#one of my new years resolutions was to read more nonfiction

[murderballadeer]

so if a person had never read anything by joan didion where should they start

[ddarker-dreams]

Hi, do you have an updated masterlist? I am new here and I came from your Yandere Aventurine fic that is soo good! But I noticed that fic is not in your masterlist, so I am wondering if I missed any other HSR fics as well.

Thanks!

ANONNN i'm so sorry 😭 i haven't updated my masterlist in ages. however! i'm taking off work all of next week, so i'll have precious free time at long last 😌 i intend on fixing my masterlist up/doing as much writing as i can then! i've longed to be a hermit ever since my hermit privileges were rescinded. i'll be in my natural habitat shortly.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #27 – From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia by Pankaj Mishra

Yet another work of nonfiction I picked up because an intriguing-sounding quote from it went viral on tumblr. This was the fifth history book I’ve read this year, but the first that tries very consciously to be an intellectual history. Both an interesting and a frustrating read – my overall opinion went back and forth a few times both as I read and as I put together this review.

The book is ostensibly a history of Asia’s intellectual response to European empire’s sudden military and economic superiority and political imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries, though it’s focus and sympathy is overwhelmingly with what it calls ‘middle ground’ responses (i.e. neither reactionary traditionalism nor unthinking westernization). It structures this as basically a series of biographies of notable intellectual figures from the Islamic World, China and India from throughout the mid-late 19th and early 20th centuries - Liang Qichao and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani get star bidding and by far the most focus, with Rabindranath Tagore a distant third and a whole scattering of more famous personages further below him.

The central thesis of the book is essentially that the initial response of most rich, ancient Asian societies to sudden European dominance (rung in by the Napoleonic occupation of Egypt and the British colonization of India) was denial, followed (once European guns and manufactured goods made this untenable) by a deep sense of inferiority and humiliation. This sense of inferiority often resulted in attempts by ruling elites and intellectuals to abandon their own traditions and westernize wholesale (the Ottoman Tanzimat reforms, the New Culture Movement in China, etc), but at the same time different intellectual currents responded to the crisis by synthesizing their own visions of modernity, and tried to construct a new world with a centre other than the West.

I will be honest, my first and most fundamental issue with this book is that I just wish it was something it wasn’t. Which is to say, it is a resolutely intellectual and idealist history, convinced of the power of ideas and rhetoric as the engine for changing the world. Which means that the biography of one itinerant revolutionary is exhaustively followed so as to trace the evolution of his world-historically important thoughts, but the reason the Tanzimat Reforms failed is just brushed aside as having something to do with europhile bureaucrats building opera houses in Istanbul. Not at all hyperbole to say I’d really rather it was actually the exact opposite – the latter is just a much more interesting subject!

Not that the biographies aren’t interesting! They very much are, and do an excellent job of getting across just how interconnected the non-Western (well, largely Islamic and to a lesser extent Sino-Pacific) world was in the early/mid-19th century, and even moreso how late 19th/early 20th century globalization was not at all solely a western affair. They’re also just fascinating in their own right, the personalities are larger than life and the archetype of the globe-trotting polyglot intelligentsia is one I’ve always found very compelling. While I complain about the lack of detail, the book does at least acknowledge the social and economic disruptions that even purely economic colonialism created, and the impoverishment that created the social base the book’s subjects would eventually try to arouse and organize. And, even if I wish they were all dug into in far more detail, the book’s narrative is absolutely full of fascinating anecdotes and episodes I want to read about in more detail now.

Which is a problem with the book that it’s probably fairer to hold against it – it’s ostensible subject matter could fill libraries, and so to fit what it wants to into a readable 400-page volume, it condenses, focuses, filters and simplifies to the point of myopia. Which, granted, is the stereotypical historian’s complaint about absolutely anything that generalizes beyond the level of an individual village or commune, but still.

This isn’t at all helped but the overriding sense that this was a book that started with the conclusion and then went back looking for evidence to support its thesis and create a narrative. Which is a shame, because the section on the post-war and post-decolonization world is by far the sloppiest and least convincing, in large part because you can feel the friction of the author trying to make their thesis fit around the obvious objections to it.

