#Handbook for Mortals

[velvetvexations]

Handbook for Mortals fandom rise up

[zerozeroren]

Officially the most niche piece of art I've ever posted.

A promotional image for this fic (no I'm not the author) and a tribute to Generally Pooky and Krimsonrogue who gifted me and a dear friend of mine with many a happy hour of bad book bashing.

[theboyatthebustop]

I was on the fence about making this poll, but I realized i wanted to hear what people who don’t keep up with drama in the book community (or those aren't even in it) have to say about it.

I do want to say that this is not a complete list of book drama because it’d be way longer, so I didn’t include things like Soapgate, the A Deadly Education fiasco or the multiple controversies Cassandra Clare/Colleen Hoover were in.

also, I found out there’s a bit of character/option limit when it comes to poll choices, so I had narrow it down.

*by that, he meant if you are a woman in your 20s who wears makeup, does book tags/hauls, make high quality videos, and/or rave about YA, you’re not a “real reader™️”

**in a later interview she then tried to rectify this by saying it was actually her upbringing and mental illnesses that caused her to reviewbomb other debuts Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the Reylos got involved in this.

[immortal-handbook]

Handbook for Mortals by Lani Sarem could have been good. It is a flawed book with just enough nuggets of silver to sift through, and I'm insane enough to try and fix it. Is the result going to be any better? It's all subjective, of course, but with more of an established aesthetic and plot, this could have been something worth reading.

This blog is to catalogue my attempts at rewriting this, as well as an aesthetic blog to keep my inspiration rolling.

More information below the cut.

Things I plan to change:

- Trim out unnecessary repetition

- Diversify the cast

- Remove the Plain White T's (and any other celebrity cameos)

- Give Sofia a personality other than "jealous bitch"

- Give Lil a personality other than "seamstress goth"

- Give other women personalities other than "jealous bitch" or "vapid clothes lover"

- Zade officially has narcissistic personality disorder and is autistic, but neither are diagnosed so she's an oblivious bitch (like I was a couple year ago...). These are both implied by the canon writing, but I doubt it was intentional.

- Mac is also autistic.

- Acknowledging that Dela uses magick as a way to not deal with interpersonal problems, and is a flawed person in general.

- Make it known (to the audience) from the start that Charles is Zade's father instead of making it a stupid reveal towards the end of the book. The other characters don't know this, though.

[rhokitten]

Credit to professorsparklepants who I stole the idea of Fanfic I Won’t Write Friday from. Still not certain if they did it first, but I still want to credit them since they’re the one I saw do it and then copied.

I had an idea of how to rewrite Handbook for Mortals inspired entirely by GenerallyPooky’s Too Long, Read Anyway review of the book. (You totally should go watch her stuff on YouTube, it’s really funny.)

So, I haven’t read the book and honestly I don’t really want to but my idea was to reframe the story so that Zade (who I am renaming Zadine because Scheherazade really is a bad name for a white, American, witch) rather than ‘running away from home to become just a normal person as a Las Vegas performer’ it’s more like Kiki’s Delivery Service where she’s going out into the world to learn from experience.

My plotline idea: 

Witches have to stay home for the first quarter centry of their life so Zade could never leave her hometown or she’d literally lose her magic. Now on the eve of her 25th birthday she has to leave town and spend the next 25 years learning on her own and refining her magic. Her mom actually suggests that she spend part of her time in Las Vegas trying to find her father. Her mom can’t actually tell her who he was, just that he was a stage magician 25 years ago. She gives Zade a butterfly hair pin that he had given to her before she had to leave and give birth to Zade (something to do with needing to be able to properly ward the land so that her child could safely learn magic). Since the book is called “Handbook for Mortals” I’m going with the idea that witches live for a really long time, to the point mundane people seem like mortals to gods. 

When she gets to Vegas she actually gets a job as a stage hand, learning how to do magic the mundane way and then building off of that with actual magic. Mac is hard on her, not because he is trying to be mean but because he wants to make sure she’s tough enough for show business. If she can’t handle his rudeness there’s no way she can cut it as part of the show. She ends up becoming Sofia’s understudy, which makes Sofia go from ignoring her to hating her because she thinks she’s going to take her place.

