tell by the way he talks about the wedding, the emcee, and the bitterness that exudes from the page, in addition to how quickly he leaves, that he has feelings about this.

Unrelated but one of the things I noticed about the health scares that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that Jaehee is yelled at by the doctor for being irresponsible with her sexual health; in contrast, the narrator is responsible about his sexual health by bringing his sexual parter for testing at the first sign of a potential STI, and he is made fun of and feels explicitly embarased. I haven't fully thought through all of the implications of this but thought I'd add it to the discourse while I think about it some more this week!

When going into Part 2, I'm going to be thinking about the cover of the book and how the two versions I've seen have either blueberries and Marlboros, or fingertips stained with blueberry juice making a finger heart. I am wondering whether these will become visual leitmotifs for the rest of the novel, or whether Jaehee's role in the narrator's life and these physical manifestations of their bond will be left in part 1; and if so, it's interesting that these themes resonated strongly enough with the publisher to put this visual on the cover. Either way, it indicates their importance and the importance of this relationship in the narrator's story overall.

[zhouxiangs]

hi sasa! about my stand in novel, since you read the tags before going in, were there anything you were surprised with (either good/bad surprise)? what aspect do you think is the most enjoyable/compelling of the story despite there is still some cliches/cheesy/perhaps even predictable in the writing? i finished it recently as well and i love listening to another reader's thoughts about it

hi anon!

i know i sound like a yan mingxiu apologist at this point but i was honestly expecting him to be way worse, and then he wasn't! i was vaguely aware that he was, maybe, the less scummy of the 188 group because i read a tiny bit about that before starting the novel, but i was still prepared for someone downright evil (or evil for evil's sake, or whose actions would piss me off for most of the story only to have some kind of big reveal later that would make me rethink everything—not that i'm actually opposed to that approach actually, but i'm still glad it wasn't like that in pbd, at least for the readers, because i liked following his emotional journey in real time-ish) and, while he still wasn't great, let's say i don't approve of his ways but i could easily understand how he got there.

going to hide the rest of my answer under a read-more because i want to get into spoilers and sometimes a tag isn't enough:

i told @clairedaring when i started the novel that yan mingxiu was funny to me because it was so clear even then how oblivious he was being (and later on how he was going to be hurt by the consequences of his own actions, boy was shooting himself in the foot the whole time) and i stand by that. i did cry for him, but i also reveled in his pain after seeing him sow the seeds for a year. get karma'd. oh and his age was a nice surprise too! i'd assumed he would be older for some reason (maybe because of up poompat) but he's a babyyy. it just made so much sense that he would be so immature with his background and being that young; not that people his age are immature or i'd expect them to, obviously, but some things are a lot easier to understand and excuse (at least for me) once you know he's only 20. it also makes him way more believable and his actions generally easier to digest than if he was idk, up's actual age. anyway i went into the story with that mindset, so maybe that's why i never really disliked him. or maybe it's because i'm older and a few years ago i wouldn't have thought the same, who knows.

as for the most compelling/enjoyable aspect i'd say it's mostly the way the characters are written, which, bare minimum lol but they were just so believable as people? there was depth, there was consistency in the characterisation (oh the bar is in hell); i could understand why zhou xiang was wavering, and why it took him so long to notice/accept and to believe in yan mingxiu's feelings; i could see yan mingxiu's feelings developing early on and also understand why he was basically gaslighting himself into still believing he loved wang yudong, even though by then he was already starting to notice how he didn't even like him as a person (one of the things i found so amusing about yan mingxiu was the way he'd automatically redirect his thoughts about zhou xiang to circle back to "but the best part about him is definitely how his back looks like dong ge's", he's. so dumb) he was so set in his belief and so used to think about wang yudong as the person he loved that he didn't even bother to stop and think for a second if that was even true anymore. aughhh. i really think the characterisation was really strong; it's not like i don't latch onto random weak characters for no reason constantly but this is usually what's important for me in fiction, and specially in a story that is mostly about feelings i need to really care about the characters, otherwise what's the point.

the flow of the story (the english fan translation in my case, but i think this comes from the story itself) was really good too! that by itself would have made me read the whole thing pretty quickly even though i wanted to make it last, not gonna lie... but yeah, with those two things combined i had no chance. i would intend to read one or two chapters before sleeping and then end up reading anywhere between 20-40, so now i have to microdose the extras or i'll run out of yanzhou content, sobs.

and of course, not to be me, but the best thing about pbd is my sweet angel baby zhou xiang. i was pretty sure i was going to like him a lot just from reading claire's propaganda post (lol) and sure enough, by chapter 6 his doormat ways had bewitched me body and soul. i already adored him as a very social but also very lonely man who had resigned himself to be alone at the tender age of 29 (out of practicality? like granted, he knows better than me how his environment functions but he never had any trouble finding a hook up either? so why that level of cynicism, baby boy. it's not like he can't look for a partner outside of his circle either). a man that so desperately yearned for a loving partner/a family of his own but that settled for scraps, and sometimes not even that. i loved seeing him being domestic and at times even sweet with yan mingxiu in his original life, and how he was a bit like a puppy. i loved how softhearted he was, and how petty he got at times; how he wanted to take that role from wang yudong because he was jealous of him and, since he couldn't get yan mingxiu to love him, at least he could "win" somehow and not be second to wang yudong by taking that role away from him, even if it was only once and not what he really wanted/the only thing he actually cared about (ie yan mingxiu's heart); how he wanted to hurt and maybe embarrass yan mingxiu by telling him about "wang yudong"'s back in his first film being that of a stuntman (and oh how i loved what that caused). but mostly i loved that despite all that he was still, above everything else, softhearted; he stopped caring about wang yudong altogether as soon as he knew the truth about yan mingxiu, even thought he'd spent years suffering because of him by that point; he always took care of chen ying, whatever it took, because even though she was only his new body's mother she was the only mother he had and he'd already hurt her enough by taking the place of her son, doesn't matter that he had no power over that.

