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st-el-la-luna · 28 days

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Okay but like, what's with fandoms and their recent obsession with "purifying" themselves and the content in them?

It's one thing if a content creator is outed as a pedophile or a racist or a xenophobe.

What I'm talking about is this newfound hatred towards dark fics and dark subject matter in general. It's like people don't understand that it's fiction. Fiction is not reality. Even if the writing is disgusting or amoral, it's not real. And you don't have to read it.

People have been writing weird shit for ages. So how come we only ever see these purity enforcers attacking fic writers or fan artists in fandoms?

Like, in the COD fandom I've seen a bunch of people getting hounded for posting or consuming dark content, I've also gotten a couple messages about it. And, like, hey buddy? Who really cares.

Fiction and reality are two separate things.

Also, why are you attacking me, a 20 year old who lives with their mom and writes for their ten consultant followers and not, oh, I don't know...

Stephen King, who has that whole underage sewer orgy scene in It.

Or the e creators of call of duty for creating literal propaganda. Because, hey besties, yes, that's what COD is. Propaganda. They want you to see it and be like, "yay, guns and the military!" And that's the thing about fiction. It's allowed.

The issue at hand is, in my mind, an issue of deeper reading comprehension or complex thoughts. And a lack of understanding of catharsis.

No one is saying these things are good. But these things exist in the world, like it or not. And in my mind, it's better to portray them in fiction than not at all. Because at least in portraying it awareness can be spread.

And again, if you don't like something, if it triggers you, just don't read it. It's simple. Like if you're watching a movie and can't stand blood so you cover your eyes not to see. You aren't going to go after the director are you? No. You're going to take steps to protect yourself against content you don't want to see or consume.

I think it's an issue of separating fan works from "real" works. Those who say fan art isn't real art or fanfiction isn't real writing. So perhaps in those people's minds, fan works, not being "real" means that they shouldn't portray things we see in reality.

All this to say here's a non-definitive list of novels with dark/disturbing content that these people would want to oppose:

It by Stephen King: The kids having an orgy in the sewers, child abuse, sexual abuse

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: pseudo-incest, hebephilia

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Attwood: Women being stripped of rights, education, loss of bodily autonomy, forced breeders (at the hands of a government)

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

The Road by Cormac McCarthy: People keeping other people for food, people keeping women as breeding stock (at the hands of bandits in a post-apocalyptic world)

Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews: child neglect, child abuse, forced isolation, incest, rape

1984 by George Orwell: totalitarianism, government surveillance, insignificance and weakness of the individual

The Stand by Stephen King: sex, rape, ableism, abuse of handicapped people, violence and killing

Maus by Art Spiegelman: depiction of violence, concentration camps, Nazis, Nazi imagery, dehumanization, starvation, mass murder

Frankenstein by Marry Shelley: human experimentation, grave robbing, necromancy, technical necrophilia, murder, revenge, suicide

In the Miso Soup by Ryū Murakami: pedo/hebephilic relations, sex industry, murder

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy: graphic depictions of violence, use of slurs, child abuse, infanticide (? Been a while since I read it so I might be misremembering), pedophilia, rape, sexual assault and violence

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica: cannibalism, forced breeding, objectification, slave trade, people being bred and sold for meat

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess: sadism, sexual violence

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum: captivity, torture, torture at the hands of children, violence, sexual violence, based on a true story

Lord of The Flies by William Golding: shows the truth of human nature, dissolution of society and it's rules, violence as a basal instinct

The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade: sex, sexual violence, rape, sex trade, pedophilia, incest, abuse, literally just the whole book

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh: mental illness, drug use/addiction, infant death

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis: violence, gore, rape, murder, torture, misogyny, sadism

A lot of these books, though considered scary and disturbing and gross, are also seen as classics.

It's not the fault of the author or the media they create, but that of the consumer.

You can find it icky and gross after reading or watching such things. Most of the time you're supposed to. That's a good thing, it means you're human. These things make you think and feel and emphasize.

To control what can and cannot be written is censorship. To control how certain things are portrayed is censorship.

Be aware of the media that's out there, because these disturbing things are real issues out there. And if you can't stomach it, don't consume it.

Simple.

#el's musings #call of duty #fanfiction #purity culture #dark content

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saltineofswing · 2 months

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Hello! I'm the person that made the rant post about my dislike on the lack of natural dichotomy of the Pyramids and Traveler since the introduction of the Veil that turned into a whole thing. You mentioned a lack of pulp in your reblog and it's stuck with me since then. I wasn't familiar with the term and did some research on it, but I still don't think I get what it is. I tried looking it up but a lot of articles and videos I could find explain the history of pulp and its influences in modern day sci-fi but not necessarily what it is, especially in a way that would give me context to better understand your reblog. If it's not too much trouble, can you explain a little more what the "pulp" is that destiny is lacking?

I’d be happy to try and give you a little more insight into what I feel are important tenets of pulp as a genre/concept! I decided this might be a good opportunity to talk a little about it generally because I am really feeling its absence generally in the past couple years, so I included some historical backing which you’re probably already familiar with – hope that’s OK.

I did a little digging personally, for some good places to familiarize oneself with the basics of pulp as a concept and/or genre. It was nice to re-affirm some info that I’ve felt secure in holding as true without a ton of evidentiary support, and I also learned some cool new stuff as well! I think a good place to start would be to link to the TV Tropes page about pulp magazines, which does a pretty good job of explaining the origins and foundational aspects of the concept in a way that is easy to digest. It also has a lot of examples available to peruse. I also found this cool article on the golden age of pulps, which is an interesting read.

This got long, so below the cut!

To reiterate, the original ‘pulp’ terminology and vibe comes from early/mid-20th century magazines, which were cheap and easy ways to access genre fiction and action/adventure stories before comics, paperback novels, and TV/movies were really on the scene. Pulp magazines spanned a very wide array of genres, but because of a lack of appreciation for the medium, a majority of pulp magazines and aspects of what I would consider to be pulp as a genre have been allowed to fall into obscurity. There are places where I feel it is particularly obvious, especially the superhero genre (don’t get me started we’ll be here all week) but also in fantasy and science fiction – a term which was, in fact, coined by Hugo Gernsback, an editor for pulp magazine Amazing Stories.

They were cheap to make, cheap to buy, and easy to serialize; they could be really schlocky, crass, and unpolished. They could also be fucking incredible! The Shadow is a good example of an early pulp property with screaming highs and frankly peat-bog lows. Lovecraft published a lot of what is considered to be his ‘best work’ in Weird Tales! Conan the Barbarian, too! They kind of came out of the gate with a somewhat negative connotation associated with ‘low-brow’ forms of literature like dime novels, but where other magazines of the time tended to incorporate non-fiction articles and photography, pulp mags tended to be fiction stories only – short stories, or longer stories split into serialized chapters. Early on, not many of them had art, though with the advent of comic books that changed (you could argue that books like Creepy and Eerie are direct offspring of early pulp mags). Similar to what Weekly Shonen Jump does with manga.

If you think of a genre as a toolbox, pulp is a box full of tools that function fine alone, but excel at assisting the function of other toolboxes. I would almost liken ‘pulp’ to the concept of ‘camp’, which are also two concepts that can and do overlap with a high degree of synergy. Pulp has its own foundational attributes that are distinct from camp – for example, camp is gay relies a lot more on its self-awareness, at being able to wink at the viewer or participant, and telling you ‘yeah, we know it, but isn’t it fun?’ Pulp, on the other hand, is the (no pun intended) straight man counterpart to this aesthetic sensibility; pulp is at its best when it is being completely earnest. The quippy lines and dramatic proclamations are meant to be taken on their face. Nowadays it’s the kind of stuff that memes are made of – ‘That Wizard Came From The Moon’, ‘I don’t have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain’, ‘Whether we wanted it or not, we’ve stepped into a war with the Cabal on Mars’. Saying shit that has no explanation with your whole chest. Trying to be cool on purpose, the ultimate cringe move.

Nowadays I think that this kind of thing has mostly died out of modern media, but the counter-motion is still prevalent in mainstream superhero movies. A good example is the ‘Would you have preferred ~YeLlOw SpAnDeX~’ line from the OG X-Men movie. Hey dickhead! The yellow spandex is cool if you, the guy making the movie, believes its cool! Crucially, while a lot of modern superhero stuff is quippy and irreverent, it often uses these tropes in a self-aware or cynical manner – afraid of being earnest, committing the aforementioned cardinal sin of trying to look cool on purpose.

(God damn it, I’m talking about superheroes again. Sorry. Before I get back on task this is why I loved the recent Moon Knight run so much; Jed MacKay is NOT afraid to have the characters say some absolutely batshit thing but it comes off as so, so cool. And yes, a little cheesy.)

And then, where modern sci-fi typically has an ultra-detailed explanation on-hand, I think a lot of early pulp stuff just… didn’t. Ask a sci-fi property for an explanation on, oh I don’t know, ‘where did these super-humanoid sapient machine warriors come from’ and it will likely have a molecule-deep explanation of how those unnamed machine people were created. Ask a fantasy property for an explanation on the same and it might say, ‘no’. It’s not that a pulp-leaning property won’t give you the answer to that question… it just might not have it. The ‘why is it/how is it’ is not as important as the ‘what is it’ and ‘how is it relevant’; a writer had a limited amount of page real estate, as multiple features were typically crammed into a single magazine. Even if a feature was serialized, much like television episodes (before the binge trend), one had to keep information digestible, and not too reliant on a prior or later edition that a reader might never see.

