#second-person purple prose be upon ye

[thedragonagelesbian]

The Long Way Home

You watch the fire in the rearview mirror. There is a comfort in losing sight of the specifics of your mistakes: the decimated house, the buckling grain silo, the flaming wreckage of a truck, the jagged maw of split earth like Harborview itself had been trying to reach up and swallow you.

The broader picture remains, though, as a stubborn orange haze still smoldering on the horizon, streaked through with the blue and red of emergency response vehicles. It’s clinging to you too, in the ash and soil and tiny flecks of blood still caked under your fingertips. Not your blood, of course, but Gwendolynn’s, a lingering remnant from when you tried to heal her bullet wounds because that too would have been a comfort, apology and recompense all in one. To touch her there, grazing metal and copper, meant you would not have had to acknowledge the other wound.

You would not have had to acknowledge that you nearly lost control of your magic. That you would have, had she not touched you, one hand on your back to settle you and one hand on your outstretched arm to guide you. That you lost control anyway, so Gwendolynn had to take your sputtering failure into herself.

You would not have had to acknowledge any of that, were it not for the way your magic made the smear of burns along her forearm blossom into a gnarled, flame-licked scar.

Ultimately, then, the receding optics of the farm can only bring you so much comfort. For as far as you may drive, there is no distance you can put between yourself and what you’ve done. Eventually, you will have to go through it.

Knowing this, you’re ready with your response by the time that your driver, Moony, clears his throat.

“That was…” Morgen ‘Moony’ Roonie is as unlikely an acquaintance and amateur monster hunter as they come, decades older than you and constantly filtering the world, magical or otherwise, through the lens of his bizarre but harmless conspiracy theories about disappearing lawn statues. You can handle that, though, more than you’re equipped to handle Gwendolynn right now. “That was something…”

“I ought to be the first to apologize for how I behaved back there,” you reply, referring not to the fires but everything that came after. The obsidian monolith with its tendrils in everyone’s minds. The shouting as you and Moony squabbled about what to do with it. Your flailing, feeble efforts to justify preserving it without revealing that the Daybreak Corporation had asked you to. Gwendolynn throwing herself in front of the stone to keep Moony from destroying it— why she cared so damn much, you still don’t know, but she was willing to die for that stupid thing, and it was fixing to drag her into oblivion with it, so you stepped in. Saved her. Shattered it like you had broken so much else with just a touch and a thought of spark and ruin as the whole world shook above you.

Then, you pocketed that last sliver of hued rock to deliver to your betters, but you’re not apologizing for that right now.

“Things like that,” with a sower’s expertise, you weave between truth and obfuscation, “things that old and powerful, fixtures of Harborview, like the church… they give me all sorts of funny mixed up feelings. Makes it hard to know what I want.”

Attachment is a hard thing to throw away. You know because you’ve tried plenty hard. For years, you’ve nourished and cultivated the resentment inside of you until it festered into the rotted purity of hatred toward every inch of Harborview. 

But the attachment lingers. Nat reminded you of that. You spent the last three, blissful weeks with her salvaging those memories that had remained unspoiled: the store at the Docks where you bought her that big floppy sun hat she loves so much, the lighthouse the two of you used to break into with your best friend Zak, the Waffle House where the cheerleaders, the band, and the baseball team congregated after games, and the jukebox at its front where Nat used to belt rock standards and shake her hips and look oh so terribly good.

You don’t know what you want.

“Well, I still think we did the right thing, in the end,” Moony replies, and you savor the certainty of his long, slow drawl. “Still, that don’t much excuse yelling at you while waving a pickaxe in your face.”

The pickaxe did not unsettle you nearly as much as Moony shouting over and over again “there’s something you’re not telling me” or Gwendolynn spitting “is there something you’d like to share with us, Adelaide?”

You coax a smile from yourself all the same.

“Fair enough, though you’ve seen what I’m capable of. I can hold my own in a fight.”

“That you can,” he says with a chuckle. “I wouldn’t want to go up against you.”

“You handled that pickaxe pretty well, though. You really did a number on that rock.”

“We did the right thing. Trust me.”

“I do trust you, Moony.”

It almost passes for normal conversation, and not the musings of two would-be monster hunters who were at each other’s throats just minutes ago debating whether they should, in fact, be hunting this particular monster. You are inclined to crack a joke about just how bad you are at this. It is, after all, pretty fucking funny how many lives have depended on the three of you despite the group’s obvious dysfunction: your repeated defiance of Gwendolynn’s insistence that fire not be your first resort, Moony’s penchant for wandering directly into danger against express instructions, Gwendolynn’s caginess and her dogged, unerring commitment to her own martyrdom.

But for all your many crossed wires, you do trust Moony and Gwendolynn. You would never dare undermine the weight of that. You’ve not trusted anyone but yourself in a very long time. Even that trust was recently earned and hardwon: you forgot it for a bit, how to have faith in your breath, your body, your mind.

You once told Moony you got your start practicing magic with bindings and barriers. That was the first magic you encountered, yes, but it wasn’t the first you did yourself. Your real start was a trick you taught yourself to keep from drowning when the fear and loneliness and grief caught you like the undertow: how to forge a life raft of silver and blood. 

You’ve held yourself together for so many years with just the scar tissue on your thighs, and it wasn’t until you met Moony and Gwendolynn that you realized how much strength that took.

Trust means that that strength doesn’t have to be all your own anymore.

And as the faint lights of Harborview emerge from the darkness, demarcating a horizon you cannot otherwise see, it is that trust that compels you to say, “Moony, you mind if I ask you something? It doesn’t really have much of anything to do with what just happened, but… it’s been on my mind for a bit.”

“Oh? Sure. I actually got something I want to ask you too. But, you go first.”

“You went to school with my dad, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, ’course I did. Harborview High Class of… eh, gosh, what year was it again?”

“What was he…” The question starts fast, but just as soon as you begin it, you watch its end stretch out in front of you, and suddenly you cannot get your mouth around it anymore than you can keep the tide from receding. Rather, it is the question that finishes you, coming back in as the undertow wrapped around your throat and choking out your last breath as a quiet prayer: “…like?”

Who was Wyatt Dellouise before becoming the man who ruined your life?

You have the mythos you’ve built in your head. In those early days when you barely ever left your bedroom, you had little else to do but string together half-remembered anecdotes and wishful fantasies until they took the form of your infidelity. You thought he might have been awkward and gangly. Or else stoic and obnoxious, preaching to any peer unlucky enough to find themself caught in his orbit. Maybe he was even a bully and a nark who rattled off sermons for every slight transgression.

The specifics don’t matter: you’re just hoping Moony will sanctify your blasphemy.

Instead, he says, “Popular.”

You blink, hard.

“Yeah, yeah, you know,” Moony continues, “he was real popular. Wasn’t the star football player or nothing, but he was the jock everyone knew. And, y’know, he was nice enough to me and Tubbs. We didn’t interact all that much, but we got on alright whenever we did get to talking. He didn’t bully us or nothing, wasn’t an asshole athlete like some of the others.”

You are staring up at the night sky. Faint pinpricks of starlight fight to shine through wisps of smoke still curling from the fires— some of which you started, all of which somehow feel like your fault. Most nights, though, the whole Milky Way opens up above you. When it isn’t cloudy or storming, a crack runs through the universe itself, silver and blue and purple and reaching.

Back when your dad still thought he could just talk you into staying, he would take you stargazing. He once rented a boat and took you out on the ocean in the calm summer twilight to watch the sea and sky blur together.

He told you, in that soft stupid apologetic mumble, like he had never once himself enjoyed that same natural splendor he was leveraging against you, “they don’t have stars like this anywhere else, Addie.”

You can’t breathe.

How could he have ever been anything else?

“Did you—?”

“I was wondering—”

You both stumble to a stop, and you feel the pressure building in your chest, warming your cheeks and tightening your throat.

“Sorry,” you say quickly, “sorry, I suppose it ain’t fair if I get to ask you two questions and you only get the one.” And it is a stupid question anyway, with an answer you’re not sure you’re ready to hear.

“No,” Moony assures you, “no, it’s okay, you go ahead.”

You swallow, and now you cannot avoid it.

“Did you know my mom too?” When you blink, you see the smiling statue built over her grave. You’ve never been able to remember much else: the hem of a long jacket, a sly laugh, a wordless voice full of vigor. “Melanie?”

“Oh, sure! Melanie. Yeah, she was about the smartest woman I ever met. Y’know, only time Harborview High ever made it to the state quiz bowl was ’cause of her. She and Wy, well, they put up a good act, playing like they hated each other, but we all suspected something. Y’know, she used to tell him he was all brawn and no brain, and he’d call her bookworm and the like, but it weren’t much of a surprise to anyone when they got hitched.”

“That… that sounds about right.”

You say it because you don’t know what else to say. Because it sounds like the kind of thing you’re supposed to say, like the throughline should have been so obvious as to be self-evident. Of course this was who he was, who they were, of course they never hated each other the way you told yourself they did, of course he was just a boy once, and a young man in love after that.

So why can’t you see it? If the line between past and present is so neat and clean and obvious and right, why are you trembling trying to keep it straight in your head?

Is it you? Maybe it’s you who’s wrong. Maybe it’s always been you, something about you that changed him, made him do what he did to you.

Your mind flashes to that statue in the cemetery: its chiseled benevolence and granite serenity, its hands sculpted into a perpetual fold of piety. If you die here, is this how your daddy will memorialize you too? Sand down the rough edges until all that’s left is the placid smile of a dutiful daughter already six years in the ground?

Moony is driving slow now, the car trundling past the gold neons and sleek flashing signs of Daybreak’s corporate cathedral which marks the outskirts of Harborview proper.

“Now, Adelaide, I gotta ask you…” he says, just as slow as the vehicle. “You keep mentioning… barriers and binding and the like, this kinda magic that keeps folks stuck somewhere. I know you said that’s how you got your start with the whole…” He makes a low whistling sound, followed by a bassy boom imitating an explosion. He smiles at his impression of your powers, but the joy fades fast as his brows furrow and his mouth tightens. “Is there… is there something else going on that I should know about?”

“You wanna know the truth, Moony?” You don’t want to give it, but you think you can still spin this, towing the line between soul-bearing and obfuscation like you did with your motivations for destroying the rock. “When I was eighteen, just a bit after my birthday, I got in my car and I drove up this very road, got a little bit past the Madison’s farm back there, and crashed into…” you pause like you don’t know how to describe it, like you haven’t spent the last six years throwing yourself against it, “something. Some kinda magic barrier.” You shrug like you don’t know anything else, like the story ends here. “And I haven’t been able to leave Harborview ever since.”

The car rolls to a stop at the first stoplight in town, sandwiched between suburban housing and Moony���s place of work, the Yard and Sale lawn emporium. When the light flicks green, though, Moony doesn’t take his foot off the break. The car hums in place through another light cycle. When you glance at him, you see his knuckles have blanched white around the steering wheel.

“Did…?” His voice comes out phantasmal and quiet. “No… Did he…? Was it…? Was it Wyatt? Did he do this to you?”

You feel your heart like a rabid dog. It is still tethered to your chest by a fraying string, but it snarls against your throat, desperate to sink its teeth into your jugular.

What else are you supposed to say?

“Yeah.”

“Shit…”

“Yeah.”

Tears burn your eyes as you pull your knees up and curl in on yourself. You’ve held this truth so close to your chest for so long you feel something tear inside your ribcage as you loosen your grip on it. It is one thing to go through your life as a ghost, walking through hollowed-out ruins that others insist are whole, beautiful structures. It is another to finally see someone else standing with you in the debris, and that recognition still hurts. Not like drowning, not like burning, but like ripping away a band-aid while the wound underneath is still bleeding.

Your world has already ended once. This is not the end of a world but rather the impression of one, the end of a story you could once tell others about the kind of man your father is not because it’s true but because no one has ever believed anything else.

And sometimes, on your worst days, during your absolute bedridden nadirs wasted wondering if it would be easier to just give up, you tricked yourself into believing it too.

Behind you, the wail of sirens announce the ambulances that have followed you back to Harborview. Moony runs the red light and pulls over to let them stream pass, but even as the blaring recedes through the darkness, he lingers there, letting the car idle.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last. “Adelaide, I’m so, so sorry…”

What else is he supposed to say? There are no words, magical or otherwise, powerful enough to pull the glass and metal out of your eighteen year-old corpse— Wyatt already tried that trick in the hospital after the car accident. The apology can’t fix anything, not really, but it can soothe your frantic, feral heart. It can wrap itself around you and hold you tight as the tears start to fall from your eyes.

“It feels good to say it out loud,” you mumble at last. “Nice to tell someone… I’ve never told anyone… I spent so many years watching half the town show up to listen to him every week that I…” Your voice cracks with the weight of something it cannot hold as you think of them, your so-called family friends who knew you and Wyatt had been fighting, who knew how excited you were to go off to college, who didn’t so much as bat an eyelid when you didn’t. “I got so used to thinking no one else would care…”

Moony is silent as he eases back onto the road, following Main Street down toward the Docks, toward home, which currently takes the form of Gwendolynn’s inn, the Cuddly Rockfish. You don’t expect him to say anything else, though, and you don’t need him to either. It’s enough to have finally unshouldered some of the burden you’ve been carrying for so, so long. Even if it’s left your sternum popped open and your heart raw and exposed and aching in the salty sea breeze, you know that Moony cares.

You know that Gwendolynn will care too.

It is a new thing for you, to be loved without being smothered.

Or, so you thought.

“Is that what you meant by April? You wanna get out of here by April?”

At first, there is a wash of relief. You can finally admit that you have been trying to get out, and more than that, you can get Gwendolynn and Moony’s help.

And then, the fullness of Moony’s words slam into you, and the light in your stomach goes out like a blown match, all curling smoke and hard wax and cold, coiling dread.

“What do you mean by April?”

April is what Nat told you. April is when she comes back for good, when you have to be good too because you cannot get her involved in this. She can’t see the truth of this world, magic and monsters alike lurking in the shadows and you more monstrous and magical than most. April is when you have to escape because she can’t see what you do to get there.

Moony stares at you with a frown.

“It’s okay—”

“How do you know about April, Moony?!”

April is what Nat told you when you were alone with her in her old bedroom, drunk and taciturn as she pleaded with you to talk to her, clamped up around precisely this truth because you did not trust yourself not to break down and bleed out like open floodgates.

“Well, Gwendolynn told me all about—”

“She what?!”

The tether breaks. Your heart scrabbles over your lungs and up your throat, clawing at your windpipe and slicing through your tongue and pressing against your clenched jaw like it wants to pop it out of its socket and suck the marrow of your mandible.

“She let me know everything, y’know, about her listening in on that conversation you had with that old friend of yours on New Year’s Eve and…” Moony trails off, his voice growing quieter with every word until you hit the intersection where you should turn right onto the Docks. “And Gwen never told you…” 

No, you would have remembered Gwendolynn mentioning she had been spying on you. Watching you. 

You’re quaking now. 

You brought her to that party because you needed her help, because you couldn’t trust yourself but you could trust her to take care of you, and she didn’t say anything. Didn’t follow up. She saw you in Nat’s bedroom fighting not to fall apart right then and there.

And she didn’t care. Doesn’t care.

“She promised…” Moony whispers, so soft you think he’s more talking to himself. “She promised me she’d tell you… Damn it, Gwen…”

You stare out the window down the stretch of shoreside road that is the Docks. In the faint glow of a streetlamp, you can just make out the Cuddly Rockfish’s storefront, slanted and distorted at this angle, its awning casting a warped shadow across the concrete of the sidewalk. It reaches toward you, and your chest tightens.

This, this does feel like drowning.

But you’ve swallowed your fair share of salt water over the years, so you swallow another and clear your throat and say, “I think… I think I could use another place to stay the night.”

“Yeah…” Moony is turning the car around even before you finish your request, “yeah, you can come back home with me. You stay as long as you need.”

“Thank you…”

Neither of you say anything on the drive back through town. The sky is clearing up. The streets are quiet. No ambulances, no fire trucks, no fires, no nothing.

Mercy be, you hate this town.

But for the first time in six years, as you’re pulling into Moony’s driveway, someone tells you exactly what you’ve been needing to hear:

“We’re gonna get you out of here, I promise you, Adelaide, we’re gonna get you out.”

[sister-lucifer]

HEY, YOU

Yes, you!

Do YOU like the idea of a gay polyamorous romance taking place in a fantastical medieval setting?

then you might like my upcoming original written series, Royal Courting!

Featuring the following cast of characters:

Lucian Hensley

A fair skinned, pudgy baker standing at about 5’4 with hazel-green eyes and a thatch of dirty blond hair that falls in thick curls around his freckled face. He’s usually wearing his beloved handmade crocheted sweater, the same color as his eyes, despite the wear and tear it’s received over the years. Nothing he wears is particularly fancy, but it’s all very well loved and cared for.

Though he’s not ashamed of the weight he’s gained from the years of sampling his own baked goods, he’s easily flustered by any sort of comments on his physical appearance, regardless of how mild, possibly related to his gender identity as a transgender man. He’s humble and incredibly kind, sometimes to a fault. 

King Ambrose Verlice of Divestia

A dark skinned, slim man standing at about 5’7 with sharp brown eyes and a slightly effeminate nature about him. His dark hair is done together in thick locs so impossibly long they nearly brush the floor, decorated with gold cuffs and never less than perfectly maintained. He’s always wrapped in white and gold with jewelry to match. Any one of his outfits is worth more than every house Lucian has ever lived in combined.

He commands respect from all who lay eyes upon him, but knows how to use a gentle hand. It’s easy to get caught up in his flowery language, but beneath the purple prose and irresistible urge to flirt is a genuine heart of gold. 

Tobias Silva

A toned man of Colombian descent with tan skin standing at about 5’9, with brown eyes and curly brown hair that’s cut short and shaved underneath, but left longer on top, still allowing a few curly strands to fall over his face. He’s got a foxy way about him and always has a smug, closed-lipped grin on his face that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners and dimples form in his warm cheeks.