i loved watching zhou xiang grow as a person and learning to put himself first sometimes, and having the resolve to fight for what he wanted for once and not just put up with everything life threw at him. i didn't even like the yan family plot (could do without yan mingxiu's father beating his gay son, thank you) but seeing zhou xiang standing up for himself and their relationship made me so emotional and so proud of him. his development was really the best, and i just love him so so much.

also it's so funny to me how i imprinted on poom phuripan like a baby chick the first time i saw him (as guy in bake me please) and then i had pretty much the same experience with a character he's going to play lmao as if i didn't know he's perfect for the role already.

look at him! he's so beautiful, so zhou xiang-shaped. i thought about up from time to time while reading too, but i was picturing poom in my mind constantly without even trying to. 10/10, perfect casting.

also! cheesy is good! cheesy is fantastic, even. same with clichés and predictable stories that follow a certain formula; sometimes that is exactly what i want, and as long as it makes sense and feels natural to the characters and the story (ie they don't just do things/things just don't happen because it's what needs to happen next) i'm down with anything. also i don't know if this counts as predictable or just paying attention because after all that's what the mentions/clues were there for, but things like yan mingxiu's obsession with wang yudong's back and consequently zhou xiang's... the moment we got yan mingxiu remembering how he fell in love at first sight with wang yudong's back at 16 when he saw that now-classic scene of him getting out of the water in his first film i knew what was coming, specially because by that point we knew how long zhou xiang had been working as wang yudong's stuntman (not sure if we knew about him being uncredited yet).

and sure enough, he was never credited in the first place because they wanted the action scenes to help build wang yudong's fame, and yang mingxiu had been in love with zhou xiang's back the entire time. you don't get much more cheesy than that, and it's literally my favourite thing about the novel 😭

and i'm stopping myself here oh my god...

[four-loose-screws]

Blog Update 2023.12.19

Hey ya'll, I've been a bit quiet for a couple of weeks - there's been holidays, end of the year projects at work, all those IRL shenanigans. But lots of B I G stuff is going on both for my translations and life decisions, so it is time for an update!

First - I mentioned previously that I made the decision to translate the FE2 and FE6 novelizations at the same time. But I hadn't decided on the details until now, so I will report them here!

In case you missed the first announcement: I made the decision to translate FE2 and FE6 simultaneously because the FE2 novelization has been the most difficult to understand and translate of all FE novels so far. The writer used high-level vocab and wrote in thick, chunky paragraphs, so translating 2 pages a day has gone from a simple task to a gargantuan burden. The FE6 novel, on the other hand, was written as the 3rd book in the FE7 novel set. Having already translated FE7 and knowing there is more dialogue than flowery prose, I knew FE6 would be much easier to translate, and allow my brain some time to relax, while still allowing me the ability to translate regularly.

FE2 Book 1 will upload over the span of 6 months, between Jan - June 2024. I had this book mostly translated (I translate 6 months ahead of my Tumblr queue.) by the time I decided it was too difficult to complete FE2 all in one go. So I will just post this book all together, like I have done for all my novel translations in the past.

For FE2 Book 2 and FE6, I will alternate chapters from July 2024 - 2025 (end month TBD). So the schedule will be: FE6 Ch. 1 -> FE2 Book 2 Ch. 1 -> FE6 Ch. 2 -> FE2 Book 2 Ch. 2, etc.

Once the holidays are over next week, I'll be be able to focus getting caught back up on asks and requests as well.

Now for my IRL new news - after a 5 year "trial run" in Japan and a 5 year "trial run" in the US, I've decided that my permanent living location will be Japan! Cue the confetti! And my family has too. It feels important to acknowledge their full consent in the process, ha ha.

It won't be an easy life as I am 0% Japanese (as is my family), but there are many advantages to being an outsider looking in to Japan, so I want to embrace them and go back to loving everything I loved about the lifestyle there. Plus I have not been able to get a job in a Japanese company in the US - and I did NOT spend ~$50k on a Japanese major just to lose my speaking abilities, thank you very much!!

This is another reason why requests have been answered slower recently - I've been filling out job apps, and figuring out the moving back attack plan. Nothing is decided yet - finding a job willing to hire from overseas, and getting a work visa again, etc. takes many months - but I'll keep posting updates whenever I know my translations upload schedule will be affected!!

Thank you all for continuing to read my translations!! ❤️❤️

P.S. It feels so much better applying to jobs when I have some actual experience to leverage, and my tone is not "plz hire me I am a 20-something baby who needs $$ or else I will starve."

[theangrybooknook]

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

Do you ever find yourself with *finally* enough time to read, but then you don't? Do you ever settle for the evening with the determination that you're going to read, but you end up scrolling through Instagram instead, AGAIN?

I have a lot of free time these days. Ever since my last contract ended in July 2023 and my trip to Hokkaido from September-December, I have been looking for a job. The market is tough these days, and the publishing industry in my country seems to be rather reluctant in hiring new people - let alone women in their late 20s/early 30s who might pop out a kid in the near future. And although I have zero ambition to have children anytime soon, they naturally throw me into one pot with other women and decide they'd rather hire a man or no one.

So that is where I am at the moment. Living with my parents, with enough time on my hands, writing job applications, trying to not go insane. You see, I have a lot of spare time on my hands these days.

Then why do I not use it to read through the pile of shame that I have amassed?

My attention span has become ridiculously short and fanfiction is always a safe bet. I know the characters, I know what I am getting into, I know the deal. This is why I also love writing fanfiction so much. But besides reading fanfiction, I should read more of the books I actually spent (a lot of) money on. For some reason, some reading energy came over me, and here we are. I remembered this blog and thought I should just do it. Give it a try. Write about the things that I read and maybe write some reviews, perhaps that will inspire me to read on and on and on.

So here we are with Satoshi Yagisawa's "Days at the Morisaki Bookshop".

