how does it feel to be done with (the main) fae tales verse as far, as far as writing goes? is mallory and mount going forward or do you have other plans? :o
It still doesn't really feel real honestly! I don't think it will until like we all get to experience the end of the canon together? Right now I kind of feel like I'm in a holding pattern. :D
I felt sort of sad that it was ending a while back, probably a year ago. And then I felt kind of relieved too, because The Ice Plague has had...a lot of teething issues re: dropping popularity and just general engagement (it's still good! But it's just...it will never be like Game Theory or The Court of Five Thrones, and book 3 will never be like book 2 and that wasn't like book 1).
I've been doing Mallory & Mount worldbuilding but I actually haven't written anything yet and I don't think I will for another couple of months, which doesn't bode well for launching M&M straight after Fae Tales. Because I'll need a buffer of chapters for that story. Realistically speaking I'll probably have to maintain the Patreon with a Gary/Efnisien omegaverse AU, while I write buffer chapters.
Some of the lag is just that the worldbuilding is much more complicated (new days of the week, new names for months, new names for currency, new values of currency, inventing an entirely new language, drawing a world map, etc.), and some if it is that I just actually think I need a break from really intense, complicated writing.
Some of it is also just fear that it will do badly. Logistically in 2022 the Patreon does increasingly worse every single month, and it's been that way for 8 months. By the time Fae Tales is finished, I think I'll be looking at a year of downward trending (after 7 years of only upward trending). It's quite a blow, even though there are understandable economic reasons for it, and it has me questioning if this is even sustainable. It can be hard to...motivate yourself to write or commit yourself to a story that will take 4+ years to write properly, or months of really intensive worldbuilding, when it might be 4 years that are better spent elsewhere, y'know?
Like I think the story and characters are good, but are they good enough? I don't know. I won't know until I write it, and I am not motivated or inspired to write it right now. Though I will say certainly part of that is simply that I am still writing big wordcounts. I wrote 38k last month, most of it on FFS, and I've written 19k this month already, most of it on FFS and Smoke in Autumn. FFS is the most word hungry story I've ever written.
Tbh I had to also take a pretty big hiatus (like a year) between Court of Five Thrones and The Ice Plague, so I'm not entirely surprised this is happening. Some of this is certainly burn out, I may actually need a break from that level of writing (I can write 5 chapters of Falling Falling Stars in the time it takes me to write one chapter of The Ice Plague - and FFS is like...3 times as popular lmao). I really enjoy writing complex narratives, characters, and politics, and original worldbuilding, but it is more effort, and Fae Tales has been going for nearly a decade. Maybe I just need some breathing room before launching straight off with another half decade commitment!! aslkfjsdaka :D I'm sure that's a big part of it.
Incidentally my worldbuilding folder for Mallory & Mount currently looks like this:
As you can see, I have been working on it pretty recently! Though I've taken a little break this month. So even if I take a break from it, I'll probably still be thinking about it and working on it in the background. I am almost certainly going to do early release re: Mallory & Mount - i.e. it goes up first on Patreon, and then it goes up on AO3 2 weeks later.
Whatever the case though, I'll still be writing something! I actually wrote 500 words of the Efnisien/Gary fic last night after busting out 4,600 words on the next FFS chapter sdslkajfsa the writing always continues, even if I don't know exactly what I'm doing with it.
As for the end of the Fae Tales canon, I think early August will be...Feelstown lmao. It's so soon!
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the men and boys are innocent too.
we cry "the innocent women and children" to appeal to the masses, to try and force their sympathy, but the men and boys are innocent too.
I have seen sons crying out for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings. I have seen them break down at the loss of their families. I have seen them cling to their dead and grieve.
I have seen fathers cradle their dead children, seen them kiss their faces and hold their little hands. I have seen them faint with grief when asked to identify the dead. I have seen them carry their sons and daughters. I have seen them fasting to provide what little they can for their families.
I have seen men and boys digging through the rubble with just their bare hands, I have seen them comforting strangers, playing with children, rocking them, hushing them, even if the face of such imminent danger. I have seen them cry, seen them grieve, seen them break down into each other's arms, seen them be selfless, beyond selfless, becoming something I don't have a word for.
I have seen the men who are doctors refuse to leave their patients, even when they have no medicine or supplies to give them, even when they're threatened with bombings. I have seen fathers who have lost all their children pick orphans up into their arms and proclaim them their child so they are not alone. I have seen men and boys digging pets out of the rubble.
the men are innocent too. the men and boys are being hurt and killed too. the men and boys are grieving too. the men and boys are scared too. the men and boys are fighting to save their people too. the men and boys deserve to be fought for too.
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changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.
I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.
Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.
No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.
But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?
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