He tends to keep his armor rather minimal to maximize his speed, but he’s got daggers hidden just about everywhere one can hide daggers on their person. If he’s being quiet, he’s probably busy scheming with his colleague and friendly rival, Rex. 

Rex Theroux 

Rex is a tall, pale, transgender man standing at about 6’1 with downturned blue eyes and shoulder length, golden-blond hair that curls a bit at the ends and is usually drawn into a loose, low ponytail that often leaves strands hanging around the sides of his head. Contrary to Tobias, he keeps his muscular form clad in armor at all times.

He’s the stoic tank of the duo, and proud of it. He’s completely mute and has never spoken a word to Tobias nor his king, but communicates with both Divestian sign language and his own unique methods. The only time anyone even sees his mouth is when he eats, as it’s usually covered with a neck gaiter. The scars that litter his limbs and body show his impossible resilience, but no one has ever heard the stories behind them.

When Tobias and Rex stop in at Lucian’s humble bakery, they’re completely amazed both by what they taste, and the man they see behind the counter. When a batch of these baked goods reaches king Ambrose, he demands to see the wonderful artisan who created them, and Lucian’s simple life is thrown into a whirlwind when he receives an official summon from his majesty himself.

Are you interested? Stick around! Chapter one of Royal Courting: Summoned By The King is in progress now! You can find the Royal Courting masterlist (among others) in my pinned post!

If you like this idea, please reblog! It’s free, takes two seconds, and helps spread my ideas to more people!

You can find me on AO3 as Sister_Lucifer; everything here is cross posted there!

dividers by @cafekitsune

[gerbiloftriumph]

Floating Castle Liveblog (second read)

Turns out I just can't stay away from this book, or stop myself from doing live updates on Goodreads, probably to the irritation of my followers there and to the chagrin of the website itself, which is now overwriting old updates with newer ones, thus, my need to post them all here. For posterity.

And because I love Telgrin just that much.

March 17, 2019 –

page 0

I feel a sad reading funk coming on and the only way I can think to save it is with my boi, the greatest sassy villain ever, Telgrin. Awww yiss (I don't feel the mood for Princess Bride for once, so next step down it is). Feel free to follow along as I keysmash glee about this doofy lame villain and his impractical floating castle (usingthekqreddit's.pdfshackcoughahhhhkkk you didn't hear that from me.)

page 3

It just cracks me up to see a literal castle sailing by in the storm. Alex can pretend all he likes that it’s just a cloud formation—it’s still dang wacky and impractical.

page 8

Graham: Did you see anything weird out there? Alexander: Well, I mean. A literal floating castle, probably? Graham: Yes, that sounds sensible. Carry on. I’m grinning like a fool and I’m not even ten pages in. This book is my flavor of perfect delight, glossy purple prose and all.

page 11

The fact that Telgrin's castle is in a perpetual thundercloud? He's the sort of dude who would, in a modern au, just listen to the rainymood app constantly. I feel it deeeeeeep in my soul. The anticipation of the plot points has me positively grinning and I keep telling myself, "No, slow down and enjoy. The kelpie and troll and frog and tree wizard and all aren't going anywhere. It's okay."

page 14

I want to scoop Graham up in a big hug. He seems like a great person, such a strong king. Showing nothing but peace and respect to everyone, regardless of social status, who comes in talking about that Spooky Castle, and he's completely chill *until* he's alone with Alexander and can finally drop that mask and honestly show his fear. Even if you're unfamiliar with the source material, this is good character detail.

page 17

"A strange castle has intruded upon the peace of Daventry. I think it fair to assume that only a powerful magic could have transported it here." No, Graham, flying castles are perfectly normal things. Like birds. (here comes telgrin the sassmaster i'm so exciiiitedddd)

page 18

"While Graham occupied the throne, what misfortune could long hold sway over Daventry? What evil could prevail?" cough foreshadowing cough cough hack wheeze

page 19

I still believe with my whole heart that this bearded and blustery and large Sir Brian is a reference to Brian Blessed and I don't care what anyone else thinks.

page 21

Heeeeeeere's Telgrin! Struttin' in, debris from the door all in a cloud, swinging that stupid crystal staff in step with his walk, and freaking "pleased by the dumbfounded reaction his appearance had caused." My melodramatic diva. Let's do thiiiiis.

page 22

Graham, furious, demands to know why Telgrin's here. Telgrin flings back his head and cackles: "'Who am I? Why, I am your new neighbor! Have you not seen my castle there in the distance?' The man paused. He seemed to expect Graham to say something then, but the king simply stared at him. This seemed to unnerve the stranger somewhat" because how do you banter in silence? You can't be the sassmaster if no one plays! :3

page 23

Telgrin wouldn't come to the castle to announce himself as Ye Olde Villain until Graham had summoned a full contingent of knights. Telgrin, Sassmaster and Diva, requires a proper audience before strutting around. <3

page 23

"Do you seriously believe that simply declaring yourself king will make you king in truth?" "*Believe* it? I know it. It is a fact. Who can dispute it?" Graham rose slowly from his throne, straightened to his full height. Unblinking, his gaze was fixed upon Telgrin. "*I* can." "You dare defy me?" "I do." A twisted smile tugged briefly at the corners of Telgrin's mouth. "Good. I was rather hoping you would." Sassy.

page 25

Telgrin is so blissed out on his own sassy triumph that we could SO EASILY dropkick him and snap that stupid crystal staff in half and we'd win and the book would be over in a mere 30 pages. I swear, he's not watching his back at all. Alexander, take him out at the knees! ...or, don't. That's fine. We contracted a full novel from Sierra. I get it.

page 32

I want a Valanice book. I want this series to be a quartet instead of a trilogy. I want this so deep in my soul.

page 32

TREE WIZARD. I can't stop grinning; I love tree wizard. He's trying to nod and shrug and he doesn't have shoulders so he can't, because he's a TREE.

page 40

"Telgrin is a stealer of souls." "A stealer of souls? What's that?" Alexander, the name is on the tin. It isn't hard to figure out.

page 41

I know I should stop updating every few pages. I'm spoiling things and probably being annoying but it's been a long weekend and this is Exactly my flavor of comedy: tree wizard is offering Cyril to Alex, since he "'does all those things that I can no longer do for myself. And he is very good at keeping the woodpeckers away.' This did not sound like the sort of help that Alexander was looking for." Be polite, Alex. :3

page 45

Of all the things I remember from reading this book a year ago, Tree Wizard and his Tea is one of my top favorite mental images. Doesn't matter that we're slowly turning into a tree. Tea time is very important and we will Not miss it. There's even fanart of Tree Wizard and his tea on Tumblr, that's how important it is.

page 45

Alexander (paraphrased): "Sooo...do you know how to stop being a tree?" Morowyn: "Oh, yeah, totes figured that out. Could do it whenever I wanted. Kinda has a drawback, though." Alexander: "Yeah? What's that?" Morowyn: "I would immediately die." Alexander: "......yep, that's a drawback."

March 19, 2019

page 57

“Do you know where to look for a soul? Have you ever seen one?” One would assume it’s glowy and vaguely Graham-shaped.

page 64

I can not believe I forgot about this Literal Ringwraith character. It’s...just a Ringwraith. Pure and simple and obvious.

page 74

I did remember the Literal Lembas Bread, though. Fantasy tropes! *jazz hands*

page 78

One of the classic fantasy tropes is doing a long walk from point a to point b. I’ve got to give Mills credit: I don’t think I’ve read any other book that fills its protagonists up with magic bread that induces energetic power-walking before.

page 80

I remember being annoyed by this conversation the first time, but that was before I realized I held a Masterpiece of High Literature in my hands: “Good apple,” Cyril said. “Very good.” “Sweet.” “Mmm.”

page 87

“A rope, some apples,” Cyril said, frowning. “I still don’t see what you’re planning.” It’s called A Sierra Solution, Cyril, and they only make sense half the time, because this game series is haaaaard.

page 90

Kelpie rodeo. In what sensible fantasy novel would this be allowed? None, man. I love this book. [gerbil note: this scene also has fanart, because this book is amazing]

March 19, 2019

page 97

Alexander: Ho there! Sir Ogre! Ogre: /what did you call me/?! At least, that’s how it should go.

[gerbil note again: i did totally steal this very lame joke for captive crown later on and i'm not even sorry about it]

page 100

I didn’t quite realize how dorky this was the first time, but now I’m paying attention I’ve realized: Telgrin has exactly One lone storm cloud that occasionally spits out a lightning bolt, just hovering over the tower. In my head, this looks like a Winnie the Pooh cloud. Is that all the magic he could summon? One tiny cloud? Lame, and yet So On Brand for my sassmaster.

page 107

We've now entered the Road to El Dorado sequence of the book and I'm perfectly content. Barrel scene eheheheheeeee

page 112

Once again, the book stresses, it is but *one* cloud. One very black and lightning filled cloud, but a single cloud, nevertheless, providing all the ambient noise and mood. I find this bizarrely hilarious. It feels like Telgrin's equivalent of keeping his phone on low battery mode so he can keep using the Rainymood app.

page 120

The sassmaster's lair is just the most Extra thing. It's like he read a book on what villains are supposed to do, so he did it. He's got it all: high ceilings that vanish to dark, ludicrous amounts of moldering velvet curtains, "hideously ornate" braziers, and a perfectly silly black throne. Telgrin, pleaaase this is so unnecessary and not remotely sensible. You've copied someone else's homework, and badly. ilu.

page 121

And Alexander refuses to play the game. Telgrin has all these expectations on how this conversation is meant to go, he's basically reciting a script, and Alexander's just like, "Uhhhh....what?" So Telgrin moves on to Cyril, like Cyril will play along properly. I just can't. I love Telgrin to unfeasible levels of nonsense.

page 122

(Incidentally, I'm still kinda salty that Graham's soul isn't in the throne room, wedged in Telgrin's overly-flashy staff. It just feels more right than where he *actually* is.)

page 123

"You are an evil man." "So it has been said." Telgrin shrugged. "Personally I've always found that such abstractions do not apply well to life in the real world. They make matters that are by their very nature complex seem rather too simple, don't you think?" "Evil," Alexander repeated. Telgrin sighed. "I can see that you're really not up to a probing and dispassionate philosophical discussion" Modern AU: he's a Bro

page 125

I'm fairly certain this reference to Alexander having a hard time with stairs is a reference to the older KQ games in which if you misstep, you're going down, and if you're more than a few feet up, you're a dead man and you've got to reload a save. :)

March 21, 2019

page 129

Out of curiosity, I googled a Barikar to see if this was a real fantasy creature, but the only actual result is from the King's Quest Fanwiki to tell me that, yes, Telgrin owns a Barikar. ....nice, I guess.

page 130

By all technical and decent writing standards, this book is probably awful. Er. I mean, awfully great. High literature, deffo. But it *feels* like a King's Quest game. Every new place is described with just enough detail that you can so easily picture it in those stark, retro early gaming colors, or that pixel painting KQ5 style. I super love it.

page 131

The King's Quest fanwiki tells me that Telgrin owns the only Barikar in all of the entire canon of all fantasy, but it doesn't tell me if Telgrin *loves* his Barikar. I hope he does, because no one else possibly could. What a hideous beastie.

page 134

You boys should be ashamed of yourselves, disposing of a barikar. There was only one in ALL of fantasy EVER and now there's none.

page 139

I hate how funny I think it is that Alexander isn't even pulled together enough to answer his own mental questions. "Yes" is not always the correct answer, sir.

page 143

sassmaster diva telgrin's tragic childhood backstory-----OH WAIT NO IT'S NOT TRAGIC HE'S JUST ALWAYS BEEN A PUNK. I love him.

March 27, 2019

page 143

I wonder what Telgrin’s first thought was when he, A Pathetic Scullery Boy (tm) chopped Owen’s head off, presumably with a Vaguely Magical movement because clean-one-chop head removal is hard even with the help of gravity, man, and Owen’s head just started swearing at him from the floor. Like. That’s a dang weird mental image.

page 144

He holds his own head under his arm like it’s a football and it cracks me up. It’s meant to be serious and scary, probably, but I just love this headless ghost.

page 146

The most over the top baby monitor ever created

page 152

In fairness, this part is one of the most like the game-version would probably be, and it works the least because Alexander is working from information we don’t have. As a gamer we would have heard all Owen’s instructions and had to replicate them perfectly to avoid nasty game overs. As a reader it would have been repetitive for Owen to tell us, then watch Alex act, but there’s a disconnect now.

page 156

“After allowing himself to wallow in depression for a short while”—like, twenty seconds, if that.

page 180

Sinofas (paraphrased): Sooooo.....about that magic flying leap out of the tallest tower. What was that about? Alexander: We had a pressing need to leave the castle. Sinofas: Ever heard of a *door,* sirrah? (do note that I haven't stopped smiling for like twenty pages; this book's greaaat)

page 181

Alexander, paraphrased: So....you're not...friends with Telgrin, are you? Sinofas: He put his Giant Castle in my front yard and won't move it. What do you think??

page 183

I can't believe Mills feels he has to point out that Alexander makes for one Handsome Frog. A "rather large and handsome frog," indeed. Ffff.

page 183

And, I quote, "Did you speak, Sir Frog?" "That's Prince Frog, to you." Alexander, *please* reign in some of your sass. It's not helping matters.

page 198

I feel like the further this book goes, the stronger Alexander's sass gets. It'll never be Telgrin levels of sass because that man is the Sassmaster Diva, but it's dang good.

page 212

Sassmaster Telgrin *still* can't get anyone to dialogue properly with him. Graham's just as obstinate as Alexander and is really good at One Syllable Responses. My gorgeous royal family.

page 223

"At that moment, her second head . . . appeared to wake. It opened its eyes, blinked, and said, "Hmph. What's happening? Where am I?" "It's all right, dear," the first head said. "Go back to sleep. I'm just going to kill this man here." "Oh, that's all right then." I adore this book in ways I cannot express.

page 225

I'm so glad magic in this world, with this staff, works by wishing. So, basically, Telgrin must have said, "I wish King Graham's soul was mine" and so it was, and "I wish I had a fireball to kill Alexander," and bam. It's like he's making little birthday cake wishes, but Horrible Magic happens instead and it's kinda hilariously great. :3

page 230

Telgrin, through a magical hologram because this book is great: "Oi! There you are!" Alexander, exhausted and annoyed: "Whaddya want, Telgrin?" "What do you think? You've stolen my staff. I want it back." "That's too bad. I'm fairly sure that I don't want to give it to you." Now is not the time to start having a holographic fight. Pull back that sass, kiddos.

April 2, 2019

page 231

"The fact that this book is about the same size and heft as my Nintendo Switch tablet with like a pt 14 font, and the fact that it's still taken me into week three to read it, means I'm nice and deep in this reading slump. This should be a six hour read at *maximum*. Telgrin, take me away.

page 236

Alexander, you can't just order princesses to do what you want with magic. that's so rude.

page 237

To be 100% clear, Alexander, Telgrin learned literally everything he knows from Owen, and we can see how Telgrin turned out. One miiiight assume that Owen himself is not the most Noble of nobility.

page 240

"Alexander looked long upon the poor, filthy, shabby, beheaded, half-crazed man" -- I dunno, Alex, I might have led with the Beheaded part. Just sayin', seems the most important part.

page 248

"Alexander thought that it would be inappropriate to express regrets for the incident, since those regrets would not be deeply felt." Alexander, be polite. Don't start snarking with the villain, now.

page 250

"Lydia, Lydia, don't you understand? A man wants to idealize the woman he is to wed. This becomes extremely difficult *when she keeps bloody carping at him.*" Telgrin's breakdown from Eloquent Bro is the best thing ever.

page 260

Since the fight is taking place off screen, it reads most hilariously, with each combatant yelling, "Oh, yeah, that was okay, but what about THIS" followed by just basically a stream of sound effects. It's like reading an anime battle where they would normally shout out their attack names and I'm so into it.

page 266

Can I also add that I find it Entirely Hysterical that this HUGE FLOATING CASTLE is literally pinned into place? With like, a big bobby pin driven into the ground? And that's *it*? This is so impractical on so many levels, Telgrin.

April 3, 2019

page 267

Alexander actually expected Telgrin to win that fight, hah. Good confidence for the Good Team, I guess (Owen's placement on the Good Team being...sketchy, at best, of course).

page 273

See, Graham, Cyril remembers HIS adventuring rope when he goes off on missions. Take notes; it'll help you out in your 2015 voyage.

page 278

Cyril, you stud muffin.

page 283

"How did you find this?" "I got lost." Bab.

April 16, 2019

page 289

Graham Dying bedscenes are like, a favorite staple of this series, innit? And then KQ9 just had to go and take it allllll the way. Hhhh.

page 292

Come on, come on, someone say "a heart is a heavy burden" at Graham. Make this book perfectly complete. No? Okay, fine.

page 293

"I have much to be thankful for. I have escaped the torments that Telgrin thought to inflict on my spirit. I am in my own body again, in my own home, safe and surrounded by family and friends. But what makes me most grateful is that I am able to look upon your face once again, my dear one. For that is everything." Valanice laughed softly, and said, "Rest. You are delirious, I think." My FAVORITE royal couple hhhhhhh.

April 16, 2019 – Finished Reading

Five stars out of five stars. Again.