Synopsis: The story follows Takako, a young woman living in Tokyo, heartbroken after her boyfriend tells her he is going to marry someone else. Depressed and overwhelmed, she quits her job, and her uncle Satoru calls her from the family's bookshop, asking if she didn't want to stay with him for a while and work at the shop for a bit. At first, Takako is not a fan - she is not a reader, she does not know what the fuss is all about and why people love a second-hand-bookshop of all places. Slowly, she begins to embark on her own reading journey and finds a new footing and new interests, until all of a sudden, her aunt Momoko comes back into her and her uncle's lives.

My experience with Japanese literature is very limited. I tried to read Haruki Murakami a few years ago and threw the book against the wall because I found it too exhausting. I also tried Banana Yoshimoto a few years ago but I cannot remember if I finished it. I have read far more manga, translated into English or German. While I was living in Japan, one of my housemates turned out to be a fellow graduate of literary studies and she had written her thesis about some pieces of Japanese literature. She loved it so much that I was determined to also give it a try, and she told me what to watch out for. I am not sure if I caught all the things that are to discover in "Days at the Morisaki Bookshop", but what I caught was very delightful.

One does not need to know Japanese culture or have been to Japan in order to read/understand Yagisawa's novel. In fact, I find it an incredibly easy way to look into Japanese society for people who have never been there; it is like a window that welcomes everyone to stand in front of it and look through. When one imagines Tokyo, there's usually Shibuya Crossing and lots of people, lots of lights and billboards, lots of noise. The Tokyo that Yagisawa presents to the reader is a surprisingly quiet one: Jimbōchō. I have never been to this part of Tokyo, but after reading the novel, I imagine this book-town of Tokyo as very similar to the other narrow streets and lanes that I have wandered down during my time in Japan. It is the magic that you can find in every large city in Japan: bustling life, lots of noise, a sensory overload; but as soon as you turn around the corner into another lane, the sound of the city disappears, and you are in a quiet sphere. This is the atmosphere that Yagisawa masterfully creates in this novel, allowing the reader to step off the train together with Takako, entering the quiet and musty world of books.

For any book lover, the mere description of the Morisaki Bookshop is a delight. When Takako first enters the shop, she describes the smell as "musty", which slightly embarrasses her uncle. Her naiveté in this utterance is charming as it is almost ridiculous to any book worm: we all know what kind of smell she is referring to, and we would never call it musty. We would simply call it the smell of a book shop or, more precisely, the smell of old books. Although Takako is, in the beginning, "not one of us", she does not make herself unlikeable by pointing out what annoys her about the bookshop. They are fair observations, such as a packed room full of books that is supposed to be her bedroom, or the fact that she can't really find anything in the bookshop. She does not feel superior all of a sudden when she eventually picks up one of the many books and starts reading, and she is not ashamed of admitting that she has now added reading to her hobbies. It expands her world and gives her, as she puts it, the kick in the butt that she needs. She finds a new life, and new love, but most importantly, she keeps going for her own sake. She does not have the perfect happy ending - if the book has a happy end at all. It ends in a rather abrupt way.

I was not sure what to think of the Momoko subplot. Takako's aunt, who has left her uncle Satoru years ago and suddenly returns in an almost dramatic way that screams "tadaahh!!!", seems like a strange intrusion in the second part of the novel that is simply titled "Momoko Returns". Takako pretty much mirrored me, the reader, when Momoko suddenly showed up - she does not know what to do with the woman that is suddenly there and takes over the little life that Satoru and Takako have crafted for themselves, and neither of them are brave enough to ask. Later, Momoko invites Takako to a girl's trip to a place she used to work at, and during their trip, she opens up briefly towards Takako about her reasons for returning. Her reasons make sense but also appear selfish to the reader, which Takako agrees on. She tears the note that Momoko leaves for her after running away again into shreds, then tells her uncle to run after her this time, or it will be too late. She kicks both uncle and aunt in the butt this way, no longer willing to be the intermediary between them (agreed tbh).

The novel often makes it seem as if Takako is merely living for other people. In the beginning, this is most definitely true. She is living for her shitty boyfriend Hideaki, then for her uncle, then for her friends Takano and Tomo, setting them up as a couple. As soon as she receives her own kick in the butt to get her own life back on track, Takako starts living for herself again - slowly, with hesitation, but much less afraid than before. When she finally meets Wada, a customer, fellow bookworm, and nursing a broken heart similarly to Takako in the beginning, she is not sure whether or not to allow herself to think about him. She is not even sure if she has actual feelings for him or if she is just pretending, which is an incredibly refreshing take in literature. Love and romance, and feelings in general, are not always clear-cut, and the novel reflects this. Not even Wada seems to be sure what to think of her, and the way they find together, through some minor misunderstanding, is lovely to witness. Personally, I would have liked to read more of their love story, but that is not the point of the novel.

Takako is an interesting main character as she seems to follow the reader in their experience. I was often taken aback and shocked, only to find that two lines down, Takako expresses the same feelings. At the same time, it does not feel as if the reader is taken by the hand by the narrative to come to certain emotional conclusions. If anything, it shows that feelings and emotions are valid, even if it takes a while to understand them, like Takako does. It takes her several chapters to finally realise how angry she is with Hideaki and the way he treated her, and she allows her anger to come through fully when Momoko runs away yet again. It was interesting to check on myself during the reading process: "What does this scene do with me? Alright. I feel anger. Let's read on and see how Takako thinks about it." Personally, I don't think I have experienced something like that before in reading.

The world in the novel, and the society in it, is a Japanese one. I am somewhat familiar with the culture due to my stay in Sapporo, and due to my (albeit limited) understanding of the language. It enhances the experience of reading this little gem of a novel, but it is absolutely not necessary. If anything, the novel takes the reader to a Japan that is not the one we always see represented in Western media. The Japan that Satoshi Yagisawa presents us is quiet, calm, peaceful, with a musty smell, a strong sense of community, women who don't give a shit about what old people think of them, and an incredible serenity in the form of Uncle Satoru that makes the reader want an uncle like him to talk about books with.