So, Zade is trying to find her dad, getting pulled in by Jackson who actually has three other girlfriends. Sofia actually feels bad about Zade falling for him after Zade rescues her from an accident that nearly kills her and tries to help her, telling her that it will only end up hurt if she doesn’t realize he’s playing with her.

It’s kind of fuzzy after that, but I was thinking about the girls bonding after Jackson shows his true colors, Mac tells Zade that he’s interested in her seriously, and Charles realizes that Zade is his daughter when she wears the butterfly pin for a show when she took over for Sofia since she was hurt too badly by the accident to perform.

Pros of continuing the fic:

- I honestly think it would fix the pacing, characterization, and plot

- It would be really cool if Pooky found my fic and liked it

Cons of continuing the fic:

- At that point, I’m rewriting like 80% of the book so why not just write my own book at this point?

- I probably would really need to actually read the book

[xx-obliviousfantasy-xx]

This is so fucking funny unfortunately 😭😭😭😭😭😭

This makes me think about that one fucking book "Handbook For Mortals"

I had to type in "That one fucking lady who bought a bunch of her own books to become New York best seller" to remember the title and it didn't pop up in the initial search, but i saw it in IMAGES.

losing my mind at this

[shit-lit-bitch]

uh hi im xander and i really like terrible books. feed me slop. uh also I wanna start a podcast or something but that would require me to actually organize scripts so who knows

i have a discord if you wanna see my unfiltered ramblings:

current book im dissecting is Handbook for Mortals by Lani Sarem, and my masochistic ass is rewriting the damn thing

[hstayafanart]

Super short snippet that got deleted from the next fic but that I thought was cute anyway. This took a couple weeks to finish! I finally landed a job in bush regeneration and I've been so tired after work haha. But I'm loving it, even if I am covered in mud and leeches!

It's not technically cannon that Nightmare's skull is shattered, but it's a headcannon I adore. This tiny snippet is meant to be set at the castle, but I didn't want to draw it in every panel so you get gradients instead.

[Unrelated, but I logged on to find a whole wave of new peeps have arrived here?? I mean, welcome! That's fantastic! But I have concerns that my A03 followers that live in my walls have invited guests. Hope you enjoy your time here <3]

[elmushterri]

hihi!!!! are the mortal wounds all customized (other than the queens)? and how intricate would they get??? asking for oc reasons, i love ur story idea so far!!!!!

All of them are customised (like you said, except the Queens, they just get the ‘Knight’ symbol.) here are some random examples!

[maideninorange]

The witch gave her a sad smile from her towering makeshift throne, "And who exactly can fault them for that? I crossed the boundary between human and inhuman. Mortal and immortal. Mage and witch. It wasn't my decision, sure, but it was my decision to throw my lot in with the fairies responsible, now wasn't it?"

Sophia took a step back. The little monsters with vines for skin and flowers for hair follow her every move. As if waiting for the moment their queen ordered them to strike her down. The worn, dusty leather bound journal in her hands shook like a leaf, and not just from the awe of being before a witch, and a powerful one at that.

She shuddered under their gaze for the knowledge of this witch and the old journal she held being one and the same.

The witch's gaze trailed downward, eyeing the book in her hands, "Ah, so that's where that one went. You were the one I found it, I take it?"

Sophia couldn't do anything but nod, her teeth clenched to the point it hurt. What else could she do? She had assumed the owner was a dead human. An odd human who commanded flower fairies against all the warnings within against interacting with Creatures, sure, but a human all the sames. Not this Creature in a human shape, vines wrapping all around pale skin and a flower blooming from her throat like a mended wound.

"Did you get to the section on witches?" She asked like Sophia hadn't taken it upon herself to read every word even when mocked for it. It was why she survived to be granted sanctuary into the witch's domain, whereas Sherry and Jackson quite literally fell prey to the monsters that lurk throughout this endless labyrinth of a forest, and why she knew better than to trust any guide that isn't the Creature at the center to guide her out unlike Mac.