Which is to say, the book draws a line on the evolution of Asian thought through trying to westernize/industrialize/nationalize and compete with the west on it’s own terms (in the book’s view) a more authentic and healthy view that rejects the western ideals of materialism and nationalism into something more spiritual, humane, and cosmopolitan, with Gandhi kind of the exemplar of this kind of view. It tries to portray this anti-materialistic worldview as the ideology of the future, the natural belief system of Asia which Europe and America can hope to learn from. It then, ah, lets say struggles to to find practical evidence of this in modern politics or economics, lets say (the Islamic Republic of Iran and Edrogan’s Turkey being the closest). It is also very insistent that ‘westernization’ is a false god that can never work, which is an entirely reasonable viewpoint to defend but if you are then you really gotta remember that Japan/South Korea/Taiwan like, exist while going through all the more obvious failures. One is rather left feeling that Mishra is trying to speak an intellectual hegemony into existence, here. (The constant equivocation and discomfort when bringing up socialism – the materialistic western export par excellence, but also perhaps somewhat important in 20th century Asian intellectual life – also just got aggravating).

It’s somewhere between interesting and bleakly amusing that modernity and liberal democracy have apparently been discredited and ideologically exhausted for more than one hundred years now! Truly we are ruled by the ideals of the dead.

I could honestly complain about the last chapter at length – the characterization of Islam as somehow more deeply woven in and inextricable from Muslim societies than any other religion and the resultant implicit characterization of secular government as necessarily western intellectual colonialism is a big one – but it really is only a small portion of the book, so I’ll restrain myself. Though the casual mention of the failures of secular and socialist post-colonial nation-building projects always just reminds me of reading The Jakarta Method and makes me sad.

So yeah! I felt significantly more positively about the book before I sat down and actually organized my thoughts about it. Not really sure how to take that.

[ashstfu]

4,5 14 and 24. Ily btw <3

4. movie of the year

THE HOLDOVERS

5. tv show of the year

SUCCESSION

14. favorite book i read this year

dostoevsky’s crime & punishment + kitchen by banana yoshimoto ❣️

24. did i keep any resolutions

i don’t do strict new year’s resolutions but i did write myself a list of 23 goals. of them i’d say i absolutely accomplished 4 and made progress on 8 of them which i think is a win!! the ones i did were read 50 books, read more nonfiction, let my hair grow, and get into pottery!

[booksandchainmail]

Goals for the rest of the year (fall resolutions?):

Online:

Finish watching and liveblogging Oniisama e

Finish reading and liveblogging my volume of Anne Lister's diaries

Get my tumblr drafts down to <100: they're currently at 176. A bunch of those are reblogs I want to add commentary to, so either add it, skip the commentary, or don't reblog it at all. There's also a few liveblog related posts in progress, which should be clear-out-able. The one added difficulty is I have some number of drafts from ~2018 that I no longer stand by and so will not post, but want to keep for memories

Food (aka expanding my vegetable repertoire, preferably in ways that don't involve making a side dish of vegetables):

Continue spinach: this has been an unexpected success mixed into things, find more of those things

Try peas, presumably starting with adding them to pasta. I've had mixed experiences in the past, but trending upwards, and my partner likes them. I am cautiously optimistic.

Cauliflower? It's good roasted. Need more recipes than just putting misc spices on top.

Social (I need to do more in person things. I have a houseguest now, and more planned at two times this fall, but I need to get local connections and not rely on travel):

See [group of people I am friendly acquaintances with] at least twice. Logistics is probably the main issue here, and that I am always the one who reaches out, while I am also very bad at reaching out. Growth mindset! There is a newly local person in this group I want to see! Also the extant ones are good!

Hang out with [person I've recently hung out with] moreso. I am hopeful that this is going from a "once a year we do a shared activity and then say we should meet up more" type of friendship into one where we actually meet up.

Try a bookclub or something through meetup. I technically already tried this a few weeks ago, and that bookclub sucked, but I don't want to give up on the concept prematurely

Reading (I've already met my general number read goal, as well as my summer reading bingo cards):

Read 10 nonfiction books (goal for entire year). This is currently already at 9, and I have 2 more in progress. Very manageable.

Finish reading a very indulgent selfpublished series I'm midway through. This will also not be a difficult goal

Get the stacks of books on my windowsills/tables down to 15. When I get new books I stack them rather than shelving them so I don't forget to read them, and they've been piling up. I need to read them down sufficiently before I am again exposed to used book stalls. I've already made some headway here, mainly by tidying away the ones that I had already read, so currently there are ~25 books in stacks.

[meteorherd]

hmm okay new years resolutions

watch more foreign-language films

get new piercing (MAYBE)

expand weird earring collection

pack more lunches for college/work i am SO sick of those gross cold wraps they provide that i can't even heat up

go to gym more often

collect participant data for my thesis

eat at least one fruit a day. smoothies are also acceptable

fix my fucked up sleep schedule. we WILL do it it is about fucking time

read more nonfiction

draw ref sheets for all my ocs (the most improbable one out of all of these but i'm going to dream big. if it doesn't happen whatever)

make more connections with professors in my program

lez out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gideonthefirst]

9-12 🧙‍♂️(ignore my main blog)

hi :] huh why don’t i follow you on main. rectifying that once i post this

9. Did you get into any new genres?

Yes I’ve been reading a lot more nonfiction than I ever have outside of school! Especially #theory which was a New Year’s Resolution this year and I haven’t managed as much as I wanted to but did manage more than I expected.

10. What was your favorite new release of the year?

Whoa I’m not sure that I read any 2023 releases??Lots of 2022s that I got to late. WAIT NO ACTUALLY! You know it you love* it it’s Where Are Your Boys Tonight? by Chris Payne. My only 2023 release and I honestly did really really like it which is nice. You’ve discussed some of its more obvious weaknesses I think but I was genuinely impressed with its ability to weave together such a huge collection of interviews and contributors into as cohesive a narrative as it managed. Also it was just a lot of fun to read.

11. What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

Vladimir Nabakov’s Lolita :) which is only getting this slot because Stephen Florida coming out in 2017 feels too relatively recent. But man I sure did read Lolita and it sure is a stupendous piece of work. Recommend to anyone who has the stomach for it 👍 Nabakov’s control of both language on a sentence-scale and the push and pull of narrative motion is like. It’s somehow so good that large parts of Lolita are actively fun to read despite the subject matter being unrelentingly miserable. I know I may be the first person to say this but maybe he’s a good writer? Kinda crazy to consider

12. Any books that disappointed you?

Many 👍 say one thing about me I will be disappointed by media. However since it’s the most recent I will say I just gave up on The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolf. Came highly recommended, has torture in the title, started off genuinely really strong with a lot of the stuff I like (weird narration stuff, discursively obscured torture, genre-uncertainty, torture was happening, compelling linguistic rhythm, a two-sentence torture scene ending in a suicide, etc, all the important things) but then as soon as women began to appear it became like genuinely intolerably misogynist literally JUST as it was getting really weird in a fun way. And my standards for fantasy misogyny are like rock bottom low I’ll truly put up with anything but it was so bad and it was actively slowing down and derailing the story and making it so so boring for long stretches and kept getting worse with every new woman and there wasn’t even any torture happening anymore so I gave up. SAD!

[lifeinbottles]

hello, i feel like we have very similar taste and my resolution in 2024 is to read more, so - what are your 5 favorite books read in 2023?

This is a great ask! I had a reading renaissance of my own in the past year and a half, so I feel you, and I hope there’s a book on my list that’s both new to you and something you would enjoy. My top 5 were:

The Space Between Worlds. A dystopian setting. A queer protagonist. Multiversal travel. Easily, easily the best thing I read all year.

This Is How You Lose the Time War. Enemies to lovers. You may have also seen a rec for this by internet user bigolas dickolas.

Quiet by Susan Cain. This one’s nonfiction, about introverts and how we interact with the world. I didn’t agree with everything, but most I did, and some of it I had never quite put into words before.

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas. My favorite thing about this was how it described a realistic version of our current society, but with the slight twist that a group of women scientists invented time travel a few decades ago. Also there’s a murder. An easy read despite all the layers to it.

Ted Chiang: I finally read both his Stories of Your Life and Exhalation short story collections this year (shoutout to the movie Arrival)… but the story that really, unexpectedly stuck with me was The Lifecycle of Software Objects.

Not ranked: my reread of the locked tomb series. It just wouldn’t be fair.