[broodpeas]

19/11

I guess it was bound to happen that because the end of the year is coming, I come back to this empty space and write something down. I had a post on Friday, about friendship and my continuous struggle with understanding and trusting people, but I decided that instead of writing about that, I'd get home and do a bunch of home chores. Once I got home, I sort of did that. By 8 pm, I was in bed, trying to desperatly watch a NBA game, trying to fight the dread of life that has become a constant.

In any case, the urge to write here is because a few weeks ago, I realized I'm turning 35 years old. It feels like a milestone, and in a way, it is. I keep counting and recounting the numbers of people who are not making it to this age, and I am surprised I will most likely make it. The cliché of writing this is not on me. People laugh nervously whenever I tell them I'm not sure I'm going to make it to 35, others give me a look of concern I always shrug off because I really don't understand why people bother asking how you are if they don't want an honest answer (pro tip: stop asking!).

Turning 35 means I'm noticing how tired I am of many things and how little I care about whether I please anyone but myself. It's not a bad selfishness, it's just that I already people pleased for decades and if I can take away something from therapy is that I can't keep bending myself to other's wills and tastes. I am not likeable. I am smart, just enough to roll my eyes when people say dumb stuff, and stay silent when people speak about things I don't know. I know that my opinion is irrelevant and I like silence and my own company. I feel like a soon-to-be 35 years old, and I am not confident nor do am I kinder with myself, I perhaps reached that there's nothing I can do about me and I've given up.

I am tired and wounded, but I guess I'm still alive and in about 12 weeks I'll be 35 years old, which to me is extraordinary, but at the same -thankfully- it really isn't. Paraphrasing Saachi Khoul, one day we'll all be dead and none of this will matter.

*

In the past year, I've managed to write around 500k words in what my sisters call a novel and I call a futile exercise on writing. It took me more than 20 years to actually sit down, day in and day out, and pour out my ideas to craft plots, peoples, dialogues into something- a Frankenstein of words that only make sense to me. It made me realize I really do love writing, and whenever I'm not writing, I am thinking about my writing, about what can I do to improve it, about what things I could write. I don't publish anything- I don't need to, I just need to write.

I open my document and I write 100 words, then 200, rarely get to 500. It takes me hours to write the words. I've written 2 versions, now revising the third. In September, during a Sunday shower, I realized I wanted to write a much more light, flimsy something, and I decided that I would once the third version is rewritten in full. Completing tasks is a big deal, and it angers me that I have to finish this, but that's also the idea: I like knowing that when I'm done with this, I will have something else waiting (and the satisfaction I actually finish a thing).

I have playlists for writing, songs I need to listen to, so I can (try to) achieve specific moods. I read and read again, books and I read authors whose writing styles I like and I spend hours dissecting them, which leads me to ask how can I write trusting what I know, instead of my academic style (that is much more deattached). Learning to not take a distance from what I write, from the things I want to say is difficult. It is the reason why I revise what I write, because I want to see if I'm able to be in the page.

I took a writing course -academic writing- that was supposed to help me to come up with an academic article. That never happened (well, a draft happened and nothing else) but the professor did tell me that I have to be present, not just for the conscious act of writing, but to make myself visible in the page. She said something on the lines of trusting your voices and defend your ideas, and yes it's scary, but it's also exciting. Writing like this lets you be vulnerable, tender, and it is very scary. And so, the struggle continues, in the most 2010 sense of it all.

Whenever I'm done writing, I realize that -like when I teach- I'm glad to realize that it makes me joyful. And, unlike teaching, when I write I feel complete. I like knowing that I get to be in my desk, sit in my pink chair (or purple sofa), drink a very sweet coffee and for a few hours, be with myself in the happiest form I can be.

*

There are places of my apartment and my workplace that I rarely go by. In my house is the living room. I rarely watch tv there, and I rarely go into my husband's office. I just don't find those spaces inviting. The same goes to my workplace, albeit the reasons are different: I have to in specific places because that's the way those places are designed.

How one inhabits a space is an idea I keep coming back to since 2020. It all started when, in a class, my professor of that time discussed about how weird it was for all of us to be in quarantine, and now we had to find places where we could do stuff those spaces were meant for, but not really. That made me think that we set up spaces to be livable, but we rarely live in them.

We decorate the spaces to reflect us. This is a theory, but to me is almost a fact: we reflect who we are through aesthetic and that reflects in the way we decorate (or try to) the spaces we inhabit. It's not just about furniture and pictures and carpets and chairs, it's something much more dense. It's how we make a space a place we can inhabit.

An aesthetic theory actually focuses on this, on the way we decorate our spaces not only from an utilitarian aspect, but from a livable perspective. I enjoy watching spaces that are impolute, minimalist, frugal. White spaces, or spaces with only one or two colors, that some describe as oasis or a refugee. The words to desribe those spaces feels like pepople can be in those spaces but can you live in them? The best example was when Architetcural Design did some editorial work on Kim Kardashian's mansion. A lot of people made jokes, I thought can the kids even play there? I don't think you can describe those spaces as cozy. Clean, simple, elegant, clear, rigid, squared, yes- cozy is a word that -I think- makes us think of spaces that are livable, inhabited by people.

Inhabiting our spaces depends not only in how safe we feel, how comfortable we are. As the internet has become this thing we can only access by seeing what others want to show us -whether we want it or not-, our inhabited spaces look very similar (at least from where I am, I want to firmly believe not a single soul fucks around the decoration of a Nigerian household). It also has to do with how much money we have to decorate those spaces, how those objects make those spaces ready to be inhabit. The reason why I don't spend time in my living room is because I have a sofa that my husband doesn't want to get rid off, a library that he also doesn't want to get rid off and I can't set up the tv the way I want because I'm too lazy (and broke) to put it in the wall the way I want it. It's not a space I want to be but my husband loves laying on the sofa (that cracks his back and ribs), and rise his head every now and then to look at the library and say "oh this is nice" (it's not, but marriage is about accepting if you can't change it, you gotta accept it). Inahbiting spaces is not an experiencial thing, it's also related to objects, to what things we put outisde, that we want others to see, that reflects who we are. Which is why I find so disheartening when the internet tells us that are our spaces should be frugal, minimalist, simple, almost bare.