"Then you'd know that witches, despite being born from humans, are not actually human themselves. There is no such thing as a human purview, and believe me I checked!" A forced laugh, more like the mocking of a child self than at anything resembling a joke, "The moment my fairies decided to pour all their magic into my dying body, I had stopped being human. I am just as much a Creature as those in that book you hold."

The witch stood up then, stalking lower, closer, until Sophia could see her face beneath the hood of that cloak she wears. She couldn't find it in herself to run away or look away, despite no flower covered vines rooting her into place.

Even though her eyes were fiery flicks instead of the deep hazel in the photographs within the journal, even through her hair was messy and long in its ponytail as opposed to the short, neatly kept bob as in the photos, it was all still the same face she grew to understand, and perhaps, care about in her oen strange way.

She held the same posture, had the same curious glint in her eyes despite how smothered it became. The witch before her is the one and only Danielle Cargen.

She reaches a green tinged hand out to Sophia, beckoning her, "And I can tell you are on the same cusp. Pondering the same questions I did when I first became what I am now centuries back. I am a cruel witch, but I am also not merciless like my fairies are."

Sophia stares longingly at her hand, blood frozen in her veins. Danielle gives her a small smile, more geniune, "Come, take my hand and follow in my footsteps. I'll teach you everything I know, wish I knew, when I first lost my humanity. Or turn back, and let my fairies guide you out with no guarantee you will even stay human."

"...No catch?" Sophia choked out hoarsely.

"No catch. Consider it my treat for making it this far. And for finding my book."

It was an offer of apprenticeship. To become a familiar, and with that something inhuman yet powerful.

Sophia wanted to say no. All common sense begged her to say no, to walk away now while she still could. To become a witch herself meant to never see home again.

But then again, what exactly did she have to look forward to back home? She didn't have many kind thoughts for either parent of hers, and it's not like her boss was much better even if he didn't die early on since being brought to this realm. What did she have to lose? Perhaps she was crazy, but she wanted what Danielle was offering.

She wanted to only be a slave to her own desires, not anyone else's. Why bother being human? Nothing good ever came out of it anyway.

So against every thread of sanity still holding her psyche together, Sofia took the witch's hand. She tried not to wince as the vines dug into her palm, her pitiful fate sealed.

"I trust you."

Prompt #2839

“But you’re human-”

“Am I? How novel. No one has treated me like a human in a long, long time.”

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Fukkin' preps. This week, V and Emily have their brains melted by not ONE incredibly stupid and obvious literary fraud, but TWO incredibly stupid and obvious literary frauds! Yes! In one week! And both involving the most infamous fanfic of all time, everyone's favorite: My Immortal. Dust off your fishnets and stretch out your middle fingers, it's time to get goffik.

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

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Sources

The Hollywood Reporter

EW Books

V's Handbook for Mortals tag on Tumblr

jewishkeith on Tumblr

Vox Culture

Wikipedia

My Immortal Wiki

r/myimmortaldrama

Buzzfeed News

EW Books

Buzzfeed News

Fanlore.org

[an-aura-about-you]

it's frustrating reading a book, good or bad, and then it drops some casually offensive shit in your lap.

[an-aura-about-you]

There's also the matter of execution. Any idea can be a great story if pulled off right, even kink I wouldn't normally be interested in. (Which is why my fanfic history is for me to know and y'all to never find out.) But even something that sounds like it hits all the right buttons can be done poorly.

Being kink positive makes it really hard to be a hater of media rip. I used to love watching “the WORST book I’ve read this year” booktube videos but now its like I hear them ask, “Who is this werewolf smut even for?” Omegaverse fans, next question. “Why would you write this?” Because they find it sexy, can we stop focusing on the ewie yucky kink part and focus on the fact that the author used the word knot five times in a single scene? It’s bad werewolf erotica, but it’s not bad because it’s werewolf erotica like come on

[wileycap]

Selected Excerpts From The Fire Nation Royal Palace Servants' (Unofficial) Handbook

Or: Revisions To Normal Protocol After The Ascension Of Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko

1. Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko should not be referred to by his full titles and styles, no matter the context. This appears to annoy him. "Fire Lord Zuko" and "Lord Zuko" are acceptable, as well as "your majesty" and "my Lord".

1.1 "Lord Hotman", however, is unacceptable.