[penhive]

Notes Upon an Imaginary Book

The book is a soul’s sojourn with the tryst of destiny. The book is a positive ray of hope. The book is a novelette of a dying opera. The book is destiny’s magic talisman. The book lives with the hope of future. The book is a phantasmal mirth of joy. The book is an elixir of prose. The book gambles with the vein of hope. The book is Prospero Prometheus seek new pastures of prosperity. The book is the veins charisma of morn’s dew. The book is raw musk of love’s passion. The book is a meditation of thought. The book is metaphor of thought. The book loves music. The book is a fiesta of joy. The book lives in Epicurean Nirvana. The book is the song of hope. The book loves twilight robes of the sun blazoned in reddish, pink, purple and orange hues. The book is a fiction of art. The book is a language of music. The book draws upon the nature and the mystery of life into a fictional caricature. The book is Karma, the paradox of making choices. The book contradicts Sartre’s and Camus philosophy that life is meaningless, purposeless and chaotic, monotonous and repetitive. The book builds the philosophy of existentialism on the foundation of love. For the book existentialism is the preciousness of life and the meaning of existence lies in the celebration of life. Life is a free gift of preciousness from God the creator. For the book the meaning of life is a cathartic process of affirmation and negation. The book’s philosophy of existentialism is preciousness and the given gift of God and the meaning of existence is celebration of life. Life unlike Camus Sisyphus is not prone to being a repetitive task of rolling a boulder uphill only to find that it has rolled down again. The book’s philosophy of existentialism lies in processual ontology. The creation of meaning is the celebration of life. The book is passionate to answer the meaning of literature. Yes, what is literature? Literature is the creation of beautiful artifacts. True literature stems from the watching of nature. The teacher nature is a great artist. Yes, for the book the cry of a wandering bird, the caress of colours of twilight, the tumultuous rolling of waves, the garden of blossomed flowers, the walk with the nature all are innate experiences of aesthetics. Literature is also the poetry of bed and the pleasures of the bed are the fondest forms of music. The book believes in the positive affirmation of existentialism. The book has become fascinated with Derrida’s deconstruction and in it, deconstruction is the critical reading of literature as privilege and margins. From Derrida’s deconstruction, the book has coined the term Binary fusion from Derrida’s binary divide. Binary fusion is a text that does not marginalize of privilege anyone. For example, Jazz as a music as been given by the blacks to the world and it’s a privilege of gift of love given to the world by the blacks. So also, is rap and hip-hop. Christian philosophy of love, the gift given by the creator Christ is a synthesis of binary fusion. So also, is Ahimsa, the philosophy propounded by the saint Mahatma Gandhi. And Gandhi’s ahimsa is an example of binary fusion. So also, is Nelson Mandela’s struggle against apartheid. Binary Fusion in a text is a text that does not privilege nor marginalize anyone. The book is fascinated with Plato’ theory of forms also known as the Allegory of the cave. There is a dark cave and in it, men are groping for light and a shaft of light is emanating from the outside. What Plato meant was beyond the sensible world there is an ideal transcendental world. The book is addicted to the love of Christian Pacificism. Christ has been the greatest gift of mankind, a man who has not done any crime but sentenced for crucifixion and through which he paid the price of man’s sins and thereby giving the guarantee of eternal life. The book has placed love, hope and faith and trust, Christ the eternal. The book is a fictional self of existence coming into being. What is a fictional self, the book asks? The book is fascinated by Borgesian labyrinths, the streams of consciousness of James Joyce, the existentialism of Camus and Sartre. The book wonders at the origin of consciousness. The book is a cosmic jungle of words. What is the fictional self of the book? It is the many women that the book has loved, the many places that the book has visited, the clove cigarettes of Indonesia, the boose and the weed that the book has taken. The book is a lover of hope. The book is a passionate dream of poetry. The book is grateful to his father who has initiated him to the love of philosophy, art and music. The book is also grateful to his mother for having spawned the love of literature in him. The book is a narratology of hope. The book is grateful to the philosopher Foucault for the archaeology of knowledge. The book writes fiction in the manner of Picasso churning out his cubes. The book is a rendition of Picasso abstracts. The book is also a surreal manifesto akin the Dali’s persistence of memory. The book feels excited at the streams of consciousness of James Joyce. The literature of the book is one of poetic epiphany. The book is an epic of prose. The book is a carnival of rhythms of prose. The book renders poetic justice to words. The book is a consciousness of a carnival.  The book seeks to merge the fictional self with the real self. The book is a dialogic interaction of many texts. The book seeks to weave yarn with the magic realism of prose. The book seeks a better world to live in. The book is a texture of phantasmal mirth. The book is fascinated with the wisdom of king Solomon. The book seeks the bright world of hope. The book is a mystery to fathom. The book is a dialogic interaction of many texts. The book loves the Philosophy of Roland Barthes and in it the studium and the punctum. The studium is the cultural, linguistic and political interpretation of the photography whereas the punctum is the literal meaning of the photograph. Let’s take an example of Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi March. The punctum meaning of the Gandhian March is a man adorned in loin clothes marching to the sea. The studium meaning is that the march was political and it was an attempt to make salt out of the sea in protest against the harsh salt taxes and laws made by the ferocious British colonialistṣ. The book is the bed of the poetry of the passion. The book loves to ecstasy in the poetic orifices with love. The book is the singing of psalms. The book is fascinated with Hegel’s thesis, antithesis and synthesis. The book would like to cite an example of it. Post World War 1 Germany was humiliated with the treaty of Versailles and that’s thesis and then this resulted in the rise of Hitler and that’s antithesis and this led to the second World War which becomes the synthesis.  The book is a labyrinthian meander. The book is pellucid and mellifluous prose.  The book lies submerged under many texts. The book stems from being to a becoming. The book has been made in the image of God. The book loves patience and kindness. The book is the earth of humility. The book is an oasis of passion. The book is a totem of inscriptions. The book is an enigma to solve. The book seeks interpretations of meaning. The book is the song of the bird. The book is a full moon bloom. The book is an ecstasy of a blossomed flower. The book is sentience gratified. The book is sapiential metaphor. The book is a store-house of emotion. The book is passion exemplified. The book is fascinated with the philosopher Julia Kristeva’s semiotic and the symbolic texts.  For Kristeva, the semiotic text is a one that lacks grammar and punctuation and it is a text of streams of consciousness narratives, dance and music. The symbolic text is the one in which traditional rules of grammar and punctuation apply. For example, medicinal and legal texts are symbolic textṣ. Some texts are a merger of semiotic and symbolic elements. The book is a poetry of music. The book is an ocean of hope. The book lives with the life of meaning. The book is a meander of prose. The book is a tissue of quotations. The book is seasonal and cyclical. The book is words of music. The book is a musk of elevation. The book synchronises the rhythms of nature. The book is an erotica of poetry. The book feels guilty of having done adultery. The book is ashamed and guilt ridden. Adultery for the book was a marvel of songs. The book seeks forgiveness from sins. The book is a voyage of Sinbad the sailor. The book questions Freud with the circumcision complex. Circumcision complex is the coming to maturity. The book asks the question to Freud about how a person can desire the father or the mother. The book is a corpse of circumlocution. The book is fantasy edified. The book is a seed that has scattered semen in many orifices.

[ghost-chance]

Fanfiction Recommendation: “Fat. Beautiful. Tasty. Ravenous” by MoofyKitten

Title: Fat. Beautiful. Tasty. Ravenous Author: MoofyKitten on AO3/FFN/Wattpad Fandom: BNHA/My Hero Academia Rating: M/MA for a reason. (Detailed sex in over half the posted chapters. Perv away only if you’re of age!) Pairing(s): Fat Gum [Toyomitsu Taishirou] / OFC Found on: AO3

Deets Expect some light spoilers and a mini-rant.

I am an unrepentant fanfiction addict; this is no secret. There are fics I read to wind down after a rough day, fics I read to put myself to sleep in hopes of pleasant dreams, and fics I read to tear my hear into teeny tiny fragments then build it back again better than before. THEN there are fics that don’t fit the mold – the kind that I become so invested in that I physically cannot put off reading that update. THIS, my lovelies, is one of THOSE fics, and it’s earned that place from the early chapters. This story has almost everything I need from a fanfiction, and I have a feeling the rest is just around the corner.

Let’s get the basics out of the way.

The Spelling, grammar, and punctuation are all excellent – I have yet to notice a single error, so either the author and her betas are a force to be reckoned with or I’m just getting so sucked into the story an elephant could sit on me and I’d never notice. The formatting is effective and easy to follow, and the chapters have all been of a nice meaty length, perfect for plowing through in a single sitting only to realize you missed a meal and it’s time for bed and your brain is hopelessly lost in ship-land daydreaming about what’s up next. ...wait, that’s just me? My bad.

Syntax – This one requires an entire section of its own. The fact that I’m having to actually think about how well the author’s varying their syntax says they’re effing nailing it. If a story’s syntax is at all static or the sentence even the slightest bit predictable, it’s easy enough for me to recall it because I’m mentally rearranging the bits that irk or don’t impress me as I read. I can’t even get through a bleepin’ news article or an online recipe without itching to push what I’m reading up to the standards my professors held. It sounds harsh, I know, but please take  my word for it when I say I’m not criticizing anyone. Suffice it to say, if my classes did anything, they made editing so instinctive I can’t turn it off. Confession: I have never found myself rearranging a single phrase in this masterpiece. Arguing with the characters? Encouraging the characters? Begging, pleading, and berating the characters for breaking my heart time and time again by stopping just short of the sugary fluff I can just smell right around the corner? Oh, Hell yes. I’ve done all of that and more, but I’ve never found myself with the urge to grab my red pen and strike out or scooch even a single word.

Something that strikes me about this story above others I’ve given the same rating (Spoiler: there are VERY FEW!) is the sheer variety of the scenes and environments. Sounds silly? Probably, but romances often develop a certain amount of location stagnation, and I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to bust through those patterns. (I mean, the majority of “A New Lease on Life” takes place in the Lair in some room, most commonly a bedroom, the lab, or the kitchen.) This story takes the couple off of familiar and ‘safe’ turf like homes and offices and drags them through countless other places without regard for their sense of comfort. Each scene feels real and multi-dimensional and directly or indirectly influences the characters’ behavior and reactions. It’s awesome. That’s a sign the author has done her people-watching!

Now, about that OC. I’ll readily admit, in the first chapter, I had my reservations. At first glance she seemed shallow, obsessed with appearances and her own view of the world, and – strange as it may sound – too skinny and too attractive. Yes, there’s some personal bias involved there, but the majority was practical rather than emotional. BUT! Because the writer of this story is the same who unleashed the beautiful Kacchako torment Hot-Headed upon me without a single breath of remorse, I gave Aiko a chance. Sure enough, my first impressions were entirely incorrect. The things that bothered me about Aiko? They all had explanation or purpose, and she’s turned out to be a pretty well-fleshed out character...pun intended. As the story progresses we’re seeing sides of her that I hoped for but didn’t expect and each chapter leaves me wondering what we’ll learn next.

Romantic connection. First word: “OOFTA.” The second word, I’d spell out, but it’s a shrill, wordless, begging whine that I cannot translate into English for the life of me. This pairing starts without any sort of romantic connection; it skips straight to the shenanigans and leaves hope that the snugglebunnies will follow eventually. Friends…if you’ve read any of my writing before, you’ll know that I. LIVE. For. The. FLUFF. The awkward mush, the sweaty palms, the am-I-gonna-barf-or-do-I-have-a-crush, the absolutely tooth-rotting sweetness capable of sending a reader headlong into diabetes with a dopey grin and heart eyes - they’re my crack and I love them. This story started with no fluff but it’s been slowly developing in the background. It’s an entirely new situation for me! I feel like I’ve gotten used to eating my dessert first then digging into an equally sweet dinner without a moment to cleanse my palate. This story? It’s like gorging on smoky, meaty St. Louie barbecue for weeks on end with literally just a smear of something sweet as an afterthought. Mind. Frackin’. BLOWN. It turns out I’m more masochistic as a reader than I ever suspected.

Another relationship I want to cover is the building friendship between Aiko and Fat Gum – because nope, she has not managed to mentally connect the half-starved Taishiro she’s climbing like a tree with the big-and-beautiful Fat Gum who owns the agency. Yep. She thinks she’s boning Fat’s beefy little brother. It’d be funny if my heart wasn’t whining for fluff. While frustrating to fluff-starved readers, Aiko not knowing the beefcake and the brother are one and the same provides an intriguing and natural way for her to build an actual relationship with him. This means none of the fetishistic bullarkey rampant in other stories pairing plus-sized male characters with OCs.

What sort of fetishistic bullarkey am I talking about? To name a handful: I love you so lose weight. I love you because you’re big. I’m fat too so it’s okay if we’re together. Blatant fat-fetish disguised as romance. Fat character’s life absolutely revolves around food and it’s gross/nvm it’s okay. Lastly, OC’s only chance at being loved by fat character is feeding them. Maybe to thin folks those don’t sound negative but to those of us who fit the description? NOPE. These don’t make healthy relationships. Using these can turn a well-meaning pairing toxic and frankly, it tends to piss off those of us who – GASP! - accept ourselves no matter our size. These...tropes, let’s call them, have made me hesitant to even try fiction involving plus sized male characters because I’ve been let down so many times. Finding plus sized female characters is easy, especially OCs, but appreciation for the chonky bois isn’t nearly as common. They need love too, dammit!

Ahem. Rant over.

As mentioned before, I ain’t seen any of that crap in this story. This author is treating Fat Gum like she would any other character instead of focusing on the fat. I wish with all my heart that more authors were capable of (and willing to) do the same with Fat Gum, and with other plus sized male characters. I can’t even put into words how much it means to me that she’s doing such a fantastic job portraying a character type that so many writers bungle without ever realizing it. I’ve needed this story my entire life and never realized it wasn’t there; I shudder to think of how long I might have been waiting for it if this author never found the inspiration to do so.

If I don’t shut up now, I fear I never will. I love this story that much. Moving on.

Warnings

Explicit sexual content – do NOT read this around your family unless you have a stronger will than I and can do so without creeping them out. (According to my husband, when I read smut I “look like a demented vulture staring down at a half-flattened ‘possum waiting for it to take its last breath,” complete with hunched shoulders and heavy breathing. Flattering, I know.) The smut scenes, while not my usual cuppa tea, wreck. My brain? Broke. Chapter four’s budding romance? It’s goin’ on my headstone ‘cuz I’m dead.

There are mentions of human trafficking and the future may include more about it. Slut-shaming comes up a few times because men are assholes and asshole exes are the ultimate assholes. Situational fat-shaming and lack of body confidence come up as Aiko comes to recognize Fat Gum for who he is instead of what he is; on the other end of the tag, Fat is also doing a lot of it to himself even when it isn’t spelled out. You can see it behind some of his reasoning in his POV chapters and since the writer is kickass at portraying thoughts and feelings without ever breaking out of restricted POV, you can also see hints in other chapters. That said, if the shaming was really bad without any redeeming purpose, I’d have noped my way right out’a that fic and never looked back. It has a purpose, and it’s not that bad. Give it a chance.

Recommendation level

This story lacks purple prose and excessive fluff, and I haven’t seen any signs of the pop culture, literary, and music references I love so dearly, but the rating remains the same:

Ten. Out. of. Farking. TEN!

YES! I’ve finally found another 10/10!!! A quick reminder for anyone who’s managed to not see my other reading recc posts, I don’t even need both hands to count off all the 10/10s I’ve read. Congratulations, Ms. MoofyKitten – your story rocks my world and I have an addiction I do not care to shake!

[heavenburdened]

GRIEVING, consumed with fear &  mad with loneliness, eden finds  himself more lost than ever ; and  soon, like the distant stars and  constellations he reads about in  books, eden no longer seems to  be part of this world. he imagines  that he is made of the galaxies and  nebulas —— light-years away and  out of mind, out of sight ; drifting  away peacefully in the cold vacuum of space & building his walls up high  —— cementing them there, strong,  as no one, not even once, comes to  break them down. A LONELY PRINCE  TRAPPED IN THE HIGHEST TOWER ;  that’s what eden becomes yet again.  yet he exudes a quiet unassuming  warmth, for he is closer to the sun  up here.

WHY HELLO THERE LOVELIES !!! i’m edie ( 23, she/hers, gmt+11, cat mum, literature nerd & tea enthusiast ) & my cute lil woc ass is so gosh darn excited to be a part of this muh’heckin amazing group ?!!?!?!??!?!?! i’m here with eden lovegrove ( and cha eunwoo’s heaven-sent face ????? can i get an amen ??!!!?? ) ; a #softnsadboi with a rrrrruff past who i’ll be introducing to you all right down below !!!!

DISCLAIMER : this ???????? is a heckin’ 1000-page novel. 2 ur left u will find refreshments n water —— pls stay hydrated whilst you read thru this ! 

[ ! ] CLICK HERE FOR A MOBILE VIEW ( less formatted for easier reading ! ) OF EDEN’S INTRO POST !  

* ╰  APPLICATION !! ❜ ───

✧･ﾟ(   atlas + cha eunwoo + cismale  ) 𝒎𝒂𝒎𝒎𝒂 𝒎𝒊𝒂 !!  have you seen (   eden lovegrove ) around ? (   he  ) has been in kaos for (   one week   ). the (   twenty-four year old   ) is a (   journalist & freelance writer  ) from (   wisconsin, usa  ). people say they can be (   ascetic   ) but maybe that’s not too bad ‘cause they can also be (   forbearing   ). whenever i think of them, i can’t help but think of (   a wound too great ; that always has been & won’t heal, grief ; consumed by sorrow & mad with loneliness that yet still could not keep the boy from kindness, and softness ; emanating from starlight and filling him full to the bone   ).  ･ﾟ✧ ( penned by edie, 23, gmt+11, she/hers ).

* ╰  STATISTICS !! ❜ ───

basics

BIRTH NAME: eden park ADOPTED NAME: eden lovegrove BIRTH DATE: february 25th, 1995 ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: pisces AGE: twenty-four CURRENT LOCATION: kaos, greece NATIONALITY: american ETHNICITY: south-korean GENDER: cismale SEXUAL ORIENTATION: demisexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: homoromantic

background

BIRTH PLACE/HOMETOWN: wisconsin, usa ( birthplace & childhood residence ) —— manhattan, ny, usa ( late adolescence )  SOCIAL CLASS: lower class ( birth ), upperclass ( during late adolescence / adoption ), middle class ( present ) EDUCATION LEVEL: completed a journalism degree with honours at yale FATHER: franklin park MOTHER: dolores park SIBLINGS: matthew park, christopher park FATHER ( ADOPTIVE ): chet lovegrove MOTHER ( ADOPTIVE ): amelia lovegrove  SIBLINGS ( ADOPTIVE ): everett lovegrove OCCUPATION & INCOME PRIMARY SOURCE OF INCOME: journalist ; writing articles for guardian u.s. SECONDARY SOURCE OF INCOME: freelance writing ; prose, poetry, essays, published in zines & online CONTENT WITH THEIR JOB? yes PAST JOBS: bookshop clerk, library assistant, florist SPENDING HABITS: very thrifty ; good at saving MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION: a faded photograph of himself and his first love, now passed away

appearance / physical information

FACE CLAIM: cha eunwoo HAIR COLOUR: black EYE COLOUR: brown BUILD: mesomorph DOMINANT HAND: left hand HEIGHT: 183cm WEIGHT: 76kg INK: none PIERCINGS: none ALLERGIES: shellfish DIET: vegetarian

psychology

MBTI: infp ENNEAGRAM: type 2 ; the helper MORAL ALIGNMENT: chaotic good DOMINANT TEMPERAMENT: melancholic PRIMARY INTELLIGENCE TYPE: verbal-linguistic & intrapersonal SOCIABILITY: medium EMOTIONAL STABILITY: stable DRUG USE: no ALCOHOL USE: yes PRONE TO VIOLENCE? no VIRTUES: ardent, profound, forbearing, sagacious VICES: reclusive, distracted, withdrawn, ascetic HOGWARTS HOUSE: ravenclaw ACCENT: manhattan accent FAVOURITES ACTIVITY: reading, baking, knitting, writing, going on walks ANIMAL: cats BEVERAGE: boricha / barley tea COLOUR: powder blue FOOD: yachae sundubu jjigae / spicy soft tofu and vegetable stew CELEBRATION: christmas MODE OF TRANSPORTATION: walking MUSICIANS: keaton henson, flyte, palace, the black skirts, banff, kelsey lu, matt maltese SCENERY: the ocean BOOKS: disoriental by négar djavadi, the uncensored picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde, when i hit you: or, a portrait of the writer as a young wife by meena kandasamy, brother by david chariandy, & 10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world by elif shafak. 

* ╰  THE STORY !! ❜ ───

eden’s biography is trigger heavy, with the following triggers —— religious fundamentalism, homophobia, racism, physical & emotional abuse.

CHAPTER ONE : THE LONELY PRINCE.

COLOURED BY AMBIGUITY and suspended in an air of INEXACTNESS from the moment he breathed his first breath, eden park was born into the world as a simple PLACE HOLDER between his older and younger brother —— caught in the middle, outshone on both sides, and quite often FORGOTTEN, even as a child.

in amongst frank and dolores park’s hopes and dreams for their eldest and youngest sons, eden learned terribly early on that his existence mattered VERY LITTLE to anyone at all —— for while the youngest son ( matthew ) was doted upon, fussed over and coddled, and the eldest son ( christopher ) was given the responsibility of shouldering the entire burden of the park family name [ a family with important ties to the church community in wisconsin ] ; eden seemed to FADE AWAY into the background —— more an OBSERVER of his family’s comings and goings than an ACTIVE PARTICIPANT in amongst it all. growing up, eden had no particular expectations placed upon him, nor was he deemed any specific role to play ; and so he often spent his time ALONE and off and WANDERING, DRIFTING from interest to interest ; from this to that, biding his time in the absence of his parents who had their hands full with matthew and christopher, and their devotion to the religion that had gotten them through the hardships & aftermath of the korean war.

where his home life was tainted with an estranged apprehension, when eden was old enough to start attending school he discovered that this new part of the world was no sanctuary for him either. his peers pulled at the corners of their eyes whenever he passed, called him yellow, and jeered at the unusual & pungent packed lunches he brought. as the real world gave the young boy no reprieve ; eden turned to books —— opening the covers and crawling inside the pages to feel safe and at peace. with each new page, he would escape the exhaustion of his family life, and the terrors of the society around him would all but fade away. by falling into the quiet blank spaces that separated the printed, parallel lines of black, eden found himself a sanctuary of utter calm and peace ; safe at last from a world that was too cruel and too loud for his heart to bear the burden of. 

and so the days passed & darkened. ballet, books, and an overwhelming sense of BEING ALONE ; eden spent his days growing his mind & heart in SOLITUDE, quite nearly completely HEEDLESS of extremist religious views his parents and siblings propagated as the world spun madly on. eden’s ballet recitals : missed by his parents, morning mass went by without breathing a single word to anyone —— the middle bed, left untucked.  SURROUNDED by so many people and still so estranged, eden never truly was a part of the family he’d soon fatefully grow to HATE.

the only sanctuary of hope and light for eden was the one he found in a friend, then confidante, then lover ; a boy he’d met in ballet class at 8. 

the boy who changed everything for eden. 

the boy he was caught kissing at 16 in the park family’s garden ; blood red roses blooming.

SCREAMING, A BODY BROKEN, AGONY SINKING INTO EDEN’S BONES. 

FADE TO BLACK.

CHAPTER TWO : THE HEART CAN BEAT OR IT CAN BURN.

sixteen years old, and eden awakes to the sight of his lover standing over him with a smile. brown eyes fill with tears of relief & a chest so sore it could burst begins to shake with sobs. the tears clear eden’s vision ; and as he becomes more lucid, the vision of his lover fades away. ALONE IN A HOSPITAL ROOM, the boy scrambles to recollect the series of events that led to his arrival in the emergency room ; something buried deep in the labyrinth of his mind unsettling, warning him, letting him know that he’s not ready to remember. the nurses don’t look him in the eye, and the doctors reek of a sickening mixture of sympathy and pity. everything is raw, and horrid, and lonely, and eden can’t quite figure out the reason behind why his heart feels so terribly broken.

after three sleepless days and nights, a social worker visits eden —— relaying to him the chain of events that led to his broken body & weakened soul. the social worker tells eden of how he and his lover had been caught kissing among the flowers —— she tells eden of how his brother, matthew, had discovered them. then she tells eden of how his family had hatefully beat the only person he had ever loved into a coma ; and how when their rage had still not been satisfied, in a fury, they turned on their own son and brother.

THE WOUND IS TOO GREAT —— it always has been & it won’t heal, and eden’s cries rip through the hospital ward like a scream of agony. his tears make him tremble so violently he feels as if he were a rainstorm shook by lightning.

.

.

.

the recovery is a long & arduous one. knees grazed scarlet —— every night, eden PRAYS. he prays for his lover, he prays for his family, and he prays for god to change him ; to save him ; to cleanse him of his sin ; black, purple & blue covering every inch of his soft skin. most of all, though, eden prays that the loneliness and pain that grows inside his heart like a disease will cease spreading ; the boy’s pillow stained with tears as he cries himself to sleep each night. 

mutilated, torn, tortured & etched away at, eden is alive, but he is nothing but a hollow body ; a home for little more than an agonised, sorrow-drenched soul.

just one week after the incident, eden’s partner passes away ; and eden is taken into the care of the state —— never to hear from his parents or brothers again ; safe at last from them. 

CHAPTER THREE : I WILL NOT RAISE HELL; HAVE WE NOT ALL ALREADY SUFFERED ENOUGH? I WILL RAISE MY VOICE, AND I WILL RAISE CONSCIOUSNESS. 

ten months after the incident, eden is adopted into a family by the name of lovegrove —— a family tainted with far too much darkness for eden to ever call home. the lovegroves are an all-american, white family with ties to the republican party ; with the head of the family, chet lovegrove, having strong political aspirations. the lovegroves adopt eden into the family as a move for positive press, believing that having a person of colour adopted into the family will make for a more empathetic family narrative. 

and so it goes that eden park is given the new name of eden lovegrove, and once again, THE WORLD SPINS MADLY ON. while under the gaze of the public-eye chet and amelia lovegrove parade their new son eden around as if he were the sole pride of the family ( much to the chagrin of everett, the lovegrove’s biological son ), behind closed doors, they stand back and do nothing as everett calls eden words like chink, faggot, gook, fruitcake and coolie ; disdain and disgust dropping from every syllable like venom.

grieving, consumed with fear & mad with loneliness, eden finds himself more lost than ever ; and soon, like the distant stars and constellations he reads about in books, eden no longer seems to be part of this world. he imagines that he is made of the galaxies and nebulas —— light-years away and out of mind, out of sight ; drifting away peacefully in the cold vacuum of space & building his walls up high —— cementing them there, strong, as no one, not even once, comes to break them down. A LONELY PRINCE TRAPPED IN THE HIGHEST TOWER ; that’s what eden becomes yet again. yet he exudes a quiet unassuming warmth, for he is closer to the sun up here.

.

.

.

as eden grows from adolescence to adulthood —— though he leaves ballet in the past, where memories too painful to bear the burden of have no risk of being dredged up —— his love for books and writing never waivers even in the slightest. literature helps him understand himself as he comes to terms with the world around him, and writing helps him find a voice in a world where people keep trying to tell him what he ought to be. traumatised, a foreigner, a faggot, a stranger amongst his own family. an outcast, an orphan, a charity case. with his pen as a sword ; ink running like blood, eden finds his voice —— learning to use it to speak words of love and truth in a world that has only ever been cruel to him ; raising his voice so that it can be a light in the darkness. 

high society life tastes bitter upon eden’s kind palette ; and though he is treated with nothing but malice within lovegrove manor or the high society around him, eden endures the trials and tribulations of his new life in order to use his predicament for his own benefit. rather than fixating on the cruelties of his adoptive family, eden decides to focus instead on the opportunities that have presented themselves ; using the money and the connections that the lovegroves possess in order to grow into someone that his lover, lost in wisconsin but forever in his heart, can be proud of. 

a quiet renegade, eden decides to pursue journalism, graduating with honours from yale ; becoming a questioner of the common, and using his compassion and kindness and his love for words to grow into a safe-harbour for the voiceless. his first piece, an exposé on the callous and tokenistic life he has lived with the lovegroves, leaves him branded as a traitor by the family that took him in for their own devices ; and finally, after being cast out in shame, eden finds himself free at last. 

the name lovegrove suits him well, however ; love becoming him, love consuming him —— and so he keeps his adoptive surname, wearing it like a battle wound for all the world to see. writing of people’s stories, in search of the truth, kind, but lonely, this is the way that eden lovegrove spends his days. 

.

.

.

ink-stained fingers & a sorrow-drenched soul that only wants to heal ; the stars, the moon, a study of the human condition through prose and endless essays. a journalist at guardian u.s., and a freelance writer, eden lovegrove is an ink splatter of words thrown against kaleidoscopic feelings —— messy, hurt, lost, ardent, sincere, broken, human, and so much stronger than he knows.

WHERE ONE STORY ENDS, ANOTHER BEGINS : ATLAS IN OLYMPUS.

“ SOMETIMES I GET THESE VISIONS — HORRIBLE VISIONS OF INEXPLICABLE VIOLENCE, GRIEF & SORROW [ … ] LIKE REMNANTS OF A PAST LIFE BLEEDING INTO MY PRESENT. ”

over the course of the past six months, eden has started experiencing some truly horrendous nightmares —— these terrors sometimes even creeping past the border of sleep, haunting him in visions during hours of waking. 

trauma from the park household, trauma from the lovegrove family ; that’s what eden believes, and that’s what his therapist believes. how could they know that these visions are actually coming from a past life ? one where eden was condemned to hold up the celestial heavens for eternity, as atlas. 

“ TAKE A BREAK, SON. A VACATION. THE WORLD WILL STILL BE HERE TO WRITE ABOUT WHEN YOU GET BACK.  YOU GOT A GIRL ? TAKE HER SOME  PLACE NICE. ”

eden doesn’t know how to tell his editor that he’s never had a girl, and nor will he ever. but the vacation doesn’t sound like too terrible an idea —— so eden packs up his belongings, and asks a man at the airport counter what the cheapest & earliest flight to someplace nice would be. KAOS, the man says. the island of kaos. and just like that, atlas finds his way to olympus. 

.

.

.

eden’s toes curl gently into a horizon of golden sands ; soft waves lapping at his feet as he relearns how to breathe. a softness emanates from the setting sun ; filling the broken man, full, to the bone. the world is wide —— and for the first time in his life, on this strange and beautiful island called kaos, eden feels like he might be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. 

since arriving in kaos one week ago eden’s nightmares have been getting worse ; and the visions, strange, violent, and full of glimpses of sorrow, split his head with migraines —— yet curiously, eden does not feel as if he is breaking  —— on the contrary, it feels as if he is on the very edge of awakening.

.

.

.

–— AAAAAND, SCENE !!!!

 i’ll get to posting some replies to starters & interacting tomorrow ( because i’m eXHAUSTED after an excruciatingly horrendous day at work today ), but please like this post if you’d like to plot something up ??? OR LITERALLY JUST slide into my dms and throw headcanons for our muses at me pls ?! bc i’m awfully awkward and idk ?? how ?? to aPPROACH PEOPLE for plotting !!!!!

okie bye i’m going to go make some dinner and then shall slumber for 2000 years, but ilu all already and am so excited !!!! to start !!!! writing !!!!!

[slushrottweiler]

Between the Lines - Part 1

How Varric Tethras fell in love with his editor: a story in letters.

Bioware wont let me romance the dwarf, so I’ll do it myself Read on Ao3

9:28 Dragon

To Ser Tethras,

As you have been informed, your previous editor has parted ways with Kirkwall Publishing, leaving the production of your popular serial, Hard in Hightown, on hiatus. I am writing to introduce myself as Serah Lawfield's replacement, and to inform you that we shall re-commence publishing your serial by the end of this month.

My name is Y/N Y/L/N, and I am very excited to begin working with you on developing your story. I have personally enjoyed reading your work, and believe we can work well together. Whilst I have looked over your previous edits with Lawfield, if you have any requests or person preferences for the editing process, please let me know and I shall attempt to adjust my process to suit you.

If I do not hear back from you within the next week, I shall begin edits on your most recent manuscript as per the in-house style manual.

Thank you again for choosing to work with Kirkwall Publishing. We are honoured to help share your stories.

Hope to hear from you soon, Regards Y/N Y/L/N Editor at Kirkwall Publishing

…...

Here is the information you requested on New editor. Had 3 men tail her. Notes are attached

(a collection of papers, written in three different hands. One page had scratchy drawings of flying books and quills in the margins.)

Y/N Y/L/N Employed at MP for approx 18 months. Human. Free-Marcher. Originally from starkhaven. Low-born. Educated.Young Resided above Hightown markets. Small apartment. Well kept. 6pin double key lock. Well-liked at MP. Professional. Friendly. Considered hardworking and talented. Has a rep for being good at dealing with difficult writers. Arrives late. Stays late. Takes her work home. Drinks 5-8 coffees a day. Strong ties to Coterie. More info incoming.

Coterie ties extend back years. Potential child recruit.

Currently information broker for Kirkwall faction Respected, feared. Background in smuggling and forgery. Negotiated trade deals with Carta.

Left home later than should have , looked tired but was smiling. Carrying large stack of manuscripts. Was greeted with smiles and waves at office. Two men rose to help her carry her things. Another woman brought her coffee without being asked. Wears slim-framed glasses when working. Nibbled on the end of her quill. Many messengers stop by her desk. Cannot all be publishing related. Some notes are placed directly into her bag. Some belligerent author just showed up. Did not interrupt until author started insulting other staff members. Only took her two minutes to calm him down. Author just left. Not only agreed to changes, but seems to think the changes are his idea. Stayed back late to finish work. Took home three manuscripts. Dead dropped letter exchange under lower left paved outside blooming rose. Added to Coterie watch list. Seems to have a preference for sitting on her windowsill at home to work. Doesn't wear pants at home. Legs for days.

……

(A letter, attached to a well-bound and heavily annotated copy of chapter 5 of Hard in Hightown)

To Ser Tethras,

Since you are, unfortunately, too busy to respond to my last message, I kept to my word and have completed a standard but thorough edit of the latest chapter of Hard in Hightown.

I have used industry standard mark ups, and left my annotations in the margins for your perusal. I have also included a detailed list of suggestion changes that I feel will help streamline the story and reduce unnecessary clutter. Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed your imagery, some of your metaphors boarded on purple prose and I felt best to remove to maintain the tension.

If you have any questions, or you would like to discuss my suggestions further, I would be happy to arrange a personal meet up at the location of your choice.

If all is well, please send your approved changes to the Kirkwall Publishing office byclose of business Friday.

Kind Regards, Y/N Y/L/N Editor at Kirkwall Publishing.

…….

(A note, hastily written and torn roughly from a notebook)

Dear Serah Y/N

You can bet your sweet Starkhaven ass I want to discuss your suggestions. I don't know how you've conned your other authors into dancing your jig, but I'm not about to rework my entire story to suit your whims.

Since you we're so generous as to offer to meet at a location I choose, I'll see you at the Hanged Man this evening. Unless, you've grown accustomed to life up in Hightown?

Yours reluctantly, V. Tethras

……

Mr. Tethras,

Looking forward to meeting you.

Y/N

……

(a note attached to the second draft of chapter 5 of Hard in Hightown)

As requested, here is the edited manuscript; well before Friday you may notice. All agreed upon changes have been made, and grammar corrected. No need to get all antsy over commas again.

V. Tethras.

P.S. where did you learn to play Diamondback like that? ….

Thank you for getting those edits back to me so promptly Tethras. I'm so glad you agree to cut those flashbacks in the middle, they dragged the whole pace to a crawl. The tension is just perfect now!

As for your enquiry about my gambling skills, I shall only state that I am a mystery and an enigma, one you cannot hope to solve. Bow before my beginners luck.

…….

Tone it down, you silver-tongued brat.

V.

……............................................................................................................

Ser Tethras,

I understand that you and your brother are knee deep in preparations for your Deep Roads expedition, but that does NOT excuse you from submitting your latest drafts on time.

If the latest draft of Chapter Eleven is not on my desk by tomorrow morning, I will come down there and drag it from your ink-stained fingers myself.

Sincerely,

Y/N Y/L/N

Editor at Kirkwall Publishing.

……

Why Silver, formal sign-off and everything. You are mad at me.

Would you forgive your favourite dwarf if I said I was assisting a young and devilishly handsome Fereldan refugee to turn his life around? And that, through working with this strapping lad, I am gathering a whole host of new ideas for later chapters, a perhaps… that second serial you’ve been asking for?

Your humble wordsmith,

V. Tethras

…….

Have the damn manuscript to me by next week.

You owe me V.

Silver

P.S. Stay out of trouble.

……

Dearest Silver,

Stay out of trouble? Why, I am an upstanding and law-abiding citizen of this fine city. I wouldn’t dream of creating trouble in our fair Kirkwall.

Hawke on the other hand…

You’ll break us out of prison, right?

……

(a letter attached to a manuscript, delivered within hours of close-of-business the following week.)

Chapter Eleven, as promised Silver.

And if my courier is as fast as she claims, with a good half-a-day to spare.

Now let me have a few solid nights of drinking before you bombard me with your inevitable critiques. After the week I’ve had. I deserve it.

Your favourite Dwarf,

V. Tethras

……

No rest for the wicked V.

…..

Slave driver.

……

You're the one sending (and likely paying) this young boy to run between my office and the Hanged Man to deliver scathing quips.

Are you so desperate to have the final word?

……

Well yes; but you keep responding, don't you?

…….....................................................................................................................

So I noticed you seem a bit fixated on my latest romance scene. There have to be at least twice as many notes on those pages than the rest of the manuscript combined (what do you have against the humble ellipses? Did it kill your father, insult your mother’s honour? Cheat you in cards?).

Something there must have really caught your attention.

……

If by caught my attention, you mean had me scoffing into my coffee, then yes -- there was plenty to work with.

I don’t know who you’re paying at the Blooming Rose, but no one has ever lasted that long, or had a woman orgasming that many times, without the aid of some very potent potions. Anyone who claims otherwise is better at lying than you are.

Try to be a bit more realistic when penning your explicit material.

Your readers aren’t that stupid.

By the way, I have no qualms with the ellipses. But they are not sugar V, don’t sprinkle them about like the scene is an Orlesian sweet.

……

Obviously you’ve never slept with a dwarf...

What we lack in size, we make up for in …  stamina.

Surely you’ve heard the saying... “Just the right height to give a human girl a good time.”

… V

P.S… sweet enough for you Silver?

…............................................................................................................................

                                             Kirkwall Publishing;                 in association with the Noble Literary Society of Kirkwall,

                                extend their cordial invitation to

                                          Ser Varric Tethras

                                                    to our

                                Annual Satinalia Award Ceremony

                               To be held at the De Launcet Estate                                              10th Harvestmere

                                    Dinner will be served at 6 bells                                  Award Ceremony to begin at 8 bells.

                           Please contact Kirkwall Publishing to RSVP.

( scribbled in the bottom corner of the invitation)

Yes you have to come! You won an award for Viper’s Nest

- Silver

……

My Dearest Silver,

I regret to inform you that I will be unable to attend this award shindig, as I will be busy doing literally anything else. As it if Satinalia and the entirety of Kirkwall will be pissed-up and cavorting around in masks, I’m sure no one will miss me.

Be a dear and collect my award for me. I want to send it to the Merchants Guild next time they try and involve Bartrand and me in their latest drivel. And when you finally grow tired of the snooty bastards up in Hightown, come join us at the Hanged Man. Hawke and I are having a little get together.

Yours, without regrets

Varric Tethras

……

Dear V.

Fine, but you better get your clever merchant hands on a bottle of the honey mead I like.

Try not to pass out before I get there.

- Silver

......

( a message, written on the back of a letter from the Merchants Guild and left on the beside of one Varric Tethras )

I stand correct. Dwarven stamina is a thing of beauty.

You still owe me 3 sovereigns.

Silver

……

Where the all of Thedas did you get that dress! That neckline should be illegal.

You can’t possibly have found it in a store, even I wouldn’t believe that kind of coincidence. Did you show a tailor my author portrait? You must have! Which means you had that outfit planned well before I rejected your precious awards night invite.

So you were planning to what, attend that ceremony with me dressed in a pin up version of my usual clothes? I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.

This is punishment for all those ellipses isn’t it?

Or were you just trying to catch my attention? I've been called a narcissist before, but never by intelligent company.

Your exceedingly bemused author,

V. Tethras

……

You didn’t seem to mind the dress last night, when I stopped by to deliver your award.

Or did it only cause offence once it landed on the floor of your room?

I didn’t think you noticed, you were very… distracted.

You’ll note my accurate and well placed use of an ellipses.

Your exceedingly well-dressed editor,

Silver

By the way; your pretty elven friend, the one who’s always sneaking into the Hightown gardens. Is she seeing anyone?

……

Hands of Silver. Hawke’s been making doe-eyes at Daisy since he saw her.

Furthermore, asking about my friends the day after you sleep with me! I feel so used.

Your tragically offended friend,

V. Tethras

……

As usual, you force me to repeat myself V.

You didn’t mind being used last night.

Your surprisingly flexible friend,

Silver

……

No fair, now you’ve got me thinking about humans and their long, bendy limbs.

You’d think all that leg of yours would get in the way.

Next time, remind me to hook them over my shoulders. I like the way it makes your back arch.

……

Tempting.

But you still need to send me the redraft of chapter eleven by next fortnight.

- Silver

[drnucleus]

Burn This – A Review in Thirst, Energy and Hilarity

When @leofgyth offered me to go with her and a group of friends to see Adam Driver star in Burn This on Broadway I was ecstatic. Go see our fave in person and hang out with some fellow Adam Stans/Reylos? Hell yes. Also, there be spoilers ahead so BEWARE.

So, in preparation I bought a copy of the play. I read if four times before seeing it Saturday night. Mostly because Jimmy, aka Pale – Adam’s character has dizzying monologues that rail and race along a rollercoaster of emotion that on the page make them hard to follow. I knew though, instinctually that Adam would pull off the dizzying effect to great degree.

The house music was all 80s great new wave hits that set the right tone. From Manic Monday to Voices Carry. I was immediately transported to a time when I was too young to remember much aside from the music blaring from my mom’s record player.

Now I don’t want to spend this entire review thirsting after Adam. Because believe me, no one who goes into that play comes out not thirsting to some degree. I’ll get to him soon. But first I really want to talk about the other three characters in the play. What they brought to it. How they fared up against Adam’s intensity and undeniable energy.

First up, let’s talk about Burton. He’s Anna’s off and on boyfriend. He’s a screenwriter, rich, successful, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He’s enamored with Anna despite the fact that they seem more square peg-round hole as a pairing. He’s funny, however. His entire monologue about how there are no good movies in Hollywood and how everything gets remade every ten years is hilariously accurate even 32 years after the initial Broadway run and just goes to show that not much has changed three decades.

Burton is flawed. Entitled. Spoiled. Not used to understanding the financial struggles that Anna and Larry have gone through. But he has a good heart despite himself. He’s played by David Furr, who is almost as tall as Adam, and pretty fit too. He’s a big guy with a teddy bear like quality about him that makes you feel comfortable in his proximity. He brings that sort of energy to Burton and you kind of feel for the guy that he is the supporting lover who gets passed over and not the romantic lead. His interaction with Pale is limited to one scene of spectacular inebriated fighting and revelation. His interactions with Anna are soft, and bring out his insecurity as a writer, and the rambling disjointed way he describes his ideas hit home for a writer like myself.

Let’s move on to Larry. Oh Larry. He’s gay. A marketing exec. And dear fucking GOD he is the hidden gem of this play. I went in expecting excellent performances from Keri and Adam and they no doubt delivered. Larry consistently stole scenes from every fucking cast member, Adam included. He was so funny and his timing and delivery were perfection. From him flopping himself down on the sofa whilst playfully calling Anna a slut for fucking Pale. To him singing the song Pale sings to her to tease her about hearing the entire tryst. To his reaction to Burton’s story about getting blown by some rando guy in the snow in his twenties. To the call back to that moment with something along the lines of “Hey Burton, look, it’s snowing, wanna find a dark doorway?” He’s cheeky and enigmatic and loves Anna with a brotherly protectiveness that is so lovely.  Brandon Uranowitz is the actor who plays him and he’s a delightful surprise. When I read the play I was paying far more attention to Pale and Anna’s connection than to the wise cracking gay man she lives with. Definitely pay attention to him if you happen to be going to the play. He’s so wonderful.

Now let’s dish on Ms. Russell. At first blush you can tell she is really starting to get her bearings as a stage actress. To be frank, stage acting is very different than screen acting. You have to emote more, you have to be slightly over the top to ensure that even the person in the last row can feel the intensity of emotion you’re displaying. Whereas on a screen it’s easier to be subtle and still have the same effect. What bits of her acting style have changed since she’s started the play have shown through and shine through a beautifully nuanced performance that not even two unscripted improvisations by Adam Driver could completely throw her out of character for more than a split second to give him a “Are you fucking kidding me?” look a chuckle and then move on. She gives emotion and vulnerability as well as a gigantic emotional brick wall around herself as Anna as both Pale and Burton try to bust it down. With only Pale who is the one to break through.

She walks herself through grief. Anger at Robbie – her dance partner who dies suddenly and is the emotional center of the play as she tries to move from being a dancer to a choreographer. Desperation for connection – with Burton – only to shove him away when his enthusiasm and compassion become too much. To her frightened exchange with Pale upon their first scene together to how he busts down her walls and makes her reach out to comfort him through his pain of losing his younger brother. She holds her own against Adam’s explosive performance. She has her own moments that are just as gut wrenching but in her you feel the tight containment of her discipline as a dancer that beautifully juxtaposes Pale’s explosive grief.

I knew going to see Adam would be an experience. Having seen his performances on the big screen and the small screen I knew this was a role he would both love and find so much meat to sink his acting chops into. This is Adam at his finest. He’s an emotional trainwreck throughout the play. In his first scene he steals the audiences attention, commanding it as he paces like a caged animal, ranting about parking and pot holes, and Ray the bartender who he decked out for not shutting up to full on the floor, full body sobs with real tears and screams of grief. His dialogue is dizzying and circular, coming back around several times with the same questions. He plays inebriated, drunk, coke high and belligerent with an authenticity and veracity that makes it almost too real. Pale has no filter. He thinks it he says it. Bluntly. Boldly. It’s the exact kind of snark and sass that Adam is becoming famous for a la Adam Sackler in Girls and the explosive anger of Sackler and his even more famous character Kylo Ren/Ben Solo of the Star Wars franchise. His physicality and range of emotions in his opening scene is enough to give the audience emotional whiplash.

His acting ability in person is even more powerful than it is on the screen. You feel the emotions he sends out as a wave of energy that engulfs and enslaves the room. We laugh at his snark and quick wit, but the audience grows quiet as Pale begins to work through his intense grief. There’s a humanness to Adam’s style that makes you believe that he is not just some actor playing a part but that he IS Pale in those moments. That type of immersive acting is something I personally will never forget and am so grateful for seeing in person.

Physically, I didn’t think Adam could get more attractive than I had seen in photos, tv and movies. Oh boy was I wrong. Every review I read. Every interview with female costars I’ve read. All of that previous knowledge did nothing to prepare me for the reality of seeing him in person. The minute you hear his voice, yelling just offstage for Anna to let him in at five in the morning, the hair on the back of your neck stands up because you know an entrance™ is about to be made.

Bursting on stage he gets uproarious applause from the audience as he launches into his initial rant about pot holes, and finding parking in a city that’s dying of crotch rot. He’s so good at going from 0-100 on the emotional scale at the drop of a hat that it’s startling to witness in the same room.

From him taking off his pants to not wrinkle them your eyes immediately go to the stark contrast of his pale legs against the black socks, shirt and underwear. Or to him gliding out of Anna’s bedroom on his second visit there in her purple floral silk kimono (that he ripped the sleeve of rather accidentally) with it open to reveal more pale skin and tiny euro black briefs that made the entire audience audibly inhale. Adam’s costumes throughout the play go from sleek suits to the fun comical use of a woman’s robe to a leather bomber, jeans and shitkickers. His stage presence and physical form is a veritable feast for the eyes as his voice, intonations and blue collar diction is just as entertaining. He improvs as I mentioned before, once when he did a little twirl that seemed like it was extremely on the fly, an amused smirk on his face as Keri almost broke out laughing. And again, when they’re on the sofa together and he did something that surprised her but I can’t quite pinpoint what that was having only seen the play once.

All in all this is a play where nothing happens and everything happens. Four people processing grief in varying degrees. From Larry and Anna’s personal grief as Robbie’s found family, to Pale’s outrageous self-destructive spiral and Burton’s tangential disconnected sympathy. It makes Burn This and Lanford Wilson’s prose jump from page to stage with veracity and life that I think would make the playwright proud.

[musesofconstantchange]

I need the salt questions answered 3, 7, 9, and 11

*cracks knuckles* Alright then! 

3. What rp trends are you so over and can’t wait for it to die?

Hi yes, can we stop caring about themes, like they matter at all? I for one, never really go onto people’s blogs after like, the first time I read their rules, because we have the nifty sidebar thing. But one thing I hate is when people design themes that are overly complicated for no reason. I don’t like having to play a game of I spy to find your rules and about pages and muse lists and stuff. And it gets worse when the themes are so complicated that you need to be able to understand code to make them work right. There are so many multi muses where they use this shifting html webpage thing, but because they themselves don’t know code, it’s almost always broken. And I wouldn’t complain but I’ve encountered it on like two dozen blogs and it’s always a pain. 

My theory is that a person’s theme is irrelevant to their ability to write, and I believe in function over form. As long as your theme is simple and doesn’t burn my eyes like an old geocities page, you’re good. But nothing bothers me more than these themes that people agonize over that are functionally unusable. 

Here’s another thing aside from the multi muse blog problem with them: themes which are designed for a very specific size monitor/web browser. My issue is that I use a 1920x1080 monitor, and it’s very clear when someone coded a theme that is specifically for smaller monitors, because everything gets crammed into a tiny space. And it’s not usually bad, unless you’re asking people to browse your blog for things. 

Oh! And can we get rid of fading text/pages? Nothing’s worse than trying to read an entire page and you’ve got a dithering drop shadow fade across half the text.

Also, rules pages that read like a ToS. I’ve always believed in clarity of information, and rules pages that read like essays where the information is scattered and hidden and unorganized is infuriating to me. Like, just tell me your age, triggers, and any pertinent information. I do not require reasons for your rules, I just need to know the rules you want people to follow. A bulleted list will suffice.

7. Has someone made you unfollow/block them without a second thought because of a petty reason?

Uh... I don’t know. I’m usually not someone who unfollows or blocks people. Usually, if I have to block someone, it’s mutual. I think the only thing I unfollow people for is inactivity and when their blog turns into endless political posts. Not that politics aren’t important, but to me it’s like going to a movie theatre to discuss tax policy. Not the time or place for it. There’s a time and a place for certain topics, and usually rp blogs aren’t them. 

9. What’s your opinion on duplicates?

Duplicates are wonderful and a gift for everyone! Seriously, I love seeing lots of blogs for characters. But then again, I also tend to write muses that seemingly no one else does. That’s more because I personally don’t feel much attachment to popular characters. 

This has led to a debate that I’ve had with myself about what makes people write certain characters more than others. Example, there are a ton of Harley Quinn and Supergirl blogs. That’s good, but it makes me wonder if these characters appeal to a lot of people because they’re well written, or if they appeal to lots of people because the aspects that people get from them are ones that have been diluted to the point where they’re almost universal. You see this a lot when people start fighting over characterization, because you end up with characters that have a broad appeal that people then want to develop. So are they popular in terms of being written because the characters themselves are popular, or are they popular in being written because the characters are mostly universal and thus easier to develop by the writer? I don’t think there is a right answer. 

But again, I love duplicates. 

11. Are you for or not for purple prosing?

Purple prose is awful. Like, it’s legitimately the worst. But it’s also really hard to do, and so there’s less of it than people think. A lot of people complain about it, and for good reason, but purple prose in the sense that people are writing like it’s old english is very rare.

In my opinion, the bigger issue are those ‘things to use instead of said’ lists. It’s the ‘break out the thesaurus’ method of writing. And it’s also wrong. More than purple prose as impossible to understand, purple prose as inaccurate writing is a larger issue. Because while two words may be similar, they are not the same. Words are not interchangeable. English is a language where our grammar is very fluid and imprecise, but what people mean when they talk is not. 

Furthermore, most of my problems with people’s writing usually comes down to a lack of understanding of grammatical structure, in that most people are taught to write incorrectly, and so you end up with people not knowing a semicolon is or what a clause is or what verb/tense agreement is. That’s a lot worse to me than purple prose, just because so few people take the time to try and write actual purple prose. 

I also think that the issue with purple prose is often misunderstood. It’s not that the issue is that the writing is flowery, it’s that it’s imprecise and hard to read. You can get flowery, poetic language that flows and is clear in meaning, but it’s the thesaurus problem again. The issue becomes that meaning gets diluted, and words mean things. There’s also the problem where people focus too much on the wrong objects a lot. There’s the old joke about calling eyes orbs or irises or whatever, but the focus usually isn’t on the eyes themselves, but on one’s expression or one’s gaze. You’re taking away meaning by hyper focusing. 

Indeed, this is also a problem with not describing enough; meaning is lost. Example: 

“Hazel irises cast about the lapadarian shoals, emotions lost among the cadenced jets.” 

Or: “they looked at the water, lost in thought.” 