[godzilla-reads]

Happy new year,

hope you have a good year, your posts and book reviews are always a delight to see on my dash. I don't have many new years resolutions, but one of them is to try and read 3 non-fiction books. I mean ofcourse fiction especially fantasy and sci-fi are still my favourite and I will be reading them either way. Reading non-fiction can be a little bit daunting though. Sometimes its difficult for me to get into because when I am reading a story I can remember what happened before when I pick it back up again, but with non fiction I often have to go back and reread large sections to follow along. This problem usually gets worse because with fiction I am invested in the characters and the plot so i try to get back to the book as soon as I have time but then with non-fiction it ends up getting pushed back (like if I am reading nonfiction anyway I might as well read my uni textbooks). But I have enjoyed reading nonfiction previously, such as "How not to be wrong: the hidden maths of every day life" which was funnier than I expected and "Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You: Understanding the Mind-Blowing Building Blocks of the Universe" which had some really poetic descriptions of subatomic particles and about us trying to understand the nature of the universe. So I am hoping I can read 3 more this year. Maybe I will take your recomendation and read Crow Planet, because I wanted to read something ecology related and this combines that with my interest in crows. Yeah if you have any advice on it I would be glad to hear it, or if you just want to tell me about any of your resolutions. Happy new year again.

Friend!

One of my pieces of advice when reading nonfiction is to start by reading something you want to learn more about or are passionate about. It makes it a lot easier to start reading nonfiction that way.

I don’t do any resolutions, but I have been doing Oracle and rune readings for the upcoming year. In my Oracle I got a Gawtcha Fae which represents unexpected change, and I pulled the rune Fehu which means wealth. So fingers crossed these are good things.

My reading goal this year is to focus on novels and longer books as I read a lot of children’s/shorter books in 2023. I don’t mind reading less books if they’re longer!

Happy New Year!

[darkshrimpemotions]

Blatantly stealing from @pixiedustandbluebutterflies because I also dislike new year's resolutions (partly because I do inevitably run out of spoons OR just forget because wriggly brain by mid-February) but I LOVE the idea of goals, hopes, and things I'm excited about. So without further chattering...

My Goals for 2023

- Get my finances to a stable place I want to be able to delete all my payday advance apps, clean up my monthly subscriptions, pay down my credit cards so I can actually use them for emergencies as intended, and just not be scrambling around payday every two weeks to figure out how I'm going to make things work.

- Read more I'm not putting a specific number on it, I just want to spend more time reading than I did this year, especially when the only thing stopping me was doom scrolling or flipping mindlessly through my Roku channels looking for something to watch and finding nothing. I want to recapture the joy and peace I used to feel just getting lost in reading for a while, whether that's fanfiction, original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, whatever.

- Finish a WIP Any WIP, fanfic or original work, I just want to feel that sense of satisfaction when a piece I've worked on for ages is finally done.

- Go swimming every week this summer I have free unlimited access to a pool AND the beach for the first time in my life, I might as well use them!

- Learn to let go of things Specifically, tasks or goals I've set for myself that I never get around to that are mentally and emotionally blocking me from doing other things I actually want to do, like old WIPs from my Glee fandom days I can't stand to look at anymore.

My Hopes for 2023

- Get my various health issues resolved/under control

- Get to a place in therapy where I can think/talk about my familial issues without reliving them

- Finish a creative project (the one with Liz)

- Get pre-approved for a home loan

- Witness evil men finally suffer the consequences of their misdeeds

Things I'm Excited About in 2023

- Teen Wolf Movie (January)

- Bridgewater Season 2 (January)

- Criminal Minds Evolution (January)

- The Winchesters (January 24th)

- Eras Tour! (April); Going to see Taylor Swift live with some of the best people I know. We have Outfits planned!

- Pride Month (June)

- Summer (realistically May to September where I live); Can't wait to enjoy the warmth and sun and reprieve from RA symptoms and clear skin and increased energy and daily swimming that summer brings!

- Bisalp surgery (August); I am finally going to get off depo and take myself out of the running for pregnancy permanently!

- Halloween (October); Always my favorite time of year

I feel like I'm setting myself a lot of goals here but I have a lot I want to do! And if some of it doesn't happen, well. At least it wasn't for lack of trying!

I am really glad I did this because I didn't realize how much I had to look forward to this year.

[veliseraptor]

January Reading Recap

Slower month this month, mostly because it took me forever to read one of these...

Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg. I mentioned this one at the end of last month's recap post - specifically that it was published in 2007 and that I expected reading it to be an experiment. I was right and spent a lot of the time reading @ameliarating quotes that were just sort of excruciating 15 years on. It was a great overview of the growth of the Christian right and expansion into politics particularly during the Bush years; I really wonder what Michelle Goldberg would say about the subject matter now. If you're interested in the interactions between Christian evangelists and U.S. politics, I do recommend this one despite the fact that it is, inevitably, dated.

Beneath the Stairs by Jennifer Fawcett. January sort of ended up being the month of mildly disappointing horror, which isn't exactly new for me but is still sad. This was probably the second-best of the three I read but ultimately still just came up as "meh, okay, I guess." I can't point to anything wrong with it, and it wasn't that the conclusion was unsatisfying or anything, I think I just found it underwhelming and unexceptional.

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes. I want good space horror with all my heart; this wasn't it. Basically a rip-off of Alien but with a worse resolution. I'd say the first half of the book had me going because despite being an Alien rip-off it was still quite spooky, but ultimately I just came out of this one wishing it were at least 25% a different book.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. This is an old book that came up for me again for...some reason, I honestly forget what brought it up? I remember seeing it on my parents' shelves growing up. I read Missoula by the same author some years ago and remember being very affected by it. This book is the author's account of the 1996 disaster on Mount Everest that killed a number of hikers and generated some controversy (and about which I knew very little); he happened to be on the affected expedition as a journalist planning to write an article about the commercialization of Everest climbing. Reinforced everything I already believed about (a) nobody should climb Everest and (b) big mountains are terrifying.

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen. This was the book that took me forever to read, and my search for a nonfiction book about historiography that gives me what I want continues. I wanted this book to analyze how history has been written over the years, and how different approaches to history/schools of historians have impacted historiography, but this ended up feeling more like a survey of historians past (and often their personal foibles). It was much lighter on the analysis or depth of investigation of its subjects than I would've liked it to be, probably as an inevitable consequence of its scope.

I feel like my issue with it can be summed up by the fact that there was an entire chapter about the feud between two British historians that was much more about their personal exchanges than going into their contrasting approaches and what those approaches meant/mean for the writing of history and the way we understand it.

Little Eve by Catriona Ward. I liked The Last House on Needless Street better, I think, though this one was very interesting in its own way; I'm not sure why it didn't click with me, but I suspect because I thought I was going into a different book than I ended up going into. I think the book I ended up with is a better one, but it meant that there was some internal dissonance over the course of my reading.

I think I actually do recommend this one, though, tentatively. Not in a "everyone should read this" sort of way, but in a "this is an interesting work and I'd be curious to hear more peoples' thoughts on it" sort of way.

I just started reading How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith after bouncing off The It Girl by Ruth Ware about five pages in. I'm not giving up on it, but I clearly wasn't in the right frame of mind for it right this minute, so...it can wait.

Tune in next month to see if I've found a new horror novel I like yet.

[lesbianboyfriend]

Idk which of these you’ve answered already but: 6, 7, 9, 13, 22, 24 :)

ooh so many yay!!! tyy my love

6. episode of tv that defined the year: obviously buffy the vampire slayer season 6 episode 7 once more with feeling. i was literally just listening to the soundtrack

7. favorite actor of the year: i’m strictly in buffy world rn so i have to say sarah michelle gellar and eliza dushku the women that you are…..but also dropout has been there for me all year and i love all the people on it so much that i couldn’t possibly pick a single favorite from them

9. best month: answered here!

13. favorite book: i’m hoping to get a lot more reading in before the year ends! but so far freshwater by akwaeke emezi!!! and honorable mention to jane eyre ofc <3

22. favorite place you visited this year: the big library downtown…it’s too much of a hassle for me to go often bc it’s far plus terrible parking + fees but i love it there…i want to live there

24. did i keep any resolutions: i don’t do strict new year’s resolutions but i did write myself a list of 23 goals. of them id say i absolutely accomplished 4 and made progress on ~8 of them which i think is a win!! the ones i did were read 50 books, read more nonfiction, dye my hair a new color (i did. at least three colors this year), and get into comic books!

[odonism]

no one tagged me yet, but I love this kind of stuff so here are nine books I plan on reading in 2023!