1.2. Even if the Avatar specifically requests you to address Fire Lord Zuko as that.

1.3. In fact, any attempts by the Avatar, the Lady Beifong, the honorable Tribesman Sokka or even Master Katara to get you to address Fire Lord Zuko by anything other than his proper title should be disregarded.

1.4. Referring to Ozai of the Fire Nation (titles rmvd, dishon.) as "The Loser Lord", however, is acceptable.

2. Fire Lord Zuko is aware of the concept of mortality, but does not seem to understand how it relates to His Majesty. Following activities should be discouraged: Free climbing, glider usage, contact with exotic animals larger than a turtleduck (or smaller, if the animal is known to be venomous), amateur theatre productions, cooking, sailing, spelunking, botany, please see full list in the Matron's office.

2.1. It should be noted that His Majesty's belief that mortality does not apply to him does not appear to be completely unfounded. After several "close calls", it has been decided that upon his demise, Fire Lord Zuko should lie in state for at least two weeks.

2.1.1. We do not want another incident.

3. The turtleducks in the Western Pond do not need to be fed by the servants any more.

3.1. However, the turtleducks should be rotated out at regular intervals in order to prevent overfeeding.

4. At any official social functions, at least three servants should be vigilant in case His Majesty tries to tell a joke.

4.1. It should be noted that there is no concern for His Majesty's jokes being offensive, crass or otherwise contrary to good taste. They are simply very bad. His Majesty always ends up embarrassed.

5. Any children left unattended in the Royal Palace for more than 15 degrees can be retrieved from the Fire Lord's office.

6. Should His Majesty go missing, the following places should be searched: roofs and any high places, cellars and secret passages, the fur of the Avatar's sky bison (which is surprisingly deep), and every place that an ordinary five-year-old would think to hide in during a game of "Hide and Explode."

6.1. All of the Imperial Firebenders as well as any soldier who wears a mask during the course of their duties should be questioned.

6.1.1. Important note: Some of the soldiers who are especially close to His Majesty can perform a passable imitation of him. Efforts should be made to prevent an uneducated soldier from, say, conducting a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture.

6.2. After the recent incident, that list is expanded to include the Kyoshi Warriors and any other groups that might wear concealing full face paint.

6.3. If all of these measures prove ineffective, a letter should be sent to The Dragon of the West, Prince Iroh, asking His Highness to return His Majesty.

6.4. If a ransom note is delivered, it should be immediately checked against the handwriting samples from the honorable Tribesman Sokka as well as Avatar Aang, before any other actions are taken.

6.4.1. Replying "Good luck, he's your problem now" to a ransom note is absolutely unacceptable.

6.4.1.1. To further drive home the point, the Royal Archives are required by law to preserve every single piece of royal correspondence. That thing will end up in a museum.

This handbook will be updated should it prove necessary.

[hstayafanart]

I don't think I ever explained what Blue's Handbook is. It's based on my personal set of rules for dealing with my anxiety and chronic pain that I've worked out with my psychologist. Cross' rule here is probably not super accurate to the stories I've written so far, since neither he nor Blue cope with chronic pain, but this is mostly for me <3.

Also, Spitfire makes yet another appearance.

(Note: this isn't how I deal with anxiety attacks in the moment, these are my more general guidelines. Anxiety attacks turn off your thinking brain, and require you to do physical things, like do intense exercise, talk to people, eat something really sour or spicy, or hold onto an ice pack and concentrate on how it feels. Things that will physically shock you out of the panic, at least a little.)

[an-aura-about-you]

I'd like to toss on two more examples:

The Murderer: Like the Rose Quartz, this narrator has an agenda. But the way they deal with it is by omitting certain facts and events that will point to their guilt instead of embellishing others. Famously well done in one of Agatha Christie's books, iykyk.

The Zade Holder: This one actually is the sign of bad writing because the narrator has intentionally withheld information from the reader for no other reason than to have a dramatic twist. This is benign information that the narrator has no reason to hide from the audience because revealing it to them doesn't change the plot. It can even be functionally redundant, meaning the only thing that comes of it is the reader asking, "Well, what else is the narrator lying about?"

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw, a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently