I'm writing an entire fanfic and It was supposed to be a short little blip but now its over 12k words and I have to expand it because Yes, It Has A Beginning Middle And End but its not Enough, it has to feel filled and fulfilled and they have to be happy. You have to see the setting, feel the emotions, understand what I'm trying to convey and that's not gonna happen without more info and I really don't have time for this but god damn it this is making me a lot more happy than real life so god damn it get ready because this shit is gonna be long and sappy and as good as I can make it. Also I have zero time frame for when its going to start coming out, I just know its going to. Probably.

Hey seduce me shawties i have an unsolicited rant cause this fandom is barely keeping a pulse and if you want content u gotta do it yourself😔

let's talk about....

the

harem

episode

I've seen some people talk about it! but honestly not as much as it deserves because respectfully, HUH?

Yeah it really was something. I was having a really weird night when I went through it and got super excited for some silly little escapism. But I just couldn't bring myself to like it. I don't want to knock absolutely anyone but after a year-long hiatus I was excited and it just felt...so unsatisfactory? I can see the vision, I always loved the harem ends for the other episodes. But those always felt like wholesome little snippets into the brothers dynamic that you never really got in any singular route. With how isolated the brothers felt from one another in the main games, it's really nice to see them interact. Whenever they do it's super interesting! ML did a good job fleshing out personal details during the Seducemeask era, but I've always been sad a lot of that didn't end up getting portrayed in the final games. But that never felt like it happened.

I think my main criticism comes down to the fact that they do nothing but try to appease the MC the entire episode. This was definitely an issue during certain parts of the games but the harem episode is the absolute worst example.

Because the boys are trying so hard to accommodate the MCs tastes, they end up falling flat as characters. They feel watered down because they aren't working in their own best interests a lot of the time. And because the MC is supposed to be an insert for the player... they don't have any character either. The whole thing just ends up being super frustrating because for there to be any conflict the MC has to just be super dense. I wish this sequence of events revealed any character from them but no. It just felt self pitying and a tad pathetic. This felt super out of character with the MC as we knew them. The MC in the main games?? Feisty as shit. Just crumpling immediately instead of facing the issue doesn't seem right.

Additionally, the emphasis on how ~unconventional~ polyamory is just made me uncomfortable. The MC invited 5 homeless demons into their home for goofies in the first game, am I really to believe they put that much stock in convention? I think I understand the intention behind those lines, but it's just so heavily insisted upon at every moment. If the MC had instead put an emphasis on the boys perspective on polyamory rather than societal expectation I would have felt way better. It could reveal how much they care for the boys and what is best for them. But instead it comes across as a bit selfish. "They wouldn't share me and that's all there is to it", makes me feel like they don't know the boys super well. And then when they're proven wrong we just skirt past that!!! Yes an unconventional situation leads to an unconventional response, but it could have been a great opportunity to show a healthy and informed conversation on both sides. Instead it just happened so quickly... what would that actual dynamic work like with each of the characters? WORK WITH ME

The build up to the confession and then the lack of true substance in the agreement just made the ending feel so abrupt. When the boys confessed I didn't feel anything. There needs to be some proverbial glue holding these relationships together, but I personally never saw it. Their love for each other was just supported by a trust me bro energy that I'm simply not buying. I just felt confused as to why the boys were going so far out of their way for this person who had the mental constitution of a ritz cracker.

and then

the ending

Have y'all ever tried to share a bed with 3 people? Yeah. Not great. 6 people to one bed?? I would be calling a chiropractor like 5 minutes in. And it was so sudden and so goofy I couldn't stop myself from laughing. AND THEN IT ENDED!!!! I didn't feel any sexual attraction to that whole display whatsoever but I think I was supposed to? I ended the whole experience feeling like I didn't have any idea what I had just witnessed. All i know is that THIS will live on in my nightmares for years to come.

Anyways I apologize for if this rant felt naggy. I love the Seduce Me characters and world-building, but no matter how hard I try I cannot get passed this episode which SUCKS because the others are incredible.

anyway - CASSIE OUT🏃‍♀️💨

if you don’t mind sharing, i’d love to know your thoughts on iron widow! my friend pitched it to me as a fusion of chinese mythology and pacific rim which on paper should interest me but i feel so lukewarm about the concept

hi! i decided to answer this question quickly because if i don’t, i’m afraid i’ll forget all my thoughts on the iron widow. lots of people were also harassed online for their negative reviews on this. i genuinely like xiran jay zhao’s content on youtube but her debut book, not so much. but here’s what i think (this is going to be a bit long):

first of all, i’m a big fan of the pacific rim franchise and basically the “big robots fight aliens” trope. and as someone who adores chinese history and read lots about wu zetian, i had very high expectations for this. and everyone knows that i dislike love triangles and prefer polyamorous / ot3 ships a lot more. in short, the iron widow really appealed to me at first. i was very interested with the plot and was excited to read a story that not only contains bisexuality, polyamory, but also feminism.

many of my critiques come from my own preferences because i rarely find a book written in first-pov that i actually like. it’s a very hard perspective to write about so seeing that the iron widow failed to write well in that perspective isn’t very surprising. the writing, overall, is mediocre at best, as much as i’m hesitant to admit—it’s always this and that, only telling that these things were happening and nothing was really shown. the premise is very interesting but the delivery absolutely failed the whole thing.

the worldbuilding is not even worth mentioning. it’s always this and that, as i’ve said, but doesn’t explain anything further than that. i know there’s a sequel in the works but i’m reviewing this as it is for now. there are little to no explanations about how the robotic stuff works. nothing was fleshed out. literally, i have nothing much to say about the worldbuilding because it was almost non-existent.

in relation to this, the patriarchy in this book doesn’t make that much sense.

wu zetian is claimed to be a ‘feminist icon’ but she doesn’t have any good relationship with other women aside from one or two who aren’t even mentioned much. (basically an afterthought or just a rapid addition.) the only people in her life that she genuinely likes are her two male love interests, men, and both of them portray typically feminine traits in a way they will follow wu zetian to the ends of the earth. and though nothing is wrong with that, what’s the point of the whole thing?

the main character portrays typically masculine traits and any female character who has stereotypically feminine traits are either treated as weak by the main character, put down, or like i said, has no presence. the wu zetian from actual history was considered as a ‘feminist icon’ because she used her feminine traits as a concubine to gain power. i understand that this is an au and a retelling but the best way to combat patriarchy is to give the main character masculine traits?

wu zetian doesn’t even try to educate anyone. instead, she races through her decisions blindly and recklessly. sure, she screams (and god, i read the phrase ‘i screamed’ way too many times in this book) about men doing this and men doing that, but what happens after that? wu zetian is a misandryst. she’s not a ‘feminist icon’. the book literally doesn’t empower women nor does the main character treat other women well. the moment someone disagrees with her, that’s it. end of story. wu zetian promptly tries to kill them or blacklists them.

it’s a rather hypocritic book. wu zetian gained power displaying the same things that men do to other women by doing the same thing to men. but of course, her male love interests aren’t included in that. and god, the romance was so rushed.

i wanted to like it. i genuinely wanted to like it.

i really don’t understand why this was so hyped up. the plot is interesting and all, but overall, i was disappointed.

"Don't tell the stories of minorities if you're not a part of them" okay I guess

"Don't write soft effeminate trans men if you're a cis man" I mean you have a point there

"Don't write butch masculine trans women if you're a cis man" well yeah it could end badly if you do it wrong but

"Don't write academically inclined asian kids with a rough relationship with their parents" oh so now that race is a part of this if I disagree I'm a racist so yeah don't ever write characters parts of demographics you're not a part of even if you take precautions in order to not have an offensively godawful portrayal because it will always be harmful and problematic. got it. don't bother with diversity ever. in fact don't even write anything. give up on your dreams because it's bad to not write minorities so no matter what you do fuck you and eat a dick.

