#not super into the whole romance fixes everything in books trope lol

[inboundflight]

I am so normal about HIM!! I am SO NORMAL

Cannot contain whatever this hyperfixation feeling is inside of me

[kuronekonerochan]

The laziest compilation of thoughts about the mess that was Alice (spoilers)

I finish a lot of shitty dramas. Like a lot. I could review them, but I won’t bc there’s too many and I’m too lazy (when you ff some dramas from 45min to 5 per episode it doesn’t really count as watching too many dramas bc it’s really a commercial break, lol). Some I watch for the so bad it’s good content, or love hate watching or just to have something to watch while I eat, even if they’re boring af. It’s also a tiny bit of ocd bc I need to see how they end (even the ones I drop I check out the finale). I only drop the ones that as Marie Kondo says *Do Not Spark Joy, more specifically...annoy me and make me cranky.

I sometimes bitch about it on DMs with ranty spoilers without structure and that reference other unrelated dramas or shows, because ADHD and my mind refuses to stay on topic, which would make it probably unintelligible except if you are in the niche who happens to have watched the other unrelated dramas, so it’s probably useless as a review.

That said, here are some random disconnected thoughts about Alice.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS BEWARE

(this is like partly copypaste of DM rants bc I am that lazy biatch. Also, fair warning I will seem super harsh or this drama because that’s the thing about a bitching dm versus a proper review... I am not bringing up all the points and talking about the good and what I liked as well as the bad, it’s just the bad...and although the drama is imo a mess, it does have some good in it. So if it were a review I’d always argue pros and cons...ranty thoughs who cares about pros? boring..I will not be bothered with devil’s advocate).

This was fascinating to watch, interesting but not good... but like a trainwreck.

I continued watching this mess despite the headache inducing convoluted plot (I watched a lot of timetravel stuff and I love it...encompassing all the theories about it, from butterfly effect, to effectively changing the future (with characters forgetting it or keeping it in memory because “eye of the storm” theory, the “efforts are futile and you can try to change it but the future is set in stone”, to “small changes can be made but big events are fixed points in time”, to “every change creates a new time line” and multiverse, etc... and trust me, all of them can be done well when well written or turn out a confusing illogical mess and that has nothing to do with the theory chosen, but with presenting how time travel works for that story and what the basic rules are and sticking to them...or when something happens that contradicts them, come up with an explanation as to why that happens.

 I don’t mean the drama should be an exposition borefest with too much pseudosciency jargon...but this drama gives you too little in the way of rules and the viewers sort of figure out how timetravel works (which is not bad per se, huge fan of show don’t tell...but there’s a limit to how much they cannot tell or the characters chose not to ask just for the sake of plot and not without any logic to it). Anyways, the little “rules” that we gather along the way...the writing doesn’t stick to them and keeps contradicting itself without addressing or explaining it and hoping we’re so confused we don’t notice. Some dramas you just say “eh, forget it, it doesn’t make sense, let’s turn off our brains and enjoy it”, but here if I wanted to try and follow what was going on at all it required “brain on” mode for their convoluted plot twists...which also made me aware of so may plotholes the time road should have looked like Swiss Cheese. I could go into them...but I cannot be bothered and the list would be extensive and still incomplete, so I will just put 3 here bc I can’t help it:

 1) Hot Daddy with emotional turmoil the entire drama of “Oh no, I abandoned her in 92 and regretted it, it happened 1 year ago for me, and now I find out she died in 2010. How was she, did she suffer? What did she know? Oh god, if only I were a time traveler eventually going rogue who could show up and talk to her any time in the timeline between 92 and 2010...Alas, I have to live in misery with the consequences of my actions...there is just ABSOLUTELY no way of solving this. I guess I’ll just keep making unauthorized time travel journeys from 2050′s time agency back to the year of 2020 and only 2020 to constantly be blindsided by murder attempts on everyone everywhere without having a clue to what’s going on when I could simply go back to before 2010 and talk to the one person who is proven to know what is going on.” Here is where there could be a bullshit reason as to why he could go only go to 2020 and not before, but the drama didn’t even bother.

 2) They say Tae Yi’s mom was originally a time traveler who settled with her physicist dad in the past, eventually making way for her to discover time travel herself. The mom is missing and this is never addressed again. 

3) The book...who wrote it? Because I have guesses but they never outright answer it... and if the biatch author knew that stuff why the alice in wonderland stupid analogies?

 Coward, or petty, or both.... or maybe just a chaos gremlin godlike entity who wanted to watch them all squirm, like the author from Extraordinary You...and that I could get behind, but sadly they don’t go that metaphysical/theological with the plot...which is honestly the main problem with this drama. It seems ambitious in concept but it’s never explored decently in any way, not in the pseudoscience, not in the philosophical sense of the meaning of time/space/existence, not even in its relationships, with the constant back and forth and weirdness of it.

Besides the timetravel migraine, we had the weirdest directing, that made the relationship between the leads feel a bit too incesty...which was the main reason I kept watching this drama...morbid curiosity of how they wrapped up this mess of a plot AND especially the relationship payoff...would it keep being weird with trope romance drama scenes like the female lead and second female lead facing off and being jealous, or that weird hair washing that felt more sensual than maternal? I knew it wouldn’t happen but my inner chaos gremlin wanted kdramaland to grow some balls and go full “predestination: oedipus edition” with this mess. Alas they sort of did, mostly didn’t. Even that angle was a whole inconsistent mess: there were times where it felt too romantic, then for a short minute I misguidedly shipped the journalist friend, then it seemed the dude was ace, then they calmed their tits with the whole weird romantic vibes and it got platonic cute, then with the memory merge thing finally motherly vibes, then I shipped the journalist again for 1 sec only...and then the ending:

Alice ended with the lead solving every problem by shooting himself (technically) in the head...and that's the second meta perfectly fitting ending for a drama with a good cast and terrible writing that drove itself into a corner this year, after the sleepless princess ended with the leads jumping off a cliff. I don't think it's a self aware choice of the writers, or an admission that they themselves know it was bad, but the irony is delicious.

Spoiler for the ending: he undoes timey wimey stuff from when his mom first got killed in high school and closed the time travel door. So he became an architect and new Tae Yi just woke up in her bed remembering everything, but in reality she had just come back from a conference abroad and had never met him. So mom TaeYi didn't die then, but never got back on screen after the time undo so who the f knows what happened to her. 

Also, if new Tae Yi remembers, does that mean hot daddy from the future does as well, but he is just stuck in the future without a time door to ever see them again? The drama doesn’t care answering that and forgets his character is even a thing...I will miss you, my fave who looked emotionally and literally constipated 24/7 (it doesn’t care answering much at all tbf... a little known fact about the time travel paradoxes according to the physics of this world is that besides doppelganger chickenpox it induces severe lazy writing).

Anyways new Tae Yi went looking for architect (? okay...I guess) ML after she woke up, at first he didn't remember her, but it ends with him meeting her, apparently remembering her and they stare at each other... you know, like any bad traditional romantic kdrama finale....so there is still THAT vibe. 

Honestly, the usual romantic ballad score for scenes between the leads WAS NOT the most intelligent choice for this drama in specific but boy did they stick with it (not to mention the ending song... that goes, in english “we be like Bonnie and Clyde we ride or die...which...k, sure)...so technically the ending was exactly the cliche post amnesia running back to each other and staring for the final scene while romantic music blasts trope. Take it as you will.

[sophygurl]

WisCon 43 panel Favorite Queer Depictions In Fiction write-up:

Whether it's a coming-of-age coming out story, a love story about queer characters, a drama or comedy centering the lives of a queer found family, or any old story that just includes a queer character or three without making a big thing about it—we all have out favorite queer stories. Whether it's books, TV shows, movies, video games, or something else, this is the panel to share the ones we love, and why we love them!

Moderator: Kate JohnsTon. Panelists:  Cat Meier, Charles Payseur, Sarah Waites, Alberto Yáñez

Disclaimers: These are only the notes I was personally able to jot down on paper during the panel. I absolutely did not get everything, and may even have some things wrong. Corrections by panelists or other audience members always welcome. I name the mod and panelists because they are publicly listed, but will remove names if asked. I do not name audience members unless specifically asked by them to be named. If I mix up a pronoun or name spelling or anything else, please tell me and I’ll fix it!

Notes:

I missed some of the panelist intro info, but Alberto identified himself as “queer AF” and Cat added “yes, I am also very queer.”

Kate asked the panelists to discuss what brought them to queer fiction, citing Mercedes Lackey as her intro point. She added “we existed and didn’t die in the first book.”

Sarah brought up Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner. When she read it, she wasn’t consciously queer yet. Once she realized that she was, she began to read a lot more.

Alberto also mentioned Lackey, specifically Magic’s Pawn. He had gotten it as a library book and found someone had written in the front of it “this book is about f**gs” and he thought “well, alright then!” He also talked about the short story Things With Beards, a re-telling of The Thing through the lens of HIV/AIDS. 

Cat mentioned Henry Fitzroy as her first queer character love. [ I didn’t catch the specific work/author but it involved the bastard son of Henry the 8th as a bisexual vampire - a quick search shows me this is probably Tanya Huff’s Blood and Smoke novels?]

Kate brought up that queer characters often don’t get a family and asked the panelists about queer characters that either have found families or that remained in their families of origin. 

Cat talked about the novella Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night by Katherine Fabian and Iona Datt Sharma.

Alberto said that, as a Latino writer, he writes a lot about family “because some stereotypes are true.” 

Sarah mentioned that Becky Chambers writes about found family quite a bit. Another example was a world where homophobia doesn’t exist in a Beauty and the Beast re-telling - In the Vanisher’s Palace. 

Charles mentioned the found family in Jacqueline Koyanagi’s Ascension [also a fave of mine!], as well as Geometries of Belonging by Rose Lemberg. He also talked about Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed as a story that imagines different ways of thinking about family and queerness, as well as Pan-Humanism: Hope and Pragmatics by Jess Barber and Sara Saab about decoupling possessiveness in relationships. 

Charles also said that he has written both kinds of stories - found family and family of origin, specifically mentioning a found family in his short story Undercurrents.

Kate talked about how the 60′s SF genre was a lot of men going into space without any women, but it was still supposed to be read as cishet. Now we’re at a point where we actually can send women without men into space and it tends to be read as queer. 

She also asked about stories where it’s not just the same nuclear family and/or gender binary but just with same-sex couples slotted in.

Alberto mentioned Nicola Griffith’s Ammonite, which is about a whole world that is female in many different expressions without having to label them all. 

Cat talked about being both queer and poly and feeling very seen by Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night more than any other book. Having an example of a poly community where all relationships are equally as important as one another. 

Sarah brought up The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley where the male/female nuclear family structure is just not possible. 

Charles again brought up Ascension as an example of family structures on space ships. Also Hurricane Heels by Isabel Yap, which has a magical girls trope - heavy on friendship but the importance of friendship is highlighted and some, but not all, in the friend group are queer. 

Kate talked about James Tiptree’s Houston Houston Do You Read and some of Melissa Scott’s work.

Cat added that Melissa Scott has a wide variety of books with queer relationships in them showing a range of queer experiences. The newest - Finders - has queer poly. 

Sarah talked about some of Scott’s fantasy series and the structure of the culture being that male/female relationships were for procreation but the expectation is that love is between same genders. [I didn’t catch the title of these books/the series]

Kate brought up bisexuality in fiction. She first noticed the lack of bisexual representation when she started dating a bi woman. 

Charles said “all I write is bisexual - even if it’s not explicit.” Since it’s generally assumed for people to be either gay or straight if it’s not mentioned, he likes to write worlds where it’s assumed for the characters to be bi. 

Charles also talked about bi rep in Rose Lemberg’s work - Birdverse, Splendid Goat Adventure, and A Portrait of the Desert in Personages of Power. 

Alberto said he wants more queer characters where the drama isn’t about their queerness. In real life, acceptance can take awhile but he’s been there for a long time now and for reading and writing - he’d like for the drama to be focused elsewhere. 

Cat talked about not knowing that bisexuality existed at 13 when she discovered Henry Fitzroy.

Kate talked about the importance of bi representation in creating understanding for others. “I’m a skier. I ski in the winter. It’s summer. I’m still a skier.” 

Kate brought up Sarah Gailey’s River of Teeth. Also Tanya Huff’s work [missed the title] about omnisexual aliens who would screw a hole in a donut and everyone’s happy about it! Also for YA/teen reading - Foz Meadows. 

Alberto mentioned Six of Crows and it’s sequel by Leigh Bardugo as having bisexuality and found family in it. [Gosh I need to get on to reading this series]

Cat brought up Peter Darling - a trans re-telling of Peter Pan with a Pan/Hook romance. [!!] Also The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue as well as The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee. The former has an ace character.

Sarah also rec’d the Guide to Petticoats and Piracy book. She is ace and the character in the book is ace and aro - society wants her to be one thing and she isn’t. Also the character gets called out on the “not like other girls” thing. 

Sarah also mentioned Chameleon Moon, which has a F/F/F triad, as well as an ace man with anxiety. Sarah wants more ace characters who are not sociopaths or robots.

Kate brought up the TV show Lucifer which is “really really really bisexual” [lol]. Kate also likes that the show doesn’t explain how Lucifer, who is white, has a black brother and an Asian sister.

Someone [I only wrote “C”, so either Cat or Charles? unless that meant continued and was Kate?] talked about Tanya Huff’s work having so many queer families with a variety of experiences.

Charles said there are a lot of examples that are just sad and messy.

Kate talked about lots of queer and black fiction is depressing because - “have you looked at our lives?” She added that we need more positive examples of queer characters. 

Alberto brought up Lara Elena Donnelly’s three books - Amberlough, Armistice, and Amnesty - which are about surviving fascism and rebellion. There’s crime, adventures, spies, etc. This is a strong recommendation.

Sarah added on to that by saying that this example of a dystopia is not about the queerness. Also talked about the Machineries of Empire series by Yoon Ha Lee [oh look! one of next year’s GoH’s!], which has no homophobia and almost all of the characters are queer. It also subverts the sociopathic ace trope - other characters think he is and he encourages that belief, but isn’t.

Charles mentioned a short story in Glittership Year Two [missed what it was], as well as The Root by Na'amen Gobert Tilahun which he said has a good depiction of queer families.

Kate posed the question of what there should be more queer characters in. She said video games and TV shows and that both should also be less male gaze-y.