Explanations tended to be in service of an emotional beat, or to a theme, versus as a grounding agent to immerse a reader in the world. For the record I don’t necessarily think of either method as being better or worse, and heavy worldbuilding can still utilize pulp as a veneer or filter to engage audience expectations in different ways. Pulp stuff relies a lot on suspension of disbelief without utilizing a rigid lore-based framework to – though, you know, your story/setting still has to have its own internal logical consistency.

(I feel that it is important to note, as a partial consequence of the time period in which these magazines were being made, and when pulp fiction was most heavily consumed, xenophobia and racism are also heavily present in pulp works. I think everybody knows at this point about how much Lovecraft sucked but it’s a valuable example of how a lot of ‘fear of the unknown’ in that time was transliterated into ‘fear of the different’, in general but especially relating to genre fiction. If you decide to explore material in this genre, in this time period, be forewarned! Some of it was pretty glaring!)

So, let me tie some of this stuff to my previous statements about Destiny. I think that Destiny is an excellent example of how pulp tropes, aesthetic, and genre conventions can be used to enhance and streamline a setting… and how stripping too much pulp away can have a detrimental impact on the depth of a narrative.

The original narrative and worldbuilding of Destiny drew very heavily on pulp aesthetics to create a foundation, both in its appearance and its lore. The ‘Golden Age of Science Fiction’ was a period of time in the mid-20th century that sort of transitioned sci-fi out of pulp magazines and into its own thing, but the foundational structure of science fiction at this time was still heavily pulp-influenced. I think this is very well-represented by the portrayal of Venus as a ‘garden’ (jungle) world, very lush and with sulfurous and sometimes acidic rains. Before advancements in astronomical technology went and fucked everything up for us writers, Venus’s opaque cloud-covered atmosphere was impenetrable enough that there could be anything under there – and a popular portrayal of Venus was a muggy, humid, rain-heavy world that sometimes also included lush jungles. In Bradbury’s short story The Long Rain (WHICH ran in Planet Stories, a pulp mag, by the way!) this portrayal is a central obstacle to the narrative; it’s also used in Heinlein’s novel Space Cadet.

The color scheme that Destiny uses for Venus also matches a common color scheme for Venus in this era – see this cover for Fantastic Adventures. Visually, I think that this comparison between the postcard that went out with the D1 limited/collector’s edition and this Planet Stories cover for The Golden Amazons of Venus demonstrates the influence, at least regarding terrain and biome.

In fact, I think that you can see from this Eververse postcard – which could have been peeled off of any era-appropriate paperback novel – that the influence goes bone-deep. Destiny even refers to humanity’s halcyon age as ‘The Golden Age’.

(Below: Is this image from Destiny dev, or a science fiction paperback from the 60s? Who knows! I know. It’s Destiny.)

In the modern era of Destiny storytelling, though the visual elements of the universe remain largely rigid relative to this early framework, the pulp underpinning of the narrative has been largely left behind. The original game’s story, and the stories of subsequent DLCs, felt very pulp-inspired – this ranged from ‘sort of effective’, like in House of Wolves, to ‘game-savingly effective’, like in The Taken King. Pulp lends itself to straightforward conceptual executions, and brisk narratives, because of its roots as short-form literature. The narrative of D1 was simple and to the point; Light good, Dark bad, humanity is in the shit, think you can kill a god? The surrounding world scaffold was rich but not deep. As I like to say, sometimes a river can be wide but shallow. This is not a commentary on its quality – something can be good but not complex, and IMO, sophistication is not necessarily synonymous with complexity. Destiny managed to pull off a trick that many high-quality pulp stories employ: it made the river look deeper than it was. This is the whole reason that Lovecraft’s oeuvre has the staying power it has: other writers got to play in the space because it felt very deep, even though the stories themselves were fairly straightforward.

I also don’t mean to say or accidentally imply that ‘morally grey storytelling cannot exist within pulp stories’, because that would probably get me torn apart; that’s just not the kind of straightforward foundation that the original Destiny was built on. ‘It is what you see, but what you see could be anything’, you know? The problem that began to muddy the waters in the Destiny narrative is that they started to say, ‘You know, actually, it ISN’T what you see’.

Tentpole narrative additions to the Destiny 2 game employ varying levels of pulp. As I said in the other post, the Hive have a potent pulp influence built into their foundational coding, and so subsequent portrayals of the Hive as a main antagonist have higher degrees of pulp genre naturally present in the narrative – it’s hard to separate the two of them. Shadowkeep and The Dark Below draw strongly on the ‘sword and sorcery’ convention, a subgenre of fantasy that is a heavy (perhaps 1:1) blend of fantasy and pulp; think Conan, or Elric of Melniboné (who, hey! Showed up in a novella feature, in an issue of Science Fantasy magazine, named… THE DREAMING CITY). The Witch Queen leaned away from pure sword and sorcery and more towards noir/detective pulp – though, I think, TWQ is a good example of the pulp slippage in its narrative, resulting in some more bland moments and things that feel ham-fisted in a bad way. Part of it, I think, is the need to make these expansions ‘long’ and complicated without making the player feel like they’re slogging; in a more pulp-forward TWQ narrative, the reveal that Savathûn is actually NOT evil-aligned and is a potential ally would come much earlier in the story, and the central mystery would be MORE about ‘what the fuck is she trying to do/prevent’, leading to the Witness reveal as the centerpiece of the finale and the ‘solution’ to the central mystery.

The decision to start retroactively appending more complex connections between disparate pieces of content naturally leads to a reduction of pulp prominence, in my opinion. If you imagine Destiny as a vessel that is mainly full of three component liquids – Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Pulp – you can say that adding more of one genre pushes out another to make room. You can always pour more of one genre in to re-balance, but in response to increasing levels of sci-fi the narrative seems reticent to reintroduce pulp back into the mix, instead favoring fantasy. But another problem is that once you take it out, Pulp is really hard to put back; once you solidify and unionize world-lore, every subsequent retcon risks diluting and destabilizing that world-lore until a) nobody cares about it anymore and b) it stops being mutable at all, and becomes sludge.

The lore behind the existence of the Exo was originally very pulp, with no real explanations given for exactly what they were and where they came from, and how they attained sapience. Early hints that Cayde and a few other Exo having once been human didn’t preclude other Exo from having other origins – for example, implications that Exo war-frames eventually achieved sapience as a result of the ‘Deep Stone Crypt’, and that they were originally simple AI-equipped warriors designed and overseen by Rasputin to minimize human casualties. This early mystique around the origins of the Exo is classically pulp: we don’t need to know how the hyper-advanced robots were made, we just need to know what they are, why they are relevant to the story. It allows You, The Player, to engage with it at whatever level you want. In a game where You, The Player, are also being asked to step into the role of You, The Protagonist, this is beneficial to engagement for people (like me!) who like to think too much about the backstory of the your-name-here protagonist on-screen. It is also beneficial to not distracting the player with conflicting information, or accidentally contradicting previously-established lore.

Enter Big-Head Bray. The Beyond Light-era explanation of why Exo were created and how they were made is a retroactive nuclear strike on the Exo lore; it strips away a lot of flexibility and thematic richness from the concept of the Exo, shoehorns them into a single narrow use case, and directly conflicts with early-game Exo lore implying their connections to Rasputin (which they then had to go back and hastily shoehorn back in later) or existence as war machines for the Collapse. If D1 lore is wide but shallow, the D2 lore is narrow but deep. Just because something has a lot of ‘depth’, I.E. many layers to traverse before you reach foundational bedrock, it doesn’t make it good.

Same thing with the Fallen. Season of Plunder felt to me like an attempt to reintroduce pulp genre back into the setting, but it fell flat because of two reasons: it didn’t really want to be pulp, and it was more concerned with its tethers to the science-fantasy exterior world than it was with creating its own cohesive narrative. Why was Mithrax doing evil pirate shit when he was young? Because he comes from a race of fucking evil space pirates! It Does Not Need To Be More Complex Than That! But the exculpation of pulp from the D2 narrative means that if Mithrax doesn’t have a good enough reason, WRT the larger narrative, it would be a glaringly obvious plot hole. By Plunder, Destiny had already undertaken the task of filling out the Eliksni lore with sympathetic science-fantasy excuses for why they were trying to exterminate humankind – the more earnest, pulp-forward explanation would just be that desperate, hurt, suffering people will do desperate things, hurt people, and may perpetuate the cycle of suffering.

Oy. There’s a lot you COULD get into. How the Destiny macro-narrative seems to be decaying the rigidity of good and evil in its original lore vs. how the micro-narrative is obsessed with trying to recapture that good/evil dichotomy in order to give players a reason to like the main characters. How the determination to connect and explain everything has resulted in a general flattening of the background lore, and the subsequent trivialization of many things the game included in earlier iterations of the narrative/lore. How the narrative has basically nothing to do with the Vex because they wrote themselves into a corner by trying to explain them too much while simultaneously not altering the foundational lore of the race, meaning there were too many things they can no longer do without retconning again.