I’ve made a resolution this year to finish reading all the books on my shelves before I treat myself to any new ones, so welcome to a small selection of my personal library! I’m also currently reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk and Under Wildwood by Colin Meloy, not pictured! the books that are pictured include:

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

The Thief Knot by Kate Milford

The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe

The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar

The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz

Dark Matter ed. Sheree Thomas

Cruising Utopia by José Muñoz

obviously this is just a sliver of everything I hope to read this year, but this selection is representative of the general trends—middle-grade fantasy, adult sci-fi & fantasy, more anthologies, more nonfiction!

the only person I’m officially tagging is @brownpaperhag (mwah) but mutuals, if you see this and wanna do it, you can say I tagged you! ♥️

[mimsier]

2023 RESOLUTIONS  + 2022 REFLECTIONS #readinthenewyear

I'm going a little wild this year and setting my goal to 150 books. for the last two months, I’ve read 3 per week on average. if I keep that up, then I’ll come in over 150 easy, so it’s not that wild but it’s still a huge shift from 2022′s goal of 24 books

2022 was a slump year for me. I read 5 books between jan + oct, with the fifth book read in july so oof. and most of my reads were meh to forgettable. though I did discover an appreciation for audiobooks, especially star wars books because the sound effects are so stupidly fun. my favorite books in 2022 were legendborn and bloodmarked!

other goals: • finish 2 more books in the expanse series • re-read saga and catch up with the new stuff • review at least a quarter of what I read (I’d aim higher but I’m being realistic) • sort through unread bookshelves, read them or give away • do a buddy read • complete a few storygraph challenges • read more nonfiction outside of just memoirs • every year I say I want to join a new book club. maybe this will be the one!

[marnz]

5 and 17 for the book asks?

hello!!!

5. What genre did you read the most of? Storygraph says my main Genre is LGBTQIA+ so, that fits. One of my new years resolutions was to read more Nonfiction and that definitely happened, I read a lot of nonfiction, mainly nature writing type of stuff (or books on mount everest....) but it seems I was kind of tied between fantasy and contemporary or literary fiction. I felt myself moving away from fantasy/sci fi this year because I have been disappointed by many books I've read (not you, tamsyn muir, you're doing amazing and we're thrilled to have you) and I keep find myself reaching for literary fiction. i also admittedly have read a huge amount of teen wolf fanfic, another niche genre.

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were? the books coming to mind are things like Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, The Women's House of Detention by Hugh Ryan, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor (probably my top read this year), The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant (surprisingly suspenseful) and also honestly Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean. I also didn't expect to like The Searcher by Tana French. I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins made me go insane. Also I read Gilead, which was just as life changing as everyone told me it would be.

thank you, and happy 2023 💜

[oh-phineas]

RP RESOLUTIONS AND HABITS

Write your RPer Resolutions for 2024! (What are some goals for yourself as a writer? Improve descriptions? Plot with more members? Etc.)

Reading more! And not just RP stuff, but all kinds of stuff— fiction, nonfiction, fanfic, blogs, the news... but ALSO I would like to get better at keeping up with the dash. I think reading makes you a better writer and I actually do think I did a lot more of this in 2023 but I want to do it even more in 2024.

Follow-through, organization, keeping track of interactions and relationships (I know I put a version of this on every RP resolutions lmfao) There are so many great one-off interactions I have that I simply forget to follow-up about and then months go by and I'm like oh YEAH these characters interacted and it was great WHY did I let so much time go by without doing something new?!?!? Maybe there's a way to incorporate this into my tracker or something idk. I don't have a great solution here other than just being more mindful when I close stuff but I really do want to get better at this.

Quality over speed: I think sometimes I get so excited about putting something out in the world, whether it's a oneshot or a task or a reply to a thread, that I speedrun it when it might benefit from marinating a little longer. I'd like to slow down and smell the roses more this year!

Write at least one resolution, or “goal,” that you have as an RPer for your character(s)

Phineas: I want him to fail in some way! I think that'd be interesting to explore this year because things are going pretty well for him rn all things considered.

Tiana: Last year I talked about getting tempted by fame and fortune, this year I think I might actually be able to put it into motion! So I'll second that. Generally also just want to make sure I'm keeping up with some older relationships of hers, knights and stuff like that.

Aquata: Move her toward my goal of being involved in sports management stuff (y'know what she went to school for lol) with her work at the gym! Would also like for her to reckon with political stuff and what she's accomplished/hasn't accomplished on Board

Bruce: I hate to do this but I genuinely can't I'm sorry!!! But lots of growth and reflection and big decisions, that's all I wanna say at this point.

Anastasia: Introduce a new challenge with parenting Levi! I'd also like to delve a little more into her desire to get remarried because she's struggling with single parenting I think more than she expected to and I've written some stuff on that theme lately that I've really enjoyed.

Tanya: I haven't kept this a secret, she's gonna move on </3 But first I want her to get to a satisfying place in her relationships, which means working out her weirdness toward the Snow Quartz situation LMAO, maybe getting some closure with Penny, maybe open up a bit more about her past with Mim, stuff like that.

Mirabel: Get a little messy and #gayotic— she and Alice got into a monogamous relationship right off the bat and now I think it's time for her to explore. I feel like I kicked this off with Candace and now Penny but I want more stuff like that. Confront more of how she really feels about her history, and some family stuff that is #spoilers.

Lightning: I want to keep building toward him becoming a better person and rebuilding his relationship with Cruz! This year I also want to be better about portraying what's going on in the racing world because it's important and I sometimes let that fall by the wayside. I've realized in ruminating on his failures in his love life that he may need a female friend to tell him women's perspectives on things (sorry if that's reductive but he genuinely doesn't have any his own age and I think it would help him a lot LMAO)

Smee: Be a bad influence on the town's youth :D

Roz: Flesh out her relationships with Karen and Randall, maybe do some flashbacks??? I'd definitely like to do more RAS stuff with her, but also some regular situations where she draws on her RAS training. I think the big challenge with Roz is always Putting Her In Situations because she is an introverted/quiet character and you gotta be intentional with that sometimes so they don't stagnate.

Write at least one resolution IN CHARACTER for your characters. What do THEY want to accomplish or change in the New Year?

Phineas: Still get Build a Brand on the New York Stock Exchange! Be a good boyfriend to Fawn. Expand SPF and do more outreach. Launch that conference he and Pip were talking about?? Set up Ed with a hot new partner!! Be epic :)

Tiana: Beat Gusteau's Continue to make the restaurant a success! Be there for her friends.

Aquata: Get her certification to be a trainer, get her job on the Board back, protect the other merpeople of Swynlake

Bruce: Learn how to make tempura! Keep his Letterboxd up to date. Listen to more informative podcasts. Help the other merpeople of Swynlake.

Annie: Teach Levi something new. ...get a new husband, maybe.

Tanya: Leave everything on a good note :')

Mirabel: Master the basics of DnD! Pass her classes! Figure out wtf she's gonna do after next year...

Lightning: Become a better person (???)

Smee: Get the crew back together and get the hell out of this place

Roz: Assist the Swynlake RAS team and accomplish the Society's goals. Do something nice for Bob's birthday. Investigate new methods of sharing information among Swynlake Secondary parents?

List one or more characters you have never interacted with that you would like to do so

It's mainly new characters!!! Sorry folks the holidays have me running around like crazy!!!

Camilo - my cousin!! Let's flesh out that relationship!! Lots of exciting stuff coming up for the Madrigals so I think it'll be easy to make this happen

Tófi - insane that I have not written with our reptilian ruler yet. Something with Smee mayhaps? Let's throw those villains together >:)

Queen Clarion - I feel like we GOTTA throw her and Aquata together!!! I don't have a strong idea on this also but maybe something with Phineas because 1. he's a buffoon lmfao and 2. idk something to do with Fawn lol

Talk a bit about your plotting style – what plots are you most drawn to? Do you prefer to come with a fully-formed idea and plot off that, or throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks?

Plots I am drawn to!!!

I am generally pretty open-minded! I do a lot of silly little slice of life plots, hence my army of Mundus characters lmfao. I sometimes struggle with more intense lore-heavy plots but if you have an idea I am always down to clown just let me know what you need from me. I think I said last year that my genre is a sitcom episode (which doesn't mean there can't be drama and tears and magic!) because I am frequently very lighthearted but I like when things have a bittersweet emotional core. I like romance and shipping but I think my plots tend to more often be about friendship and family just because I write what I know and those are the big things in my life right now haha.

Also bears repeating from last year I think— I don't do smut but I'm always down for a steamy plot as long as we can fade to black or zoom out for the actual deed if that makes sense (I don't mind if we describe how the Scenario went, I just don't really want to get into the nitty gritty details basically). I think there is a lot of interesting stuff that happens around those situations and I'd love to explore that!

I also write a lot of fights and conflict and morally questionable characters, so as always, please feel free to come talk to me if an interaction is going an uncomfortable direction for whatever reason! At the end of the day this is supposed to be fun and I really want to make sure my partners are always having fun <3

Plotting style!!

I am a big fan of just throwing characters together to see chemistry vibes, especially if they have some interesting thing that connects them. This doesn't always lead somewhere groundbreaking, but sometimes it can be a good foundation and since my rping background before this was with a very plot-light group, I still like to use those improv muscles every now and than! So if we're in a thread like that and it's starting to stall sometimes I like to throw in a Quirky Situation lol.

With that in mind, PLEASE always feel free to let me know if you're not comfortable with the direction of something and we can retcon/walk it back/pause until we figure out the right direction! I hope that doesn't sound scary lol when I say "twist" I literally just mean like idk maybe my character suddenly spills their drink or maybe they say something goofy but I'd never want to ruin a thread for someone with something like that so yeah I am always flexible!!

ALL that being said, I am also always down to plot something out very specifically, whether it's a big arc or just a minor silly thing. Please don't feel like you need to have a fully-fleshed idea to approach me— I am always down to brainstorm. Sometimes I might ask if you have something in mind but if you don't that's totally okay! I just like to ask before I start taking over haha. I know I will frequently approach people like "hey I had this idea and I'm not totally sure how to accomplish it but if you're down to brainstorm...." and tbh sometimes I may ask if we can pause so I can noodle on something but again that's not due to a lack of enthusiasm that's just because sometimes my brain needs some time to marinate on an idea

Talk a bit about character relationships – what relationships are you most drawn to? How do you prefer to approach shipping (if at all!)? What, specifically, are you looking for right now for your character relationships? 

As I mentioned before, I write a lot of friend stuff and a lot of family stuff! I like when that stuff is complicated, when maybe communication has broken down or people struggle to understand each other or hurt each other even though there is love there. But I am also very happy with sweet chill relationships and I enjoy those greatly <3 I also write a lot of enemies! I'm very drawn to rivals and stuff that exists in kind of a gray area. I think it's fun when characters are wrong about each other or let their judgments and biases get the better of them.

I'm also down for a good ship! Ngl I tend to lean toward short-term stuff or at least relationships that change a LOT— I've never really done an endgame ship and I'm not opposed to them at all but I just don't have a lot of experience there! Honestly to me if a relationship is interesting I'll probably find it interesting whether they're together or broken up or friends or whatever. I always say this but I definitely need to be less shy about saying so when I ship something bc I tend to be a little shy lmaooo. But I promise I will never be offended if you don't ship something that I've said I do, as I've said we're all just here to have fun and I wanna work together to make a plot that works for both of our characters <3

Plotting Exercise! Pick one of the resolutions/goals in #3 and plan a rough guideline to how you could accomplish it. Here’s an example.

LIGHTNING LEARNS TO RESPECT WOMEN MORE

LIGHTNING attends a panel at Pride U on women's history month as a way to try and become more #educated and to help him on his #journey. Afterward, he approaches one of the panelists, QUEEN CLARION, and puts his foot in his mouth by trying to flirt with her.

HERA, overhearing the conversation, remarks that he's incapable of having a conversation that doesn't go a flirty direction, which he disagrees with. They make a bet.

To test the bet, they go to Pixie's. They relay the story to MARLIN, who is skeptical of Lightning but also offers some helpful tips about royal fairy protocol.

On the walk home, LIGHTNING and HERA actually have a deeper conversation about how LIGHTNING'S attitude is harmful. He confesses some of his reasoning for acting the way he does, but vows to do better.

Taking what he learned from HERA, LIGHTNING approaches CASS to apologize for how their date went. She quickly declines the idea of another date, but he clarifies he's just here to apologize— and they discuss whether they can eventually be friends.

At another town event, LIGHTNING once again runs into QUEEN CLARION and says something stupid— but this time, he remembers what MARLIN told him and manages to salvage the interaction.

He relays the whole story on a run with DOC, who rags on him but is ultimately proud of him.