Charles agreed with video games and said whether it’s a relationship game or not. He wants more background characters to be queer. He doesn’t want to have to headcanon it.

Sarah said “besides everything?” Big SFF movies, like the MCU - and that they should stop making such a big deal about adding super small scenes with queer characters. 

Alberto said more TV - especially for stuff aimed at kids and their parents. A good example of this is She-Ra.

Kate said it should be written in the stories - not retconned like Rowling does or killing them off right away. More 3D queer characters. She added that, especially having been out for most of her life, the struggling with queerness/coming out stories are getting old for her.

Cat mentioned movies that are adaptations that have queer characters in the source material, such as the MCU - there are lots of queer characters in the comics but they don’t make it to the TV shows or movies. 

Kate added that Deadpool keeps his pansexuality in the movies. Kate also wants more queer poc characters who are okay with who they are not evil aliens. This is a problem for white cishet Hollywood. 

Charles talked about the issues still affecting us from the Hays Code era legacy. Queer characters are always sad and end up dead - this was once enforced but has now just trickled down. 

Charles also said he enjoys cozy mysteries but the queer characters always die. There was one that he liked that was turned into a TV series and they finally had a queer character - the actor was leaving and the series could have given them a happily ever after but killed them off instead.

Sarah talked about the importance of diversity behind the scenes. It’s easier to get representation in a book because there is less gatekeeping, fewer hands in the pot. When everyone in the writer’s room of a show or movie are straight, it makes it harder.

Cat [I think? just wrote “C” again] mentioned The Wicked and the Divine - gods are reborn into people every 12 years - they’re all queer. [This was rec’d often this con - deffo need to read]

The audience got to throw out recs next. The ones I got down are: [I can’t find this in a search but it was something like Kaitlyn Sterling - Luminent... something? if anyone knows please chime in], Lifelode by Jo Walton, Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold about a planet of men, A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski about a world of women, A Big Ship at the End of the Universe by Alex White, The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley, “everything by Seanan McGuire” [agreed!!], and then apparently Magic: The Gathering has recently been doing some exploring of genderless species and also a trans warrior woman character. 

The audience were still tossing out recs when I left, so I did not get them all, nor any possible closing remarks by the panelists.  

[tgtahr]

Hey! I just found your comic on Webtoon, and I was wondering where you got the inspiration for it? It seems super intricately planned, I really like it!!

Aw thank you, anon! I’m glad you liking what I’m putting out so far!The answer for this is going to be a bit long.  Bear with me, I really like babbling about my comic.It’s a weird source but the inspiration for my comic are topics that stood out too me in media I’ve consumed over the years.  When coming up with TGtaHR I wanted to sort of analyze or subvert a few tropes I always had a some beef with.  Mainly dealing with the gender/sex roles that are usually queer/LGBT+ characters in romantic fiction, the depiction of mental and physical illness, lastly relationships and abuse.Sorry about my grammar and spelling!Gender/Sex Roles - This one goes back when my character Julian was first created back in 2010, as the main character in a different comic called ‘WYIHN!’, who was meant to be in a romantic role with another character named Matthew. (Once getting the story down on paper the story was changed to something platonic because I’m not very good at working with romance)  This was going to be my depiction of sexuality and companionship from a more dreary standpoint given my recent criticisms with BL/Yaoi and the romance genre as a whole.I used to be a huuuunge, gross, fujoshi funny enough... until I realized how I fetishizing real people in the queer community, and how toxic most romance is.  WYIHN was going to be a romance with a much more melancholy ending with Matthew losing his home because of his sexuality, leading to him and Julian living in a small studio apartment, barely making ends meet as they’re both still kids. (Julian being just becoming old enough to leave the orphanage, and still figuring out how to live on their own)Of course the whole thing sorta flopped, losing direction after realizing their relationship was still toxic, and I didn’t have the experience or knowledge at the time to know how to fix it.  Ultimately Julian, a fight or flight type of character with an interest in science was extremely incompatible with Matthew, an entitled religious fanatic who is fine with using force to push their beliefs on others.Why am I bringing up all this? Well, Julian was meant to be a subversion of the heteronormative ‘uke’ stereotype.  Julian was original created as a cis-gendered, gay male, who was comfortable enjoying feminine things while still being more masculine.  Of course as I developed them as a person, and I myself grew mentally, they evolved from cis and gay to non-binary and pansexual.  Which fits much better with the extremely fluid or vague ideas they’ve had of gender to begin with. (being a child not raised by conventional means, Julian has no solid concept of gender, so it makes sense that their view on sexual attraction and their own gender identity would be just as vague)In turn when creating Apollo, who was literally just made so Julian can have a friend of some kind, he was also made to challenge stereotypical masculinity of a ‘seme’ type.  While he does display toxic masculine views, Apollo is not a masculine person himself, having some feminine mannerisms, finding himself in situations being lead or dominated by others, and later in TGtaHR enjoying a more subservient or domesticated role.  In a way Apollo himself is struggling with finding himself, sticking with a certain set of beliefs because he was raised to think that’s how things should be, and due to the pressure of his peers.In sort, I wanted to take the masculine vs. feminine gender roles, and pick them apart while observing how these characters with their very specific personalities work these social standards.  Especially as people in the queer/LGBT+ community.Mental and Physical Illness - This one has more of a personal spin with it, but I’ll bring that stuff up last.If you’ve watched a movie ever, read a book or comic, or played a video game, chances are you’ve seen some unnamed illness or something along the lines of cancer being used as a way to make the audience feel sympathy for a character.  Most of the time this is used as a lazy means to bring emotion to a character with little to no personality, and the illness is rather... romanticized, normally being magically cured or the person showing little to no physical signs of the illness outside of a bad cough and looking tired.On the subject of mental illness.  Growing up with the horror genre, and the occasional thrillers and dramas, I’ve seen a lot of negativity surrounding this topic.  In a way it’s very similar to how physical illness is used, but rather than being a tool for sympathy it’s normally used to villainize a character, sometimes using a mental illness as a reason why they murdered their family or something along those lines.  This particular trope is used A LOOOOOT in indie horror games, as well as a good number of horror movies and such.  It’s an easy way to make a character do something bad.To me both of these subjects are very misused and very misunderstood, so I wanted to make a story that focused on them.  Mainly centering around how to deal with these issues, how to live with them, and the importance of having help.  Many people live normal lives with chronic mental and physical illness, it’s not something that should be glamorized or demonized.  So I wanted make a story focused on characters fighting through this stuff, depicting these subjects in a very down-to-earth light.  Showing it’s just something that happens, and it doesn’t make you a victim or a monster.On the personal side I myself have always been a cynical person, dealing with a lot of mental turmoil.  Especially in the past 2-3 year.  Not gonna lie, I think about the benefits of death a lot, and see myself and everything I touch as the most worthless garbage to ever be dumped on the planet.  I’ve had this mindset for so long that it feels normal, I don’t know how to feel and act a different way.  Working on TGtaHR has been a way for me to put all this into perspective.  Dumping all my mental problems in a character or characters, reading up on these issues from a scholastic standpoint, then figuring out how they tackle the issues with their given personalities helps me recognize my own mental illness(es).If you’ve ever seen me talk about how I work TGtaHR 100% for myself, aside from the escapism that drawing gives me, this is the main reason.  In a way I’m doing a bit of “self help” with a comic. (But hey! There’s nothing wrong with that, everyone has their own way of working through things)Relationships and Abuse - This is also in relation to the romance genre.  For the longest time I thought that rape/abuse = love thing was normal.  It really messed up my views on my body autonomy and what abuse is, leading me into a relationship where I was guilted and scared into using my body for my partner’s benefit.When this sort of stuff is showed in movies and such it get’s a similar treatment as mental/physical illness.  It’s overly simplified, and used as a way to squeeze out sympathy for the victim while turning the abuser into some cardboard cutout villain.  While abusers are awful people, due to how little is know about emotional, verbal, and mental abuse an abuser could just as easily be someone totally uneducated on the subject.  Surprisingly enough I’ve spoken with a lot of people who think abuse is just all physical stuff, even my mom didn’t know that she was being abused when her ex would manipulate her emotionally with abusive language.  I wanted to play around with these subjects, give them a little more depth, along with playing around with what a relationship is in a general sense, and how do you make one healthy. (hence the title)Lol in a way my comic is an experiment playing with how different people handle difficult situations.  If Apollo were in Julian’s shoes he’d handle everything waaay differently, same with Julian in Apollo’s shoes.TL:DR: I guess my inspiration is my own experiences, and misused/misunderstood subjects that interest me.

[scribble-dee-vee]

11 Questions from Robinbibliophile!

Hey tumblr! I keep getting tagged in this 11 questions thing, but since they are a different 11 questions every time I’m still going to do these. You folks have some cool writing questions. I dig it.

Tagged this time by @robinbibliophile. Putting my answers under the cut so I don’t take up too much space on your dash :D

1. Favorite genre?

Fantasy, my dude! I love magic, dragons, and ladies with swords. What can I say?

2. 1st or 3rd, present tense or past tense?

I write in 1st, past tense, but I don’t notice tenses a lot when I read unless it’s 3rd person omniscient. I either love that POV, or it majorly gets on my nerves, depending on how it’s used.

3. Favorite kids’ book? (I don’t mean YA, I mean for little kids)

Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle

4. Favorite part of writing?

Character creation/development! I love detailing people and getting inside their heads. Relationships are also very intriguing to me.

5. Do you write romance or focus heavily on romantic side-plots? Why or why not?

Everything I write has romance in some form, but I rarely put a lot of focus on it. If I do, it’s because the characters involved have a complex/unconventional relationship that can drive conflict or simply provide representation. I usually prefer platonic relationships, because there are less of them in artistic media and I don’t fall into tropes as often when I write them.

6. Any fandoms?

Heck yes! I’m currently into Voltron, TAZ, RWBY, and Hiveswap, but there’ve been plenty of others in the past. I haven’t visited the Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, or Disney fandoms in a while. I was never into MLP but I appreciate the fan music that came out of it, lol.

7. Any stories you wrote when you were younger that you remember fondly, rather than cringing at? (or maybe both?)

Yes! I wrote a series of novellas in middle school. The first one is called Through the Fog and Into Ziphia. The second is called Chasing Down Revenge. They are not great literature and they are endlessly cringe-inducing, but they were quite an accomplishment for middle-school me. Whenever I read them, I gain new insights on why I’ve developed into the writer I am and why I love writing in the first place. My current project, Heart of Lead, wouldn’t have the style or quality it does now if twelve-year-old me hadn’t tapped those projects out in the notes app on an iPad so long ago.

8. You’re trapped in an elevator with one of your ocs, how does that go for you?

Well geez, this 100% depends on the OC! Luanne would just talk about books to keep both of us calm until the fire department rescued us. Wren would fix the elevator. Charles would be super uncomfortable and probably not do much. Luis would just crack some jokes and keep the elevator mishap from ruining the day. I could strike up a conversation with most of the other Heart of Lead characters, but I definitely would not want to be caught with any of the villains. Especially Dale. He’s not a great person, to say the least.

(And of course, this whole question hinges on the hypothetical that they somehow know what an elevator is. Lmao.)

9. Have any random side hobbies or hidden talents?

I have lots of hobbies! Writing is the biggest one, obviously, but I also play the piano, the clarinet, and the ukulele. I draw, crochet, bake, blog, read, jog, and manage clubs at school. I have no chill.

10. Funniest thing about yourself?

Uh I am generally a ridiculous human being (which I mean in a positive way, I’m cool w myself!). I have no coordination. I’m constantly giggling even when I’m trying to talk, whether it’s from amusement or nervousness or any other emotion. My friends say I have a bouncy walk, so I’ve started to notice that too. Idk what’s funniest, but I’m a bit of an odd duck :D

My questions have a lot to do with OCs, since I want to know more about your fictional children always, and Halloween, because I love Halloween:

1. Have you ever written a Halloween (or holiday) themed story?

2. Is there a particular day you like to celebrate your progress as a writer/artist? (For example, I finished the first draft of my first novel on March 3rd, so that’s always kind of a celebratory day for me).

3. Which OC/fictional character are you most like?

4. Which OC/fictional character are you least like?

5. Which OC is the oldest (in terms of age in canon and/or date you created them)?

6. Which OC is the youngest (in terms of age in canon and/or date you created them)?

7. If you could switch places with one of your OCs/ any fictional character for a day, which one would you switch with and why?

8. How do you feel about pumpkin-spice-flavored foods/drinks?

9. Witches, ghosts, or skeletons?

10. Which OC goes all-out for Halloween, and what do they dress up as?

11. Sweaters or sweatshirts?

Tagging: @storysparksblog, @writingdella, @robinbibliophile, @blackfeatherantics, @seriophi, @christinawritesfiction, @albatris, @ava-burton-writing, @crazybunchwriter, @brynwrites, @hailstonewrites, @joshuareed36, @flannelandsarcasm, @vesperbryan, and @mymandakat. I haven’t tagged some of you before, so hope you like doing these! If not, no pressure. Also, anyone can answer my questions regardless of whether I tagged you. Have fun :D

[asfeedin]

Friday Finds & Reader Recommendations – 04-24-2020

Good morning and HAPPY FRIDAY!!! I hope we all have a cozy and wonderful weekend loaded in reading some seriously great books!! Speaking of which…

I’m already almost finished a book I just started a day ago and I LOVE IT!!!!! HOLY. MOLY. It’s the first part of a duet and the next one is coming out in a couple of weeks and I’m so relieved because I know the end of this one will make me crazy. LOL!!! I think I may have just found a new favorite author, and my review will be up this weekend.

In the meantime…

TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT WE FOUND FOR THE WEEKEND  !!

STILL ON ➔➔➔ TWO MONTHS FREE KINDLE UNLIMITED DEAL!!! <— If you haven’t tried it yet, now’s your chance. WE ARE LOVING IT! And it’s still going on through the end of April!

And…

So, That Got Weird by Amelia Kingston <—THE AWKWARD GIRL & THE JOCK ALERT!! Ashley loved it so much that she read it again! “…As the reigning campus sex god, he has the playboy act down pat. But underneath those six-pack abs beats a broken heart. He doesn’t trust people and he sure as hell doesn’t believe in love. The odd couple strike a deal. Four weeks of & “tutoring” for five thousand dollars…”

I reread ‘So, That Got Weird’ by Amelia Kingston and that was a fun time – it has the same vibe as Elle Kennedy or Maya Hughes’ books (which I’m a huge fan of).

Third Life by Noelle Adams <—LIVE!! AGE GAP OLDER MAN/YOUNGER WOMAN ALERT!! She only knows his first name but… “...he keeps asking me to meet him all over the world, and I keep saying yes. …I don’t know anything about him except his first name. That’s the way he likes it. He’s too old for me, and he’s hiding secrets, but I’m not going to be able to keep my heart out of it for long…“

Detained by Ainslie Paton <— MONY LOVED THIS ONE!

Mony: I finished Detained by Ainslie Paton, Aussie author. Really loved it!

First chapters – Mystery Guy & female reporter stuck in a Shanghai airport detention room – clever & hot. Characters “real”, dialogue tight – kind of book I like. Also, story unusual & set in China & AUS. Bit too long at end but I wanted to read it in one shot. Love finding books that punch their weight above their GR rating.

This was one of Ann’s “personal 5-star lose all track of time and reality books.”

Master of Salt & Bones by Keri Lake <— LIVE!!! DARK ROMANCE ALERT!!! P.S. I love this author!! “…When I was a little girl, I dreamed a handsome knight would come and rescue me from my wretched mother. He’d ride up on his white steed and break the curse I’ve been fated to carry since the day I was born. Funny how things changed over time. How the fairy tale twisted into something far more crooked, darker than I ever imagined. In reality, my knight is scarred and broken, living alone in a castle of bones that overlooks the sea. He isn’t searching for me. He never was. Lucian Blackthorne is as cursed as I am, and equally shunned by the locals…”

Killian by Ryan Michele <— LIVE!!!

Kitty Valentine Dates a Billionaire by Jillian Dodd <— LIVE!!! JILLIAN DODD ALERT!!

Falling North: A Turner Artist Rocker Novel (The Turner Artist Rocker Series Book 2) by Alyson Santos <— LIVE!!

The Devil in Apartment 13 by Tiana Laveen <— MODERN-DAY URBAN GENIE/JINN IS HER NEW NEIGHBOR… and he wants to make her his mate! “…Vivian Carver believes her name is synonymous with bad luck. She’s a bartender living smack dab in the middle of NYC and has had it up to here with entitled tourists, an annoying roommate and just barely surviving. She’s forced to move into a cheaper apartment, and with it comes a seedy landlord, drippy faucets and a peculiar stranger in apartment 13.  Shahzad has pulled all the stops to get to know Ms. Vivian Carver, someone who in no shape, form or fashion understands her full potential…”

Beauty and the Rose: a Dark Romance by Stasia Black & Lee Savino <— LIVE!! TRILOGY CONCLUSION ALERT!!

Don’t Love Me (My Secret Boyfriend Book 1) by S. Doyle <— HE TOLD HER NOT TO… “…The state took me away from my mother when was I twelve and sent me to live with an uncle, who worked on some fancy estate.  That’s when I met Ash, she was ten and the daughter of the man who owned the estate. She thought I would be her new best friend but I only wanted to be left alone. For years she was always there, always annoying me, always wanting more from me. But our roles were clear. She was the princess and I was the chauffeur’s charity case.  I told her not to fall in love with me…she didn’t listen…”

Dark Protectors Bundle: 3 Stories by Rebecca Zanetti by Rebecca Zanetti <— REBECCA ZANETTI BOOK BUNDLE BARGAIN ALERT! “…From New York Times bestselling author, Rebecca Zanetti, comes three stories in her Dark Protectors-Reese Family series… **Every 1001 Dark Nights novella is a standalone story. For new readers, it’s an introduction to an author’s world. And for fans, it’s a bonus book in the author’s series. We hope you’ll enjoy each one as much as we do.**

The Danger You Know by Lily White <— LILY WHITE’S LATEST DARK READ ALERT!! HE’S HER STALKER…“…I pursue her despite the wedding bells that rang for another, only I can see how she is drowning beneath mediocrity. How many times must I remind her? It can’t matter that I am the person who ruined her life. The man who killed her father. The constant shadow that watches her sleep. The lover who prefers dirty alleyways to freshly laundered sheets. She’s mine. Always has been…”

Michaela: Read this today and loved it! 

Michele: I LOVE Lily and Dark reads are still my favorite!!  thank you!!!

Tori: I’ve been binge-reading some Lily White lately! Omgah! Just finished The Vanity of Roses and started Wishing Well last night! I guess this one will be next. Seriously, one of my new favorite authors! ♡♡♡

The Prince and the Pawn (When Rivals Play Book 4) by B.B. Reid <— SERIES FINALE!!! BULLY BOOK ALERT! “...They were wrong for each other from the start. The jock and the nerd, what a cliché they made. He was the town prince, and she was a nobody. Tyra Bradley was invisible. That is until she told him he needed some manners, and so began their game of cat and mouse...”