Who can inhabit such lonely place?

*

Sometimes I feel the taste of tobacco in my mouth and I sigh. I miss smoking even though I know what it does. The last time I smoke I hurt my throat, which to smokes may seem impossible, but the sore pain I had I haven't forgotten it.

The other day, as I was walking by the street, a guy who was smoking literally blew the smoke in my face. He apologized and I said something like don't worry, but I remembered that scene from Friends, where Chandler goes to visit Rachel in her new office and he smokes the cigarrette of Rachel's new boss. It's hilarious, but honestly, I almost did that.

*

As I type this, I realize that what I wanted to write originally was about friendship and the struggle I currently have, trying to let myself be open to others.

But, just like I do with people, I will ghost the need to express my worries and fears. Taylor Swift wrote this song about how, during her longest tour to date, where she sings 44 songs for 3 hours, for over a year, she was able to mend her broken heart, get a fling (and get flung), get a boyfriend, and release a bunch of albums and win awards. She did it to prove (herself, I hope) she could do it, which I guess is the main message of I can do it with a broken heart. She's also turning 35, albeit in November.

I, too, can do it with a broken heart. I break my heart by not letting people in. Yet I live. I can do it.

[melodygatesauthor]

Weekly Update

8/20/2023

Announcements

- A Bit Dodgy is almost finished -

The chapter coming out this week is the second to last chapter for the series. It’s such a bitter sweet thing, ending a series, especially one that I’ve built such a community around. I’ve written 5 novel-length fics over the course of the last year, and A Bit Dodgy will be number 6. On 09/04/2023 it will be my one-year anniversary of writing fanfiction since coming back after not writing for about a decade and l can’t believe it. Holy CRAP. I’ll take the time to reminisce about my numbers and statistics on my one-year mark, don’t you worry lol. There will definitely be a celebration.

That being said, ending a series never gets easier. Even though I write for these characters all the time, Steven, Marc and Jake in this case, I’m still closing the book on this version of them. It’s sad, but I’m also very ready to move on to other stories and other versions of these characters. I also think I’ll write some headcanons and one-shots as I feel the desire to just to take the edge off when I’m missing them. I’ll talk more about this when I finish A Bit Dodgy. <3

- Requests are officially closed -

I’m not sure if I’ll ever be in a position to take requests again or not. My WIP list is a mile long, and right now (summer) is a VERY busy time for both of my jobs. I’m lucky if I get one day off a week. All this to say, it’s not feasible for me to continue taking requests when I can’t even handle the fics I have currently in the works.

I’m not saying I’ll never do requests again, it’s just not realistic right now. There will still be follower celebrations and birthday events and things like that in which I may take limited requests, but as far as the regular ones go, I gotta stop taking them for now. - THIS IS THE LAST TIME I'M MAKING THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. PLEASE READ IT.

Fic Updates

Disclaimer - I never know which way the winds of inspiration will blow. Timeframes aren’t a promise/guarantee, they’re a goal.

Fic Updates Legend:

Blue - Update this week

Pink - Update in progress

Red - Backburner Fic (not currently working on. See WIP list for status)

You can find my current WIP list here

Chaptered Fic Updates

A Bit Dodgy - Chapter 17 is coming this week, but I need more time. So it won't come out tomorrow, it will be out Tuesday or Wednesday instead! Thank you for understanding!

Always Yours, Never Mine - Chapter 3 is done! Just need to finish editing! I'll be putting it out Saturday bbs <3

The Fractured Moon - My primary focus this past week has been getting A Bit Dodgy finished, and also working on getting the requests and stuff for my 2k celebration done. I'll be working on part 4 of TFM this week to hopefully post next week!

Mini-series Updates

Feeling You Can’t Fight - Chapter 3 is done! I just need to finish editing and posting hehe.

All on the backburner for now but will get additional chapters soon:

Not a Doctor - Part 2

Worth the Risk - Part 3

AI Character Bot Updates

I currently have the following bots on my list that I’m working on. If you have any suggestions or additions you’d like, please feel free to ask! I won’t make every single one I get asked for but I’ll make some of them as I get time!

DBF Jake and Steven (I already did Marc...did I ever post him? I thought I did but maybe not)

Patient Steven and Marc

Moon Knight Rescue scenario

Miguel AI Assistant Scenario (inspired by @missdictatorme's Halo fic).

Am I missing any? Don't see one on the list that you want to add? Send me an inbox or private message! No promises, but if I like the idea I'll make an AI bot.

Requests

I'm finishing up all the inboxes from my 2k Follower Celebration! I'm almost through those so please bear with me.

There are 2 regular requests I have that will both be released this week! Exciting! - Those are the last 2 I have. Starting next week, the "request" category of my weekly update will be gone!

I think that's all for now! Much love!

Don't forget to follow my other blogs:

@melodymakesart - My art blog

@lockandkeynovel - The blog for my original fiction novel, Lock & Key

@melodyreadsfanfiction - The blog where I reblog works I intend to read, a good place for fanfic readers to follow!

@melodygatesupdates - This is where I'll reblog any chapter updates for my fics and whatnot. This is what I use instead of a tag list!

[roleplayfinder]

Looking for some fandom rps!

-The Hunger Games

Coriolanus Snow/Lucy Gray Baird

I’d like the opportunity to write as Lucy Gray since I’ve written as Coriolanus a few times already but I’m not picky. This is the fandom I'm most interested in atm. I've kinda been seeing that apparently the fandom vibes a little more with submissive Coryo than I thought people would? I'd really like to play that out in an organic of a way and as canon as possible with the characters. 

I could also be persuaded to write Katniss/Peeta, but right now I’m just kind of obsessed with Coriolanus/Lucy Gray, I’m not gunna lie.