look I get the whole "don't be a bigoted fuck and stereotype demographics of people" thing. I've read way too much shitty f/f fic written by cishet men who have never spoken to a woman much less fucked one. but like. what the fuck. I've read some really good f/f fic written by cishet men. in fact I read one that had three f/f ships, two f/f/f ships replete with some serious discussion on polyamory, an f/f/m ship, and two m/f ships with all the same levels of quality, and the dude who wrote it is the most cishet human on the planet probably. he also wrote a lot of other fics with f/f ships that were also really good. I mean to be fair the fandom has like 600 female characters compared to like a dozen men but still. he shouldn't be dragged down into the filth and muck just because a lot of cishet white men are fucking idiots and bad writers.

the problem here seems to be that bad writing done by people in the same demographics isn't blatantly offensive, it's just bland garbage. if it's inaccurate or stereotypical portrayals of parts of demographics that are regularly victimized by antirerepredentation, then it's bland garbage and also racist or queerphobic or ableist or whatever. if men weren't allowed to write women because women are disenfranchised compared to men, there would never be any fucking women in media considering media is wrongfully dominated by men because sexism in every industry imaginable. granted women have always been at the forefront, pioneering literally every genre of every medium known, but like. middle easterners, africans, east asians, latin americans, and brown skinned people all over the world invented culture, but that doesn't negate the effects of colonialism (thanks for nothing you asshole british fucks). queer history has been erased countless times but we've been behind a lot of revolutions in history. neurodivergent people as well.

to avoid going on tangents, I totally understand the point being made in the first passages. it's usually a bad thing when cishet white men try to write characters who are not cishet white men. it's usually horribly racist, queerphobic, misogynist, ableist, culturally intolerant, and oh yeah TERRIBLE. but only some of it is done so on purpose. some of them aren't bad people, just bad writers, and literally don't understand other human's perspectives on life.

on the other hand it makes sense being tired of white people writting the same cookie cutter carbon copy stereotype everyone has seen a million times before. and there is the whole "you don't have to portray diversity as long as you fight to make way for authors belonging to underrepresented groups to forge their own creations" aspect, but like. I feel like it's up to people part of majorities to do more than that.

personally, I won't say that I'm a master at all foreign cultures or experiences. I know jack shit and fuck all about islam and hinduism. lesbian [as opposed to just bi/wlw] system of attraction eludes me. I'll never understand what it's like to grow up asian-american or black or latinx. I'm not even sure how a brain without depression and anxiety or autism ever thinks about things. but if I only ever wrote about depressed white bisexual christians, that would be pretty boring and... shit. you know, like most YA novels that are written nowadays. not to toot my own horn here but I wouldn't say that I'm a bad writer. I'm not the best and I wouldn't go so far as to say excellent or amazing but I'm pretty good. okay at least. a little put off by how simplistic and dry and boring as fuck at things that are way too fucking popular for what they are but whatever.

I'm also kind of okay at knowing what's bigoted and what's not. so I'd like to think that when I write about an irish-catholic punk bassist, a gay latina drummer with a degree in electrical engineering, a canadian guitarist, and a korean-american lesbian buddhist who discovered grunge through a google search on western concepts of nirvana, or a black trans man allied with a scottish bisexual, a chinese princess, and a token straight white dude to take down an imperial totalitarian state, or a pawtucket woman smuggling potential rape victims out of 18 century massachusetts, or a japanese time traveling assassin from 1940s america and the russian teenager he saved from sex traffickers joining forces with a bisexual muslim woman to fight french bioterrorists, or a small army of a dozen bulletproof brown skinned lesbians who set off to kill god's evil twin, I'd like to think I'm not being a racist asshole, being a dumb white girl, throwing a bunch of violent stereotypes at a dartboard for the sake of exploitation and fetishism, and just writing characters who I feel have interesting and probably not very often seen in media backgrounds in situations that are usually dominated by boring cishet white people.

but, you know... I'm not trustworthy because I have a character that follows a trope every now and then. guess I'll just throw away all of my notes on every single thing I'm working on and only write the characters that match me perfectly.

wow, this leftover mayonnaise stain sure does seem like it's fun to read.

holy shit literally the only oc I have that's left over is a dead elf... and she's fucking cis.

the end I guess