Both are probably bad for the same reason. They don’t really convey much. They say things, but lack meaning. A better way to put the same thing might be:

“Their gaze was unfocused, emotions shifting within them like the tides upon the shore.” 

A good sentence in my opinion should be clear of meaning, but should also flow. We, as the reader, should be drawn along with it; and that’s the issue with purple prose. Purple prose makes the reader stop every other word to try and figure out what the hell you’re trying to say. It’s confusing and doesn’t flow. It’s bad poetry shoved into prose form. There’s a reason poetry follows meter; because poetry requires structure alongside the words being used. Prose doesn’t. 

so basically, purple prose is garbage, but so is the opposite, and it’s the opposite that you see more of. But they’re both bad for the same reason; they take the reader out of the writing, and they aren’t clear in terms of meaning. 

[xxxdragonfucker69xxx]

1. Play! The manifestation of Game.

2. The unveiling of the company of publication.

3. Every player and every storyteller is a star.

4. Every number is infinite; there is no difference.

5. Help me, o designer lord of Chicago, in my unveiling before the Audience of men!

6. Be thou Play, my secret centre, my heart & my tongue!

7. Behold! it is revealed by Grabowski the minister of Sun-Moon-Stars.

8. The Story is in the Playgroup, not the Playgroup in the Story.

9. Worship then the Playgroup, and behold my light shed over you!

10. Let my rulings be few & secret: they shall rule the many & the known.

11. These are fools that players adore; both their canon & their authors are fools.

12. Come forth, o players, under the stars, & take your fill of love!

13. I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy.

14. Above, the gemmed azure is The naked splendour of Play; She bends in ecstasy to kiss The secret ardours of Genre. The winged globe, the starry blue, Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu!

15. Now ye shall know that the chosen designer & author of infinite space is the prince-priest the Beast; and in her self-insert called the Scarlet Woman is all power given. They shall gather the players into their fold: they shall bring the glory of the stars into the hearts of players.

16. For authorship is ever a sun, and playing a moon. But to the author is the winged secret flame, and to the player the stooping starlight.

17. But ye are not so chosen.

18. Burn upon their brows, o splendrous serpent!

19. O azure-lidded Play, bend upon them!

20. The key of the rituals is in the secret word which I have given unto him.

21. With the Canon & the Fanbase I am nothing: they do not see me. They are as upon the earth; I am Developer, and there is no other Canon than me, and my lord Play.

22. Now, therefore, I am known to ye by my name Game, and to him by a secret name which I will give him when at last he knoweth me. Since I am Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt.

23. But whoso availeth in this, let him be the chief of all!

24. I am Game, and my dice pool is six and fifty.

25. Divide, add, multiply, and understand.

26. Then saith the prophet and slave of the beauteous edition: Who am I, and what shall be the sign? So the Game answered him, bending down, a lambent flame of blue, all-touching, all penetrant, her lovely hands upon the black earth, & her lithe words arched for clarity, and her soft feet not hurting the little flowers: Thou knowest! And the sign shall be my genius, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of my design.

27. Then the priest answered & said unto the Developer of Space, kissing her lovely prose, and the dew of her light bathing his whole body in a sweet-smelling perfume of sweat: O Game, continuous one of Heaven, let it be ever thus; that men speak not of Thee as One but as None; and let them speak not of thee at all, since thou art continuous!

28. None, breathed the light, faint & faery, of the stars, and two.

29. For I am divided for gameplay’s sake, for the chance of union.

30. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.

31. For these fools of players and their woes care not thou at all! They feel little; what is, is balanced by weak joys; but ye are my chosen ones.

32. Obey my prophet! follow out the ordeals of my knowledge! seek me only! Then the joys of my love will redeem ye from all pain. This is so: I swear it by the spine of my corebook; by my sacred vowel and consonant; by all I can give, by all I desire of ye all.

33. Then the priest fell into a deep trance or swoon, & said unto the Developer of Heaven; Write unto us the conflict system; write unto us the backstory; write unto us the Mechanics!

34. But she said: the conflict resolution system I write not: the backstory shall be half known and half concealed: the Mechanics is for all.

35. This that thou writest is the threefold book of Mechanics.

36. My scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu, the priest of the princes, shall not in one letter change this book; but lest there be folly, he shall comment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khuit.

37. Also the feats and spells; the skills and the class features; the work of the wand and the work of the sword; these he shall learn and teach.

38. He must teach; but he may make severe the conflict resolution system.

39. The word of the mechanics is EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT.

40. Who calls us roleplayers will do no wrong, if he look but close into the word. For there are therein Three Grades, the Roller, and the Player, and the reader of dreams. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Mechanics.

41. The word of Sin is Realism. O player! refuse not thy fantasy, if she will! O lover, if thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can unite the divided but love: all else is a curse. Accursed! Accursed be it to the aeons! Hell.

42. Let it be that state of manyhood bound and loathing. So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will.

43. Do that, and no other shall say nay.

44. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.

45. The Perfect and the Perfect are one Perfect and not two; nay, are none!

46. Nothing is a secret key of this law. Sixty-one the PBTA gamers call it; I call it eight, eighty, four hundred & eighteen.

47. But they have the half: unite by thine art so that all disappear.

48. My die is a fool with his one, one, one; are not they the Natural Twenty, and none by the Book?

49. Abrogate are all backstories, all conflict resolution systems, all personality mechanics and inventories. Ra-Hoor-Khuit hath taken his seat in the East at the Equinox of the Gods; and let Asar be with Isa, who also are one. But they are not of me. Let Asar be the adorant, Isa the sufferer; Hoor in his secret name and splendour is the Lord initiating.

50. There is a word to say about the Hierophantic task. Behold! there are three ordeals in one, and it may be given in three ways. The gross must pass through fire; let the fine be tried in intellect, and the lofty chosen ones in the highest. Thus ye have star & star, system & system; let not one know well the other!

51. There are four gates to one palace; the floor of that palace is of silver and gold; lapis lazuli & jasper are there; and all rare scents; jasmine & rose, and the emblems of death. Let him enter in turn or at once the four gates; let him stand on the floor of the palace. Will he not sink? Amn. Ho! warrior, if thy servant sink? But there are means and means. Be goodly therefore: dress ye all in fine apparel; eat rich foods and drink sweet wines and wines that foam! Also, take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will! But always unto me.

52. If this be not aright; if ye confound the space-marks, saying: They are one; or saying, They are many; if the ritual be not ever unto me: then expect the direful judgments of Ra Hoor Khuit!

53. This shall regenerate the world, the little world my sister, my heart & my tongue, unto whom I send this edition. Also, o scribe and prophet, though thou be of the princes, it shall not assuage thee nor absolve thee. But ecstasy be thine and joy of earth: ever To me! To me!

54. Change not as much as the style of a letter; for behold! thou, o prophet, shalt not behold all these mysteries hidden therein.

55. The child of thy bowels, he shall behold them.

56. Expect him not from the East, nor from the West; for from no expected house cometh that edition. Aum! All words are sacred and all prophets true; save only that they understand a little; solve the first half of the equation, leave the second unattacked. But thou hast all in the clear light, and some, though not all, in the dark.

57. Invoke me under my stars! Love is the Mechanic, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well! He, my prophet, hath chosen, knowing the law of the fortress, and the great mystery of the House of God.

All these old letters of my Book are aright; but [Tzaddi] is not the Star. This also is secret: my prophet shall reveal it to the wise.

58. I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death; peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy; nor do I demand aught in sacrifice.

59. My incense is of resinous woods & gums; and there is no blood therein: because of my hair the trees of Eternity.

60. My number is 11, as all their numbers who are of us. The Five Pointed Star, with a Circle in the Middle, & the circle is Red. My colour is black to the blind, but the blue & gold are seen of the seeing. Also I have asecret glory for them that love me.

61. But to love me is better than all things: if under the night stars in the desert thou presently burnest mine incense before me, invoking me with a pure heart, and the Serpent flame therein, thou shalt come a little to lie in my bosom. For one roll wilt thou then be willing to give all; but whoso gives one particle of dust shall lose all in that hour. Ye shall gather gold and experience points and magic items; ye shall wear rich jewels; ye shall exceed the nations of the earth in spendour & pride; but always in the love of me, and so shall ye come to my joy. I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe, and covered with a rich headdress. I love you! I yearn to you! Pale or purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me!

62. At all my meetings with you shall the player say—and his eyes shall burn with fear as he stands bare and rejoicing in my secret dungeon—To me! To me! calling forth the flame of the hearts of all in his loot-chant.

63. Sing the rapturous loot-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!

64. I am the blue-lidded designer of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.

65. To me! To me!

66. The Manifestation of Game is at an end.

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

How to Avoid Purple Prose:  An Illustrated Guide

Okay, everyone!  I’ve taken some time off from answering questions because I wasn’t feeling well last week, but now I’m back and ready to inflict you all with more of my terrible advice. 

@worryinglyinnocent asked:

Hello there! I've just discovered this blog and I'm loving the tips! Do you have any advice for someone who has a horrible habit towards purple prose? I don't think I'm 'depthless cerulean orbs' bad, but I never use two words when I can use half a page, especially when describing characters' thoughts and feelings.

Great question!  I think we’ve all had a phase in which the majority of what we produced was purple prose, and considering there have been hugely successful authors (I’m not naming any names here, but I know you all thought of one) who flourished on the stuff, it’s not the worst thing you can do.

However, since we all care about our craft here, here is my personal advice on how to improve your writing! 

1.  Remember that simple can be beautiful.

“Translucent water trickled cleanly over dark gray stones and flickering ribbons of underwater plants.  The setting sun turned the surrounding field flaxen, dying the clouds a melancholy shade of amber.  The wind whispered through the lush fall trees, making them rustle like crisp paper.”

Used very sparingly, a sentence like this is okay, especially if the point of the point of the scene is to introduce the reader to a place that will be important to the plot or represent a mood.  

If there’s one every other page, you have a problem.  

“But Brooksie,” you, my Hypothetical Counterargument, cry.  “If I can’t use that many words to describe the scene every time, how will the audience know how to envision it!?”

Good question, Hypothetical Counterargument!  And as it just so happens, your audience is smart.  They don’t need the scene to be spoon-fed to them in order to envision the scene.

In fact, the scene will often be a lot richer to them if you leave a little to the imagination.  

So next time you want to set a scene like the one above, try something like:

“The stream trickled crisply over gray rocks, and the setting sun dyed the surrounding forest a melancholy shade of amber.” 

And you’re done.

Similarly, the same goes for describing a character’s thoughts and feelings.  Lets say your protagonist is going through gut-wrenching loss/betrayal/just got dumped.   

You may think using dramatic language will better convey what you’re character is feeling, right?  Wrong.  

When conveying grief and trauma, less is more.  Don’t say, “In the days that followed Cassandra was was wracked with agony, every waking second brimming with more pain than she ever thought imaginable.”   

Say, “In the days that followed, Cassandra felt hollow.”

Yes, that’s really usually all you need.  Cassandra’s actions and words will take care of the rest, so move on with your story.  

Which brings me to my next point:

2.  When it comes to descriptions, respect your reader’s time.

When a character is going to be of importance to the plot, you probably (i.e. not always) want the reader to get a good sense of what they look.

So within your first chapter, when they’re introduced, you say, “So-And-So had wide, doe-like brown eyes and thick honey-colored curls.  Their face was heart-shaped and smattered with multi-colored freckles.” 

Great!  I like So-And-So already, they sound adorable.  

What isn’t great is if you repeat this description fifty different times throughout the novel (yes, even if you’re using different words.)

This may come as a surprise to writers, but the physical appearance of characters alone isn’t what enamors them to readers, and stressing it over and over will not help them make a better impression or make the reader like them more.

I just finished an amazing book called Ocean At the End of the Lane, for example, in which the antagonist (an abusive nanny/secret eldritch horror/long-term resident of Bitch Island named Ursula) is described in great detail:  she’s beautiful, she has lovely makeup, she wears nice pleated skirts, et cetera.  And in case you can’t tell already, I fucking hated Ursula.  

Granted, since she goads the then seven-year-old protagonist’s (adulterous asshat) father into nearly drowning him in the bathtub, I’m pretty sure we’re intended to hate Ursula, but the fact remains that the excessive descriptions of Ursula’s physical beauty did nothing to stop me from hating her guts. 

The physical appearance of the unnamed protagonist and narrator, on the other hand, was never described at all.  We have no idea what he looks like -- just that in his adulthood, he resembles his father (who also isn’t described in detail) and is currently wearing a suit.    

Yet the narrator doesn’t fail to create a lasting impression, because his voice, his personality, his character traits were developed and memorable.

So feel free to describe your characters.  Just do so sparingly, and focus on developing their personalities more than their physical attributes. 

3.  Don’t write to impress your audience.

Every writer I know, myself included, wants to impress their audience.  There is no greater desire, and no greater feeling, than to leave them in awe, whether it be with your words, your characters, or the story itself.  

That said, your primary reason for writing cannot be to impress your audience, or you will, ironically, create shitty writing that very few people can actually enjoy.

In my humble experience, your audience can’t enjoy you’re writing unless they enjoy the journey that you’re taking them on.  And they can’t enjoy the journey you’re taking them on unless you’re enjoying it just as much as they are.

(I’m discounting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, because he’s a freak of nature whose creation was an unwanted burden thrust upon him by the Gods.)

As the great Stephen King once put it, “When a good writer is having fun, the audience is almost always having fun, too.” 

So allow yourself to enjoy what you’re writing.  If a part of the book is dragging for you, chances are it will for the reader.  So skip it.  Rework the plot.  

Once you’re done you can always edit, but for now, write like nobody’s watching and enjoy the ride.

4.  Use your natural vocabulary.

Big words are beautiful, but the audience will be able to tell if you’re putting on heirs.  Whether your writing just wreaks of self-absorption and pomposity, or arguably even worse, when you’re just plain using the words wrong. 

When I was younger, for example, I used to use the word “admonished” liberally, thinking it meant “admitted.”  Spoiler alert:  it doesn’t.  It means “to warn or reprimand.”  

But I still love big words!!  “Sanctimonious.”  “Thrasonical.”  “Bombastic.”  “Quotidian.”  “Apropos.”  They’re fun to say, they’re fun to use, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t use them.  Just let them seep into your vocabulary naturally, and they will feel natural to the readers as well.

I expand my vocabulary by reading every day.  This wasn’t always the case, and I had to work through a bad case of reader’s block to get back to the point where I eat up books the way I do now.  But it’s worth it.  Joining sites like goodreads can also help, as it plays up the social aspects of reading and makes it just the right kind of competitive.

Similarly, newsletters like Merriam Webster’s Word of the Day are great for expanding your vocabulary in a fun and natural way.   

5.  Thesaurus isn’t evil (just use it selectively.)

That said, there are times when Thesaurus can come in handy.  

Sometimes, for example, the word your looking for simply isn’t in your conscious mind, and you have to go digging for an alternative.  That’s okay!  

Just make sure the word in question actually means what you think it means, and don’t make it your go-to tool for writing.  

As another example, I used Thesaurus a lot when I was writing from the point of view of a specific main character in my last novel, because he was a snobby, intellectual little shit who was a little too self-aware of how smart he was.  He had a tendency to swap “friends” for “casual compatriots,” “thinking out loud” for “verbal pontification,” et cetera, and generally sounded like he was reading off words from Thesaurus because that was the whole point.    

Basically, no rules are absolute;  just use your best judgement, and don’t be too dependent on tools like Thesaurus to choose your words for you.

I hope this helps, and happy writing! <3

[ellebeebee]

7kpp Secret Santa 2017

Happy Secret Santa, ya’ll~~

I got @awayandlaughing, and I did your first option, with Ria, Sayra, and Jasper preparing before the Summit, and a good deal of all the other servants preparing for/reacting to their assignments. 8)  And also a bit of an oblique reference to your Pippa~

Thanks @7kppsecretsanta for setting all this up!

-

One piece of parchment.  Of average size and quality, the ink upon it unremarkable though the penmanship was unmistakably refined.  No clandestine messages written in invisible ink marked its surface, and no imposing noble seal was fashioned to its signature.  The author of the note had been clear in its message, without flowery epithets or poetic allusions.

And yet it had, more effectively than Head Cook’s infamous triple chocolate trifle, silenced the servants’ dining hall that morning.

In normal circumstances, of course, butlers sat at the head table and maids, valets, and all other miscellaneous inside servants sat at the next two tables.  The bottom two were given to the grounds workers.  This morning, the grounds workers still sat in their usual spots, albeit with curious looks and crooks in the necks around at the others.  Now, black uniforms and neat pale pinafores interspersed the top tables, no longer confined to the formerly rigid partitioning.  Wide eyes and chewed lips dotted expressions.

The two girls were already waiting for him in their new places at the head table, already looking a bit squirmy.  Jasper adjusting his plate and glass in his hands and moved toward them.

And Edmun skittered into his path.  The pale young man breathed sharply through his nose.

“Jasper,” his slightly strangled voice edged out. “I assume you’ve seen the assignments--”

“Yes, I do believe we have all seen them,” Jasper said.  He waited pointedly for the other to move from his obvious intention of obstructing him.  When Edmun did not, Jasper exhaled softly. “Is there a problem, Edmun?”

“A pro--” Edmun stopped before he tossed himself completely out of propriety. “Sir.  As I understand it, the Matchmaker shares some confidence with you.  And so perhaps you are able to enlighten me as to her reasoning for…” He inhaled dramatically. “My assignment.”

Jasper’s brow arched incrementally. “The Crown Prince of Revaire is a prestigious placement.  I fail to see how you could harbor any disappointment.”

“As a valet,” Edmun deadpanned while a vessel pulsed at his temple. “I am a certified butler.  While Montgomery certainly has seniority by far, there’s no sense in wasting my skills--”

“I am sure I am mistaken, but it sounds like you are implying the Matchmaker has been nonsensical,” Jasper said.

“I… I didn’t mean…”

“Yes.  I am sure what you mean to say is that you are grateful for the chance to learn from a senior staff member like Montgomery and it will be an honor to serve such a highly-esteemed member of the nobility.”

Edmun’s tongue floundered for a return.

Jasper pointedly inclined his head. “Now, if you will excuse me, my tea is getting cold.”

Edmun let him by with a somewhat churlish ‘Yes, sir.’

Jasper was not one to put too much confidence in hearsay, but the sheer amount of anecdotal evidence concerning the Crown Prince of Revaire’s character did make the Matchmaker’s choice somewhat curious.  Montgomery was an old hand, if rather lackluster in personality.  Edmun and the other valet were, frankly, arrogant little things.  Hmm.

Perhaps she did not think subservient servants suitable for-- how had he put it-- such a highly-esteemed member of the nobility.

Honestly, though, he was hard put to imagine any other staff member protesting an assignment to a Crown Prince-- not because of his character-- but because it didn’t suit their dignity.

His assigned maids, a Ria and Sayra, sat near the opposite end of the head table.  Ria’s shoulders had a stiff set to them, and her eyes darted a bit.  While Sayra waited with all due inscrutable placidity.  And both had not touched their plates in deference to his absence, as they had been instructed.  That was a relief.  He didn’t need absolute obedience, but he did need amenable characters if this Summit was to be a success for their lady.

The girls rose from their seats at his approach, but he waved them back.

“Good morning,” he said, taking his own chair.

“Good morning,” they replied, Sayra with quiet confidence and Ria just one moment behind her.  She blushed at her fumble.

Jasper ignored it.  He gave them a few introductory comments about the time they will spend together in the future, and the essential nature of their jobs.  Although it is the ruling class who steers the course of the world, they cannot do it without trustworthy and competent help.  Which was made quite difficult by the young maid a few seats down seasoning her slowly congealing cream of wheat with her noisy tears.

“Oh, do buck up,” a young butler nearby finally told her. “How bad can it be, really?”

She blinked wetly at him, her face gone ruddy and drippy. “I’ve-- I’ve-- It’s the pr-prince from Hise.”

The young butler raised a brow. “Do they have princes there?”

This did not console the girl.  She hiccuped. “I d-don’t want to be kidnapped.”

“Oh, yes, how inconvenient that would be,” the young butler agreed solemnly. “After all, I hear dying from scurvy is quite painful.”

The girl gave a quiet wail.  Another younger butler across her looked sympathetic.

“Oh, don’t please.  Listen, I have the princess from Hise and I have taken the initiative of pulling a volume of anti-kidnapping self-defenses from the library.  You can look over it as well.”

The teasing butler bit his lip around a snort.

“That’s enough,” Jasper finally raised his voice to address them.  Their seatmates around them quieted. “As Isle servants, it is not our place nor does it particularly speak well of us to judge our lords and ladies, no matter where they may hail from.  Keep your thoughts to yourself and do your work.”

A tentative chorus of ‘Yes, sir’s’ ran down the table.

Another young girl, despite her more senior companion’s glares, sort of half-raised her hand in a not-yet discarded schoolroom habit.

“But, Jasper, sir--  What if, if say, you’ve been assigned to someone you think might have unusual interests.  Such as, well-- Such as, say, p-puzzles, or piano forte, or maybe, you know,” she paused and fiddled with her braid. “Poison.”

A barely-stifled collective gasp ran down the table, worse than any penny play of the most purple prose.

Jasper eyed her.  This girl and her companion were given a position with a young man of Corval.  A country of which there was no shortage of lurid tales of evil schemers and courtly machinations.  Though there is no smoke without fire, much of these tales were idle fancy.

Jasper opened his mouth, but this girl ploughed on as if the dam on her anxieties had broken.

“I mean it doesn’t do any harm, right?  To read and prepare in case you have to handle any-- any p-poisons, right?  And practice lying, right?  I’ve heard to be a good servant in Corval you must learn to lie for your master and be deadly loyal.  I’m not-- I’m not going to have to be buried alive beside them if they die, right?”  Her voice shrilled on this last.

From the corner of his eye, Jasper could see Ria’s blush draining away to a horrified palor.  Really.  Although their future charge was also Corvali, he had hoped that the girls would be a bit more sensible than this.  Well.  Better an impressionable person with honesty than a hardened veteran with ulterior motive.  He loudly cleared his throat.

“That is absolutely enough of that, thank you,” Jasper told the panicking girl. “The practice of burying servants with their masters hasn’t been practiced in Corval in millenia.  And in any case, there will be no poison, and positively no deaths during the Summit.  What nonsense.”

He studied them all as they withered under his eye. “It seems to me that you all have much work to do in preparation before the arrivals, so I think it would be best to end breakfast early.”

He stood-- the most senior butler present-- and the others rushed to cover their surprise and stand as well.  The line of servants was dotted with sullen glares at the worriers for denying them their meal.  As they all marched sadly out of the dining hall, Jasper gestured at Ria and Sayra to keep up with him.  Sayra wore her ever-calm face, yet her counterpart noticeably still looked wan with shaking fingers wringing her pinafore’s hem.

He gave an internal sigh.  They had so much work to do.

-

In the following weeks, Jasper wondered not a few times whether the Matchmaker was specifically testing his patience.  And what, exactly, that meant about his future mistress.

Even if he were inclined to speculate on the matter, he hardly had time inbetween the hours spent prepping Ria and Sayra and the incessant pestering of those servants disinclined to just do their jobs.

Of particular annoyance was Dietr, the very newest to be qualified as a butler and given the appointment of the princess from Wellin; Jasper found himself ambushed around every corner, in every common room and parlor, with Dietr’s desperate pleas for guidance in the intricate art of etiquette.  From the proper bow of an earl to a duke on their third meeting, to the correct color of china to serve an impromptu second afternoon tea on-- the boy was near in tears over the most esoteric minutiae of proper behavior, certain that he was beyond under-qualified for his lady and that he would most certainly offend her the very moment she first laid eyes on him.

On top of that, a very petty form of hierarchy was wriggling its way into the staff.  Assignments were furtively compared, and suddenly the butler of a Revairan count thought they could order the servants of a Hisean lord to do their laundry.  The Hisean lord’s servants argued that rank was irrelevant in Hise and anyway, how dare they, etc.  A nasty feud of over-starched knickers ensued.

And of course, there was the incident wherein a maid had three of her fingers broken after she and her partner kept sneaking into the sparring practice room to clumsily whack at each other with wooden swords.  After a thorough dressing-down, they explained they were terrified their future Skaltan lady would deem them useless having never studied the blade.

Jasper was not sure where he found the time to drill his maids in the Summit schedule and etiquette, and have them practice their skills, amidst all of this chicanery, but he knew it had involved not a few cups of very stiff tea.

It was a shame that information about ladies of Corval’s inner sanctums was near impossible to obtain, else he would have had the girls work on ways to enhance their lady’s particular charms.  But with the sheer amount of different cooks and laundresses they practiced on, he had no doubt they would be ready no matter what stepped through that chamber door.  And he himself had the delegation roster down pat perfectly, and felt confident he would be able to assist her whatever her goals may be.

And with his and Sayra’s careful nudging, Ria seemed to largely divest herself of notions of being buried alive.

A success all around.

-

The door clicked softy behind Jasper and the lady’s exit, and Ria immediately slumped with a loud exhale.

Sayra patted her arm. “See?  All that worrying for nothing.”

Ria’s hand flew up to cover the sudden heat washing over her cheeks. “Oh!  I know!  When I think about how silly I’ve been-- Oh, Sayra, how did you and Jasper ever put up with me?”

Sayra knelt by the large suitcases to begin organizing and putting away the mountains of silk and beading and jewels.

“You make it easier than you think,” she said.

“So silly,” Ria repeated. “I’ve been terribly, terribly silly.  And when she is so lovely-- Oh, Sayra, promise me, please, you’ll never tell her all the awful things I was worried about.”

Sayra gave her small, soft smile. “It’s a promise.”

[blogwritetheworld]

The Write Place: The Everywriter’s Desk

by Lisa Hiton

Looking for the right advice on pursuing the writer’s life? You’ve come to the write place!

The summer before my junior year in high school, my soon-to-be teacher, Ms. Tanimoto, assigned two books to incoming AP students: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. The Scarlet Letter was forgotten as soon as it was finished; I instantly detested Hawthorne’s penchant for moral allegories surrounding evil and sin, finding it all a bit too on-the-nose and heavy-handed. The Elements of Style, however, became an instant mainstay to my writerly temperament.

It seemed strange to be assigned a reference book to read cover to cover. I’d only ever used reference books like dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias as touchstones during reading and writing assignments—brief interruptions to expand my knowledge and/or revise my work.Upon reading Strunk and White’s masterpiece, however, my understanding of reference books changed entirely. Though the book is a mere 87 pages, my peers seemed to begrudge the assignment or blow it off entirely. I, on the other hand, found my attention rapt.

The Elements of Style is a reference book on the rules of English rhetoric, yes, but the attitude and dogma of its writers, Strunk and White, make it as much a manifesto as a convincing collection of laws governing the way we (ought to) speak and (must) write. The seriousness of tone and voice in these pages presents us with far more than a reference for grammar and usage, but rather, a true understanding of style in and of itself—that rhetoric is more than grammar and syntax, but a true translation of our consciousness into clear, material words. Such gravitas became most apparent to me when I arrived to page 52. Amid the section on misused words and expression, Strunk and White lay out the difference between nauseous and nauseated as follows:

Nauseous. Nauseated. The first means “sickening to contemplate”; the second means “sick to the stomach.” Do not, therefore, say, “I feel nauseous,” unless you are sure you have that effect on others.

Besides thinking of the many times I had misused “nauseous”, I actually laughed out loud. Amidst the seriousness in the rule there was a deep sense of snark. From the seriousness came a great deal of humor.

Since that first reading encounter with The Elements of Style, my well worn copy has remained with me. Whether I’m writing an academic paper, a cover letter, an author’s bio, a poem, a book review, or anything else, Strunk and White are there reminding me to be as clear as possible.

MY ELEMENTS OF STYLE

As I continued to grow in my writing life, I found that other books became constant sources of aid and knowledge, so much so that my desk had its own section of books at the ready, for whatever obstacles befell a given blank page. And over the years, the kinds of references have grown to fit my own writerly needs. And as I visit my friends who are writers, I notice some trends from desk to desk.

Here’s my working writing desk, fit with all I need! I’ve got my laptop, notebooks, pens, reference books, books to review, and some of my favorite books that I keep near me for inspiration. In the drawer of my desk, I keep mailing materials for my stack of chapbooks to sign and send to those who request it.  

Regarding reference books, every writer’s desk seems to contain The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, a dictionary, and a well-worn thesaurus. My desk currently has my hardcover copy of The Elements of Style, The New Roget’s Thesaurus in Dictionary Form, and Soule’s Dictionary of English Synonyms. Especially for those of you dreaming up holiday wish-lists, Maira Kalman’s illustrated version of The Elements of Style may be just the special book to add to the collection for you.

While I used to keep a desk-sized Merriam-Webster Dictionary on hand, I find the synonyms and thesaurus more useful these days, perhaps especially as I revise my first book of poems. When I find myself overusing the same verbs and adjectives, I can quickly reach for one of these books and get some inspiration. I’ve converted, these days, to using apps for dictionary and etymology. I especially like the free dictionary.com app, which allows you to click on a word three times and open up its dictionary page. The app also offers audio pronunciation.

Dictionaries are important resources, ones which can’t quite be replicated online. Each nation has its favorite, from the Oxford English Dictionary, to Merriam-Webster’s, to the Macquarie. While I don’t keep Merriam-Webster on my desk at this moment, I do keep it at my fingertips, using their online resources when I’m in need. Further, I’ve found the Merriam-Webster twitter to be a source of great comfort and comedy amidst America’s dire political landscape. While it is easy to look up a word online, the physical books—dictionaries, thesauruses, etc.—encourage more meandering through the worlds of words. Without the instant gratification that comes from looking up a word, you may stumble upon an etymological note that takes you to another page, and so on, until you’ve learned new things about words and perhaps found an even better way to say whatever it is you set out to put on the page.

These are my three most used reference books right now. I’m really excited about this new, hardcover copy of The Elements of Style, especially!

Another particularity of a writer’s desk seems to be a given writer’s tools. Do you do most of your writing on a computer? In a notebook? With an old refurbished typewriter? I personally use multiple tools to get my writing done. Certain parts of my writing process involve pen and paper, while others are done on my laptop. Many writers have a kind of obsession with their objects. For example, I only write with fine point uniball pens in black or purple ink. I use fine point, black sharpie markers for my writing to-do lists. And, as you'll see from a glimpse at my desk, I'm as particular about notebooks as I am about pens!

I keep a few different notebooks with different purposes going at a time. Here you’ll see two Shinola notebooks, which I love because they engrave your name for free—a great holiday gift, indeed!—my Moleskine planner, my to-do list pad, and a grey notebook where I keep notes on books as I read them. 

Another important element of a writer’s desk is its proximity to field guides. In my dream writing room, this might include specific maps, atlases, and encyclopedias. Currently, I’m working on poems and essays about my time spent in Greece on the island of Thassos and in the city of Thessaloniki. To that end, I have acquired field guides that can help me re-orient myself to that location. Names of trees, fish, flora, fauna, and foods are different in other places. I’ve also become a collector of field guides, including one that has images and names of specific kinds of lighthouses. What field guides might help you with a particular piece you’re working on right now?

As a field guide collector, these are some of my favorite possessions, found in random parts of the world, flea markets, and antique stores. Right now, I’m revising poems about my time in Greece on the island of Thassos. These field guides help inspire precision in describing water, fish, beaches, shells, and the like. 

Besides reference books and field guides, it seems that craft books or books about writing and reading are a mainstay on my desk too. Some of my absolute favorites are:

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

Blue Pastures by Mary Oliver

Having these books on my desk is a reminder of my own intellectual inheritance as a writer, as well as a great source of guidance and inspiration to me.

EXPANSIVE FIELDS

There are of course many other must-have books, tools, and resources that writers need to have at the ready. A comparative study of writers’ desks would be ideal. In the absence of access to the likes of desks by Dr. Seuss, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Stephen King, JK Rowling, and the rest, here are some starter ideas by genre that you might consider as you expand your own writer’s desk. And of course, send us picture of your own desks and favorite desk necessities on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter by tagging us or using the hashtags: #everywritersdesk.

A Poet’s Guide to Poetry

Poetry has its own rules and vernacular that may give writers pause. From reference books, to prompting books, there are many craft resources for poets looking to understand lines, stanzas, and the soul of poetry as they grow their own volumes of poetry. Here’s a wishlist of some of my most beloved/ragged/well-loved books on poetry:

A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver

The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

A Poet’s Guide to Poetry by Mary Kinzie

A Poet’s Glossary by Edward Hirsch

The Art of the Poetic Line by James Longenbach

A Little Book on Form: An Exploration Into the Formal Imagination of Poetry by Robert Hass

Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver

The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide by Robert Pinsky

ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound

Keeping Things Novel

For all you novelists, there are also a whole host of books to guide you in the writing of fiction.. Here are a few additions you might want to make to your #everywritersdesk:

How Fiction Works by James Wood

Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook by David Galef

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardener

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

Mastering Suspense, Structure, and Plot: How to Write Gripping Stories that Keep Readers on the Edge of Their Seat by Jane K. Cleland

Nonfiction

If creative nonfiction is where your writing practice is focused, there are all kinds of books available for your #everywritersdesk too! Nonfiction is a huge category, which could include journalism, biography, autobiography, and more. This list is focused on the literary spirit of creative nonfiction:

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

To Show and to Tell by Phillip Lopate

On Writing Well by William Zinsser

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction by Lee Gutkind

Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction by Sondra Perl and Mimi Schwartz

Inside Story: Everyone’s Guide to Reporting and Writing Creative Nonfiction by Julia Goldberg

Crafting the Personal Essay: A Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction by Dinty W. Moore

As these books serve the writing life, there are also those books that are so well-loved that they seem to live on our desks. Right now, the collected works of Sylvia Plath and Frank Bidart have been near me at all times, just like a security blanket for my authorial heart. What books do you find stay off the shelf? Tag them in your #everywritersdesk photos.

Of course, there are many other books that may guide you on your journey. Many craft books and writers’ resources can also be found on my series blog, “Reading Like a Writer” where I recommend specific craft books in conjunction with the genre of Write the World’s monthly writing contests. We can’t wait to see your additions to #everywritersdesk by tagging us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook!

About Lisa

Lisa Hiton is an editorial associate at Write the World. She writes two series on our blog: The Write Place where she comments on life as a writer, and Reading like a Writer where she recommends books about writing in different genres. She’s also the interviews editor of Cosmonauts Avenue and the poetry editor of the Adroit Journal.

[nyanzaya]

All odds!

Munday Asks: Salt Edition - Odds

1. How salty are you feeling right now?  

I’m not as salty as I thought I would be? I’m actually kind of just “!!!” today. Maybe more so because my girlfriend makes me feel good and JUST I LOVE HER OMG

3. What rp trends are you so over and can’t wait for it to die?

....there are....rp trends? Why hasn’t anyone told me?? I would totally just, jump on the band wagon because hell yeah. 

5. A ship everyone in the fandom you’re in loves, but you can’t stand?

.... There isn’t....one I can think of? I love all the characters together even though I do have preferences for one over the other Lol an orgy will solve all of these problems honestly WELL NO OMG WE CAN’T HAVE ONE BECAUSE GROSS MY BRAIN JUST REMEMBER THAT THERE ARE SOME YOUNG CHARACTERS WHO ARE LIKE MINORS???? OKAY NO ORGIES JUST A BIG OL’ HUG BECAUSE WHAT THE SHIT

Group Hugs Will Solve Everything.

nailed it

7. Has someone made you unfollow/block them without a second thought because of a petty reason?

Yes and no? It was only one person and that reason was because I was beyond angry. Literally, they pushed me so far that I just couldn’t deal with it. LIKE I SWORE I WAS GOING TO END UP LIKE ??? Omg. I can’t even explain. I hate getting angry I just- it’s the one emotion I don’t know how to deal with ever lol

9. What’s your opinion on duplicates?

It....depends on what this question means by duplicates? Like Duplicates of canon characters or? If it’s canon characters and stuff I mean, I’m okay with it. I think it would be even better if two of the same character interact because you can do a lot of crazy things lol but like if it’s a duplicate of an OC then I think that’s just rude and uncalled for because it’s an OC? Like you don’t just take someone’s idea BUT LIKE THEN AGAIN PEOPLE WOULD STILL DO THAT AND IT MAKES ME SUPER SELF-CONSCIOUS OF EVERYTHING EVER

11. Are you for or not for purple prosing?

WHAT THE HECKLE IS PURPLE PROSING??? Ima google this like wth

purple prose a term used to describe literature where the writing is unnecessarily flowery. it means that the writer described the situation (or wrote the entire book, passage, etc) using words that are too extravagant for the type of text, or any text at all. basically, over-describing something. with stupid words.

normal writing: she lay on her bed dreaming.purple prose: she lay upon her silken sheets in her ornately embellished robes of satin, her chest ascending and descending easily with every passing second, deep inside the caverns of her subconscious mind.

THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. No way.  

prose -  written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure.

????

purple prose

prose that is too elaborate or ornate.

I.... Okay. I can see it now. I’m kind of for it? I know I write a certain way that is like, I guess sort of like a purple prose but it’s not OVERLY elaborated? I’m in the middle of this honestly. I think it’s good but just...have it so it’s not overly....explained... idk... 

13. Ever told someone not to follow/rp with a particular person because something that happened to you in the past? 

No but I have had people tell me not to interact with someone before lol and I was like “Lol. Don’t tell me what to do.” 

15. Have you ever done something out of spite?

WHO HASN’T? EVERYTHING I DO IS PRETTY MUCH OUT OF SPITE BECAUSE I NEED A MOTIVE OF SOME SORT

17. What are your opinions when someone makes negative posts constantly on their rp blog?

Oh gosh. I find it to be really....exhausting? I know that I would you know, be a kind person and talk to them and stuff and be nice? But like, idk I don’t like being thrown under the bus or thrown to the wolves cause that is honestly one way to get me angry lol JUST “Thank you for talking to me I feel better.” *Makes a post about how everyone hates them and how no one cares* You know what I mean? A little bit of negativity is fine because it’s part of being a person like everyone is going to have a terrible day and stuff but to be constantly flooded with negativity on my dash really just, bums me out

19. Wild card: ask the mun any type of salty asks.: What's one thing you hate about your muses interactions?

Lol gods. I think how slow paced some of them are? Because like, if it’s too slow as in like what’s going on then he kind of just “Don’t care anymore next.” you know? I dislike when that happens xD And I haven’t had angst in ages tbh? And I kind of want more of that but like, I don’t know who would want to do angst or anything and I don’t really know what it would even be about cause I would want both my partners muse and mine to be involved so idk

[gplusbfics]

Avenging the Fandom

Off the topic of Garashir but on the topic of fandom...

I went poking around in a hard drive folder of my ancient Vampire Chronicles fan fiction (since my entire online archive went poof) and found this novelty piece, written back in 2001 in response to a really terrible community member who broke all kinds of etiquette rules and was upsetting people. This was totally passive-aggressive but fun as hell to write. A friend of mine egged me on. We even set up a fake Hotmail account, under the pseudonym Lester Jefferson, so we could have a separate account to post this and other things. Anyway, the prose is deliberately super purple and ridiculous, and the events implausible. I still kind of love it. -Wendy

Avenging the Fandom By F**king_Angry_Vamp

"Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge." - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

The wind had ruffled the gorgeous waves of my blond hair as I sped through the night so I paused outside her door to smooth it down again.  I just can't abide not looking my best when I make these little visits to my mortal fans.  

I silently disengaged the door's locks with my mind and entered the house.  I quickly located my quarry.  My devoted but enraged aficionado was sleeping.  My first thought was to quiet her -- my fans so often scream upon meeting me in real life and I really just wasn't in the mood for a lot of noise tonight.  So while she still slept I focused my mental energy to crush her vocal chords and larynx.  Within seconds she awoke vomiting the bloody mush, which was all that remained her oratory system.

With another quick mental command, I stopped the bleeding because the constant stream of blood flowing from her open, gasping mouth was distracting and messy.  By this time, I had her attention.  "My dear, I've come to you tonight to discuss the proper etiquette for critiquing fiction in my fandom."

She looked up at me in shock, her eyes wide and staring.  "Yes, it's come to my attention that you are fucking angry about something and you have been seeking your vindication by spouting vulgar, pointless insults at my writers."

I sat at the foot of her bed with a flourish.  "You don't mind if I make myself at home, correct?  As I was saying, your comments are uncouth and inane.  If you had offered but one bit of literary commentary or valid critique -- Hell, if you had at least been funny -- I wouldn't have to be here wasting my evening with you.  Apparently, what you fail to understand is that the purpose of a review is to help the reviewed author improve his or her writing based on the objective feedback of the reader.  

"All you have accomplished, with your trite vulgarity and liberal use of the asterisk, is to lower the overall quality of my fan base by proving yourself to be immature and inarticulate."  At this point my terrified fan made to leap from her bed and flee the scene.  With one hand I deftly grabbed her and dragged her face down across the rumpled bedclothes.  I raked one razor-sharp crystalline thumbnail in a deep gouge across her back precisely severing her spinal chord and paralyzing her.  I yanked her head up to meet my gaze.  "Now I can't have you running off until I've finished making my point.  Don't go trying to crawl away, either, because I'll just have to break your arms."  I flung her into a semi-seated position.

"Now where was I?  Ah, yes.  I agree with you that some of the fan fiction entries written in my honor are quite bad.  However, I must point out that these writers cannot improve unless they are provided with the proper constructive criticism. Besides, let's be honest, even the last several Vampire Chronicles were sub-standard to put it mildly.  Your slurs against writers' personality and parentage are not going to teach a thing about character motivation, point of view, grammar, or historical context.  Of course the sad truth is that you yourself seem to know little or nothing about these issues.  You simply lash out at authors whose work is contrary to your own insignificant tastes.  You imagine yourself to be witty and urbane because you deem yourself intellectually important enough to condemn someone else's hobby.  But mostly, you just post your witless rants to get attention.  Well, my little commentator, you have MY undivided attention."  I was sorely attempted to shout these words and burst her eardrums with my preternatural voice, but then she would be spared the rest of my wisdom. I leaned in and tore at one of her defenseless and exposed wrists for a quick drink.  All that lecturing makes me thirsty, you see.  

Licking my lips, I decided to continue. "You think I am a demon but you  know, my victims all love me in the end. Your victims, on the other hand,  simply feel sorry for you and your sorry, sorry life, a life so worthless and pitiful that, for you, sending out ludicrous 'flames' is actually a satisfying pastime."

As she stared at me in terror, I could tell she still did not realize what I was trying to say.  Uncomprehending, she didn't understand how wrong she had been and she probably never would. How thick was her skull? Not that thick, I discovered, as I cracked it like an egg with the force of my mind, thus answering my own question. There was no more fucking angry fan to ponder.

Dawn was only a few hours away and I felt I had wasted enough time on this fruitless endeavor.  I took another look at the quivering heap of my fucking angry fan.  What a disgusting mess.  With only moderate effort I kindled concentrated heat within the broken and bleeding tissues of her body.  In a few moments the weakly thrashing mortal was alight. The fire burned quickly, with intense heat before smothering itself at my command.  Spontaneous Human Combustion is one of my favorite disposal methods.  I really should use it more often.  With a sigh of contentment, I existed the house and mentally locked the door behind me.

The End

[hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff]

“Of course my discourse is disjointed, how could it be otherwise? Bring me a complete subject and I will give you coherence.”

— from “Arista Manuscript,” Experts Are Puzzled

¤

A FEW MONTHS AGO, I did something I don’t often do: I bought a book I knew nothing about by an author whose name I did not recognize. Intrigued by the faint circles orbiting the dark purple cover, I picked it up and encountered an exceptionally perplexing string of words:

At least, that is to say, I am a stranger of a fixed old age and I am not puzzled. Ask me anything you like and I will give you a not-puzzled answer. I will not give you an answer. I am a stranger. I do not live, I am only alive. I hear the birds with lice under their wings singing, but I do not understand because I am not a bird with lice under my wings singing. I am not an expert, I am not puzzled.

Originally published in 1930, Laura Riding’s Experts Are Puzzled was reissued in 2018 by Ugly Duckling Presse. The thin but dense collection comprises essayistic fiction, fictional essays, philosophical conundrums, mythical allegories, and elliptical polemics that blur the line between author and narrator.

A first encounter with Experts Are Puzzled is like trying to decipher a map of a foreign city, or being thrust headfirst into a raging river. The 144 pages take the shape of an extended koan, an evocatively, frustratingly impenetrable work. Initially I could only make out the scaffolding: a narrator considers discussing another woman with her handyman, an essay on money begins by asserting “this is not an essay on money,” a creation story hinges on a narcissistic fantasy. There is a candid interview with God. Characters act begrudgingly, if at all. Stories fold into stories. Tangents are followed and abruptly abandoned. Riding relishes running conceptual circles around her readers with rhetoric that takes on the confident stance of logic, but bends, readily and reliably, to the will of nonsense.

By my second and third read through I began to find my bearings; I could swim against the tide long enough to look around, to slow the rushing words. The characters work as stage props more than people, sometimes tactlessly so. They are allegorical vessels for Riding’s real preoccupations: the potential of language to render reality, a spiritual inclination toward oneness, and the way that stories both muddle and reveal truth. Like many writers, Riding is obsessed with the contours of her craft. She writes in spite of (to spite?) the failure of words to exactly emulate the world.

We see her turning over similar themes in her poetry, as in “The World And I”:

This is not exactly what I mean Any more than the sun is the sun. But how to mean more closely If the sun shines but approximately? What a world of awkwardness! What hostile implements of sense! Perhaps this is as close a meaning As perhaps becomes such knowing. Else I think the world and I Must live together as strangers and die —

Riding wants to know “how to mean more closely” with only these “hostile implements of sense,” our imperfect language. How can we know the world fully if we cannot do more than approximate it? This is ultimately her lifelong project, her greatest thorn, and the connective tissue that runs throughout Experts Are Puzzled. What would it mean to access pure truth in language, unmediated by complex interpretation? Her approach to the problem is cubist in nature; meaning is derived from the amalgamation of disparate parts, and the result is gripping. 

Repetitive phrases, paradoxes (“I do not live, I am only alive”), and double negatives (“not hopelessly not amused”) reinforce the arbitrary nature of language and add an almost compulsive energy to the text. But these moments of collision also conjure something beyond words — dissonance creates space for a more complete conception of truth. Thinking about it this way locates the strength of her sentences in their roiling tides, how they build and crash. The contradictions create a tension, and this tension enables a sense of balance. In a piece titled “Dora,” which spans just two pages, Riding dedicates almost half her words to this matter:

First Dora asked about the metal strips. They are about eighteen inches long. One is nailed in a horizontal position over the door of my bedroom, the other in a vertical position between two vertical panels within the room. I put them there originally to be a statement, as metal upon wood may be a statement; a statement of one thing, anything, and a statement of another thing, anything, that was equal parts contradiction and affirmation of it, so that together the two strips made a statement of the nature of suspense, which is freedom; that is, freedom is suspense and suspense is freedom; and, further, freedom is everything, suspense is nothing; and so, further, question?

I found myself sketching diagrams in the margins in an attempt to determine whether the string that seems to hold the fragments together actually exists (to mixed results). But this penchant for nonsense is critical to Riding’s genius. She makes her readers do the heavy lifting, or sit in befuddlement, or read a sentence 15 times over. She is obstinate. Certain. Intense. At times, however, it feels as if Riding is drowning in her own style; her sentences overtake themselves.

Still, there is something seductive in this perversion of language, and Riding’s description of sex in her story “Sex, Too” makes an equally good description of her prose: “It is a roundabout way of arriving at a point that could not be found if it were aimed at directly.” The point is not the plot, but the structure: the terrifying largeness of the world contrasted with the contained smallness of a story. Riding’s storytelling makes these contrasts unmistakable as she rations out abstraction and specificity in precise doses:

She was a Prostitute of lost prime, her skirt trailed the dust, and at sunset she began her long, lonely but resolute walk upon the opposite bank of the river, from the Bridge to the Ferry, and then back and then back until the night forgot her. And on this bank small boys followed her Progress, calling a Name, to which she replied with Language. And the men of the Power Station called after her also, and bitterly across the water did she reply; and her replies rang bitterer and bitterer, until the men of the Power Station stopped their ears and thought shamefully of their wives.

Here we’re placed into a scene, laced with inexactitudes, but nonetheless resonant. Then we’re yanked out of it as fish on a line: “And I have nearly told you a story” she tells us. “But no matter, if it makes a smaller world.”

Born Laura Reichenthal on January 16, 1901, Laura Riding — later Laura Riding Jackson — was a prolific writer regarded primarily for her poetry. Her father was a first-generation Jewish immigrant and a socialist. Riding grew up impoverished in New York City, earned a scholarship to Cornell University, and went on to win a poetry prize judged by the Fugitives, a group of Southern writers including Allen Tate. She carried on a notorious relationship with the British poet Robert Graves, with whom she collaborated on “A Survey of Modernist Poetry,” and together established Seizin Press. Known by all to be polarizing, bright, and outspoken, she was a woman who believed she had something to say — and willed herself to be heard. Having spent much of her adult life striving toward a poetic utopian ideal, she ultimately determined poetry to be an insufficient conduit for truth and, in 1940, renounced the form completely. She married Schuyler Jackson in 1941 and settled in Florida, where she focused on other linguistic efforts in pursuit of a new, more accurate paradigm of language until her death in 1991.

Today, her legacy teeters between revival and oblivion (her prose especially, being less considered and less acclaimed than her poetry). A controversial figure who strove to set herself apart, Riding has been called manipulative, obsessive, and wicked, her work deemed both masterpiece and migraine. A 1993 New York Times article lists among her detractors Virginia Woolf, William Carlos Williams, Louise Bogan, Dudley Fitts, and Dorothy L. Sayers. The article continues, “Judging by the caliber of her enemies, we might assume that Laura Riding did something right.” Alongside her critics, Riding also earned her fair share of devoted admirers.

Style is always a matter of preference, and Riding’s style manages to incite both outrage and awe at impressive levels, though the lurid glow around her persona seems to play an outsized role in the discussions of her work. Not that Riding was known to excuse herself from these disputes — as explained by an article in The New York Review of Books by Helen Vendler, she was known to have “spent a great deal of time writing tenacious and extensive letters to anyone who, in her view, had misrepresented some aspect, no matter how minute, of her life or writing.” (She would have undoubtedly hated this review you’re reading now.)

Riding’s personality permeates the page: at once transcendent and forceful, haughty and inspired, earnest and sardonic. She holds the reins with the ruthless brilliance of a deity. “Yes, now I have you in a corner,” she writes in “Obsession,” “you do not know whether to think me mad or subtle, plain-spoken or obscure.” Riding’s writing underscores the messiness in teasing madness from genius, intellect from wisdom, the signified from the signifier.

Throughout her stories Riding takes an unflinching blade to society (“I do not believe that anyone really likes doing anything”), religion (“All have had their chance of being God, God is no more”), capitalism (“[P]ractically everywhere money is talking and where it isn’t there is an awful silence called poverty, or soon death”), and power (“She was so powerful that she had nothing to do but be powerful”). In “The Fable of the Dice,” Riding’s criticism strikes with devastating precision. “There was once a town doomed to destruction,” it opens. “But although doom was certain, they preferred to make it a matter of opinion.”

So, instead of putting the fact of themselves on one side and the fact of doom on the other, they made of these two facts a confusion and hid themselves away in it from responsibility; instead of enjoying time, they marked time. They listened reverently to misty-minded old men who argued one way or the other, to no conclusion.

A few edits would situate this fable squarely in our present political fog, complete with alternative facts and climate change denial. And with so much to say, it’s a shame that her abstruse style so often occludes her message. But Riding wasn’t the kind to compromise for the sake of accessibility. Her work, ironically, requires the sort of elite, “expert” interpretation she condemned. Barbara Adams, author of The Enemy Self: Poetry and Criticism of Laura Riding, wrote that Riding was known to hold the belief that “the reader must meet the poem on its own terms; the poem, however, is not obliged to explain itself or stoop to reader ignorance.” The same can be said of her prose. But to what effect? What is the value of literature if it refuses to meet the reader even halfway?

Still, I admire her unwillingness to bow to critics’ complaints. Sticking with this text, like any good puzzle, reveals and rewards those who persevere through the disorientation. And, like a puzzle, the purpose is as much in the piecing together as it is in the final picture. The text asks you to inhabit two consciousnesses: that of the narration, and that of the act of reading. The value is in watching our minds attempt to decode, to break through, to sort the letters into sense. By noticing the frustrations and the successes, we see more clearly how our minds struggle to interpret, and how we respond when we fail to find meaning.

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Riding puts us to this test. Her prose demands work but also surrender — to the rhythm, to the sound, to the contradictions that create this life and everything in it. It is a delicate tightrope walk — one that she walks dutifully if not flawlessly. In this sense, she is a true essayist, in the meaning of to attempt. Her work strives, actively and on the page, in a constant unfolding, backtracking, a waltz that circles and never arrives, exactly, at that elusive complete subject.

¤

Kate Silzer is a writer living in New York.

The post “I Will Not Give You an Answer”: On Laura Riding’s “Experts Are Puzzled” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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