Overall, I guess I will just end by saying that many of the things that Destiny is CURRENTLY doing, feels like the game is straining to rip the part of it out which proudly asks its audience not to think too hard about sweeping, dramatic statements that built a lot of the things people love about the game’s setting and narrative… and in doing so, is just ripping itself to pieces.

#More lore! MORE LORE!#dinklebot sitcom #northbot sitcom #destiny 2 #Pulp genre #Genre discussion #Sorry this got so long! I’m not used to writing this kind of big essay #it may not be super coherent but whaddya gonna do

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blackautmedia · 2 months

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There's this whole thing going around about there being "white favoritism" in the TOH community. Basically, the gist of the argument is that the TOH fandom is racist because of how it gravitates toward white characters (Amity, Hunter, and Eda just to name a few) over the none white ones. It's died down a bit but some people are still complaining about it (cough cough LO cough cough).

Personally, I think this is complete bullshit since 1) there are reasons people like these characters that have nothing to do with racism and 2) Luz is still like. A really popular and beloved character within the fandom, but since you talk a lot about racism in media and fandoms I want to know your opinion on this; do you think the TOH fandom has a white favoritism problem like some people say it does?

Sorry in advance for the novel, but I wanted to make sure I'm clear about this.

I don't really take part closely in fandom spaces and didn't/don't participate in TOH fandom, but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that most fandom spaces including TOH have an issue with racism and white favoritism.

Offhand a few of the ways people talked about Camila for the longest time calling her a bad or manipulative parent when while imperfect her actions were pretty reasonable given her circumstances come to mind.

I think the show itself runs into issues too that I've talked about before, but the only time I feel harsh criticism is only warranted is in situations where works are created with active hostility in mind.

Shows like Family Guy and South Park and all the bigotries they bring don't come from a well-meaning place and the people responsible for continuing to make them deserve scorn. If creators openly espouse their bigotries or abuses, then they deserve far less grace.

But I don't get that impression from the TOH crew at all, so I feel at worst it should be taken as a "this was likely done carelessly, not from a place of harm and if this was pointed out to them they'd likely be receptive to feedback" and to communicate criticisms with that fact in mind.

I think the other question to ask is "what is your motivation behind your critique?" One of the biggest guiding principles I live by and incorporate into my beliefs and politics is that you need to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor and your communication needs to reflect that.

Bringing up bigotries like that should be a call to make spaces more inclusive and accessible to the people pushed out and mistreated within them and to help people think more critically about how what we engage with influences how we think about non-fictional scenarios when we're bombarded with an idea countless times.

That means we center building up people whose voices go not listened to or center around addressing their needs. Outside the discussion of fandom spaces, this is a lot of the same problem I have with a lot of performative leftist politics in that it feels like some are more interested in finding a socially acceptable enough person or idea to ridicule and build their presence off that ridicule.

Someone baseline can arrive at a reasonable conclusion but still have behavior that displays a disdain for the people that make it relevant in the first place rather than making criticism designed for betterment for a person, people or a community.

So when I say that fandoms have a racism problem I say that to mean people should take that as a call to come at it from a place of genuinely caring about the people it negatively affects and to adjust communication accordingly.

That can apply to criticizing how people within a fandom space talk about the work they're reacting to, how they review the work especially since there are obviously real people that have to make it, and what place you're coming from in talking about it.

I have more of a "pick your battles" mindset because I feel like discourse and reviews should take more consideration into the number of animators, producers, etc. striking for better work conditions, the advent of AI being used to de-value labor and exploit people with theft, the lack of covid protections in place in these work spaces, and the inaccessibility for more oppressed people in the space that in turn affects not just the art itself but most importantly the well-being of the people working there and those who can't work that don't have access to the space or are disabled.

To me it's a form of criticism, but one rooted in care and concern for others if that makes sense, something I feel can be lacking in these conversations.

That's where I feel these conversations would be more productive and why it's valuable to listen to people coming at it from a place of genuinely wanting to better a community.

It's fresh on my mind, so I think another good example of what I feel is a bit of a misogynistic framing is how a lot of reviews in the Regular Show fandom talk about CJ. Specifically the idea that she has a "temper problem" or anger issues and then the cited examples are largely reasonable situations that leave out the way she's seriously mistreated by her boyfriend.

You can look up several review or discussion videos talking about the season 6 love triangle that will say she's jealous and jumps to conclusions for driving off angrily when Mordecai hugs Margaret in a non-romantic context, but leave out the part that he was there on the advice of a misogynistic dating coach to ask Margaret to communicate to CJ in his place instead of just being honest with her all of which happened after he faked getting hit by a car to try and trick her into feeling bad for him.

It's CJ with the problem, CJ has anger issues, she has a temper, not "Mordecai was awful to her and she was upset about it."

I do think that there's a lot of issues of misogyny in how the Regular Show fandom engages with the series.

But I think a more constructive way of looking at the situation is less focused on ridiculing people who think that CJ has "anger issues" and more to get people to question the way they think about women's behavior, which can then be applied outside the scope of a cartoon discussion.

Dozens of other series also have women/girls who are treated with far more scrutiny and the reasons behind that. So as someone who enjoys talking about this stuff all the time, I find that what stance you take is only part of the equation and how you frame and communicate your criticisms or praises is just as important.

I don't have much of a platform, but that's a major thing I hope comes across in how I speak to others.

I don't think it's wrong to say that most fandoms have problems with racism and specifically Anti-Blackness, but I think we also should prioritize and center better voices to discuss it.

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onwriting-hrarby · 1 year

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On endings—The last sentence

Hello, it’s been a while! After finishing Rotten Judgement I have been taking a little break with writing my novel and also reading quite a lot, but RJ has still been on my mind because I wanted to talk about endings. Or, more specifically, about the last sentence. I would also like to do a literary analysis on the last chapter (how I built the pace for it), but I feel like that would be giving too much into the readers’ readings and feelings. Yet, if you would like me to talk about building a pace (with examples), please tell me so.

In this little post, we will talk about:

The importance of an ending

How does an ending need to be?

When does an ending appear?

Motifs and themes

On changing endings—because of the people

Again, bare in mind that this is not "writing advice" per se, only my impressions as a professional in the sector :) also, tagging @writeblrsupport in case they find it interesting and want to share!

First things first—The importance of an ending

People say that while writing it’s important that you get a nice first sentence, gripping, that keeps the reader into the page. It’s not that I disagree, but I do believe that we have bubbled up this notion of “the first sentence” a little too much: it is not the first thing the reader reads. Nowadays, the first thing we might read about a book can be the review on bookstagram, and if we are in the bookshop, we might choose the book for its cover or typo—to end up reading the claim or the synopsis. This notion of the first sentence might have worked when the novels were inside newspaper, written by chapters, and the chapters needed to be gripping and auto conclusive. Of course, if the first sentence is all that—all the better.

But I consider the ending to be more, if not equally important as the first sentence. Colum McCann says something along the lines that our last sentence will be the first sentence of the imagination of the reader—of what’s further than the ending. It will be the first thing the reader is left when they finish the book.

Yet—don’t make it senseless. The ending has to be coherent with the story. Ending the last sentence with a plot twist or a shock just for the sake of it—for the “remembering” effect—is not the way to go. Mainly, because the reader will frown, take themselves out of the narration completely, and get angry. (I am speaking with knowledge: I said no to a translation because it had this problem.)

How does the ending need to be?

I guess, for me (as always, I speak from personal experience), the endings should be gripping, coherent, and satisfying. I’ve talked about coherence, but let me explain a little about gripping: When I say gripping, I don’t mean that it’s full of tension, or shocking, or leaves you breathless. That, if your story demands it, too. What I mean is that the whole path to the ending (the so-called “resolution of conflict”) should have your reader seated the whole time, wanting to know how it ends. There are different narrations and paces to this: crime, mysteries, fantasy or sci-fi generally have a faster path to this resolution of conflict, and their ending tends to be, yes, gripping (in its original sense). Other narratives, like realism, or character-based books, or non-fiction, might have a slower one. That is good, too, because as I’ve said, most of all the ending should be coherent. But still, the book should not fall out of the reader’s hands. If it does, then there’s a problem with the pace. Generally, you won’t help that with the ending, but sometimes you can do it. The reader wants to finish the book. We don’t have to sacrifice, to my view, any coherence, any intention of us as writers, or any literary quality, but we have to be aware of the grippiness of our text to balance it out to have a satisfying ending.

What do I mean by satisfying? Again, that it’s not confusing, that it makes sense, that doesn’t make the reader feel like they didn’t follow. The reader is not dumb—will never be—so you should treat him with respect. (The readers are more intelligent than the authors, and they pick up on things you wouldn’t have even thought about in your prose.) The satisfaction is that final breath when we close the book, this exhilarating feeling, that “good, very good” that we mutter after the last page. I believe we should strive to leave our readers with this kind of satisfaction.

In summary: if you have a bad beginning, you have a whole novel to make up for it; if you have a good novel but a bad ending, the thing falls into pieces at the last sentence.

When does the ending appear?

This is as easy as to answer Where do people get inspiration from—there isn’t one answer, everyone has their way. To me, though, it works best if I know where the story is going to go from the beginning.