Everything Girl by Emily Mayer <— MONY LOVED IT!! And was her message to the author about it (and the author replied).

Mony: Hi Emily,

Loved loved loved your book. Well written, quirky characters, and great book boyfriend…loved the Montana setting. Good job pacing the slow burn between Jack and Evelyn. A gem.

Hoping you’re thinking about writing a sequel about Ben. Fantastic character – came alive with his wit, charm and “manwhore struggles.” Just begging to be written! What do you think? Thanks!

Emily (the author): …I took a detour for book #2, but I am spending my quarantine with Ben! I couldn’t agree with you more. He definitely needed his own story. I am already a little bit in love with his story and can’t wait to share it with you!

To another reader: “still hoping for a May release date” ..

Jan: New Lucy Score coming out in a couple of days: By A Thread: A Grumpy Boss romcom. I like the grumpy boss trope.

Mony: I didn’t see that By A Thread was about a grumpy boss…one of my favourite tropes as well…

HEY SWEET TEA (The Way To A Man’s Heart Book 8) by Frankie Love <— LIVE!!

Don’t Go Stealing My Heart by Kelly Siskind <— LIVE!!

The Girl and the Stars (The Book of the Ice 1) by Mark Lawrence <— LIVE FANTASY ROMANCE ALERT!!!!! GORGEOUS COVER & TITLE!! “…To resist the cold, to endure the months of night when even the air itself begins to freeze, requires a special breed. Variation is dangerous, difference is fatal. And Yaz is not the same.   Yaz’s difference tears her from the only life she’s ever known, away from her family, from the boy she thought she would spend her days with, and has to carve out a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected...”

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown <— RECENT PSYCH-THRILLER RELEASE AND GUESS WHAT????

Nay: For anyone who likes book adaptations, I just saw Maryse’s FB post about Pretty Things by Janelle Brown, and when I went to add it to my tbr on GR, I saw that one of my friends had posted that Nicole Kidman is going to produce and star in the book’s adaptation as a streaming Amazon series.

Maryse: OOOOOH YAY!!!! I love that!! Though I’m going to read it first.  Thank you for that news, Nay!

Michele: Just finished Fixed on You series…..GREAT, love, mystery, heartbreak and well the end……it was the best bargain….

Cheryl: Hudson is a hot alpha guy who says right off the bat that he is incapable of love and combined with Alayna’s obsessive “love’ disorder, you just know a train wreck is coming.

Krisztina: I just finished the Fixed trilogy by Laurelin Paige. Hudson (the whole story from his point of view). I have to say that I was reading the 2nd half of Forever With You with tears in my eyes … now I am obsessed with Hudson Pierce 

A Kiss to Tell by W. Winters <— SUPER-BARGAIN ALERT! HE WAS BAD NEWS & SHE WAS THE GIRL THAT DIDN’T BELONG… “...From the first time I saw him, Sebastian had a hard stare that pinned me in place. And years later, it hasn’t softened. We lived on the same street and went to the same school, although he was a year ahead.  Even so close, he was untouchable. He was bad news and I was the sad girl who didn’t belong. One night changed everything...”

AUDIOBOOK LVERS!

Not a member of Audible yet? Get a free 30 day audible trial (which includes 1 free audiobook + 2 audible originals)

AND! Audiobook Matchmaker!! <— Find out which of YOUR Kindle books are available as audiobooks at a BARGAIN-PRICE! This is how it works. Click on that link & Amazon will show you all of your Kindle books that are also available as an audiobook at a seriously discounted price. This way, you can switch back and forth, seamlessly between your ebooks and your audiobooks. VERY COOL!

➔➔ Audible now has an “Escape” package membership (30 day free trial) – used to be called the “Romance” package <— this one is SO cool, and worth it (unlimited listening for all of the audiobooks in the program, and there are tons – kind of like Kindle Unlimited)!!

and…

Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier <— RECENT PSYCH-THRILLER RELEASE THAT I’m DYING TO READ!!

Shirley: I’m listening to Little Secrets. I’m at 20% and so far, so good!! I think you would really like this one Maryse!

Maryse: YESSSS!! I know I would. Totally my thing…

  The Hardest Fall by Ella Maise <— Ashley loved it so much she listened to it again!

Ashley: Okay, I re-listened to ‘The Hardest Fall’ by Ella Maise. Love it. My favorite part is where her horde of peanut butter m&m’s is discovered and her reasoning for it is one of the most relatable reasons ever.

Shooter by Dahlia West <— Ashley loved it so much she listened to it again!

And I’m also re-listening to ‘Shooter’ by Dahlia West….which makes me want to revisit ‘Preacher’ by Dahlia West.

PREORDERS (going live soon!!! )

➔➔➔  Get Maryse’s Book Blog updates delivered by email (you’ll get one daily email that will have each post from that day consolidated on it).

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Tags: 04242020, Finds, Friday, Reader, RECOMMENDATIONS

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