#read those saunders stories

[wrishwrosh]

hey, i find your posts about historical fiction pretty interesting, do you have any recs?

anon this is the most beautiful and validating ask i have ever received. absolutely of COURSE I have recs. not gonna be a lot of deep cuts on this list but i love all of these books and occasionally books do receive awards and acclaim because they are good. in no particular order:

the cromwell trilogy by hilary mantel. of course i gotta start with the og. it’s 40 million pages on the tudor court and the english reformation and it will fundamentally change you as a person and a reader

(sub rec: the giant, o’brien by hilary mantel. in many ways a much shorter thematic companion to the cromwell trilogy imo. about stories and death and embodiment and the historical record and 18th century ireland. if you loved the trilogy, read this to experience hils playing with her own theories about historical fiction. if you are intimidated by the trilogy, read this first to get a taste of her prose style and her approach to the genre. either way please read all four novels ok thanks)

lincoln in the bardo by george saunders. the book that got me back into historical fiction as an adult. american history as narrated by a bunch of weird ghosts and abraham lincoln. chaotic and lovely and morbid.

the everlasting by katy simpson smith. rome through the ages as seen by a medici princess, a gay death-obsessed monk, and an early christian martyr. really historically grounded writing about religion and power, and also narrated with interjections from god’s ex boyfriend satan. smith is a trained historian and her prose slaps

(sub rec: free men by katy simpson smith. only a sub rec bc i read it a long time ago and my memory of it is imperfect but i loved it in 2017ish. about three men in the woods in the post revolutionary american south and by virtue of being about masculinity is actually about women. smith did her phd in antebellum southern femininity and motherhood iirc so this book is LOCKED IN to those perspectives)

a mercy by toni morrison. explores the dissolution of a household in 17th century new york. very different place and time than a lot of morrison’s bigger novels but just as mean and beautiful

(sub rec: beloved by toni morrison. a sub rec bc im pretty sure everyone has already read beloved but perhaps consider reading it again? histfic ghost story abt how the past is always here and will never go away and loves you and hates you and is trying to kill you)

an artist of the floating world by kazuo ishiguro. my bestie sir kazuo likes to explore the past through characters who, for one reason or another (amnesia, dementia, being a little baby robot who was just born yesterday, etc), are unable to fully comprehend their surroundings. this one is about post-wwii japan as understood by an elderly supporter of the imperial regime

(sub rec: remains of the day by kazuo ishiguro. same conceit as above except this time the elderly collaborator is incapable of reckoning with the slow collapse of the system that sheltered him due to britishness.)

the pull of the stars by emma donoghue. donoghue is a strong researcher and all of her novels are super grounded in their place and time without getting so caught up in it they turn into textbooks. i picked this one bc it is a wwi lesbian love story about childbirth that made me cry so hard i almost threw up on a plane but i recommend all her histfic published after 2010. before that she was still finding her stride.

days without end by sebastian barry. this one is hard to read and to rec bc it is about the us army’s policy of genocide against native americans in the 19th century west as told by an irish cavalry soldier. it is grim and violent and miserable and also so beautiful it makes me cry about every three pages. first time i read it i was genuinely inconsolable for two days afterwards.

this post is long as hell so HONORABLE MENTIONS: the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay by michael chabon, the western wind by samantha harvey, golden hill by frances spufford, barkskins by annie proulx, postcards by annie proulx, most things annie proulx has written but i feel like i talk about her too much, the view from castle rock by alice munro, the name of the rose by umberto eco, tracks by louise erdrich

[queenoftheferns]

I want to be a better writer so I started analyzing some books I like to see what makes them so good- taking a paragraph out of the book and studying the word choice and sentence structure- and you know what I found every. single. time?

it’s poetry. you can always tell that a good writer is very often a poet as well. the creative ways of describing things just out of reach? poetry. the way paragraphs flow better when each sentence has alternating amounts of syllables? that’s a poetry thing. George Saunders in his book “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain” said that (i’m paraphrasing here) language is limited and it’s like there’s this fence in between what we can describe with words and the deeper parts of the human experience that we don’t have the language for but long to express anyway. the writer throws themself against that fence, trying to break it, and fails. But that bulge in the fence that gives you just a taste of the other side? that’s what poetry is.

And, at its best I think fiction can be that as well. We tell stories and we slip in and out of that fence and wink and nudge our way to those wordless parts of humanity.

All this to say, I come from a family of poets and generally wasn’t interested in reading or writing it because it seemed to mystical and hard to understand. But now I’m realizing that to be a good creative writer I’m going to need to develop the tools of a poet as well, or at the very least read some poetry. And tbh i resent that

[drsaunders-irl]

What were you doing all those 40 years besides planning your revenge?

I don't understand from where those ridiculously private questions come from, but since you're curious... I see you’re looking for accuracy. Very well.

In those 40 years, I wasn’t just sitting idly, waiting. While Acronix was lost in time, I blended into society, assuming the identity of Dr. Sander Saunders. I became a historian, curator of the Ninjago Museum of History. I built a life, gained trust, and waited for the right moment.

All the while, I kept an eye on Ninjago’s progress and changes and discovered my own hobbies; the curator role was not a forced job like any other, I enjoyed it, and telling stories to youngsters which are curious in the past bring me...Joy.

I enjoyed the small things such as learning how to play piano. I have had enough time to read the books I never thought of trying. However...No matter what I did, I couldn't enjoy life as I used to, losing my brother was emotional torment.

...Ah. Well, but he's here now isn't he, need to make up for the lost time.

But don't be mistaken—every action, every step I took, was with one goal in mind: to prepare for the day when my brother would return and we could finally exact our revenge on Wu, and so I could see him again...

[panelshowsource]

Who would you like to see on BFQOTY that has never made an appearance before?

okay i always take these kinds of asks too seriously but pls bare with me!!

when it comes to panel shows there is a spectrum of preparation: on the far left is a show like mock the week, where literally everything apart from a very smol amount of relevant banter is pre-prepared by the panel (they're given the news stories & scenes we'd like to see ahead of time, the standup categories are chosen around their pre-written bits, and so on); and on the other end of that spectrum is a show like big fat quiz, where the only thing you really prepare is potentially a team name. so — to answer this question i'm thinking about people who are very willing and very good at joining in, people who will comfortably banter with jimmy, people who don't always wait their turn to speak (which works better on a show like, say, 8 out of 10 cats). obviously jimmy throws to each team whilst the teams' answers are being revealed, but for the show to really succeed you need a lot more chat and goofing around and camaraderie than that — so who are some of these confident, friendly, funny people?

well let's get this out of the way we need victoria on bfq right? it helps a lot she's irl pals with jimmy so their dynamic is very comfy and she would probably have so much to say about the news or even admonishing the amount of tiktok-related questions LMAO it's great to imagine her with david but also what about team victoria and lee mack?? THE PEOPLE NEED TO SEE IT

nicola coughlan, graham norton, alan cumming, catherine tate (omg catherine and lee...please GOD...), huge davies, get me a doctor let's go jodie whittaker baybay or our man ncuti, would love to see some drag queens like miss lawrence chaney and the viv of course but there are sooo many amazing uk drag stars, kathy burke, ed gamble, morgana robinson, maggie aderin-pocock

get me my man. joe wilkinson. put him with roisin and one white onion

fuck it go big or go home: jennifer saunders and joanna lumley, fry and laurie(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), tennant and sheen (or tennant and tennant frankly georgia ily), the mighty boosh???

wildcard answer jordan north and william hanson? is that just me? i know jordan has done celeb juice a few times and he was great but i also know in my soul william would be fucking good on a panel show, and their friendship is too sweet

cheating but i'd love to see guz khan back on but with a different partner? i fockin love sarah but strategically speaking for lulz imo that year i think it should have ben judi & guz and sarah & jonathan. i understand wanting to change it up and give us new kinds of teams but i don't think those were the people to do it with. also bring back charlie brooker i have charlie brooker withdrawals........ (charlie on wilty in a couple weeks!!! ahhh!!!)

i'd love to see so many people!!! okay i am done with the longest response ever (do you guys ever read these like 'girl just answer the question')! what about you?? who do you want?

[what-even-is-thiss]

Hey, saw your post about writing a novel.

As someone who wants to write novels, but currently can't due to lacking skill level, I'm trying to write short stories.

Any advice you could please give?

Well. You don’t need to be more skilled to write a novel. And you can learn to write a novel as you go. Short stories aren’t like a stepping stone into becoming a novelist. They’re an art form all in their own. If you’re seeing short stories as a training ground for writing novels, I’d suggest you just skip to writing the novel instead.

So if you actually want advice on writing short stories, honestly read a lot of short stories. People like Amy Hempel and George Saunders are examples of famous short story writers right now but there’s a lot more than the famous people. Pick up a lit magazine or buy a new short story collection from some indie publishers. There’s a vibrant short story scene alive right now in both literary and genre fiction.

And if you want to know what qualifies as a short story, it’s roughly a story you could comfortably read in one sitting. Probably less than 30 pages.

And after you’ve got your reading and definitions sorted, well, you just do it. Writing is one of those skills that has an exception to every rule so you mostly learn by doing. You’ve gotta suck a lot before you’re good.

Idk if I’m a great writer but I’m apparently at least good enough to be accepted into an mfa program. And I toss stuff all the time. Even after all my years of practice sometimes the writing flows and sometimes I write three words of garbage, scrap the Google doc, and go eat a sandwich.

Read shitty first drafts and then go figure out how you do the writing thing. Not how anybody else does it.

[oonajaeadira]

Confession: I've never seen Muppet Treasure Island. CALM DOWN I'm watching it right now.

Reason: Probably because while Treasure Island is a story in the collective consciousness, somehow I was sick that day and never read it or had much interest. And this movie came out at a time in my life when I wasn't really aware of what was happening in Muppet world.

But I'm watching it now because all you girlies seem to like it so, and because it is a big hole in my pop culture education. This has everything I should love...Muppets, pirates, Tim Curry...

HOWEVER.

Nobody told me that Billy Connolly is in this and I don't know who to be mad at because I have me a hardon for 90's era Billy Connolly. I eat him with a spoon. No. With my hands.

AND nobody told me that Jennifer Saunders is also in this and for those of you who don't know who Jennifer Saunders is, well, my Muppet Treasure Island hole is smaller than your AbFab hole and I'm sorry but that's a big hole you got there go get your Eddie and Patsy on and thank me later.

Anyway.

MUPPETS.

[justforbooks]

In her Reith lecture of 2017, recently published for the first time in a posthumous collection of nonfiction, A Memoir of My Former Self, Hilary Mantel recalled the beginnings of her career as a novelist. It was the 1970s. “In those days historical fiction wasn’t respectable or respected,” she recalled. “It meant historical romance. If you read a brilliant novel like I, Claudius, you didn’t taint it with the genre label, you just thought of it as literature. So, I was shy about naming what I was doing. All the same, I began. I wanted to find a novel I liked, about the French Revolution. I couldn’t, so I started making one.”

She made A Place of Greater Safety, an exceptional ensemble portrayal of the revolutionaries Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins, but although the novel was completed in 1979, it wasn’t published until 1992 – widely rejected, as she later explained, because although she thought the French Revolution was the most interesting thing in the world, the reading public didn’t agree, or publishers had concluded they didn’t. She decided to write a contemporary novel – Every Day Is Mother’s Day – purely to get published; A Place of Greater Safety emerged only when she contributed to a Guardian piece about writers’ unpublished first novels.

Genre is a confining madness; it says nothing about how writers write or readers read, and everything about how publishers, retailers and commentators would like them to. This is not to criticise the many talented personnel in those areas, who valiantly swim against the labels their industry has alighted on to shift units as quickly and smoothly as possible.

Consider the worst offender: not crime, horror, thriller, science fiction, espionage or romance, but “literary fiction”. It can and does contain many of the elements of the others, but is ultimately meaningless except as a confused shorthand: for what is thought clever or ambitious or beyond the comprehension of readers more suited to “mass market” or “commercial” fiction. What would happen if we dispensed with this non-category category altogether? Very little, except that we might meet a book on its own terms.

Is last year’s Booker prize winner, Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, a ghost story because its central character is dead, or a thriller because he has to work out who has murdered him? A historical novel because it is set during the Sri Lankan civil war, or speculative fiction because it contains scenes of the afterlife? And where do we place previous winners such as Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders or A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James?

Finding ways to describe narratives is not itself the problem, and nor is genre in the wider sense. An understanding of literary traditions that have formed over centuries and across cultures is not essential to the enjoyment of an individual book, but helpful to a broader appreciation of how texts interact with one another through recurring styles and motifs. The urge to categorise has had a deadening effect, reinforcing hierarchies that rely on an idea of what is “serious” and what is not, and by the genuinely liberating understanding of literature, in all its forms, as a playful, thoughtful, experimental tussle with words and ideas.

None of that means one mightn’t enjoy wandering down the forking paths of the literary woods. During the lockdowns, I found great comfort in psychological thrillers of a particular cast: a form of domestic noir in which the usually female protagonist’s apparently enviable life was undermined by a combination of unresolved dissatisfactions (a distant or otherwise problematic husband, a house renovation gone wrong, bills piling up, recalcitrant or troubled children) and an interloper, often in the form of a glamorous new neighbour. I was fascinated by the way these novels articulated a set of contemporary bourgeois anxieties – property values, long-term monogamy, school places, stalled careers – and then imagined how they might be alleviated by the arrival of a disruptor, only to discover that the status quo isn’t all that bad. Often set in smartish London suburbs, these books occasionally packed their casts off on holiday to a rented villa that not every participant could comfortably afford, and in which a body would quickly turn up amid the abandoned plates of tzatziki and glasses of retsina. I began to imagine that if I had the wit and skill to write a parodic mashup, I might call it Kitchen Island. But I don’t, because these efficient entertainments were also, at their most successful, impressively executed feats of plotting and atmosphere.

That I might feel these novels were, in that grimly joyless phrase, “guilty pleasures” because I read them more quickly than I might read the work of Jon Fosse or James Baldwin or Isabel Waidner is to misunderstand the potential of variousness. They were simply another facet of my reading life, speaking to a different impulse, yielding a different reward. I might eat a boiled egg for lunch and immerse myself in a complicated recipe of unfamiliar ingredients at dinner time; finish a cheerful romcom and then turn to a painstakingly detailed documentary. These are not perceived as contradictions, but as perfectly reasonable options available to those of us lucky enough to have them.

I’m returning now to a new novel, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, one of my favourite contemporary novelists. It is set in space, on board a craft circling the Earth, filled with astronauts from different countries and cultures, undergoing physical, mental and emotional changes. Her last novel, The Western Wind, was set in 1491, and she has also written about Alzheimer’s disease, Socrates, infidelity and insomnia. Categorise that.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

Have you ever read Borrasca?

Yes Anon, I read it.

I don't even know how to start this. My instinct is "Content warning" but like...where to even begin in terms of listing the content I would warn people about with Borrasca. I'll just say, that if you've already read it, you know what I'm about to discuss. If you haven't read it, do not go under the cut. Because it's better to experience this story yourself.

But only if you have the strongest of stomachs. You are not prepared and neither was I.

Still here? Okay. Content warning: Child sexual abuse, kidnapping/trafficking, (gruesome) murder, discussion of remains, infertility, incest, parental abuse, horror....did I cover everything?

I don't normally like creepypastas. I am not a horror fan. Never have been. It's easier to consume horror via reading because it ensures a lack of jumpscares but I still don't like it. The content all too often makes me queasy and just don't fit me. So it was fortunate that when I picked up this story, I had no idea it was horror. Because that genre just has telltale signs and, at least to me, those signs weren't initially there. It wasn't until the characters first visited the Treehouse that I began to feel uneasy, (especially the first instance of the Shiny Gentleman's "song of death") and not until Whitney disappeared that I knew the story would be dark. But then it throws you for a loop by doing that time-skip without any notification, no "Seven years later" etc. They just leave it to you to figure it out, House of The Dragon style, so it took me a bit to figure out what happened and that kind of wrapped up my attention. (Speaking of, as a major fan of the Thrones universe, a lot of this was stuff you'd think I'd be able to handle no problem, but that didn't make it any easier.)

Unfortunately, the story had fish-hooked me by this point and I wasn't going anywhere. One moment that properly stood out to me was Phil Saunders talking about all the missing people going in the ground, or, as he put it, "grounder." In hindsight, that is downright cruel foreshadowing, or maybe it was purely coincidental (but I doubt it) and it stuck out to me the first time. That whole sequence did, of him basically saying that when he got high, he would figure out that all these people going missing was no accident, and that everyone in town either knew, or chose not to know. For some reason, the "grounder" line stuck out to me, and the next time we heard the Shiny Gentleman, the description of it being metallic and everything just made me pause. I remembered the "grounder" line and...a truly horrifying thought crossed my mind about the place where bad things happen. And when I make obscure predictions about stories, I often wind up being exactly right. (It's a strange gift, I'd rather something useful like Sign Language or Tax Lax, but I digress.) What kept sticking in my mind was "Why?" I couldn't place who or why people were taken there to be put in the "grounder" or what they were wanted for.

Side note, a lot of my thoughts were wasted on trying to figure out the "skinned men." A masterful red herring with an actual explanation that works. I didn't think of the answer as a cop out, I just went "Ohhh...." The whole concept leads you on a wild goose chase to assume there is some sort of supernatural element to this story when there isn't, because reality is so much more frightening than fantasy. It all feeds into the Borrasca folktale, which helps build a mythos for the place and acts as a gateway for people in the town learning about it as they grow up without questioning it too strongly. Which is useful for things like the "song of death" which will be heard periodically but mustn't be something anyone overthinks. They ignore it, because they assume it's just a logging company up the mountain, or because they fear the whispers and legends about the "skinned men" and want nothing to do with it...or because they know. Or, even worse...they don't want to know. Like Tom Prescott said, the townspeople probably don't know everything, most of the time...but some of that is willful ignorance and complacency with a system that they must sense is rotten to the core. Even the more sympathetic characters like Anne and Meera, they aren't innocent in all this. Anne says it herself - everyone is guilty. Meera's refusal to participate in Borrasca to get a baby until she eventually wilts...that's not her "falling to the dark side." She was already there. Because clearly, she knew. She knew, and she did nothing. Then again...what can she do? What can any of them do? This is how evil institutions rise and remain in power. Complacency and hopelessness.

The other moment...I could call it prophetic, but like, I don't want to pat myself on the back. The story is just very well told. But I remember the moment, distinctly, that Graham Walker told Sam and Kyle that he would "never let Whitney go." And the wording...I noticed the wording. And I thought to myself in that moment, "You have her. I don't know how, but you have her." And it made sense. When children go missing, sometimes it's the parents who are behind it. I mean, we've all seen SVU, right? Up to that point I genuinely hadn't suspected Walker at all, because I just thought - if there is some deep conspiracy in this town, how could Walker be a part of it? He moved here, only a few years ago. But it's quite possible that he was involved with Drisking even before moving his family there because he did something "bad" that caused them to reassign him. Honestly, that entire act is filled to the brim with amazing foreshadowing. Like, the adults really shouldn't be talking about any of this or even hinting it around the kids - that's just a writing tool, right? Well, yes, but, all of the adults know and are either involved or they turn a blind eye, so it's the kind of thing they would want to introduce to the teenagers gradually - Owen and Meera's cryptic conversation about the "only other option." comes to mind. Especially Sam, as Walker undoubtedly wants to recruit Sam to the "business" even at this point, and so they have to start grooming him early.

Kimber. Probably my favorite character, though both her and Kyle are compelling. Kyle's fate may be the saddest part of the story, actually. But the entire journey of Anne's death, about the mysterious suicide note and the lengths Kimber had to get to in order to read it. The way her father slipped and mentioned it within earshot, and then all anyone could do was try to gaslight the kids into believing he never said that and there was no note. The way Kimber knew Prescott was involved but also just knew it wasn't an affair. Like, sure, she probably didn't want to believe Anne would do that, but it was much more than that too. The clues just didn't point in that direction - oh, and don't get me started on Tom Prescott's ravings, by the way...why did they put him in a home outside of Drisking if he's going to be ranting about Borrasca to anyone who talks their way into a visit? But I digress. Nothing made my heart pound more than Kimber's final texts. How she was so unresponsive for so long before just sending back "I found it." Like. She definitely had already read it, and was processing what she had been told. Of course, after being told that the police were coming to find her (complete with her father "objecting" to something with them) all she texts back is "They're here." And that's the last thing she sends, and jesus cartwheeling christ, that is basically proof that the cops kidnapped her but of course, Walker pretends he does not see it.

The foreshadowing is everywhere. There's a scene where Kyle says "She's my...my..." And Sam notes that he "still can't say it." Which, in hindsight...yikes. Like, the story itself stops short of saying what Kimber and Kyle are to each other. Obviously, Kyle meant "girlfriend" and that's what Sam understood. But rereading that moment is another punch in the gut. And so many of the most twisted reveals aren't actually reveals. A lot is left implied. You have to read between the lines and put the puzzle pieces together to figure some of it out. Like how the last baby born in the story is called "William" and then the Shiny Gentleman sings his song one more time. They don't explain what that means. But if you pay attention to the naming rule, then you know who William's father is. Whitney was putting out "shit babies" and Walker said he would "never let her go." He had to be the one behind her being sold to Borrasca, but he was seemingly the only one "visiting" her. I don't know how he arranged it that way but I know he did. They don't even directly confirm what the "Shiny Gentleman" is, if I recall. Oh, and Kyle and Kimber are an incestuous couple but honestly, that is the least of the town's problems and it's probably not a unique situation. They're all unknowingly unrelated, and it's not as though Kimber will be having Kyle's babies, right? Not in this town.

Like. Once you read it over again (or listen to one of the many live readings/podcasts) things become clearer. Jimmy Prescott is initially the worst human being in the story (and don't get me wrong, he's still a monster of immeasurable proportions, I cottoned onto that as soon as Kimber said he was checking her out when she was in fifth grade) but on a second consumption of the story...Graham Walker is the one I want to throw into The Shiny Gentleman, and he's never outwardly wicked the way Prescott and Clery are. He hides his darkness very well until his last scene and even then, he admits to nothing. Based on the scene where he tells Sam that he'll be taking the blame for what happened to Kyle, it reads in two ways. You think to yourself, he's definitely in on it, but on the other hand, maybe he just chugged the koolaid and is believing this town's bullshit over his own son. Until little William is born, and Anne's clue about the naming smacks you in the face. No, he's not just ignorant to the point of being part of the problem, he is so emphatically the problem.

Borrasca is...devastating.

It's horror, to be sure, but it's good horror, and I don't even come out of it scared. I come out devastated. Angry. Feeling hopeless. Because the villains win. The corrupt and wicked institution isn't going anywhere, because why would it? Prescott and Clery let Sam go, because why shouldn't they? The situation is under control no matter what Sam does. The entire town is either part of Borrasca or willing to turn a blind eye to it. Except Kathryn. I honestly believe she didn't know a damn thing and bless her for being a wholesome light in this dark facade of a town. There's nothing to be done except get the hell out of Drisking and never look back. To just try and forget.

P.S: I am aware of the sequel.

I didn't really talk about it here because I have mixed feelings about it. I appreciate the happy ending and god knows Sam and Kimber have earned it, but there were several aspects of the story that I just didn't enjoy. Don't get me wrong, the prose is as well written as ever, but the plot feels like wish fulfillment and without a mystery to drive the story I just wasn't as engaged. I mean, there was kind of a mystery but the answers didn't really click for me. While it's realistic and painful, seeing the way Sam treats Kimber is hard to read. It hurts. These two were best friends, and none of this is her fault. Obviously, she was a victim of Borrasca too. Also, I do not buy that Kimber would have ever trusted Prescott, even if he dangled Kyle's name before her. No way, no how. I don't know why Sam kept using his real name after he escaped, enabling both Kimber and Walker to find him again. I also think it's rather...I don't want to use the word "convenient" but the fact that he was best friends with a hacker...also, why would Borrasca have any records to begin with? Fine, fine, business and all, but why keep them for so long? Prescott talks about destroying all of them, including the backups, and it's like....motherfucker, why don't you do that on a regular basis? Why do you even have backups?

I also feel like the sequel just takes some of the dread out of the air by removing the ambiguity and the lies. Everything that was left implied in the original story is outright confirmed. Walker is shown to be the monster that we know him to be, when he never fully revealed those true colors in the original story. Ultimately, the idea that two people could walk into a criminal empire like this one and topple it so successfully, not to mention that they both survive...it just stretches my suspension of disbelief, especially for a story that has already established itself as gritty and heartless. I'm glad there's a happy ending out there for people who wanted one, and in my own way, I obviously wanted one too, but I remember being both sad and a little relieved that Kyle's years of trauma had taken physical toll on him and that he didn't just immediately embrace Kimber and Sam. Because there needed to be at least one bittersweet aspect to all of this, especially if they were getting Kyle back at all. Something about the way Kimber "reverted to her old self" and was even more than fine with physical affection again after the climax....like, no, that's not how that works, and the original story wouldn't have tried something like that. It's hard to explain but I just couldn't get into it in the same way.

[wildernezz]

you only just followed me but i saw your bio, so:

analyse me lol

finally got around to doing this. man, i really gotta get back on my analyzation grind. anyways this is the most i was able to think of. not sure how accurate it'll end up being, but hopefully i'm able to get some things right lolll. and if not, hopefully you at least enjoyed reading through it:

autism. that is the very first thing that strikes me when scrolling through your blog to analyze stuff and i just needed to get that out of the way as soon as possible. the autism is undeniable. and if you're not autistic it's some sort of flavor of neurodivergent. i'm putting my bets on autism though.

you're a very honest and straightforward person. you're very clear about your boundaries and what you're trying to express when talking about things. it's incredibly respectable and a really good trait to have, but i feel like sometimes you question yourself for it. it's hard to describe but i'll try touching more on it later.

i feel like you're not a very talkative person in real life. considering you have a lot of deltarune posts, a large part of me feels like you relate to kris. you also just give off those vibes of someone who's a little monotone, not extremely talkative, but can definitely ramble about the things you're interested in. i also feel like the story arc of kris is something you probably relate to. i haven't analyzed kris enough to feel solid in describing their trauma but i know something in that is something you relate to. especially with the conflict of identity and knowing who you are. i have no idea how to describe that in kris terms but i know it's there. 

rolling along with the deltarune ball, there's a whole lotta noelle in there too (which based btw, noelle is awesome). it makes me wonder if you relate to her too. maybe it's the overall anxiety she has, but i feel like it also ties into the idea of identity, losing yourself, or not completely knowing who you are. it's weird to describe because i feel like you do have a solid sense of who you are, it's just that every now and then you probably have some sort of moral crisis or existential crisis and it can send you spiraling if you think about it for too long. you seem like somebody who lives life the way that you want to, but there is still a slight underlying fear of both yourself and the world.

oh i just know you've questioned your gender a few times. maybe you haven't particularly dwelled on it for a long time, but i feel like you've def had that "maybe i'm not entirely cis" thought pop in your head every now and then.

this is honestly a tougher analyzation for me to pinpoint, but it's not because i can't tell anything about you, it's more like i could point at a character and go "that one's you" but i have no idea how to back it up lmaoooo. so here's some characters that i feel fit you but i have no idea why: Kris from Deltarune (duh), steve minecraft (idk why either), L from Death Note, Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby, both Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter from The Chosen (1987 movie specifically), and also a weird mix Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, and Maud Pie from MLP:FiM.

hopefully this provides something insightful and is at least semi-accurate. i usually do better analyzations on my @analyzing-people-like-hell account where i'm given a list of characters to work with, so if you want i'd gladly redo an analyzation over there. however i have been way off my analyzation grind so i make no promises on how long that'll take lolll. either way, my bad if this isn't all that accurate, but it was super fun to look through so thank you for the content B))

[mariacallous]

At the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv recently, I watched a performance of an opera by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko. The work, charming and comic and an escape from the grimness of Russian missile attacks, is called Natalka Poltavka, based on a play by Ivan Kotliarevsky, who pioneered Ukrainian-language literature in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. Operas by Verdi, Puccini and Mozart, and ballets such as Giselle and La Sylphide, are on the playbill, despite the almost daily air raid sirens. But there is no Eugene Onegin in sight, nor a Queen of Spades, and not a whisper of those Tchaikovsky staples of ballet, Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake. Russian literature and music, Russian culture of all kinds, is off the menu in wartime Ukraine. It is almost a shock to return to the UK and hear Russian music blithely played on Radio 3.

This absence, some would say erasure, can be hard to comprehend outside Ukraine. When a symphony orchestra in Cardiff removed the 1812 Overture from a programme this spring, there was bafflement verging on an outcry: excising Tchaikovsky was allowing Vladimir Putin and his chums the satisfaction of “owning” Russian culture – it was censorship, it was playing into Russia’s hands. Tchaikovsky himself was not only long dead, but had been an outsider and an internationalist – so the various arguments went. It took some careful explanation to convey that a piece of music glorifying Russian military achievements, and involving actual cannons, might be somewhere beyond poor taste when Russia was at that moment shelling Ukrainian cities – particularly when the families of orchestra members were directly affected.

In fact, such moments have been rare in western Europe. Chekhov and Lermontov continue to be read and Mussorgsky to be performed. Russian culture has not been “cancelled” as Putin claims, and Russian-born musicians and dancers with international careers continue to perform in the west – assuming they have offered a minimum of public deprecation of the killing and destruction being visited on Ukraine. Only the most naive would decry the removal of Valery Gergiev from international concert programmes. The conductor, who is seen as close to Putin, backed the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 (unrecognised by most UN countries), has declined to condemn the current full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and has a history of using his artistic profile in the service of the Russian state, such as conducting concerts in Russian-backed South Ossetia in 2008 in the wake of the Russo-Georgian war.

Inside Ukraine, though, things look very different. For many, the current war with Russia is being seen as a “war of decolonisation”, as Ukrainian poet Lyuba Yakimchuk has put it – a moment in which Ukraine has the chance to free itself, at last, from being an object of Russian imperialism. This decolonisation involves a “total rejection of Russian content and Russian culture”, as the writer Oleksandr Mykhed told the Lviv BookForum recently. These are not words that are comfortable to hear – not if, like me, you spent your late teens immersed in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Chekhov stories; not if you have recently rekindled your love of Russian short fiction via George Saunders’ luminous book, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain; not if you adore Stravinsky and would certainly be taking a disc of The Rite of Spring to your desert island.

The context for this rejection has to be understood, though: Ukrainians are emerging from a history in which the Russian empire, and then the Soviet Union, actively and often violently suppressed Ukrainian art. This has worked in a number of different ways. It has included the absorption of numerous Ukrainian artists and writers into the Russian centre (such as Nikolai Gogol, or Mykola Hohol in Ukrainian), and the misclassifying of hundreds of artists as Russian when they could arguably be better described as Ukrainian (such as the painter Kazimir Malevich, who was Kyiv-born but Russian, according to the Tate). It has meant that writing in Ukrainian has at times been proscribed – Ukraine’s national poet, Taras Shevchenko, was banned from writing at all for a decade by Tsar Nicholas I. This silencing has encompassed the extermination of Ukrainian artists, like the killing, under Stalin, of hundreds of writers in 1937, known as “the executed renaissance”. Behind all of this stands horrific events such as the Holodomor, the starvation of about 4.5 million Ukrainians in 1932-33 in their forced effort to produce grain on Stalin’s orders.

This history places Ukraine in a very different position in relation to Russian culture than, say, Britain found itself in relation to German and Austrian art during the second world war, when Myra Hess programmed Mozart, Bach and Beethoven in her National Gallery concerts during the Blitz. “We have had cultural occupation, language occupation, art occupation and occupation with weapons. There’s not much difference between them,” the composer Igor Zavgorodniy tells me. In the Soviet period, Ukrainian culture was allowed to be harmlessly folksy – and Ukrainians, caricatured as drunken yokels dressed in Cossack trousers, were often the butt of belittling jokes. But Ukraine was not expected or allowed to carry a high culture of its own. At the same time, Russian artistic achievement was lauded as the very apex of human greatness. “We were raised in a certain piety towards the Russian literature,” explains the playwright Natalya Vorozhbit, who was educated in the Soviet period. “There wasn’t such piety towards any other literature.”

Putin himself has effectively doubled down on all this through his constant insistence, in his essays and often rambling speeches, that Ukraine has no separate existence from Russia – no identity, no culture at all, except as an adjunct of its neighbour. Indeed, his claim of Russia’s cultural inseparability from Ukraine is one of his key justifications for invasion. At the same time the Russian instrumentalisation of its artistic history is breathtakingly blatant. In occupied Kherson, billboards proclaiming it as a “city with Russian history”, show an image of Pushkin, who visited the city in 1820. Ukrainian artists also object to how, in a more general way, the projection of Russia as a great nation of artistic brilliance operates as a tool of soft power, a kind of ambient hum of positivity that, they would argue, softens the true brutality of today’s invasion. In Ukraine, there is a generalised cry of “bullshit” in relation to the myth of the “Russian soul”.

Some Ukrainians I speak to hope that one day, beyond the end of the war, there will be a way of consuming Russian literature and music – but first the work of decolonisation must be done, including the rereading and rethinking of classic authors, unravelling how they reflected and, at times, projected the values of the Russian empire. In the meantime, “My child will be perfectly all right growing up without Pushkin or Dostoevsky,” says Vorozhbit. “I don’t feel sorry.”

For many Ukrainians I encounter, the time for Russian literature will come again – when it can be critically understood as simply another branch of world culture, and as neither an unduly oppressive, nor overwhelming, force. At the National Opera House, I ask the choreographer Viktor Lytvynov when he thinks Tchaikovsky – a composer he loves – will be back on the programme. “When Russian stops being an aggressor,” he says. “When Russia stops being an evil empire.”

[thundercrack]

ok joining the club... February reading report! I'm mostly just mouthing off... Read at your own risk!

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

Look, I'm a sucker for a classic. I'd been vaguely meaning to read this since I saw the Timmy Chalemet movie...and I generally have a tolerance for fairly long scifi/fantasy. I enjoyed the first maybe third of this book...and then I got bored (needless to say I will not be reading the next four Dune books although I did finish). Don't get me wrong -- I'm glad I read it. In many ways, Dune still culturally relevant, both within the world of genre fiction, and (especially because of the new film) in debates about orientalism, the Cold War, humanity, etc, etc. I found Herbert's explorations on this future version of Islam and future version of Arabic pretty interesting, but by the end of the book, I was really annoyed by the main character. There's a lot of really interesting discussion and criticism around this book, so I'm glad to be able to understand a little more of those conversations as well. Also, now I retrospectively sort of know what was happening in the movie!

I was too young to read this book. It was good; it was not for me. Revisit in thirty-five years.

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders

Why did I read this? I've never read any other David Mitchell. This book was an exercise in 1960s musical fantasy, where nothing goes wrong and the truest joy is from celebrity encounters, powered by the author's love for the era, rather than having anything to say. This was a book about a rock band going straight to the top, without any real interrogation into the cultural forces and pitfalls of the 1960s, weak characterization, random tie-ins with his larger universe, and next to no tension. I'll probably still read Cloud Atlas at some point, but this one is a hard pass.

This was one of my old roommates favorite books that I gave another go after DNFing in maybe, 2018? Again, I think this might be a book I'd like more if I were older. I thought the structure and format was well-done (I especially liked the history excerpts, of course); the story itself, I was maybe luke-warm on. I thought the prose was good (especially the dialogue) and the characters were interesting. I'm not entirely sure what's making me luke-warm on it, but I liked it enough to be glad I read it.

Human Acts by Han Kang (trans. Deborah Smith)

This was the best book I read this month, hands down. Maybe this year as well. Kang masterfully weaves together a number of stories around the Gwangju massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators. This book was at times, extremely brutal to read (and I would say I have a fairly high tolerance in text). It was clearly well-researched, well-lived, and well-considered. The topics it tackled were both grains of sand and the meaning of humanity itself. I really, really, enjoyed this book; I highly recommend it, and I definitely look forward to reading The Vegetarian in the future. Bonus reading: Han Kang and the Complexity of Translation

All The President's Men by Woodward and Bernstein

I constantly get this one mixed up with All The Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren (also good). One of my college friends had just read this and sent me a number of random updates throughout their reading, mostly focused on Woodward and Bernstein's....tense relationship. Like most Americans, I've been vaguely aware of Watergate my whole life (I even saw that movie The Post!), and I think this book really did a good job laying out the reveal of the story as well as sort of the in-house tensions that were going on. My copy (from the library) was the original 1974 edition, and I sort of wish that I had a more recent version with a little bit more distance on the events, but it's kind of fun to have been "right in there." I generally do like this style of expanded-reportage book (see Ronan Farrow's books, or in another genre, Jon Krakauer), and Watergate still looms so large in the American political imagination, so I'm glad I read this one too.

Beyond Babylon by Igiaba Scego (trans. Aaron Robertson)

This is a book I would have really liked to enjoy. I didn't. I kept saying to myself -- well, maybe it's just the translation that didn't work for me (the whole book was a bit clunky to read). There are a lot of really interesting themes in this novel (fluid identity, colonization, language, coincidence, politics, choice and nature, etc), interesting characters, play with language, a sweep of history that could have been fascinating. However, in practice, it didn't work for me. The different storylines sometimes were confusing, the plot at times eluding me, seemingly unnecessary tangents taking me nowhere. It was a slow read. There was just a lot here (and maybe it's just through my background that I was missing pieces)...and none of it quite fit together.

Murder by the Book by Claire Harman

Totally random book I picked up at the library. It's not really a topic or like...an era (the metropolitan center of Victorian Britain??) that I care about, but I was like, hey, cool cover, I want an easy read this week, etc. I thought it was well written and well researched, and I definitely learned some stuff about the literary scene of the era. It was also amusing how some of the debates around "base literature" are...pretty much the same today as they were in the 1830s.

Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim

Look, you ever read a book and you can just tell it was written by a Harvard/Yale/Princeton grad? Well, this was one. This book was extremely readable. It's got decent characters who are fairly easy to get invested in and a structure that pulls you through the text, all while set across a complex, divided, and rapidly changing backdrop of early 20th-c Korea. However, the narrative itself rung flat, and the book's promised complexity disappeared before I got through the second chapter -- it's almost a completely sanitized view of two very complex worlds: that of high-class courtesans, and that of orphans/gangs who become politically involved. Narratively things go wrong, but it's almost never because the characters make bad decisions -- except perhaps in love -- which collapses the once-promising characters. Also, it jumps from 1945 to 1964 at the end...not very successfully (the opening/closing of the book was extremely trite and not terribly well-done). This book was almost disappointing because it promised more than it could deliver, falling straight into the chasm of mediocre novels by diverse graduates of elite institutions. I didn't do it any favors by reading it so soon after Human Acts either, although they're very different novels.

The Thousand Crimes of Ming by Tsu Tom Lin

The advertising around this book does it poorly (do not go in expecting anything Cormac McCarthy-like LOL). Don't get me wrong, I liked this book -- I do enjoy a modern Western and I think Lin does a great job highlighting the role of Chinese workers on the expansion of the railroad, as well as the curiosities of the era through a fantastical magic troupe. The NPR review of this book highlights how each character plays with genre, which was true and definitely one interesting part of the novel. Thematically, I thought this book was interesting if a bit restrained, and the characters were neat. Unfortunately, though I enjoyed giving this one a read, at the end of the day, it's all a bit forgettable.

Dumb Luck by Vu Trong Phung (trans. Nyuyen Nguyet Cam and Peter Zinoman)

Tumblr bookclub read! Like I said to A and Rhu, I found the introduction "Vu Trong Phung's Dumb Luck and the Nature of Vietnamese Modernism" by Peter Zinoman more interesting than the text itself, but overall, I'm glad I read the book. It's always really interesting to read these sort of big, foundational texts -- even in fairly recent translation. I haven't read a lot of satire and really don't know that much about Vietnam before American involvement, but the thrust of the text was definitely quite interesting (and brutal -- one review described all the characters as antagonists) even if I didn't fully understand all the conversations, it was taking part in.

Heart of Darkness (3rd Norton Critical Edition) by Joseph Conrad (ed. Robert Kimbrough)

Confession: I think I'd read this before and almost entirely forgotten it. I didn't particularly enjoy the book and literarily, I'm not sure that I got what quality elevates it to a "great novel." I especially enjoyed the back-and-forth among several scholars (especially around Achebe) about its relationship to colonialism, inclusion in the canon, and European self-definition against Africa as a "primitive other." I'm glad I read it mostly because I feel like it gives me a better sense of the larger conversation around Leopold in the Congo and the literary/related discourses around the scramble for Africa. So, thematically, glad I read it; literarily, whatever.

The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden

The end :) maybe I'll do this again someday!

Another confession: I pick a lot of books by wandering around the library and just grabbing one that looked interesting. I did read Heart of Darkness before this for a reason. I quite liked reading this one -- I thought the narration was really interesting and the narrator's complicity in the brutality of Idi Amin's rule was neat. Certain scenes were very brutal (and the book was certainly well-researched). I felt like at times, the time-skips didn't quite work, but the general disconnect between Garrigan, his identity, and what was happening around him was interesting. I think I had to watch the film that was a loose adaptation of the book in class in high school. I think I could probably have some more interesting thematic and political comments on this one if I sat on it a little longer, but I'm kind of getting tired of writing this and also I finished it like, twelve and a half hours ago or something.

[uovoc]

But it's interesting - why did we make those cuts?

Well, we might say that we made them out of respect for our reader. By asking that series of questions ("Why is it meaningful for Jane to sit on a couch?" and so on), we were serving as a sort of advance man for a reader we are assuming to be a smart person, of good taste, a person we wouldn't want to bore.

Consider this passage:

Entering the restaurant, Jim saw his ex-wife, Sara, sitting closely beside a man who looked to be at least 20 years younger than her. Jim couldn't believe it. It was shocking to see Sara with someone so much younger than her, younger than Jim too, since he and Sara were the same age, so shocking that Jim dropped his car keys.

"Sir," the waiter said, "you dropped these," and handed Jim his car keys.

You may have noted your needle dipping into the N zone in there somewhere, maybe a couple times (a dip and then a subdip?).

Now consider this edited version:

Entering the restaurant, Jim saw his ex-wife, Sara, sitting beside a man who looked to be at least 20 years younger than her.

"Sir," the waiter said, "you dropped these," and handed Jim his car keys.

So, what just happened? Well, I cut "Jim couldn't believe it. It was shocking to see Sara with someone so much younger than her, younger than Jim too, since he and Sara were the same age, so shocking that Jim dropped his car keys."

The difference in the two versions is that the latter version has more respect for you, the reader, built into it. The ideas "Jim couldn't believe it" and "It was shocking" are contained in the action of Jim dropping his keys. I made the leap of faith that you'd assume Jim and Sara to be about the same aid. And process, I've saved myself and you thirty-seven words - about half the total length of the original bit...

A story is a frank, intimate conversation between equals. We keep reading because we continue to feel respected by the writer.

George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

[mumblingsage]

Another batch of terrible opening sentences for our shock and delectation!

Some of my favorites:

If there’s a snake in your boot, you dump it out by the creek, and if it’s got feathers, you dump it out in the creek, and if it’s talkin’ at you, you dump it out gently and apologize and keep an eye out for the mama dragon, and tarnation these city slickers don’t know the first thing about stayin’ alive out here. Mara Lynn Johnstone, Santa Rose, CA

(I'd actually read a book that started like this, even!)

After the unfortunate events involving the wicked stepmothers of Cinderella, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel, the city council set out to ban all men from remarrying until further notice. Ezra Greenhill, Portland, OR

***

The tall, slender seductress had Tom Pauley wrapped around her little finger, and she had James McGee hanging from a necklace, but the police were still waiting for the lab results to determine whose body parts she had used to make her earrings and that stunning tennis bracelet. Julian Calvin, Atlanta, GA

***

The second she stepped into my office I knew she was Trubble, Sarah Trubble, she was wearing a name tag and I’m a detective Phil Saunders, Barrie, Canada

***

It was a dark and stormy day easily confused as night (for it is December in Svalbard that our story lies) and probably not helped by all the Julebokk we had drunk, but when in Svalbard . . . Bill Anderson, Dublin, Ireland

(I swear I've heard Svalbard name-dropped more often this year than ever before in my life, but I digress...)

Draxyl’s breathing quickened—finally, in his hands he held the Sacred Jewel of Grondor, the key to the legendary Chamber of Secrets, the icon that so many had died for, and the perfect gift to win the heart of his beloved; the question now was how to fit all those things into his pockets without the shopkeeper noticing. Dave Agans, Wilton, NH

***

Buford The Bold was the last descendant of the proud Bold family and was particularly proud of how he chose to keep “The,” his father’s middle name. Marc Luban, Chicago, IL

***

The clouds drifted lazily through the crystal blue sky like cotton candy from last summer's county fair except that if a plane flew cotton candy the engine would ingest so much sugar that it would lock up the engine and force the pilot to make an emergency landing, perhaps in the river below where the body of a white male in his mid 50's with no identification floated face down, which is where our story begins. Ken Hill, Elkville, IL

***

It was love at first sight—he was tall and broad-shouldered, with a dimpled smile, twinkling green eyes, and in keeping with his combination of statistically unlikely but deeply alluring features, type AB blood, and that condition where cilantro tastes like soap. Ananya Benegal, St. Louis, MO

***

They had gone through fire and ice to be together, but the general mood of the wedding would have been improved if he wasn't suffering from second-degree burns and she hadn't lost several toes to frostbite. Eliza Frost, Bellingham, WA

(is "Eliza Frost" her real name or a nom de plume? Either way...)

There are many, many more through the link, some of them very silly.

[hearteyeshayley]

fic writer meme

the biggest thanks to fic writer queen @vinelark for tagging me :,) <3

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 61!

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 463,074 so less words than war and peace

3. What fandoms do you write for? for the last two years, Batman (with one unfinished Daredevil matt/foggy fic featuring Spiderman)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

No Hetero (the first Voltron fic I ever wrote, I also remember writing this fic with perfect clarity, like I became conscious of my writer brain when I wrote this)

Tim and Kon v. The World (I actually wrote this in like an hour while procrastinating sleep)

The Failure of Tim Drake (the first Batman fic I ever wrote)

Keith is Broken

Champagne Problems

5. Do you respond to comments? sometimes, when I post a new chapter I'll respond to comments on the previous one. But for every single comment, I get such a comment notification high <3 I've printed out several, too and they live on my bookshelf and provide joy and motivation.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I've never written a sad ending intentionally, but I have so many unfinished fics that end in the middle angst section. Of the fics that I'm pretty sure I'll never finish, I'd say my My Hero Academic fic Date Me (For Justice) which was my first attempt a really long fic and stops on such a mutual pining, getting blackmailed, sad note. Now that I'm writing this, I'm like-- I should finish that.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I love the ending of Sore Loser, and not just because it's a little spicy.

8. Do you get hate on fics? there's such a culture of, "if you don't like it, keep scrolling" so I've never gotten real hate, but I have gotten critique comments that point out places that I didn't get canon right and places where I contradicted the facts of my own story lol those guys are basically my beta readers <3 <3 <3

9. Do you write smut? Yeah, I actually started last year!

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you have written? Yeah, not really for Batman, but I have in the past. The craziest is probably my Wandavision Supernatural crossover.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I think the second fic I ever posted (Spideypool) which couldn't have gotten more than like 1,000 reads, I got a comment that was like, "just so you know someone posted this on Wattpad."

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, honored that someone translated Tim and Kon v. The World into Chinese!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No but I'm so down for real, that sounds fun!

14. What's your all time favorite ship? You'd think by my ao3 stats, it's TimKon-- but I write fanfic for things I wish were different. There's a lot about their canon dynamic I love, and their fanfic is top tier, but for my favorite canon ship I'd probably say like Percabeth (especially with the Disney plus show, they're so back)

15. What is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Probably my Daredevil Matt/Foggy High School au. I'm just not that into Daredevil anymore. I have so many Batman WIPs, but when I think of them I'm like, one day I'll finish it, baby!

16. What are your writing strengths? I love how I write banter. I also like to think that I give the supporting cast or characters who might be reduced to comic relief their own interior life and mini arcs-- but that might be more aspirational than actually in my writing as of now lol. I think I also write friend groups really well!

17. What are your writing weaknesses? structure, and related to that pacing. Also, the way I shy away from editing even though writing is rewriting or whatever that saying is. I'd say there's like five fics of mine that I've genuinely edited, but I'm working on it. I've been reading such a great book about writing lately called A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders, and I highly recommend it.

18. Thoughts of writing dialogue in another language in fics? I think the only time I've done that was in one of my Supernatural fics. I wrote Eileen, who's deaf. Originally, I put all her dialogue in italics to signify it was being signed. But I got such a kind and helpful comment on that fic being like it's weird and frowned upon to have her ASL lines formatted so differently, so I changed it! I think if I ever did another language again, I would research it more thoroughly first.

19. First fandom you wrote for? it was on fanfic.net and it was Percy Jackson, he and Annabeth were middle aged (which I obviously had great insight into at 15) and the main character was their daughter. Although as a child, I would write my own episodes of my favorite tv shows which was way before I knew what a screenwriter or fanfiction was. I love that one of my oldest instincts is to create the shit I wish I was seeing.

20. Favorite fic you have written? Hm, of my completed fics, I'd say a tie between To All The Vigilantes I've Loved Before and Capture the Flag (to the Death). I like the first one because it's the longest romance I've finished (at 27k) and there are certain scenes I really love. The capture the flag one I like because it feels the most like a real miniseries DC would publish (out of everything I've written) and I'm really proud of the ways I hid each of their flags and all the betrayals.

I'm tagging @thief-of-eggs <3 and anyone else who wants to do this! ~ please tag me in your post because I'm always looking for and loving writer mutuals <3

[sugiwa]

books & fics recommendation sugi????

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders: one of my all-time favorite authors and a tremendous book that made me cry in public.

Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon: I do wish that this was two books rather than one, but it was a great read and very well written.

Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee: I read this one in college and it remains one of those stories that stays with you.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong: the command over language in this is stunning and poetic.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones: one of my faves and just a comfort read.

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke: Childhood favorite. I loved this more than Harry Potter and was forever bitter that it wasn't as popular 🤧

Fanfics: My AO3 page has bookmarks on stories I'd recommend from some of my writing friends/things that I came across and liked, so feel free to browse those. I don't read as much fanfic as I used to cause of work/life/ my own writing, but if anyone's got recs that they've read or are writing, I'm very happy to make the time. I do usually comment, so there's one plus 😊

[scholarlypidgeot]

Interview with Patrisia Suanders

RR: Thank you for joining us today, Ms. Saunders. You don’t mind if I record this? 

PS: Oh, no. We can’t rely entirely on our memories to hold onto these kinds of things. Will this be shared? 

RR: By a wider audience, but not one you would know. 

PS: Good. Although it does make me a little nervous, talking to an audience of strangers. 

RR: Perhaps less strange if we introduce you! Interview of Patrisia Suanders - 

PS: Pat, please. 

RR: Right. Interview of Pat prior to her presence within Crimson, the first novel of the Prism series. 

PS: A very small presence I’m sure.

RR: Any presence, however small, is significant. For those who don’t already know, how old are you? 

PS: Twenty-three this year. 

RR: And your occupation? 

PS: I’m a seventh year Keeper apprentice at the Adelise University in the Seat of Iron and Silver. 

RR: What’s your living situation there? Is there any kind of on-campus housing? 

PS: There is, which I used for the first few years after coming up from Brydlen. It’s for first- and second-years, though, so I had to find a new place a few years back. I found it at the Three Perytons Inn, about an hour’s walk from the Seat. 

RR: That seems like a long commute. 

PS: It’s not so bad, and on bad weather days you can usually call a cab. Besides, I like the area the Perytons is in. There’s a cafe about twenty minutes out along a few sidestreets where I can usually study in peace. 

RR: Do you have any kind of roommate? 

PS: No, nothing like that. I’ve got a single bedroom accommodation with access to the kitchens, along with a few other amenities. Over the years I’ve gotten to know the proprietors, though. The Blakes have been very kind to me. 

RR: Tell us about them. 

PS: Eva is the main proprietor, while her husband Ren takes care of any kind of maintenance about the property. I didn’t really get to know them until about… five months into my stay. I was doing some study in the library when one of their boys found me and was just bursting with questions about my project. It wasn’t the same as my current research – it was my smaller project on the symbol of the peryton in Brydlenesse cultural folklore – but before I knew it two others had turned up and I had a captive audience. Or rather, they had a captive Keeper. They must have told Eva about it because she mentioned it to me the next day, and that’s how we struck up our first real conversation. I’ve been more or less integrated into the family since then. 

RR: Is the library your favorite part of the inn? 

PS: Yes! While it’s much smaller than the libraries in the Seat and especially at the University, they’ve got quite the collection of odd books for guests to read. I’m not the only student living there right now, and I think it helps that they’ve got books written in the Golden language. 

RR: That’s rare in the Seat? 

PS: Yes, actually. The Seat has access to every library in the Iron and Silver Empire, but with ongoing tensions over the border in the Protectorates it’s something of a rarity to find books about them and especially Aurbea. Ren – Mr. Blake, that is – even speaks some Aurbean, which is fascinating, but he won’t tell me why. He’s been teaching me some of it, though, as long as I don’t pry. 

RR: Does your average day see you in that library often? 

PS: Not anymore. While I do still spend time there I’ve gotten through all but the Golden books from cover to cover. You’re much more likely to find me in the University library between classes, or studying at Dunnson’s. 

RR: That’s the cafe you described earlier. 

PS: Yes. 

RR: Do you do any work for a living? 

PS: Nothing professional since I started my final research work, but I’ll pick up odd jobs for Eva and Ren. During busy months I’ll be behind the counter at Dunnson’s. I guess you could say that outside of my student career, where I get some jobs Keeping and telling stories from time to time through my program, my main source of income is leatherworking. I work primarily with deerhide, since we raised herds of them on my father’s ranch while we were growing up, but I’ve learned to work with just about anything else too. And I’m not half bad at embroidery. There’s a tailoring shop much closer to campus where I can work for an hour or two between classes, and then after school and on my days off. 

RR: It sounds like you don’t necessarily work for money, though. 

PS: Money is a necessity, since coins can get you pretty much everything else, but I don’t think it’s as important to a vocation as self-fulfillment. If your work brings joy to you or someone else, and you have enough to survive by, you don’t need too much more. 

RR: You could use money for travel. 

PS: You’re right, I could. In fact that’s what I plan to do once I’m a fully fledged Keeper if I don’t find work as a personal attendant somewhere.

RR: Well, money wasn’t a concern, where would you travel? 

PS: Oh, there are so many places. The old Silver capital in Zanomia – the one right near the border of Brydlen? – that’s one of them. My parents took us there once when I was a child but I’d love to go again on my own. I’d like to travel the countryside along the main road on horseback – I’ve got a whole mapped plan between there and the Basin city across the border to the north, New Adrenee. I think it’ll be the first place I go after I graduate. Assuming I don’t find work right away, of course. 

RR: Well, that’s the space we have for this part of the interview. Thank you for your time, Pat, and we’ll pick up here next time. 

PS: Thank you! I look forward to the story I’ll help tell!