When I start writing the story, it’s almost 6 months after I started thinking about it—not purposefully, but during walks, or talking with friends, some dialogues and scenes occur to me, and I also get to know the characters better. Because I do a character-based narrative, their motifs are the main things I need to have clear when I plot a story. I usually think about the beginning: what is the starting point for the story (which can or cannot be the same for the characters if I’m doing in media res, etc), with which scene do I want to begin? Then, normally, I will get glimpses of possible scenes that go in the middle: an important point for them, maybe the climax. But I always, ALWAYS get the ending before finishing the story. And normally I think about the ending—more like, it comes to me—before I begin writing the story altogether.

Why? Again, Colum McCann says something that pinpoints exactly the answer I would give to you (but better): if a story is a plane and the ending is a destination, we don’t need to know the exact destination, but we need to know that the plane will land.

I leave myself a chance to change the ending if I’m writing the story and I see that the ending is going to change according to what the story needs, but it rarely happens, because I tail my stories around the ending, and not the beginning or the characters. Let’s say that I’m writing a romance: if I tail the story around the beginning (the characters meet), then I have a confusing plot because there are just a million ways in which the characters can evolve from that. If I tail the story around the characters (one is cute, the other one is grumpy, they fall in love) then I have all feelings and a plot, but I don’t think I have a motif or different layers. If I tail it around the ending (the characters get together despite their differences) suddenly I have a message.

I am being a little reductionist here, but you get the gist. Again, this works for me, but it cannot work for you at all! It all depends on what you want from your story, in the end.

Motifs and themes

I feel like endings should be conclusive in the novel, too. That is: in a way, they should summarize the motif of what you want the reader to stay with in your proposal. I don’t know if I succeed with every single ending of mine, but I think I have grown the capacity of doing this kind of summarizing without being too obvious.

The book shouldn’t be a thesis, but it should put something on the table. It can be a secret pact between you and the reader, but it has to lay motifs and themes that the reader can observe and think for themselves. But if your book is too obvious about the theme or your intention as an author, the reader will get bored easily because, again, the reader is not dumb and doesn’t want to have a lecture on it. Laying out your motifs and themes has to be subtle enough for the reader to choose whatever they want to fixate on, and ending with this motif reverberating has to be subtle enough to avoid boredom but clear enough so that the reader knows they have understood and they are with you.

Following the previous point about changing endings, and to go back to the intention of this little post, I had to change my last sentence completely.

Mind you, I had the last sentence written 6 months before writing the ending! Oh my! I had it scribbled in one of my notebooks, the page marked with a dog ear so that I wouldn’t forget I had to end like this. But—stuff happened, that stuff being that my main motif of the story changed.

It wasn’t planned, and it wasn’t suddenly: the story had always revolved around love as a constant effort and life as a constant struggle. Because my main intention was to talk about the first one (and it was what I had people lured into my writing in the first place), six months before the ending I had my first sentence, which was:

“And hands in hands, because they know that love is never the end of any story, they stare at each other and promise wordlessly to keep walking down this path—the one that is bumpy, full of trial and error. And swear to keep on trying, incessantly, every day, together.”

But I wrote that when I was in Chapter 10 (of 21) of the story, so of course, I should have given myself the space to change it. I was stubborn, and I didn’t, so when I started crafting the last three chapters and doing revisions of the other 18, I realized—late, and almost because I had to—that the story didn’t revolve around the love, but about the life. The way I had plotted the last chapter of Rotten Judgement, even, was all about a political revolution! There wasn’t love in it! Or not romantic love per se. There was a birth at home! Now it’s all clear to me, but please imagine me having to write a whole seating 30-page chapter and coming to the end and… it doesn’t work.

What happened, then? What had I done wrong?

Historia, the character who’s giving birth in the bathtub, was the character who was setting the pace of the chapter, which transitioned between the birth and the demonstration. The pace of the birth was very clear to me, and every stage signalled a change in pacing overall (I won’t say much here, this belongs to the post about the last chapter and pace per se). When Historia’s son finally comes out of the womb, it serves as a little epilogue to the fast pace of the chapter. It all stops, and then the son is born.

Mikasa and Eren, the couple, help Historia with the birth of the son. Tired but exhilarated, he kinda proposes to her, and thus the first last sentence should have been born. But ending with the love of the pair would be to neglect that even if the city was burning there was a new birth, a possibility of doing things right. So, it was clear to me that I had to end the ending with Historia grabbing her son for the first time, and the son opening the eyes to this chaotic, political life—so, my second theme.

What I did was to move the couple’s scene and first last sentence to this slow pace.

The ending to that 200k story and 30 last pages of revolution ended up like this, thus:

Amidst tearful cries in the bathroom, they [Eren and Mikasa] giggle against each other desperately. And hands in hands, because they know that love is never the end of any story, they stare at each other and promise wordlessly to keep walking down this path—the one that is bumpy, full of trial and error. And swear to keep on trying, incessantly, every day, together. From out the window, the sirens hustle closer and closer to the building now. Smoke columns rise from the avenue and the Parliament. Some screams penetrate the walls of the apartment, but the air is filled with hope and the anticipation of their friends—surely—coming back. The new mother [Historia] crouches forward to the midwife, takes the head of the newborn with care, then his whole little body, red and moving, watches his little mouth open and his closed eyes and the mother puts their baby against her chest. Little Marco falls silent for a moment as if he was taking in the arduous work of being alive.

On changing endings—because of the people

On a last note, I wanted to address writers who change the ending because they see that the fans want something specific, or that the public is not taking the leading up to the ending well. Some mentions: High School Musical The Musical The Series (they changed the ending of the main pair because they saw that another ship was very famous and the main character wasn’t in the show anymore; it resulted in a shit-show of character development); Sherlock (resulted in the worst 3rd season ever); Game of Thrones (don’t let me get started); Sally Rooney’s Beautiful world, where are you (an epilogue set in the pandemic which reads like an adding that she can’t even have written); How I met your mother (oh please), and much more.

Don’t do it—don’t! You know what the story needs. You know what you want to tell. Don’t let anyone influence you. Be Succession. End when you need to end, and with what makes sense for the story to end with.

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aita-blorbos · 7 months

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[DND characters, same as 7 year old mouse baby but different character]

[CW for cults, death, and shitty parental figures]

AITA for calling a kid stupid?

So, lemme explain. I (16NB) am like, super not keen on the whole concept of “killing people for no reason”.

I understand dying for a noble cause. I’ve thrown myself under the metaphorical bus once or twice myself. But, like, I’ve seen some shit. I’ve read at least five books, including several novels, a lot of non-fiction, and at least one poem. And I know a lot of shit. For instance: Death is really not fun to experience.

Now, due to circumstances of coincidence and fate, I have been traveling for quite some time with this… mouse-clown baby [7NB], who I will call S for short.

One of the other people traveling with me, C [~16NB] really doesn’t like S, on account of their tendency towards extreme violence and the fact that they killed an old man who was traveling with us. And like, shit. I understand their perspective completely, however, S has some extenuating circumstances that make me far more sympathetic to them than I would be otherwise (for instance, being, like, 7)

So, long story short, after traveling in the desert for a good chunk of time, S got kidnapped by a man with a steel ass and a giant worm. We managed to track them back to the circus where they came from, where everything immediately clicked into place.

For some further context, S is pretty much, like, completely mute (at least when it comes to speaking common and not… squeaks), but there have been a few occasions where they gained the ability to talk. They talked about their childhood in the circus a little bit, but… I had no idea how bad it would be until I got there.

The circus was like some kind of fucked up murder/death cult, and the closest thing to a parent S had was super aware of the fact that he was brainwashing a 7 year old into committing, like, a ton of murder. Of course, I was super tired and out of it, so I made the decision to confront him, explaining how, like, it sucks to be dead and you really don’t have the right to make that decision for anyone else.

He, of course, ignored me, and started talking about how S was like some sort of god or something. And at that point I was completely fed up with him, so I just started explaining that S is literally 7 and a baby. Who doesn’t know shit. Because they grew up in a circus and didn’t have a childhood. And it wasn’t even the kind of not having a childhood where they let you do like macramé and shit.

I was really harping on S at this point, although I don’t think they understood what I was saying, thankfully.

So, long story short, I spend about 15 minutes calling a 7 year old a moron and now I feel like kind of a jerk. AITA?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality #cults #abuse #CHILD ABUSE

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gwen-tolios · 2 years

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Books Where The Ace Character Has A Relationship

There needs to be more of these. Some of us do want relationships!

All these books have canon ace characters - word on the page vs headcanons fyi.

1) Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann. This book gets a lot of buzz, as it should, for its portrayal of a black ace girl navigating a relationship. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31625039-let-s-talk-about-love

2) Chameleon Moon by RoAnna Sylver, and the other stories about Parole. This has a poly relationship with an ace character and a whole lot of other rep. It reads like a blockbuster action movie, if that's your thing. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31938167-chameleon-moon

3) Thaw by Elyse Springer. Featuring a relationship between a model and a librarian, I love how this is such a standard romance novel. All the beats are there - it's just got an ace woman in it ^_^ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32673586-thaw

4) The Spy with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke. Wolf is demisexual (hello ace brethren) and his romance is his B-plot. This is completely okay because trying to sabotage Hitler takes priority. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38650956-the-spy-with-the-red-balloon

5) Returning to You by Gwen Tolios. That rare partnership between an ace and aro character (neither of whom are aro ace), full of pining, family drama, and going from friends to lovers. As aces do. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60497147-returning-to-you

6) Three Stupid Weddings by Ann Gallagher. Fake dating, friends to lovers, but make it gay and ace? Yes. You need this. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41074778-three-stupid-weddings

7) His Quiet Agent by Ada Maria Soto. This is a classic ace romance, released way back in 2017, that reads like the gentle sickfic in the hurt/comfort tag on Ao3. Nurse your ace coworker back to health, and now you're a couple. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35238838-his-quiet-agent?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_9

8) Making Love by Aidan Wayne. This features an aro and a ace character realizing they're falling for each other in a world of cupids and succubi. Suuuper fluffy. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33120447-making-love?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_26

9) Enchanted Soles edited by Sasha Miller. This is a queer anthology featuring stories about shoes, but the last story called Hallowed Veil is the gold star. It features TWO ace characters, one in a relationship, and highlights the spectrum of desires. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30075296-enchanted-soles

10) How to Be Ace: A Memoir Of Growing Up Asexual by Rebecca Burgess. Non-fiction graphic novel about growing up ace, including dating troubles. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54403237-how-to-be-ace

#ace books #ace characters #queer books #lgbtq+ books #book rec #asexuality #asexual #diverse reads #aces in relationships #ace reads

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twincovesgame · 2 years

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I know you've said that it's not possible to play with a touch-repulsed MC but I was wondering if it will be possible to play with an ace MC? (ig I mean specifically asexual not aro bc you've mentioned that obv romance is like...the whole game). Loved the demo and can't wait for it to come out!

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the demo!

I'm going to say the answer to this is probably no. The MC will have sex at some point with the RO(s) of their choice in game canon. Early sex scene are optional, so you could play as a demisexual or demiromantic MC, but sex does happen in game. To quote directly from the Kickstarter: "Sex happens in Twin Coves and the game has a healthy and progressive attitude towards sex and sexuality. There are multiple opportunities to get into bed with many of the love interests, but the option to have sex before you are locked into a romance route will not affect anyone’s romance. Before the romance routes, all sex scenes are optional, and after that, can be fade to black if you so choose."

I made the choice to include sex in the game because when I began playing visual novels, especially romance games targeted towards women, they were pretty PG when it came to sex. And as someone who loves reading steamy romance novels, I wanted more steam in my romance visual novels. It was one of the catalysts for the game, so it's pretty fundamental to the story. I did pull back and give the non-optional scenes a fade-to-black option for those players who do not wish to read steamy scenes, but I want to stay true to why I made this game in the first place: write a romance visual novel that talks about and includes sex.

I feel there is still a lot of shame around enjoying sex. Or consuming media that includes and celebrates sex, like romance novels. And the only way to combat this is just to... include more healthy sex rep in media to normalize it. I think this is especially true for content targeted towards women, as women are particularly affected by shame around sex. Twin Coves is not targeted towards only women, but I'm just speaking as a woman myself. There are other convos to have about romance and sex in visual novels that don't center women.

I'd love to see more ace rep in media, but it's just not my personal mission. However, I do want more demi rep, which is personal to me, thus Rook.

And speaking of Rook... all of the romance options are written as people who are allosexual, or in Rook's case, demisexual. (Some of the other ROs probably give off demi vibes as well, tbh. Rook is the only RO that discusses it in game though.) And the MC is a character in the game too. They're not really written to be self-insert-able, so they have their own personality and preferences, and one of them is that they are interested in sex with the ROs. They can take their time to get there, but sex happens in the game eventually.

I understand the desire to see certain things in games. I'm on the ace spectrum myself and would love to see more demisexual and demiromanctic rep in books and games. But this game probably won't appeal to someone looking for an asexual MC. The same as this game isn't going to appeal to someone who doesn't like paranormal romance or murder mysteries.

The good news is a lot of people are making visual novels and interactive fiction, and there are many games where asexuality for the MC is an option.

#asexuality #ace #asexual #demisexual #demi

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fairypoet73 · 6 months

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I get the whole "no kinkshaming" thing since it's Kinktober, but like, aren't you giving a pass to MAPs and Rapists by saying that?

Valid question, valid concern, so let me clarify. The important thing to remember is that I also said that I do not condone these actions irl. In fiction you can do anything you want and nobody gets hurt, that's fine, because again, nobody gets hurt. The second you take that out of fiction though is where we have our problem.

If you want to prey on actual real life children or watch actual child pornography, you don't have an age kink, you're a pedophile. If you want to actually rape someone, you don't have a non-con kink, you're a rapist. If you wanna fuck a vaporeon, that means you have a kink. If you try to fuck your actual real life dog that makes you a zoophile.

So I'll say it again, JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE WANTS TO DO SOMETHING IN A FICTIONAL SETTING, DOESN'T MEAN THEY WANT TO DO IT IRL. In fact, every person I know who has a thing for sexy Pokemon is disgusted at the idea of having sex with an animal irl. Most people are able to discern reality from fiction and understand that what you do in fiction has no weight in the real world.

On top of that, it's been proven time and time again that fiction about certain things can actually help reduce a person's willingness to do that thing irl. Here's an example I learned in high school (or maybe middle school). In ancient Athens, they held public plays every once in a while, specifically tragedies that were filled with lots and LOTS of murder. They did this because they believed that it would help work as a way to help the populous vent their violent thoughts and desires, or provide some catharsis to someone having those thoughts, and it actually worked. The rates of violent crimes dropped significantly after the public showings of these tragedies.

Last big point is that the majority of kinks come from trauma. Lots of people with non-con kinks were victims of non-consensual sexual activities. Lots of people with incest kinks have really abusive families. Lots of people with age kinks were sexually abused as children. Using fiction to explore these kinks can, and often is, very therapeutic. I can speak from experience on that myself, though I would prefer to refrain from talking about many of my kinks and trauma publicly, so please do not ask.

The whole idea that if you consume certain types of fiction they will infect your brain and turn you into a monster is a very conservative puritan idea that Christians have harshly forced into the mainstream. While there are some examples of fiction doing that, there are just as many examples proving the opposite. Both can be true, just because they contradict doesn't mean they both can't be true. It's an issue with nuance, like pretty much every other issue in the world, that we should try to judge on a case-by-case basis. Not everyone who reads a Sherlock Holmes book is a murderer. Not everyone who reads WWII historical fiction novels is a Nazi. Those two things are obvious. So why do we have this double standard when it comes to adult fiction?

I give no passes to MAPs and Rapists, because they don't deserve a pass. I simply want to curate a safe space where people can feel like they can experiment with certain aspects of their sexuality without hurting anyone else that they may not be able to in most other spaces.

#kinktober #kinktober 2023 #ask the writer #media literacy #people really need to stop making assumptions about people's morals based on the fiction they consume #that is like one of the worst metrics to judge someone ethically

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the---hermit · 1 year

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Niente Di Nuovo Sul Fronte Di Rebibbia by Zerocalcare

If you read my posts often you know Zerocalcare by now, since in the past few weeks I have been catching up with some of the graphic novels by him I hadn't read yet. This book in particular is another collection of short non fiction in graphic form. It's shorter than other books by him, but it's very dense, as the topics he talks about are quite intense. Since it's just five chapters I will say a few words on each.

The first story is about the rebellions that took place in several Italian prisons during the pandemic, with a focus on Rebibbia (since the author lives there). He shares the experiences of some people he spoke to, some who were in prison at the time, and people who had loved one in prison then. He ventures to reflect on the whole prison situation in the country, and doesn't shy away from police brutality inside prisons. It was very touching, it triggered a lot of reflections for me, and it was overall a great opening chapter to this book.

The second chapter focuses on the health care system. How it is in fact not provided as is should, since public structures are shut down so often it either pushes people into waiting lists that can last years, or into private solutions that cause people to spend an insane amount of money. It's so accurate it's scary, it makes you realize thar at the end of the day dystopic situations aren't as far off from reality as we's like to think.

The third chapter was a deep dive in cancel culture in Italy, and oh boy it was great. He did a great job at putting back into perspective all those people who love to say that "we live in an era in which you can't say anything anymore", which is a sentence I hear way too much. I think this chapter was very well done because it could reach anybody for its language and topics and it's exactly what we need.

The fourth chapter deals with a topic we know is very dear to this author, which is the Kurdish resistence in the Middle East. Zerocalcare has an entire graphic journalism pubblication on the topic, and continues to actively report on the situation is a great way that makes these complicated political dynamics very accessible.

Finally the last chapter is more self-reflective. It deals with his experience in creating a series with Netflix, and it mostly focuses on his personal emotional journey in embarking is such a big project. It was really good to see this side of things, and as you might know from previous reviews I wrote on his books I have a soft spot for his more self reflective stories.

I tried to give a very general and simplified idea of the topics of the book, but I surely didn't give it justice. There were several passages that physically made me shiver, it's a great book. I have praised his writing a lot and I stand by it. I love the storytelling this man is capable of, his ability to deal with incredibly important and heavy topics without letting go of a humorous side that makes everything more accessible for a larger audience. This is one of the authors I would by anything from without checking the plot because I trust him so much.

I read this book for the bright colours on the cover prompt of the jumbo reading challenge.

