#(historical fantasy code for disabled)

[neixins]

hm. i apparently have an unpopular opinion about yona’s decision during her conversation with hiryuu…… like. obviously she’s motivated by the desire to save her friends—she loves them and cares about them deeply and is scared of losing them—and there’s some selfishness in that (on a more facetious note though, god forbid teenage girls do anything i guess…). but the interpretation of her decision as selfish to the point of cruelty and/or naïveté just doesn’t sit right with me. like there is no solution to the conundrum she was presented with that doesn’t involve tragedy. and i’m never, ever letting anyone forget that jaeha, gija, and sinha were never given a choice regarding zeno’s whole murder-suicide plan, and they don’t regret being alive, so wouldn’t changing the past and effectively erasing them from existence (when they already have no agency atm!!!!) be so much more cruel? wouldn’t discarding two millennia worth of lives, regardless of how painful they’d been, be so much more cruel? does a life lived not matter because there was suffering?

and yona values life, even when it hurts, so she was never gonna make a different choice, and i just don't think that that's extremely selfish or naïve of her; the dragon warriors are not just vessels for the gods, they're people, and they don't deserve to be erased because the gods don't care about the pain they cause, and she can't confront the gods in the dream realm, she has to do it in her present which can't exist if she changes it! (also on a purely narrative level, any other choice would've basically rendered 40+ volumes of the story pointless.) and besides, it's more interesting to focus on trying to make things better rather than rewriting the past, and she'll have to sacrifice something to save everyone (the part of her that's a reincarnation of hiryuu, obviously, and possibly something more) which will even things out anyway.

[whereserpentswalk]

The nazis that you see in movies are as much a historical fantasy as vikings with horned helmets and samurai cutting people in half.

The nazis were not some vague evil that wanted to hurt people for the sake of hurting them. They had specific goals which furthered a far right agenda, and they wanted to do harm to very specific groups, (largely slavs, jews, Romani, queer people, communists/leftists, and disabled people.)

The nazis didn't use soldiers in creepy gas masks as their main imagery that they sold to the german people, they used blond haired blue eyed families. Nor did they stand up on podiums saying that would wage an endless and brutal war, they gave speeches about protecting white Christian society from degenerates just like how conservatives do today.

Nazis weren't atheists or pagans. They were deeply Christian and Christianity was part of their ideology just like it is for modern conservatives. They spoke at lengths about defending their Christian nation from godless leftism. The ones who hated the catholic church hated it for protestant reasons. Nazi occultism was fringe within the party and never expected to become mainstream, and those occultists were still Christian, none of them ever claimed to be Satanists or Asatru.

Nazis were also not queer or disabled. They killed those groups, before they had a chance to kill almost anyone else actually. Despite the amount of disabled nazis or queer/queer coded nazis you'll see in movies and on TV, in reality they were very cishet and very able bodied. There was one high ranking nazi early on who was gay and the other nazis killed him for that. Saying the nazis were gay or disabled makes about as much sense as saying they were Jewish.

The nazis weren't mentally ill. As previously mentioned they hated disabled people, and this unquestionably included anyone neurodivergent. When the surviving nazi war criminals were given psychological tests after the war, they were shown to be some of the most neurotypical people out there.

The nazis weren't socialists. Full stop. They hated socialists. They got elected on hating socialists. They killed socialists. Hating all forms of lefitsm was a big part of their ideology, and especially a big part of how they sold themselves.

The nazis were not the supervillians you see on screen, not because they didn't do horrible things in real life, they most certainly did, but because they weren't that vague apolitical evil that exists for white American action heros to fight. They did horrible things because they had a right wing authoritarian political ideology, an ideology that is fundamentally the same as what most of the modern right wing believes.

[dangermousie]

Hey dangermousie some time when you're feeling up for an ask: what are your favorite webnovels? Like danmei, bg, general fiction, anything. You've shared so many intetesting sounding novels in other posts so I was curious what some of the top favorites are? I remember Sha Po Lang, Ever Night, and The Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir (which I'm reading because of you ToT)

I love this ask! I am gonna limit myself to 35 novels or we will be here all night. The usual caveat is - this is very personal. You will see that out of 35 (well, 36) novels, there is only one modern, there is a lot of angst and things like noncon and unhealthy relationships don't bother me. But I dislike harem infights and protags who are too OP.

35 I Became the Older Brother of the Heroine in an Abusive Novel by Liu Gou Hua (danmei) - a lovely novel where one half of otp is healthy and wholesome and the other abused feral wreck who melts under sanity and care.

34 After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine by Liu Gou Hua (danmei) - our MC is a modern person who transmigrates into a historical bad guy who apparently married a captured and crippled general who eventually healed, escaped and committed a lot of murder to avenge his humiliation. Poor historian MC transmigrates right before the wedding and is desperate to avoid the fate of having his head hang on the city gates for three years in the near future. Good luck! This has such a wholesome (yet not boring) OTP. Proof that healthy doesn't have to be dull.

33 You've Got Mail by He Dan Bai (danmei) - the sex in this one is gonzo and biologically questionable but the love story is wistful and sweet and somehow both hilarious and involving two rather damaged people.

32 The Blue Whisper by Jiu Lu Fei Xiang (het) - the novel is a bona fide angst masterpiece, which really delves into what it feels like to be imprisoned or to love and what makes you you. I sniffled throughout.

31 The Paranoid Emperor’s Black Moonlight Shizun by Chen Sensen (danmei) - a really screwed up disciple and a really decent master have some insane entanglements. To say more would be to spoil but if you want some intensity, angst, groveling and utter codependency and did I mention ANGST? this one is for you!

30 Demon King's Repayment by Gong Xinwen (het) - another delicious Gong Xinwen tale with a powerful ML dedicated to capable FL. This one is a great fantasy plot (I keep imagining it as an animated series) and a sprawling cast of amazing secondaries (and secondary OTPs - there is, I swear, an OTP that is Dong Hua x Feng Jiu done thru GXW lens) to boot.

29 Accompanying the Phoenix by Jiu Lu Fei Xiang (het) - the one that just got adapted into The Legend of Shen Li, this is high adventure and cottage core and funny and tragic and powerful ML being putty in the hands of capable FL and just EVERYTHING.