-South Park

Eric Cartman/Kyle Broflovski

-The Righteous Gemstones

Jesse/Amber 

I know this is a weird one, and a stretch haha. But I’d really like to play around in this universe, and I’d like to find someone who not only wants to play either of the characters above but ALSO some of the other characters. Not necessarily doubling so much as just having a little bit of an ensemble cast rp experience. I’d be open to having a small group of people as well.


-Midsommar

Dani Ardor/??

I’m not sure what I’d want to do with this. I like the idea of playing out a dark Dani/Pelle plot. I’m just really interested in writing for Dani.

-Buffy

Spike/Buffy

I could play either

Other fandoms I might be interested in

Death Note

Chobits

Twilight

Sailor Moon

X/Pearl/Maxxxine

House of Leaves (novel by Mark Z Danielewski)

Hi! My name is Jane and I’ve been rping for a loooong time now. I am 20+ so no minors and I'd prefer someone with a couple of years experience. 3rd person, past tense.

I write anywhere between one paragraph and multiple discord messages worth of paragraphs, it really all depends. I like to plot out a lot and talk about our various headcanons for that particular rp, send playlists, all that stuff. Being friends outside of the fandom discussion would be nice but not required.

*NSFW is welcome, and I could be convinced to do something that sort of skews towards kink being a large portion, but it genuinely has to be well written and mean something to the characters, the plot. Nothing with bodily fluids, feet, etc.

*my only real trigger is animal abuse. I cannot handle it.

*sex or gender of rp partner isnt important to me as long as no one is being a self-insert creep.

Please only like or comment if you are genuinely interested in plotting then moving forward as I've had a lot of people show interest and just say "I'm interested!" and not respond much after. I totally understand being busy but I do view rping as somewhat of a commitment and I'd love to find a partner who feels the same way in addition to being excited. And as a heads up if you've already ghosted me during the plotting process or whatever, my guess is just to keep someone on the backburner, I won't message you. So whether you're worried about connecting with someone you don't want to or whatever, don't. I'm not trying to talk to anyone who's not interested in talking with me :)

I'm available pretty often and the better the rp is going, the more time I will make for it, honestly.

Thanks for reading!

.

[valentinsylve]

Thinking about the latest smoke on the horizon concerning what adults like to read and how often that seems to be books for children. I don't really understand it, or perhaps I do.

I went to what I cannot overstate was a weird primary school. The main building was an old renovated farmhouse. The walls of one of the big rooms were lined with books of all kinds, mostly not written for children. I remember grabbing a Dostoevsky novel off the shelf in 5th grade (The Idiot) because I was curious. Did I understand it? I was 10 years old, you tell me. Our English teacher had the 9-11 year-olds reading The Call of The Wild and The Crucible. The 12-year-olds were reading Restoration comedy and The Taming of the Shrew at one point. I was not unusually literate as far as I thought. So, keep that in perspective.

I was also reading at home, mainly my parents' large science fiction collection. I usually chose by whichever title or book cover art looked the most intriguing. My favorites were by Ray Bradbury, and they were fairly accessible to children. Even then there were things I didn't "get", but they were interesting anyway. I was also reading a ton of reference books trying to vacuum up as much knowledge as I could. Regardless of schooling, I just cannot remember not wanting to know everything. I also read trash, needless to say.

I got into what was then YA fiction specifically in 6th and 7th grade, because I wanted to know what was considered teen-specific material. Lots of what was available at the public library was pretty weird or actually dark.

Lighter topics included being new in a school and learning the ways of one's peers, but also things like sneaking out of the house at night and going into the city and meeting weird adults in diners and seeing midnight movies. Darker topics included suicidality and abuse, or being forbidden to see a close friend because of homophobia. Happy endings were rare in those books; valuable lessons were hard-discovered and rarely made things better. My point is that every idea was on the table. I was not protected, and that was completely OK by me, even if I was uncomfortable. I wasn't protected in real life, either. By 9th grade I was done with that stuff and reading Anais Nin, Dylan Thomas, and hard sci-fi.

In my 20s I knew a guy my age who was really into Harry Potter and lent me the first book. He was a smart guy with a history degree, and his other favorites were all about World War II or whatever, so yeah, kid's book for fun, sure. It was... fine? But I was 25 and the adventures of Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair were lots more fun.

Does it have something to do with childhood and what that meant to me? By the time I was 8 I was both quasi-nostalgic for an innocence that never was, and longing to be an adult and done with the entire powerless mess of childhood.

It's not that I was any smarter than any other kid - I was simply curious and loved to read and learn things.

[shinjikairos]

Norwegian Wood

I haven't read a novel that has made me want to write a letter before.

I vaguely remember in the recesses of my memory: a little more than a decade ago in junior college, Norwegian Wood was a hit amongst those who read. Here and there I would see the novel in the hands of someone reading on the train or in school.

I wonder if it's a false memory that I've created. I have no doubt that in some ways that the novel was popular, but I don't have any concrete memory that could really back it up.

I only know that at one point in time a good friend of mine quoted the line:

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

There's so many layers of irony to this though. Everyone who was interested in novels would have heard of, or even read Norwegian Wood, so already everyone would have been thinking the same thing. And secondly, the character who says this line is Nagasawa, who is the most insufferable character in this book.

But, these teenage Singaporean students in the early-2010s, how could they, or how were they grasping a novel that was written in the 80s and set in the late 60s?

How would I have understood Norwegian Wood at 19 instead of 29?

Without having read all the light novels with 'manic pixie dream girls'?

Without having watched Casablanca, or knowing who Humphrey Bogart is?

Without having read The Great Gatsby and its equally forlorn narrator in Nick Carroway?

Without having been to Japan and walking through the streets and locations in Tokyo: Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ueno?

Without having bought my own turntable, playing records softly in the middle of the night?

Without having experienced the intimate and passionate warmth and touch of another?

Would it all have been like reading a fantasy novel of faraway people and larger than life characters?

Because as someone in my early-30s reading Toru, a 40-year plus character recounting his early-20s, I feel like I understand Murakami's words all too well, but at the same time at an extreme distance. Like I'm constructing my version of Norwegian Wood using scrap memories from unrelated parts of my own life.

As I listen to the Beatles' Norwegian Wood, a new memory enters my life. More likely than not, it's going to be a fleeting one. I remember things a lot less clearly now than I used to, and it scares me a little sometimes, just like how the novel begins.

I don't know who'd I'd address this letter to. But I just might address it to me in the future when I have forgotten.

[nonbinarylesbianherb]

Here’s the thing Alicent Hightower wasn’t a victim, the HotD writers chose to make her one.

She got married at 18 to a 29 year old, she had her first kid when she was around 20. She had so much political influence at court she was able to create her own faction, run her stepdaughter out of Kingslanding and stop her husband from making his daughter Hand. Want to know what she did when her husband died? She left his corpse to rot whilst she and Criston took control of the Green Council to crown Aegon.

So why did the writers turn around and make her a child bride who is reduced to nothing more than a 24/7 victim?

She is disrespected and humiliated at every turn, we are told constantly Alicent Hightower is a coward who isn’t deserving of respect. The writers have a very clear vendetta against her, punishing her for having the audacity of being against Rhaenyra and I feel her nonstop victimisation is part of it.

It’s because her victimisation was done solely to punish her that Viserys’ actions are so whitewashed in the show. It’s why Hess claims Dyana is the only rape victim. It’s why the writers’ only intention with 2x08 was to remind the audience that Rhaenyra is 100x better than Alicent in every way possible whether it be as a Queen/politician/mother/ruler/leader etc.

I’m gonna be really honest i don’t really feel strongly about book alicent in the way i do show (will come back to this), i know young alicent doesn’t exist in the book, but she was the first alicent i was introduced to and ive attached to her specifically. I know there’s a significant difference between book/show alicent adult version, let alone young alicent who we don’t even see in the books.

I think definitely though the show writers could’ve done a better job for older alicent. young alicent being an addition of the show was interesting and they could’ve built off that for an addition to older alicent’s character (without erasing the core of what her character is from the books) for more potential plots/ characterisation- (similar to how rhaenyra and alicent’s ex friendship is a main key of the show) because these added plots were expected, as with most book to show adaptations - but I’d even say necessary since the book is written specifically to be a historic novel more than the storytelling we’d usually see with other asoiaf books. Obviously for the show we’re gonna need to know the ins and outs of characters and relationships, we’re going to want in-depth introductions and characterisation, so I understand why they’d need to create plots to build off of to add opportunities - but there are ways to do that without completely changing a character (or erasing them, cough maelor, cough)

They couldve still shown this powerful and cunning woman from the books whilst also having scenes portraying how her trauma has affected her, how her old friendship with rhaenyra weighs on her- etc. I think they were doing that well in s1, but s2 is kind of a downer for both the character of alicent (as we know there was a lot of upset/shock/confusion with the seeming 180 her character did in s2) and rhaenicent (not as a ship necessarily but as a main factor and concept of the show)

I think something as well is the show / writers have always angled for a more team black approach - and team black as the “good vs bad” , but no side is good or bad in this war, it’s main victims are the small folk, who suffer the cruelty of two opposing powers , the destruction and death this war will have will never have been worth it - it doesn’t matter what side is what. I highly doubt the books portrayed this retelling of this war with a preference that you tend to see in the show - which coming back to my thing about book alicent, I haven’t read fire and blood lol (so it’s easier for me to connect to the first alicent i was introduced to, especially one we see into her life/character rather than the historical way im assuming f&b retells her story- , also being mentally ill and connecting with the character of young alicent/show alicent in a mentally ill way LOL) but I know a lot of what happens/differences. I agree with what you said about them trying to make rhaenyra/team black seem better than alicent/team green and it ends up undercutting alicent as a character because the idea to paint her more as a villain - as well as hurting rhaenyra’s character too ykwim? Again haven’t read the books but i KNOW rhaenyra IS cruel, does do bad things, is selfish, etc, and that’s great! good for her, but she should be allowed to be terrible without it being because she was ‘pushed to the edge’ or ‘justified’ etc. we are starting to see more of her cruelty and hopefully it’ll start to show that both sides are bad, both sides can be cruel just for the sake of being cruel, there is no underlying reason or justification maybe they’re all just terrible

anyway i think im done yapping, not even sure what i was yapping tbh hopefully it makes a modicum of sense. sorry for not always replying to these anon things sometimes i’m simply too tired or i begin to yap, get busy/distracted/tired, so i draft it and then i forget to finish 😭 have a good day anonymous person on the internet i yapped to

[denimbex1986]

'In Ripley, Netflix’s dazzling eight-part adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s landmark 1955 crime novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, the approach to the material is more emotionally cold and deliberately paced than in the 1999 movie adaptation. Anchored by a bravura performance by Andrew Scott, the series — nominated for 13 Emmys — was written and directed by veteran screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Oscar winner for Schindler’s List). Zaillian joins THR for a conversation about this ambitious project’s journey to the small screen.

What inspired you to remake something that had already been tackled to great success by Hollywood?

Twenty years had gone by since the 1999 movie. I felt that there was a way of doing this in a longer format that would hopefully capture the feeling that I had when I first read the book.

Was there an essence to the book that you felt had not been captured in the film?

It was the feeling of getting to know these characters in such detail and spending that much time with them that you can’t do in a two-hour movie. I was very drawn to the process of how Ripley went about doing his schemes. In particular in the book, there were these two long sequences as he struggles to figure out how to get rid of two bodies. You can’t do that in a film. That would take up half the film.

The first murder scene almost goes into a slapstick area where so many things go wrong for him. Is that directly from the book?

It was long in the book. He does fall out of the boat in the book. I don’t know if I’d say slapstick, but to me it was important to show that this is not a professional killer. He’s not done this before. It’s not premeditated. He doesn’t think things through in this way. It was fun to write and it was fun to shoot.

You certainly relay how much of a pain in the ass dealing with a dead body is — how heavy it is and how hard it is to hide one.

Andrew was terrific with it. He really did do all that stuff. It was hard. Every time Ripley tries something and it doesn’t work, he stops and he thinks, “OK — how can I do it?” Those moments were important to me to show.

Let’s talk about Andrew Scott. It’s an incredible performance. Was his age — 47 — a consideration at all?

I wanted somebody older. I didn’t understand what the big deal would be that some guy’s son ran off to Europe at 25. That’s the story of every 25-year-old today. And so Tom Ripley would logically be the same age as Dickie Greenleaf [played by Johnny Flynn]. If he’s older, he’s more desperate. They’re both desperate. Ripley has been at this longer. He and Dickie have been around long enough to know that they’re failures.

Visually, it’s just so, so beautiful. I hope you got some sort of commendation from the Italian tourist board for this thing. Could you talk a bit about how sumptuously you shot this and how long it took to set up these shots?

We had a lot of time to shoot, which was great. We shot for 170 days. I think that’s more than 20 days an episode, which is a lot for a series. I did want to approach it like a movie — I mean, with the care that you take in a movie and with the time that you take. I wanted [crew] who, like me, had spent their careers doing movies as opposed to television. And in terms of the look, I had always imagined it in black and white. It rooted us in the time period. It reminded me of films from the time period.

Another performance I really loved was by Eliot Sumner, who added something so new and different and great to the part of Freddie Miles.

I was despondent casting that part because I had looked at 200 actors, and I found that most of them, I guess because they were influenced by the 1999 movie, were doing kind of a take on Philip Seymour Hoffman. I didn’t want to do that. And a tape came in one day from somebody I didn’t recognize named Eliot Sumner, and it was such a different take on it that I was just kind of spellbound by it. I just loved the audition.

Speaking of scene stealing, let’s talk about that cat watching Ripley drag a body down the stairs. Was that a real cat?

That was a real cat, and a Maine Coon cat from Rome. It was actually the second cat; the first cat I reluctantly had to fire. But this cat was so chill and just had a look on his face of knowing everything that was going on. And I have to give a lot of credit to our second unit director of photography, whose name is Predrag Dubravcic. He shot all those things with the cat. He had the patience of a saint and did a fantastic job with it.'

[zeldaelmo]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Tagged by my wonderful friend @bahbahhh.

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1. How many works do you have on AO3?

77

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

484,215

My goal for 2023 was to hit the 500,000 and I'm positive I'll reach it.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Legend of Zelda, all games apart from Zelda I, II, and Minish Cap (because I haven't played them so far)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

How to name a royal child

Stolen Kisses

Strangers in the Night

It's in his Kiss

Flour, water, salt, yeast, love

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Uh... in theory, I do. I love getting comments but I often feel stupid saying ten times 'thank you' in a row, so I end up answering mostly when I have something to say.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

That would be Lonely at the Top. I don't really write angsty endings, but this one is hurt/no comfort as it tackles Link visiting the Light Dragon who doesn't even react to him.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hm...I'm not too fond of the fanfic version of the perfect happy ending, namely, proposal, sappy wedding, and omg, twins!, mainly because I love the nuance life teaches us. What a happy ending for a fic and a character is, is so often much more different than the fairy tale version.

That being said, I'd still go with Strangers in the Night, just because the two worked so damn hard for their happy ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Hate is a big word, but I get negative comments and sometimes they are even personal, yes. Most people are lacking reading competence and/or don't understand how stories work. I mostly ignore those. Sometimes I complain on discord if it's very annoying. If someone insults me, I block.

I don't think that has to do so much with me, though. I have 1,346 comment threads on my stories. Of course, there are some idiots among them, that's life.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes, occasionally. I think ten of 77 fics are explicit. Look, the thing is, I'm a story teller. So if the smut doesn't add to the story, I don't tell it. Rule of thumb is, that I keep it to a T-rating if possible to make the story accessible to most people. I only go for explicit stuff if I want to deliver some part of the character development/plot with the intimacy (or the lack of lol) that the smut offers.

Does that get me the most Kudos? No. But I'm not here for that or I wouldn't bother writing for 30 years old games. I'm here to tell a good story and have fun. :)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

No. If you've read so far, I can tell you a secret as a reward: I find crossovers pointless. Ooops.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I am aware of! But I'd love to! Big fan of accessibility!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I've seen a few writing collabs end in fandom drama or otherwise go awry, so I decided that I only collab with artists. I might try with something short one day, but nothing novel-length.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Take a guess.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Ah, so I have a half-written novel in my drafts. A story about writer!Zelda and fanartist!Link who are also princess and beloathed bodyguard. I'm very determined to go back to that one after I finished The Promise, but I'm a little scared. The story is complicated and my thoughts are chaotic. I already asked @mistresslrigtar to help me work it out next year, so I hope we'll manage.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and showing what's going on in the character's head who's not the POV character.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle with simplicity sometimes, mainly because of the language barrier. I write something that's horribly complicated and I just know there must be a better way to put it, but I can't figure it out. Grammar is hard, lads.

I also have a weird relationship with descriptions. I love having characters interact with their environment but I loath big chunks of description. I plan to work on this during my traditional holiday self-study break.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

This is a weirdly specific question, but ok.

If you don't happen to write a book that's supposed to teach beginners the other language, then don't. You might end up othering the person who's speaking and that's something you don't want to dabble with lightly.

I already talked about accessibility: You will exclude people from your writing and you don't want that just to sound cool. If you must for plot reasons, make otherwise sure everyone is on board. Slightly different case if you actively hide something from your readers (and other characters), but that's probably not the most common case.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

LoZ

20. Favorite fic you've ever written?

I refuse to answer this. 77 fics are too much to choose from. I love most of them.

_

tagging: @mistresslrigtar, @airplanned, @jenseits-der-sterne, @silentprincess17, @deiliamedlini, @skyyknights