#2023 book #book #books #bookish #book cover #graphic novel #zerocalcare #niente di nuovo sul fronte di rebibbia #book rec #book review #book recommendation #reading #bookblr #booklr #studyblr #mine #the---hermit

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rowanwolf · 1 year

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In my last post, I talked about my copinglink. Firekeeper is a character from Jane Lindskold's Firekeeper Saga novels. In the novel there are different types of animals: there's Cousin kind, which are the animals we're used to, and then there are Royal beasts. Royal beasts are larger than their Cousin kind and have an intelligence and sapience on par with humans. Firekeeper was orphaned as a young child and was raised by a pack of Royal wolves. She is a wolf in all but body. That was why I originally took her on. She too deals with species dysphoria and a disconnect from human identity.

It's interesting, I talk differently about her - when I do talk about her at all - than I do my theriotypes and kintypes. And she does feel quite different. I have a lot of gryphon shifts at work for some reason. And that actually is helpful and can help me deal with the craziness. Firekeeper does much the same thing when she's present at work. However, while my gryphon is just me, settled into my body, but with a slightly different mindset and phantom talons that make typing all sorts of fun, Firekeeper feels like... a whole other person, honestly. It's almost less like I am her and more like she's sitting next to me in my head, borrowing my eyes and ears. It's genuinely like I can picture both of us sitting side by side and looking out through my eyes. It feels like there's someone sitting next to me, but in a mental sense rather than a physical sense. I'm really not doing a good job of explaining this, but I don't quite know how to phrase it. I mean, I could do a short little prose piece and describe it well. Might do that at the end of this.

Regardless, she feels present in a very different way than my 'kintypes and theriotypes. This was going to be longer, but then suddenly it's 11pm somehow and I need to go figure out food.

And the aforementioned non-fiction prose drabble, featuring something that happened at work the other day. (I guess it's non-fiction prose? Journalistic account? Whatever.) The space and imagery are what's actually going on in my head when this happens, although the dialogue is very slightly altered because privacy:

"What this?" I heard a voice behind me ask. Apparently she wasn't having a good human-speak day.

"Not sure. Can't quite... It's like I'm hearing it, but nothing is sticking. It just rolls right off like rain," I replied. I glanced back to see a young woman with dark, short-cropped hair emerging from the gloom. Her red shirt and leather breeches were bright splashes of color against the darkness.

The place in which we stood was very strange. There was nothing. It wasn't quite a place so much as it was a concept of space-time in that regard. Here, where I stood, there were two windows looking out into the brightly lit beyond. I knew these to be my eyes, but I felt somewhat separated from them. On our side of the windows, there was a bit of floor, still black, but lit by the light shining in. As the light faded the further it got from the window, the world dissolved into the unreality of endless blackness. Here, there was no limitation of space, if indeed that's what it was, and no laws of physics to govern passage through that space/not-space. There was no time, either. All things happened in an instant and then faded into the primordial gloom.

"I help," Firekeeper said as she stepped up beside me. Apparently frustrated by her broken human speech, she resorted instead to the language of beasts. She cocked her head and told me, "It is to do with your work."

"That much I know."

"I do not understand why two-legs insist upon doing this to themselves. You do not enjoy this. So why are you here? What drives you to come here day after day to complete tasks for which you feel no passion and occasionally more than a little loathing?" she asked, a genuine curiosity in her tone.

I sighed at having to explain this to her again. I knew she understood it, but occasionally she was intentionally obtuse about human things. "Money. I have to be able to able to pay rent and buy food and clothes and anything else I need."

She scoffed. "Two-legs are so concerned about money. When I am hungry, I hunt. When I need shelter, I make a den. When I need clothes, I use the skins of my kills. Two-legs might be happier if they allowed themselves the freedom that comes with such a life."

"Yes, well, not everyone has your background knowledge. Believe me, I would love to be able to do that. I'm a wolf, it feels only natural. But trying to live as a human in today's world..." I trailed off with a shrug.

Beside me, I heard her sigh in exasperation. Switching once more to human-speak, she told me in a tone that made plain how tedious she felt all of this to be, "Fine. I watch. I remember better. You don't remember well."

I nodded easily. "Yeah, we both know my memory sucks. But just... let me do the talking...."

#otherlink #fictionlink #copinglink #This is just such a wildly different experience than my experiences with therianthropy and otherkinity.#Just so vastly and insanely different.#prose #otherlinker #copinglinker #fictionlinker #Description of identity through non-fiction prose.

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kimyoonmiauthor · 8 months

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Literary theorists being AHs to women and PoCs

‘cause if I have to suffer, then you should also know how much of an AH these people are, so you can examine if their theories are even worth believing or if you SHOULD pay attention to their blind spots instead of saying it’s irrelevant to literary discussion. Personally, I think the fact they are unwilling to mention PoCs, particularly Black people and willing to actively dump on women is very relevant to current academic discourse. You can’t ignore Kant’s views on women, and see that the majority of the people who won in the end were people who showed hatred towards women.

Robert Scholes being an AH, Page 26-page 28 (Hilarious, but also homophobic and misogynistic) For context, EM Forster is gay, which makes this really homophobic.

Picture credit: https://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/articles/2017-03-03/memories-of-bob-scholes

‘Cause you see folks, the only decent writers in the world are men, cishet men. (notice the sharp sarcasm here).

E.M. Forster on Gertrude Stein (From Aspects of a Novel, a series of lectures he gave)

Credit: Getty Images https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/licensed-image?q=tbn:ANd9GcSjNW-FA-n5bkXFk2MFmMGMcBy1SJtQj185hrMceQN_8rK2L-6f2cu7Ct-PooBt8M6Mt7ffTDt5SPHpj00

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70492/pg70492-images.html

Granted, a Modernist (and gay himself, openly so at the time he gave this lecture), but still, the dumping on Gertrude Stein seems to be a tradition that extends to other people afterwards (Rowe did it sideways, Lajos Egri, directly). Seriously? Dump on the lesbian Jew trying to encourage ways to describe TRAUMA. OMG, we shouldn’t talk about trauma.

But I disagree heartily--we have entire story structures devoted to dreams that play with sense of time and reality *because* of Gertrude Stein. I mean, how could you conceivably get Inception without Gertrude Stein’s theories of how to move language and time? Besides that, you have Dream Diaries (Japanese), Dream Record (First Chinese then Korean--not imported into Japan because there was a war), and then the whole of Dream Time from Aboriginals which predate her. Non-linear storytelling has and can work--but you need thematic plotting to be stronger and tone plotting to really be tight (pacing helps, but isn’t as critical as the other two). Thank the Modernists for the European white version. I mean, Magic realism, anyone???

If you want to find ways to break linear time and describe trauma itself, and the feeling of missing time--Modernists are your best bet to find techniques to get you there. (Kinda Post Modernists, though I resent the focus on readers a lot--I heartily disagree, BTW, that Structuralists and Post Modernists are the same thing... as argued in this paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B0080430767039516.

Post Modernists tried to find further ways to break the rules and structure by bending to the reader.

Structuralists tried to impose a bunch of rules and binary. Like say, the panopticon and prison system/School system. There’s rigidity everywhere with Structuralists and Eurocentricism.) Or as the Raw and Cooked put it, a binary of acceptable and unacceptable, when some cultures don’t work off the Bible. So I think this paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B0080430767039516

is more likely.

John Gardner, The Art of Fiction for Young Writers, published 1983

Picture credit: https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/john-gardner-and-the-art-of-fiction

No one is surprised that its all men mentioned, right?

But what makes ignoramuses bad writers is not just their inexperience in fair argument. All great writing is in a sense imitation of great writing. Writing a novel, however innovative that novel may be, the writer struggles to achieve one specific large effect, what can only be called the effect we are used to getting from good novels. However weird the technique, whatever the novel’s mode, we say when we have finished it, “Now that is a novel!” We say it of Anna Karenina and of Under the Volcano, also of the mysteriously constructed Moby-Dick. If we say it of Samuel Beckett’s Watt or Malone Dies, of Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees, or Kobo Abe’s The Ruined Map, we say it because, for all their surface oddity, those novels produce the familiar effect. It rarely happens, if it happens at all, that a writer can achieve effects much larger than the effects achieved in books he has read and admired. Human beings, like chimpanzees, can do very little without models. One may learn to love Shakespeare by reading him on one’s own—the ignoramus is unlikely to have done even this—but there is no substitute for being taken by the hand and guided line by line through Othello, Hamlet, or King Lear. This is the work of the university Shakespeare course, and even if the teacher is a person of limited intelligence and sensitivity, one can find in universities the critical books and articles most likely to be helpful, the books that have held up, and the best of the new books. Outside the university’s selective process, one hardly knows which way to turn. One ends up with some crank book on how Shakespeare was really an atheist, or a Communist, or a pen-name used by Francis Bacon. Outside the university it seems practically impossible to come to an understanding of Homer or Vergil, Chaucer or Dante, any of the great masters who, properly understood, provide the highest models yet achieved by our civilization. Whatever his genius, the writer unfamiliar with the highest effects possible is virtually doomed to search out lesser effects.

Gardner, John (2010-05-20T23:58:59.000). The Art of Fiction . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

OMG, give this guy a prize, he managed to mention a Japanese man Kobo Abe. /s https://literariness.org/2019/04/15/analysis-of-kobo-abes-novels/ But then fails to mention the names of the authors of some of the novels he’s talking about (I’m literally begging Writer’s Digest, Knopf, etc to force these people to give better citations)

The closest he gets to noting a Black person is noting American Jazz on the page where Chapter 2 starts, and then fails to mention Jazz musicians. No, I’m serious. What makes a person an AH? The inability to mention a single work in 1983 by a female author?

Though the fact is not always obvious at a glance when we look at works of art very close to us in time, the artist’s primary unit of thought—his primary conscious or unconscious basis for selecting and organizing the details of his work—is genre. This is perhaps most obvious in the case of music. A composer writes an opera, a symphony, a concerto, a tone poem, a suite of country dances, a song cycle, a set of variations, or a stream-of-consciousness piece (a modern psychological adaptation of the tone poem). Whatever genre he chooses, and to some extent depending on which genre he chooses, he writes within, or slightly varies, traditional structures—sonata form, fugal structure, ABCBA melodic structure, and so forth; or he may create, on what he believes to be some firm basis, a new structure. He may cross genres, introducing country dances into a symphony or, say, constructing a string quartet on the principle of theme and variations. If he’s looking for novelty (seldom for any more noble reason), he may try to borrow structure from some other art, using film, theatrical movement, or something else. When new forms arise, as they do from time to time, they rise out of one of two processes, genre-crossing or the elevation of popular culture. Thus Ravel, Gershwin, Stravinsky, and many others blend classical tradition and American jazz—in this case simultaneously crossing genres and elevating the popular. Occasionally in music as in the other arts, elevating popular culture must be extended to mean recycling trash. Electronic music began in the observation that the beeps and boings that come out of radios, computers, and the like might sound a little like music if structure were imposed—rhythm and something like melody. Anything, in fact—as the Dadaists, Spike Jones, and John Cage pointed out—might be turned into something like music: the scream of a truck-tire, the noise of a windowshade, the bleating of a sheep.

Gardner, John (2010-05-20T23:58:59.000). The Art of Fiction . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Iunno, is it glaring to you? It’s glaring to me. Avoid talking about Black people challenge. I can name at least a few off the top of my head. Dizzy Gillespie? Billie Holiday? Ella Fitzgerald? And then he mentions white people before then? I’m groaning.

And that’s the thing, particularly about Black authors/Black people, they are either not mentioned by name, but their work is--WTF, or totally skipped, probably because the whole of Black literature goes against these white men’s structuralism, and postulations. On one hand, I’m glad they left them alone, but on the other, the saying this is the only way, while glaringly missing the obvious really is sickening.

As for dumping on women--well... should we go back to Aristotle being an ass and starting the whole anti-choice campaigns because somehow Aristotle is Jesus, even though Jesus didn’t say anything about Ensoulment at conception? And then indoctrinated white women trying to rescue Aristotle from taking the axe because all of his scientific ideas were wrong? (Just axe him--he was popular with the Victorians for a reason--he was a misogynistic asshole and that reinforced their worldview very well.) (And if you think I don’t have references for the anti-choice statement... oh wait for it... I so have it)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment Wikipedia, but I found scholarly articles too--not sure you want to be buried with that. Aristotle is not Jesus. !@#$ And Aristotle thought women got their soul later than men, because, as I said, royal asshole, to the point I want to do a whole long rant about how much of an irrelevant ah he was.

#fuck misogyny #misogyny in academia #anti-blackness in academia #story structure and misogyny #structuralists #em forster #robert scholes #John gardner #aristotle is a misogynistic ah

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upat4amwiththemoon · 1 year

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What are some of your favorite books?? And ones that you would recommend

Here are some of my favorite books (I tried not to go overboard):

The lesbiana’s guide to catholic school by Sorona Reyes, it tells about a queer Mexican American girl navigating through new school and her family life, while doing her best to stay in the closet. I think the book is funny and emotional, because there’s so many things to relate to, at least I could. To me the characters were very real feeling, their actions and feelings, and I really liked to get to know their thoughts in a more through way.

Written in the stars by Alexandria Bellefleur is also a wlw book, but it’s more mature compared to Lesbiana’s guide to catholic school. There’s fake dating and sort of enemies to lover (more like dislike to like to love) tropes. It really pulled me in through the whole book and it gave me that feeling of wanting to just continue and continue. Darcy is hot, so very hot. That’s all.

Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazy Kawaguchi is definitely one of my favorite books!! It’s emotional and happy and it gave me such a warm and cozy feeling. I didn’t actually think it’d be so sad, but there was always a happyish, bittersweet, end. I definitely recommend reading this and I can’t wait to read the other parts.

Girl in pieces by Kathleen Glasgow (please read trigger warnings before reading this book, as you should to every book you read). Definitely a book that hits hard, I read it in a quick pace and that was a mistake, so if you feel like you aren’t in the right mind to read something rough, you shouldn’t read this yet. No matter how sad it was, I really loved this book. Bittersweet ending, relatable characters and feelings. It tears you apart and then throws all the pieces away, and gives back like 1/4 of them :D

The girl from the sea by Molly Knox Ostertag and Are you listening? by Tillie Walden are both amazing graphic novels that throw your emotions around. Both have queer characters in them, but only The girl from the sea is an actual love story. Are you listening? has a journey through West Texas with emotional conversations between two characters and some magical twists to it. Both will always have a special place in my heart.

If you prefer non-fiction, I really liked What my mother and I don’t talk about by Michele Filgate, and Venus and Aphrodite: history of a goddess by Bettany Hughes. WMMAIDTA has 15 essays about mothers and child-mother relationships written by 15 different writers. Some of them are more negative while others positive, prepare for feeling nonetheless. Venus and Aphrodite tells about Venus’ history through time. It covers different myths, art, archeological findings etc of Venus. I’d definitely recommend this if you like about history/ancient myths.

#i have more #but i tried not to make this too long #girl in pieces #are you listening?#the girl from the sea #what my mother and i don’t talk about #venus and aphrodite: history of a goddess #written in the stars #lesbiana’s guide to catholic school #before the coffee gets cold #book recommendations #books #book #wlw books #book rec #booklover

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baladric · 1 year

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What first got you into writing? How did you develop your style? And have you got any tips for other budding writers out there? Also who are your favourite authors and poets?

this got LONG but i'm going to tell myself you were ASKING FOR THAT and take a breath a;ldfkjwo;dfjsf

i can't remember if my inuyasha self-insert fic days predated my gaiaonline roleplaying days, but it was one of the two! definitely entirely a form of escape from a very painful and lonely life, but i think it was actually several years after i started definitionally Writing™ before i got into it, you know? i don't remember what kickstarted it, but somewhere along the way, i realized that i could really do whatever i wanted to, and i discovered figurative language and non-linear storytelling really went hogwild on some super niche death note fics ;alkfjwd and from there i started writing prose-poetry and really just. splashing around in there. i've been a musician my whole life, and it was like i'd realized that i could put music into the written word, like i wrote entirely for the way things tripped off my internal ear—like this one line from a poem i wrote when i was 14 still sticks with me, Leaves stain, leaves stains (rough obviously, but it was my first foray into writing about visual imagery that stuck in my sad little head)

my style started as its own nascent messy little thing, and like. man, people on here don't talk about Lolita because. you know. it's literally the apotheosis of the stuff that gets people wound-up in fandom spaces? literally a novel about SA and pedophilia and grooming—but the thing is, there's a reason it's considered a central part of the western literary canon, and that book revolutionized me as a writer. nabokov's entire thing really is just. ear-worms as text, like i cannot even express how often i still think "I am just winking happy thoughts into a little tiddle cup", or how many times i'll echolalia my way through this one line from the intro bit of the book: "Lo-Le-Ta: The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth." take or leave the content of the book, nabokov does it like none other—or he did until ocean vuong published On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, which is just. idk if you haven't read it, please please please, do yourself a favor and make space for it. it's the most effecting book i've ever read, as well as the most gorgeous and the most lovingly, grievingly composed.

You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hugry, as empty. Opening the front door to the first snowfall of my life, you whispered, "Look."

if i can ever write a single sentence that pins the wide universe and the complex sorrow and joy of the human experience in place the way ocean vuong does, i will die happy. honestly.

favorite authors/poets is in vein with that last bit, but the short list anyway:

ocean vuong, esp On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (novel) and Time is a Mother (poetry)

maggie stiefvater, specifically The Raven Cycle—i could (and have) gone on for hours about the way she puts her readers into a tactile, vivid world, and her singular skill for spinning characters so contradictory and multifaceted that, to my mind, they're whole entire people, instead of the archetypes or loving stereotypes of most other fiction

richard siken, for Crush, which. i mean, i'm a gay man obsessed with words, this one really goes without saying lmao, if you read nothing else from it, read Snow and Dirty Rain. it is my gospel and my lifeblood, i have it memorized and still i reread it every week.

katherine addison taught me so much about storytelling, unreliable narrators, and the complexities of healing/trauma recovery while contending with rigid society (tragically pertinent to our present lives)—her Chronicles of Osreth (comprised of The Goblin Emperor, Witness for the Dead and The Grief of Stones)

maggie nelson, both for Bluets and The Argonauts

becky chambers—Psalm for the Wild-Built altered me as a person, it is gorgeous and soaring and humble and such a necessary book

donna tartt, obviously

anne carson, also obviously

freya marske—will read anything she ever writes, her language is lush, her worldbuilding is unique and spectacular, and her smut is HOT

alexandra rowland, for the same reasons as freya marske, but also their characters are so stunningly sympathetic, as well as really loving examples of neurodivergence in fiction (evemer hoşkadem, my deeply autistic beloved)

robin hobb really writes a toxic, complicated relationship saga like none other, i am stunningly enraged by Realm of the Edlerlings and also am physically incapable of not thinking about it constantly

and then there's the authors who taught me about magic: Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom Series), Holly Black (Modern Faerie Tales), Tamora Pierce (Protector of the Small), and Francesca Lia Block (Weetzie Bat)

writer tips!!!!!! this is hokey, but honestly my main advice is READ and also HAVE FUN. storytelling is the oldest human act, and language is the show where everything's made-up and the points don't matter. language is a sandbox, and it's there for you to literally just fuck around in. it can be whatever you want—it can be your raison d'être as a writer, but also it can be incidental. it can be a means to an end, economical, and some of the best stories are taken with that approach. but also you can paint with language, if you want to. you can compose music with it. you can do whatever suits your fancy.

my second tip is WORD COUNT DOESN'T MATTER. stop counting. stop stop stop holding yourself to the weird, quantity-obsessed writer culture. 2,000 words a day? nobody has time for that except full-time writers or those really rare writers who blink and 5k words fall onto the page. personally, if i'm sitting down to write and i'm really determined to actually get something onto the page, whether or not it's necessarily good, i'll force out 200 words. 200! i can't remember where i got this tip, but the point of that number is that 200 words is attainable even on the most blocked day, and by the time you hit your 200th word, you're gonna be in the middle of a sentence or a thought that you'll have to finish, and you end up with 300. or you hit 200 and you've broken through the fog and warmed up to it, and you leave with 700 or 1,500 (or a couple wild times for me, 5k).

my third tip: if you're a writer, EVERYTHING IS WRITING. this goes for art, music, literally any creative pursuit. walking out your door in the morning is writing, because you're learning things about the world, you're processing stimuli, your wheels are never not spinning. every video game you play, every show you watch, every fic you read is inherently a generative act, because that story is entering your store of knowledge to be processed and synthesized and lend you inspiration for the kinds of stories you want to tell, or the characters you want to make, or even the kinds of things you want to avoid as a creator. i can't tell you how much i've learned from games (Outer Wilds, i'm lookin at you!!) or tv (Station Eleven....) or music (Joanna Newsom really should be on my list of authors) or fanfiction (if you're a goblin emperor beastie and you haven't read celebros's Blackbird series, RUN, don't walk. i learned literally everything about creating character conflict within a framework of love that really motivates characters to work at it and not just get angry and walk away, and i remain uhhHHH fuckin Gobsmacked and reeling that she wants to write with ME a;lkdjfalw;dfs also literally one of my most formative collaborative and creative experiences came from reading kingdom hearts fanfiction in 2010, so) so!!!! just live your life!!! think about what makes you tick, what makes stories tick, think about the stars or birds or the history of glassblowing, whatever lights you up, and that energy will find its way into the things you make.

oh and also NEVER FEEL BAD FOR TAKING BREAKS. and i don't mean a 5-minute break, or a few days. i mean weeks. i mean months or years or what-have-you. sometimes it's just not there, and that's not a failing. your creations aren't content, they're little critters you make with love, and you can't love a thing you're banging your head against day and night. take breaks. allow yourself ebbs and flows in your creativity. everything hibernates, and i promise it'll wake up again and it'll be better than you left it.

end point: i Love You, and if you're writing or hoping to write or planning to write, i love your writing, too, nascent or tangible.

#aj answers #anonymous ask #ask

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kezia-kawaii · 11 months

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review of house of leaves so far

it is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is. i'm not entirely certain i'd call it well written either to be honest.

there's like 3 or 4 stories going on at once. you have the main body of the text, an essay written by one of the characters about a documentary that doesn't exist [and is honestly the best and most interesting part of the whole thing]

there's a bunch of letters written from the fictional curator's mother to him over a period of time that helps us understand his life and interjections into the essay [which is honestly pretty effective storytelling if a little on the flowery side]

there's the curator's story told through footnotes that can go on for pages at a time that almost always talk about sex for no reason other than because it makes the book grown up and mature but written in the way a 14 year old would [honestly. they make the book worse. i can see what the author is going for and i'm fairly aware of how it will all culminate because it's telegraphed like a neon sign]

and then there's the story told about the family that are in the documentary and how the world has perceived their toils. there's footnotes about books and essays and interviews done with or about the family and their house. these are, thankfully, rarely an intrusion and add to making the essay feel real while adding some fun environmental storytelling

the biggest problem i am having with it so far is that i have been told it's a tricky read and that it's mind bending. none of that is present. it's a slog to get through the curator's story because he's a non entity and a mary sue. i am well aware i don't /have/ to read his footnotes, but it's part of the book and i am reading the book.

being made to go forward a few pages and then back a few pages to get back to where you were isn't really the innovative step in novels that people have made it out to be. i'm aware that the formatting gets more fun later on but i still have to have that fun interrupted by some fuck who i cannot bring myself to care about to frame an otherwise very interesting story

i will continue to read. i try to give books at least 10 chapters before i give up. but so far, this book has missed the interesting story in the premise of a well researched essay on a film that doesn't exist packed with references that don't exist that present the action and drama in a visual way

#spoilers: house of leaves #long post #spoilers

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nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 1 year

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Title: Shard

Author: Ada Palmer

Rating: 6/10

This is the sort of book that does not belong to any of my genres -- that makes me think about genre expectations the way someone who is trying to explain that they are not a "YA" or "litfic" reader will inevitably be tempted to start talking about how books like "Harry Potter" don't belong to those genres, too. I was originally going to rate this book five stars, so my response to it is more than a little negative, but in part this is simply because I find that I am reluctant to let a genre expectation come between me and an author's vision.

I'm not sure how this book fits with the rest of her fiction or her broader career; it is at times frustratingly opaque, and (as with the rest of her career) the result is a mix of good and bad elements that combine to make a very different whole than I might have predicted on the basis of any one element. At the same time, there is something to her books and she deserves credit for her vision and her ability to make it.

(I am a little reluctant to post this, because I have no idea if it actually fits with the rest of my blog. But if it's not up to your standards, well, there's the rest of my blog.)

The central conceit of Sard is that this is a book that contains, in the final analysis, a single narrative, but is not a novel. In this sense, it is an odd book, although not really one that I would have had trouble putting down, except that each sentence in it requires not only a certain amount of care and patience to read, but also a specific emotional response and level of attention. This is why a lot of readers who have tried to read the book, whether as fiction or non-fiction, report similar reactions: it is a narrative, yes, but it does not feel like reading a narrative. In other words, you may have an easier time imagining what it was like to read "The Great Gatsby" or "The Maltese Falcon" than you would have imagining what it was like to read this book. There are a lot of elements of this book -- and of "The Last Graduate" (the previous Ada Palmer book), to the point that I will just list a few, rather than attempt to sum the whole thing up in a sentence:

there are many short chapters, but they flow well into one another

though it has a very large cast of characters, each one is distinctive -- there are no interchangeable characters

while it has a large cast, each character has at least one (often multiple) significant "line" of dialogue, one (sometimes multiple) distinct "voice" that dominates a given chapter

the book has a lot of "dialogic monologues," but it does not feel like we are reading dialogic monologues from people with the sort of dialogue most of us have -- it feels more like reading something that happens to contain dialogic monologues, without any dialogic monologues being in the forefront. We do not feel that we are witnessing dialogues -- or conversations

there is lots of talk, including a lot of talk that may or may not be talking about anything important, but which makes the narration very turgid. The style is very different from anything else she has written, in that all characters' dialog is so brief that it tends to go on for pages, rather than a few seconds

there is a lot of exposition in the book, but it is very different from the usual kinds of exposition -- for instance, it is not just, say, a series of footnotes or a series of brief parenthetical asides, but it is (usually) a specific kind of dialogic monologue from a specific character. This is not like a summary or a preface -- these dialogues feel like things that the characters themselves would say, and they are the focus of attention rather than an addendum. There is a lot of exposition that this book wants you to read, but the story it is "discovering" is very different from the kind of story we tend to read when someone has just given us exposition

the fact that so many of these dialogues are "exposition" doesn't necessarily imply that they are not important -- but they do not seem like the sort of conversations we have. These are not conversations that make sense, for instance

like a number of her books, this one mixes elements of prose, poetry, and other stuff

at least one character is talking about how her name is "Sard" and how she is "making a life in Sard, a country that is not real," which is something that most people, I think, would think of as a really bizarre fantasy world, and not the sort of world you might imagine in the course of talking about her name and her country. This is the sort of thing I can imagine some of her readers writing in the introduction to a book of hers about the Sard

the sort of book that is just "a story about a boy who learns that he is a character in a story" is just about the sort of thing that might happen in real life, and there is something about the book that makes you feel like it is taking place in some sort of fantastical realm

the book has the same sort of tone as the books in her previous trilogy, The Destructive Angels

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