28 The Counterattack of the Cannon Fodder Chambermaid by Jia Mian De Sheng Yan (het) - I remember starting this and loving the realistic feel and the heroine and wanting to stab the hero. Yet the end I was on board with both the hero (who was abused and is rather autistic-coded) and the OTP. Anyway, heroine is a servant who was a concubine in the last life and got killed as part of a rich family’s harem intrigues. In this life, she just wants to keep her head down but her life gets derailed anyway. She gets sold away and eventually made a servant in the household of an exiled prince who takes a fancy to her and she endures it because what choice does she have? All she wanted was to serve out her term and become a small time merchant. This is quite realistic about lack of options for women, especially lower class women or upper class male attitudes (ML is never vicious or mean to FL but it does not initially occur to him to wonder if she fancies him or enjoys being his concubine or w/e.) It is a DELIGHTFUL slow burn tho as they grow to love each other and grow together and become one of the most wholesome cnovel couples out there.

27 The Black Moonlight Holds the BE Script by Teng Luo Wei Zhi (het) - so fucked up, so good, with monster hero who learns to love and be human and heroine who learns to love and be human (but from the other side, her tower of perfection), with a complex plot and no easy outs.

26 The Grand Princess by Mo Shu Bai (het) - a husband and wife who really drifted apart and ended up killing each other (or did they?) get a second chance as they are reborn as their younger selves. This has a great plot, a competent set of protags, and slow burn with complexity and trauma and somehow yet lightness. Plus awesome secondary OTPs!

25 Copper Coins by Mu Su Li (danmei) - a monk and a dragon? More likely than you may think. This is smart and wistful and made me cry; the romance doesn't kick in for the longest time and it doesn't even matter.

24 The Golden Terrace by Cang Wu Bin Bai (danmei) - two smart and principled (yes, they both have principles different though they may be) men navigate their arranged marriage, their past friendship and their past break up, become a super couple (one of the healthiest danmei couples I’ve ever read and proves healthy doesn’t have to be boring), save the country and bring down the emperor or two and just generally this is my rainy day book.

23 Long Wind Crossing (Destined) by Mo Shu Bai (het) - two functional lovely people fighting the world and growing up together and forming an amazing marriage.

22 Mistakenly Saving the Villain by Feng Yu Nie (danmei) - so underrated. A perfect h/c fantasy with the most functional MC and fucked up ML that never puts even a toe wrong with a premise that could go seriously bad so many different ways, instead telling a funny, moving story of love helping you heal.

21 I'll Be the Male Lead's Sister in Law by September Flowing Fire (het) - one of my all time favorite novels. Heroine is made to marry a disabled nephew of the emperor. He used to be a victorious god of war but went mad and now is basically locked away and kept as a beast. GOD I LOVE THIS NOVEL SO MUCHHHHH! So much hurt/comfort and awesome OTP and after he eventually recovers, all he wants to do is to fight and murder things and dote on wifey. MMM. He’s honestly one of my fave MLs.

20 The Rebirth of a Star General by Qian Sha Cha Ke (het) - not a typical QSCK at all, this one has a heroine who wakes up after being killed by her awful family; in her past life she was a general whose glory went to her cousin but here she chooses to start anew. Revenge is secondary to her - forming a new life and healing are really the focus. Also the OTP (FL and a male general with his own tragedy, and her former schoolmate) is just EVERYTHING!

19 Nan Chan by Tang Jiu Qing (danmei) - it reads like poetry crossed with a nightmare. One of the most unusual novels I've read and with the most alien set of protagonists I've ever read and believably so (a personification of a sword and a cannibalistic fish), I can't even describe this in any way other than a deity-centric paean to atheism.

18 The Rest of My Life by Mo Shu Bai (het) - the sole modern on this list, this is a novella about an aftermath of a regular office worker with a regular life and a regular husband being raped. It's a hard hard read but it's amazing.

17 To Rule In a Turbulent World by Fei Tian Ye Xiang (danmei) - gay Minglan is my elevator pitch. Well that or "what happens if you stick cottagecore and crucifixion in one novel."

It’s a BL novel but honestly, it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period setting per se. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating (I never thought I��d find daily farming things interesting but here I am.) Farming, politics and the sudden horrors of war all intermingle perfectly.

Our protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant, sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he buys a sex slave on a whim from his friend (OK, wait wait wait don’t go, why are you bailing :P) Basically You Miao sees his friend’s servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. Let's back up - You Miao - our protag. He is the main reason I love the novel. It’s hard to write a character who is wealthy, kinda spoiled, sometimes immature and still make him eminently likeable. You Miao is also smart, pragmatic, funny, surprisingly laid back, a people person, and with a stubborn streak a mile wide. He is not perfect in any way but he is a real living breathing person I came to love.

Anyway, the ostensible sex slave he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers and lets him go (not before they have some pretty explicit sex because hey - You Miao is all ‘why not, might be fun to try’ and LZF is “dude saved my life, why not.’ One of the things I love about the story is that there is no instalove - both sex and love make sense in the way and the order they happen; the two bang on a semi regular basis long before their feelings fully develop into love, which is pretty gradual and realistic.) However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely likes him. One of the pleasures of the novel is watching LZF slowly transform from a piece of wood automaton into a genuine person who allows himself joy or temper.

So meticulously written, so smart, so vivid, such a cast of secondary characters (that friend who was beating LZF to death ended up being one of my favorite, most tragic characters in the novel because the author gets people are complex.)

16 The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by MXTX (danmei) - a pastiche parody of web novels that somehow is both witty and makes me genuinely feel desperately for the protags. Go read!

15 Dandere General and His Lord by Gong Xinwen (het) - God, I love this one. Heroine transmigrates from modern world into a brutal slave-holding world at war (think something like Warring States era.) Our heroine transmigrates into the body of a noblewoman who just hung herself. When she comes to, she discovers that woman’s twin brother was the ruler of a city poisoned by a rival claimant and the besieging army of said claimant is about to take the city and original occupant of the body and the rest of the family chose suicide as a way to avoid dishonor. Our heroine refuses, schemes with advisors to pass as the brother and rally the troops. Once the invaders are defeated, she keeps on the masquerade and rides off to one of the never-ending wars “she” is summoned to. Our hero couldn’t be farther from this. A slave and a son of a slave, he’s escaped a horrific, starving childhood during which he narrowly avoided being murdered or raped, and ended up in the army. When the story opens, he distinguished himself in battle and as a reward, he and a few of his fellow slave warriors are invited to a banquet, where they are given some alcohol and to be playthings of any nobles who want them. One of them does not survive this but ML is lucky - heroine feels terrible and so “claims” him for herself. Instead she just tends to his wounds and sends him back. She does not fancy him or anything, she is just a human being with a conscience. And the story goes from there.

14 The Marquis Is Innocent by Peng Lai Ke (het) - this is the set up of very beautiful yet utterly cold-hearted woman marrying a ruthless, powerful man who eventually ends up on top of the murder pyramid. And a relationship that starts as a political arrangement with the husband not caring for her but then the ruthless scheming murder machine falls hard for her while FL actually does not, not yet. It takes a long time. This is such a glorious slow burn (I think by now you realized I love slow burns) and it takes her a very long time to open up or for him to realize that is what he wants (he's a very believable period man who finds it hard to admit he can actually have his happiness based on a woman) and there are steps forward and back and it's glorious, glorious!

13 Thousand Miles of Bright Moonlight by 罗青梅 (haven't seen it transliterated) (het) - one of my ultimate favorites, this would make such an epic drama! A smart as hell but cautious and wounded heroine, a hero who is a monk and a warrior but also terribly ill and such a vivid world and amazing secondary characters (heroine’s brother is possibly my favorite supporting character of all time) and so much angst and happy ending. Both the protags are such intense, good people longing for happiness but not daring for it. This has an amazing romance but it’s not romance-centric if it makes sense - ML doesn’t appear for a while. But once he does, it’s worth it!

12 Mountain and River Pillow by Mo Shu Bai (het) - a tender intense and tragic slowburn which shows the limits of knowing what will happen and the fight to reestablish the family with an amazing amazing OTP. Heroine transmigrated into her past self; this time she chooses to go through with her arranged marriage instead of running away for love (it ended badly) but her knowledge fails to prevent her new sweet husband and his whole family murdered in battle and framed for treason. All that is, except for her husband's youngest brother, barely adult and left with an almost impossible task. In the past life he managed but it hollowed him out. In this one he has a sister in law to assist so...Anyway, both the protags are smart, good, intense and amazing people and I love them separately and as an OTP. By far my favorite MSB novel.

11 Those Years In Quest of Honour Mine by Man Man He Qi Duo (danmei) - another really underrated gem, it’s funny and heart-breaking and made me laugh and sniffle within pages of each other. Its two protagonists are both walking wounded but also good people, and watching them find happiness despite all the horrors the world threw at them, watching them take care of each other is so lovely. Also, someone once described the ML as “Lan Wangji gone feral” and that is just A++++

10 The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by MXTX (danmei) - we all know that one is there even any point describing it.

9 Nightfall/Ever Night by Mao Ni (not romance centric but het) - so long but also so smart and unusual and bloody and tho it’s not primarily a romance, you will never see another ML who loves his FL as much as Ning Que does his Sang Sang. And the worldbuilding and the plot and the characters and just so so bleak.

8 Wu Chang Jie by Shui Qian Cheng (danmei) - are you an emotional vampire? I am and this novel is a banquet. In a highly fantastical setting, we meet our protagonists - the sunny Xie Bian and the intense and surly Fan Wushe. Xie Bian is a human who assists his master in conveying souls to the underworld and making sure no mishaps happen. Bian is concentrated sunshine in human form and to meet him is to love him. When the novel opens, his drunk master brings back another human to be his shidi and assist with duties - said human is uncommunicative, intense and surly Wushe. Bian is excited to have a shidi but little does he know that a story dealing with the horrors of past lifetime is about to start.

Anyway, why WCJ? So many reasons. It has such a dark bleak worldview - this world is a horrifying system where powerful cannibalize each other’s cores for an impossible chance to ascend, where gods have sealed off their realm and all that’s left is neverending human misery and hell (the only way you’d see a deity is if they’d been sent down to suffer over and over and over), where even reincarnation doesn’t fix things and bad acts are often unpunished. And the novel then asks - is it worth being a good person in such a world? More, is it worth being a good person in such a world when nothing good has ever happened to you and you have been repeatedly betrayed due to your goodness? And the answer, on Bian’s part, is an uncompromising yes.

Ah yes, the other reason to love this novel - the protagonists and their fucked up fucked up relationship. Bian (who was Prince Ziheng in the past life) is so genuinely good. But he is that rare thing - good but not saintly, noble but not cloying. So much of the novel is his getting taken apart over and over and barely able to put himself back together every time but his soul is still as amazing as ever. And then there is Wushe (who was Prince Zixiao in past life, Ziheng’s not-bio-related brother.) Wushe is not a good person. He is a monster. And he loves Bian/Ziheng more than his life and his soul and the entire world but he’s also the one who hurt him more than anyone else ever could and did it over and over. His love survived a literal century of torture in the worst kind of hell and refused the usual memory loss of new life. But it also humiliated and broke Ziheng down to his constituent parts.

One of the things that is so fascinating to me about this novel is the question of what can be forgiven/what should be forgiven/what kind of expiation is enough/can you ever love someone who you loved so much and then he hurt you so badly and is now repentant? And it never sweeps trauma under the rug or hand waves it away but deals with it head on. If you want healthy relationships, you should stay far away from this novel but if intense insane ones with a feral barely human one capable of destroying the world leashed by love and guilt to the sane deeply good one is your bag, come right in. There is also the world building and the fact that yes, the big fall out between Ziheng x Zixiao is based on not knowing all the facts but it’s not “why can’t you talk?! This is dumb!” But is totally in keeping with both events and their characters. It’s reasonable for Ziheng to do what he does and for Zixiao to misunderstand and decide Ziheng is now his biggest enemy (but still one he’s fixated on) and for Ziheng to never be able to clarify. Anyway, once again this is trigger warning central so please heed those, but if they are no issue, this one is wonderful.

7 Stars of Chaos (Sha Po Lang) by Priest (danmei) - so smart and so much clever world building. There is enough politicking to satisfy a Qiang Jin Jiu fan, it’s steampunk, and our two protagonists - Gu Yun, the empire’s most powerful general, who’s loyal to the empire despite being badly wronged by it, and Chang Geng, a cursed prince with barbarian blood and horrifying childhood - are wonderful separately and together. This is a huge slow burn but it’s totally worth it! They fall in love with each other’s hearts and brains and ability as much as anything. (Yes, this is the one with the yifu thing. Gu Yun is made Chang Geng’s foster father when he rescues him and brings him back to the capital as a way to keep CG safe in imperial strife. They are 12 and 19 at the time so clearly it’s never a parental relationship.)

6 Heaven Official's Blessing by by MXTX (danmei) - I love it’s sprawling narrative and cast, I love its inventive setting and picaresque story. It’s hilarious and can make me cry. But the novel’s place on this list is due to Xie Lian who is part Kenshin part drama WWX part pure goodness wrapped in heartbreak and trauma wrapped in sunshine.

5 (tie) The Emperor’s Beloved Ugly Girl by 一味相思 (haven't seen it transliterated) (het)- Our heroine is the unlucky laundry maid A’Chou. She is a di daughter of an upperclass family but her family got destroyed in one of the political upheavals of the time and A’Chou, only a small child at the time, was the only survivor and was made an enslaved laundry maid. Due to various events, at the start of the novel she is a laundry maid in a minister’s household and the minister’s beloved daughter is having a fit because she’s supposed to marry the former Crown Prince which may have been great a few years back but Crown Prince had since been deposed, tortured, imprisoned and now is living in the middle of nowhere under conditions that are too meager to be called house arrest. And he’s seriously crippled too. Understandably, the young lady doesn’t want to marry him! She’d rather kill herself and so she does. And so, a desperate plan is hatched - why don’t we pretend the laundry maid is the di daughter of the minister’s household and send her off? And so A’Chu is sent as the bride. She arrives to discover a broke, seriously injured man on the verge of death…and we go from there. This is so gorgeous and tender and slow in just the right way and like AAAAAA! Secondary OTPs (one of which is MM) are also epic.

5 Wishing You Eternal Happiness by Peng Lai Ke (het) - this is almost tied with Dreamer as my favorite het web novel ever though it couldn’t be more different from Dreamer, with its hard-edged and hard-souled protagonists ruthlessly cleaving their way to the world and, eventually, each other, its smart cynical air. Except in one thing - the world of Wishing is just as bloody and dark. Its two protagonists are gentle, deeply wounded souls who may find salvation in each other but even something as basic as safety almost seems out of reach. Jliafu, our heroine, is neither a modern-day transmigrator, nor some exotic princess or demoness. She is very much a period woman of her time, from a weathy merchant clan, whose beauty is her curse. You can tell the novel’s tone from that utterly bleak opening chapter where she, a favorite concubine of a capricious dying emperor, is ordered to be buried alive with him and is not even given the “grace” of white silk but slowly suffocates in the coffin, scrabbling at the lid. There is no grand threats of vengeance on her part, not dramatic opera events. Just despair and death. The whole introductory chapter is haunted by emotional ghosts - the empress’ unrequited love for the monster on the imperial bed (turning into desire for Jiafu’s suffering after he dies), the emperor slowly dying in his prime after waging too many wars, and his fear of being haunted by Pei Youan, a brilliant if sickly minister who died of illness long ago on one of imperial campaigns. There is no triumph for anyone, only loss.

When she wakes up as still a young woman, all she wants is to escape the same fate. There are no plans for power or revenge, only a desire for survival. And so she latches on asking for help from Pei Youan, the only man in her past go-around who showed any consideration and desire and ability to protect her, though he barely knew her. Pei Youan is probably my favorite het web novel ML. Despite his brains and ability, he drifts through life. In modern terms, he clearly has depression. One of the biggest, best joys of the novel is watching these two very good, very quiet, very wounded people discover happiness and love with each other. I sort of want to cry just thinking about it, tbh.

4 Ballad of Sword and Wine (Qiang Jin Jiu) by Tang Jiu Qing (danmei) - a dense political tome that takes a while to get going but then it’s a runaway train. In a fictional dynasty, Shen Zechuan, the only remaining son of a disgraced aristocratic family and Xiao Chiye, the younger son of a family of generals guarding the border join forces (and then something else) to get power and pull down the dysfunctional system.

This is so elegant and smart (a rare web novel I’d recommend to anyone who just loves solid period fiction) and you probably need a notebook to keep track of the politics and military strategy. These characters are very very smart not just because the author says so.

As to the characters, there is a large cast and I love many of them, but for me the novel is made by Shen Zechuan and Xiao Chiye. SZC is gorgeous and delicate and icy and can kill you before you have time to blink. Saddled with the sins of the family he had no pleasant interaction with, he claws his way out of hell (seeing the sinkhole he was trapped in, literally as well) to take down those who wronged him but also to amass power so all the tragedy and corruption won’t happen again and the whole rotten system comes crashing down. XCY is a military genius who is trapped as a hostage in the capital because the court doesn’t trust his family. He longs to return to the plains of home and to take his rightful place. The two men start out as bitter enemies, then reluctant and sniping allies, then as friends and eventually as one of the most gorgeous, tender, swoony OTPs. Anyway this is one is a bona fide masterpiece, equal parts smart and emotionally intense.

3 Dreamer In the Spring Boudoir by Bai Lu Cheng Shuang (het) - my n1 het novel on this list, smart and fierce and don’t really read this for romance because it does not start until really late, but ice cold heroine x ice cold hero both of equal brains and ruthlessness is everything. I went from loathing the ML to finding him fascinating to adoring him (and yet he softened around the edges only for FL, he never became “nice”) and loved FL throughout; secondaries are epic. If you read only one non-danmei web novel, make it this one.

2 Stains of Filth (Yuwu) by Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat (danmei) - another novel by the author of 2ha. Clearly she just pushes all my buttons every time. This one is much shorter and has a plot that is twisty but less twisty than 2ha. Still, all that means is that intensity and the pain are more concentrated. Aristocratic Mo Xi and former slave Gu Mang were both legendary generals of the empire and lovers. But Gu Mang betrayed the country and switched to the enemy. Now he is back as a peace offering by that country and Mo Xi has to deal with the fact that his feelings are as strong as ever.

This novel!!! So much pain and intensity!!! So many amazing plot twists and supporting characters. The same bleak world view, the same unjust society, the same protagonists doing right things despite the cost. Mo Xi’s intensity and inability to let go (he’s imprinted on Gu Mang and that’s it) is romantic, bone-shakingly intense, and tragic all at once. And oh Gu Mang! So many times I just wanted to reach into the book physically to protect him. The novel deals with unjust societies, memory versus personality, what it’s like to be good in a bad universe etc. And it both made me sob and giggle, repeatedly, and sold me on literally death-defying (but not honor-defying!) love. Oh, and special shout out to the fact that like 2ha, you may start out hating some characters and end up a rabid fangirl (cough Murong Lian!)

1 The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha) by Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat (danmei) -my n1 forever and ever.

Taxian Jun, the horrific cultivation emperor of the world who razed cities and destroyed sects, is surrounded on his mountain. The righteous sects are terrified to confront him but tired of living, Taxian Jun consumes poison and dies by suicide at the age of 32. And opens his eyes as 16 year old Mo Ran, Mo Ran long before he became Taxian Jun, Mo Ran who is excited at a chance to save the one person he loved and lost. Oh, and to deal with his loathed shizun, the unapproachable and strict Chu Wanning, his past life’s biggest enemy.

I have no idea if it’s objectively the best on this list but it hits every trope I love, its bleak worldview (the world will change only incrementally but that’s enough, average person will not appreciate the sacrifice but it’s still worthwhile, and love is worth everything) mirrors mine, and the sheer complexity of the plot and cascade of plot twists each of which is insane and yet completely logical, is amazing (this is a rare novel where it’s even more fun to reread than read for the first time because you keep seeing all the hints and trail crumbs laid out that you did not see the first time.)

And the characters!!! I mean, this novel has multiple universes/timelines, a side trip to the Underworld AND the demon realm, a plot more twisted than a store’s worth of pretzels and yet the thing that hits me the most are the characters. Mo Ran is my favorite web novel character of all time and I love Chu Wanning so. All the secondary characters are wonderfully written (and some of them made me bawl) and they are all complex. My opinion of all of them changed many times over; the novel doesn’t make it easy to love some of them but then you do and it’s so worthwhile! That slow change is one of the delights of the novel - I started out disliking the unpleasant, superior Chu Wanning and cruel, callow Mo Ran and then I loved them so so hard and cried for them so so hard and was in awe of their heroism and sacrifice and selflessness and capacity to love.

Oh, and the fact that this novel does something almost impossible - it has its protagonist start out as so clearly irredeemable and then slowly and painfully and thoroughly redeems him (without ever letting the reader forget what it is he needs redemption for.) Also, for a novel that made me cry so hard I felt ill, this book is just so damn funny with the most sarcastic sense of humor imaginable (the serious angst doesn’t even kick in until 90+ chapters!) Anyway I should stop or I will write a dissertation. But this is the one web novel that I would put in my top 5 not just web novels but any novels in any shape or form. The plentiful trigger warnings are there for a reason so stay away if they are an issue, but if not, if anyone hasn’t read it yet, what are you doing with your life?!

[cripplecharacters]

How would I go about portraying an autistic character in a world where there wouldn’t be the terminology for that sort of thing? It’s a fantasy novel that mostly surrounds fairies, and I’m considering having her family think she’s a changeling (something I know has ableist roots and could be shown to be wrong as she’s just an autistic human)

Hello, thanks for your question!

Using pretty direct Autistic coding would be your best bet for making the character as obviously Autistic as possible without having the in-world terminology for it. This could include showing the character stimming, having distinct speech patterns from the rest of the cast, experiencing shutdowns or meltdowns when relevant, fixating on particular interests, keeping a regular routine (and getting upset when it's disrupted), and reacting more strongly to sensory input than the rest of the cast, among other things. Readers who are Autistic or otherwise familiar with Autism will probably clue in quite quickly if you depict these kinds of traits.

While the idea of changelings being equated with disabilities--and Autism in particular--has grown in popularity over the past decade, I would still advise a lot of caution in associating Autistic characters with changelings. While some Autistic people (especially those of us outside of Europe where changelings originated) do identify with changelings due to feeling othered by society, many of us don't because of the negative context of the original changeling stories. I feel that the real-world history behind the stories should be taken into serious consideration before drawing any direct parallels between disabled people and changelings.

Though it's absolutely plausible that the changeling stories did potentially originate as ways to explain the presence and development of disabilities in children as many theories argue, the changeling stories themselves don't frame changelings in a positive or even neutral light--changelings are creatures you absolutely do not want in your home or family and are seen as undeserving burdens on a family's hard-earned resources. There are documented historical instances of people--adults and children alike--being beaten, abused or murdered just on suspicion of having been changelings. I feel that this context is often lost outside of Europe, as we don't always realize that changelings were taken very seriously, especially in rural communities, and were not just harmless bedtime stories.

Because of this, I would suggest that, if you go the changeling route, you take the time and effort to portray it as a particularly dehumanizing and potentially dangerous form of ableism, and approach the subject with delicacy. Otherwise, if your portrayal of fairies in your story is not negative the way they tend to be when associated with creatures like changelings, you could keep the foundations of the changeling story--a human replaced by a fey creature--but tweak the perceptions your character's society might have around them, and perhaps change the name to something that doesn't evoke the same connotations as the changeling.

Other Autistic people are welcome to add their thoughts!

-Mod Faelan

[warriorcatsverdun]

Picture it... 1915 Verdun, France

The world is changing faster then any previous generation has ever experiences and there is one culprit: men.

Cats bring stories of battles that last moons straight due to both sides never retreating. House cats have their keepers leave in droves, never to return again. The silverpath is destroyed and it's been moons since the Thundersnake that once traveled it has been seen. So many animals are dying or disabled in horrific ways. The cats of Verdun have been spared from much of it, but, it doesn't seem like that will last for long.

How can they survive this? Will the warrior code and faith keep them safe, like it has for as long as they can remember? Do they need to change, just as the times have? Should they reject everything they once knew and try something revolutionary? Whatever plan they decide to take will have supporters and opposition. They just need to figure out what will work and soon.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

Warrior Cats: Verdun is an 18+ historical fiction Warrior Cats Roleplay. It looks to tackle the meaninglessness of violence in a setting that is built around it all while highlighting the importance of ethnicity, culture, and the relationships built between cats and people. Factions are allowed to change and evolve over time restructuring, growing, forming, and dissolving all according to roleplayers' actions. There's also a priority for realism, having a real time progress system and removed fantasy elements, and historical accuracy.

Will you take part in the blood fued between Crowclan and Owlclan? Will you explore the wilds as a cat whose keeper has gone missing? Will you try to to stop the feuds, knowing what's coming over the horizon?

Warrior Cats: Verdun is a work-in-progress, aiming to release early 2025. Lore and promotional material is subject to change between now and the server's opening.

Masterlist Website Discord

[acertainmoshke]

Intro Post!

Special interest (90% Doctor Who) sideblog is @presidentdisastraofgallifrey

Non-writing reblog sideblog is @whenmoshkeisntwriting

Updated: 02/07/25

Published work

7 Days for Fae: A low-stakes realistic middle grade story about an autistic girl learning to accommodate her own needs, making a new friend, and helping her aunt understand that having a nonbinary parent isn't that big a deal. MC is also physically disabled and her new friend is ADHD-coded.

Why You should read it: here's a review from my friend Heartshaven and another from my friend Etta, plus an interview about it with Etta!

Available now as a paperback from Amazon or Booshop.org, and in paperback or ebook form from Lulu.

In Progress

Cracks in the Stone: A steampunk high fantasy following a royal bastard prophesied to save the kingdom when all they really wanted was to have a normal life. Set in a kingdom with an entirely different gender system, MC is physically disabled, important side character is intellectually disabled. No one is white.

Word count: 43,555/150,000

Story intros: Legends of Halara series, book 2, book 3, book 4, book 5, book 6

Character intros: Ko'a, Nalki, Azja, Sunka, Lila

Worldbuilding: magical illnesses, pantheon, gender conceptualizing

Tag list: @amielbjacobs @starsoughtfrost @rbbess110

Emerald Outpost: A found-family sci fi that focuses on a crew engaged in less-than-legal activities. Cozy vibes but also stakes that matter.

Word count: 524/50,000

Character intros: Esther, Nasir, Val, Euyla, Minerva

Cold Iron: A dark urban fantasy set in the 50's about two adult changeling siblings on a quest to release from captivity the humans they replaced as infants. MC is autistic and both are trans.

Status: first draft done (85,039 words), second draft in chapter 18

Character intros: Shaka, Kris, Maggie, Zuri, Cassie, Sparrow

Tag list: @stesierra @amielbjacobs @ettawritesnstudies @the-inkwell-variable

Future/Hiatus Projects

The Taken (Cold Iron book 2): A dark urban fantasy set in the 80's following the same characters from the first book and their new found family in underground queer culture as they investigate the mysterious disappearances of changelings with no one to miss them, people the authorities won't look for.

Stage: Planning

Character intros: Shaka, Kris, Maggie, Cassie, Sparrow, Vick, Mal, Megan, Jun

Falling Petals: A historical story covering 100 years and 4 generations in a family that loves each other but is living in a world they don't fit into in very different ways and find themselves hurting each other instead. Entire family is Jewish and all 4 MCs are autistic-coded (except for the last one who is able to realize she's explicitly autistic).

Stage: Planning

Character intros: Ira, Daniel, Shoshannah, Naomi

To Die Among the Stars: A dystopian sci fi in which people no one is supposed to miss—the poor, mentally ill, outcasts, and inhuman—are quietly stolen away to experiment on. But each of those people left behind someone who cares, and they won't rest until they've unraveled the mystery and saved their families. All of the 5 POV characters are disabled and/or mentally ill, and 2 are trans. The group is also racially diverse.

Word count: 19,569/85,000

Dragonfly Wings: A middle grade fantasy about a changeling girl who is taken back to faerieland but finds she no longer knows how to stop masking as a human. MC is autistic-coded.

After the War: An urban high fantasy following a war between the human and elfen countries, as people struggle to return to a peaceful normal after 30 years of violence. Werewolves, vampires, and mers were unwillingly affected by a conflict that wasn't theirs. No one trusts each other. But they have to move on somehow. Basically everyone is physically disabled and traumatized.

[ominous-faechild]

I have a Problem in that I love to over-explain things even when I don't need to.

Especially when I don't need to. 😭

On that note! I'm working on my introduction post again (take a guess how many times I've gone to work on it and then stopped) and I went too in-depth when I should really be focusing on making it shorter, haha.

Except... I don't want to get rid of what I've written, and still want to share it.

SOLUTION!

My Obsessions:

✦ Fantasy, horror, mystery, action, and exploration of realistic characters' reactions to the things they go through.

What I write tends to be a reflection of this. My main works are high fantasies placed in what I feel is a more realistic setting--not as in grimdark "realistic", but places that are very used to the existence of magic. Someone who's grown up in a place with magical basically-electricity shouldn't spend five pages fawning over the existence of teleporters. Maybe they'll be surprised. Maybe they'll even be impressed. But unless they have some kind of a special interest in the subject, they'll probably spend more time thinking about how convenient it'll be for them rather than how it works, what it means, and the long, long history of magic... which has been around them for their whole life.

✦ Fairy tales, mythology, and folklore

I called myself "ominous-feychild" for a reason, haha. I like horror, I love fantasy, I adore faeries, and dear god--am I in LOVE with putting them all together! In folklore, faeries weren't cute little pixies that helped everyone around them... or even tiny little pixies that annoyed everyone around them (most of the time). They were the things that went "bump" in the night, that you huddled in close with your loved ones when you thought you might've caught their attention... Or, they made you question if your sister's eyes were always that far apart. Wait, was your bedroom there before? Did... did you even have a sister??? Well, you do now. And you might want to start running.

✦ "Ye Olde History" and language

"Ye Olde" meaning "the further away from modern day, the better." I can appreciate steampunk and actually often implement it into my own writing, but I do not consider Victorian England to be old. Civilization has been tracked back to as early as 4000 BCE, and it's way too easy to google that to think history actually started when Jesus was put on the cross. (Note: I am a merciless agnostic and hate what Christianity did to our world's history. So much was erased just because some bigots thought "stupid people don't think and act exactly like me, they're clearly barbaric! Time to erase their entire culture, massacre their people, and/or destroy their creations! Empathy be damned!!!" Fuck Christianity. To any Christians reading this, I don't mean you--just your religion. But you have to admit, it really sucks.)

✦ DIVERSITY!!!

As I just alluded to, I love learning about things that are unlike me. And, even more than that, I love people feeling like they have a place they belong. I've gone most of my life feeling ostracized, I'm not just going to perpetrate that cycle myself. Besides! It gets exhausting being in echo chambers with the same-old white cishet stories all the time.

✦ Explorations of "evil-coded" characters and abilities--aka, not just showing them as evil. Show them as people (for characters) and tools (for abilities)!

This is actually kind of personal to me. Autism and other disabilities have historically most often been relegated to villains because we're somehow "worse" than everyone else. Even I fell into that trap in the past, accidentally making a villain autistic-coded before I got my diagnosis. Now, I love putting people with questionable traits, powers, and backstories on the good side while the typically "good" things end up as villains. Something something, humans want freedom and freedom is chaos, something something, order is forcing things into boxes they might not particularly fit in because "otherwise, where else would they go???"

✦ Learning!!!

This might be weird, but I have a genuine love for just learning! (Not school, just learning.) I go down rabbit holes researching things all the time--and not just for writing! Obviously two of my favorite subjects are history and language, but I also love earth science and the ways our planet regulates itself to try to maintain balance! (And then we humans screw it up but.) Even in general, I love learning about random things, so if you ever have a weird infodump you really want to share, feel free to tag me in it and I'll check it out!!!

Yeah, by the way, this is linked to my actual intro post!

Divider by @cafekitsune

[starrygazingpie]

can we hear the code geass rant 👀

i'm not gonna do a dissertation with like perfect recall of my sources bc i haven't watched it since it aired (almost 20 years now. horrifying??) and i have no intention of putting myself through that again spoilers ahead

my number 1 problem with it is that, as a whole, this series just fundamentally hates women. like to the point where even my teenaged ass that had much more patience for casual misogyny back in the day was taken aback with a "hey what the fuck"- like i think a lot about the specific ways a lot of the female characters were just killed off in incredibly brutal ways for Shock and also mostly to just make the male leads sad for a little bit. (i really haven't seen a good reason for why shirley had to die and she had to die Like That) (and like she is far from the only one but her death was a Breaking Point for me) . or like. the general treatment of kallen- who got built up as a competent knight but then mostly just got sexually harassed and left to make sad faces at lelouch. it's just- i don't feel like any of the female characters got to achieve real agency (which hits esp weird in a series so concerned about Agency and Control) nunnally gets her own section bc it's just like. this horrible mix of ableism and misogyny. where like she literally gets written as and treated as a plot macguffin. i don't think the series would be fundamentally different if lelouch was looking after his mother's beloved pet dog (who might've gotten to say more let's be real here) or a family heirloom. the writers use her disabilities to objectify her- that is, to have the other characters and the world itself treat her as an object. and honestly seem deeply unconcerned with her inner life outside of "precious innocent widdle sister" the other female character that gets her own section is nina. who is genuinely and truly. the worst example of a psycho lesbian trope i have ever seen in my life. like just taps right into the predatory lesbian trope and doesn't bother giving her a personality other than Being A Creep and also Racism. and that's the only gay character. aside from the misogyny, i also just generally felt like the show focused harder on Shocking The Audience rather than coherent writing. (which y'know. hard to have coherent writing when you're deeply dedicated to never writing any of the female characters) i feel like a lot of the political messaging was hamstrung by the focus on audience-via-Lelouch's arrogant asshole power fantasies too and it has been like 20 years since i've seen it (and i also watched it having not known much about the political context), but i think there is something to be said about the way code geass decontextualizes actual historical patterns of colonization, particularly in regards to their own imperial history and related atrocities.

[loopy777]

What was the yangchen scene that infuriated you so much?

I'm glad you asked!

(I say as if I didn't leave that last one as bait.)

But I'm warning you, the explanation is going to be underwhelming for my level of rage. I'm just so sick of this kind of thing. Spoilers below the cut for both Dawn and Legacy.

In Dawn, the weapon Yangchen had been chasing the whole book turns out to be a trio of Combustion Benders working for the villain. This is treated as something completely unheard of, and no one is even capable of speculating how it might be possible.

In Legacy, Yangchen follows up on this and eventually tracks down the training site for the Combustion Benders. It turns out that the villain hadn't just been trying to churn out Combusters, she was training and researching several different possibilities. Yangchen doens't learn the full extent of what was going on there, but she does encounter the following:

The Combustion Benders

A girl whose bare-handed blows can incapacitate limbs and disable Bending

A chamber with a shackling chair and the remains of a circular metal track that would allow something to travel around the chair; elsewhere in the book, the villain speaks a code phrase and brings a reluctant subordinate completely under her control, compelled to follow her every command

Just- would it have been too much to have one slushing thing that wasn't taken from Aang's adventures? I'm almost surprised there weren't a pair of hook swords at the site or something about lightning-bending or lightning-redirection! By the time Avatar fiction is finished and the franchise is finally dead, do you think there will be one single thing in all of AtLA that won't have its history revealed in a story about a previous Avatar? Just like how everything Korra experiences needs to be explained in a story about the maturing gAang, everything in AtLA needs to be tossed out as chum for fans who can't be trusted to just enjoy a good story.

Combustion Bending can't have just been something that happened over there, it had to be part of Avatar History (TM). Chi-blocking can't just be a rare skill, it had to have been developed by a think tank run by an Avatar's arch nemesis. And Koh forbid Long Feng or the Dai Li actually invented some aspect of their brainwashing themselves- no, it turns out they lifted everything, right down to using a light on a circular track, from a textbook that was written four to five hundred years before they were born.

It's just so, so tiring. It's one thing when the garbage has to toss out this kind of fan-service in order to distract from its terrible character writing, but why does even the good stuff like the Yangchen novels have to devolve into this lack of creativity? It adds nothing to the story and took me straight out of what should have been a harrowing scene.

But Loopy, you say, what harm does it do? Lots of people like to have their fans serviced in this way, so maybe this is just a You thing, and it doesn't necessarily hurt the stories it's in just because Gene Yang was terrible at it.

Well, 'you,' I'd say that it actually does do harm, even in the hands of a good storyteller like F.C. Yee. See, one of best parts of this franchise is the sense of history it evokes. In most fantasy, thousands of years can whizz by with no change in culture, geography, language, technology, or education. But in Avatar, things change. The Fire Nation wins wars by developing new weapons. The Water Tribes go up and down in health and power depending the conditions of the world. A whole new nation is developed as a result of colonization, which itself spurs rapid development of technology. When we jump back to the beginning of time, the very world itself is made to look like a moving historical painting. And, as we increasingly explore the franchise, we find that each Avatar comes of age mostly by dealing with the problems left behind by their predecessors.

And every time something from AtLA or LoK is shoved into contrived circumstances in another era so we can have a pointless fan service moment, we chip away at that unique aspect of this franchise. We make each era more like all the others, so that no matter what Avatar you're dealing with or what era of history you're in, there will always be a Chi Blocker (TM). It takes something we all fell in love with due to its uniqueness and turns it into a formula. Instead of a scene that works by itself, we have a round of Spot The Reference.

And it happens in so much fiction these days. People used to make disparaging jokes about how every character in Star Wars, even the stupid nameless walk-on roles, has their own book. But at least it was their own book, and not the story of how it turns out Anakin Skywalker was best friends with this random alien decades before they randomly walked across his son Luke's path. We measure a storyteller's suitability to contribute to a franchise based on how much of a fan they are, not because being a fan might lend them insight into what made that franchise great in the first place, but because they can pack their stories full of continuity so that it turns out the entire history of an entire world turns on 20 people spread across a single family tree by the time subsequent generations are done marrying each other.

I'm just so sick of it. And being ambushed by it in 'Legacy of Yangchen' just made me groan, especially since I was enjoying the story so much.

Please, let's have a little self-respect as fans, okay?

...

I warned you this was going to be underwhelming.

[neixins]

idk if you have already made a post about this but could you please elaborate on your hc that gija has pots id love to hear more about it

ngl i was just gonna sprinkle the headcanon into my fic and let that speak for itself because i didn’t think anyone would care about it, but now that u asked…. (smiles beatifically) <3

first, i wanna note that i actually headcanon gija as having both pots and heds, and i’m fully basing this on my own experiences so i’m gonna talk about both conditions in a more rambly manner instead of going through a checklist of symptoms or smth like that. i’ll do my best to keep it somewhat organized though!! also i gotta put this thing under the cut because i ended up having. so much to say

starting with the most obvious: gija faints A Lot. like i didn’t crunch the numbers on this or anything but i feel reasonably confident claiming that he’s shown feeling faint or fully passing out more often than anyone else in the series. just off the top of my head, there’s chapters 16, 18, 41, 95/96, 143, 147 (and given how badly injured he is during the xing arc, i wouldn’t be surprised if he lost consciousness off-page too), 182… and obviously many of these instances occur when he’s injured/exhausted, but the others get hurt and push themselves too hard as well and they’re not fainting nearly as often.

the author’s note in ch 116 and the fanbook both point out that he’s not good at pacing himself and that he has a tendency to pass out, and the former also mentions that dragon warriors are often sickly (historical fantasy speak for disabled) as a result of their powers. also, on that note, both pots and heds can be caused by physical trauma, like let’s say, getting slashed by your deadbeat father’s dragon claws as an infant perhaps…. but let’s put a pin in that for now!

gija’s stamina is notably Bad, as jaeha points out in ch 95 (jaeha why are u paying such close attention to another man’s stamina? 🤔 anyway, gija’s also the first to fall ill in that chapter, which points to him having a weaker immune system), and gija himself says in ch 18 that he’s not especially strong, with the obvious exception of his dragon arm, and the thing is. he cares so so so much about being useful so admitting to something like that, especially so early in the series, really stuck out to me. his stats in the fanbook also support this. aside from his arm strength, all his other stats related to physical strength are average and lower than the other dragon warriors’ and hak’s. zeno’s partially an exception for obvious reasons but here are the stats for arm strength, leg strength, and stamina, respectively (the fanbook includes other fun stats too but those aren’t relevant rn): gija ∞/3/3; hak 5/5/5; jaeha 5/∞/4; sinha 4/4/4; zeno 1/2/∞. gija’s stats are actually closer to yona’s (2/3/3) and su-won’s (who is notably Canonically Disabled; 4/3/3).

the endnotes in vol 43 also mention that he has fairly small wrists which. is just so very heds-coded of him if i do say so myself. (side note no.1: and all of this is why i’ve been saying that after losing his dragon arm, gija should learn to use a knife!!! it’s a light weapon, he’s already used to close combat, AND it would be a chance to deliver on the “let’s train your left hand” line because while jaeha primarily uses throwing knives, he does appear to carry other types of knives too which means he knows how to use them!! kusanagi if u can hear me……)

let’s go back to the fainting for a bit, because i really want to focus on the moments in chapters 41 and 143 since those don’t have an overt trigger like, say, ch 147 where all of the dragon warriors faint from burning up too much energy, but i find them very interesting. in ch 41, gija’s the only one to pass out after taking the love potion, and he in general has a stronger reaction to it (like yeah gija blushes easily but he looks downright feverish after taking it), which to me points to the love potion triggering a flareup (which is kinda funny considering his comment in ch 16 about how his granny and the other villagers kept him from getting sick. put a pin in that as well btw). as for ch 143, yes he’s already injured at that point, but he literally stands up, exerts what should not be excessive amounts of energy by his own standards, and almost immediately gets dizzy and at the very least gets close to fainting (though i’m inclined to think he did actually faint considering how jaeha’s holding him up a few panels later). (side note no.2: if u pay close attention, the blocking in that scene implies that he stumbled back towards jaeha to lean on him before fainting. love is real <3)

also everyone should know by now that i have never and will never buy into the whole gija has/had a crush on yona interpretation (on account of the blatant homosexuality on display whenever he’s on page. and also the age gap. and also their interactions simply don’t read that way to me. he’s ride-or-die for her gbf style <3) so the jokes like the one in ch 52 about his heart hurting genuinely just read like tachycardia to me. i’m willing to accept that the dragon blood is a factor but. that’s just tachycardia. someone please make him sit down.

some other observations:

he’s the only one shown to get dizzy from tracking the other dragons (ch 26. which to be fair is partially jaeha’s fault, but jaeha’s also implied to be using the same ability to keep track of the other dragons and he isn’t affected).

in ch 155 his neck is still visibly bruised, while we don’t see any injuries on jaeha, even though they both sustained similar injuries from the same weapon at the same time, and delayed wound healing is common with eds.

this is more of a silly observation but in ch 19 he falls asleep sitting with his knees pulled up and all i can say is. so real so true.

he’s a total lightweight and a picky eater, which i get is supposed to portray how sheltered he was (though there’s no way there was no alcohol at those feasts he mentions…) but it could also be a result of intolerance to alcohol and certain foods that trigger flareups (it could also be a texture thing).

he looks incredibly exhausted for a portion of the hot springs chapter. like i know he’s being tormented by The Spider but he looks Unwell…. speaking of hot springs, hot baths/showers generally make pots worse but it depends on the person so gija enjoying hot springs doesn’t necessarily go against my headcanon. but i am jealous of him.

now back to those pins!! my interpretation is that gija probably started experiencing symptoms at a very young age, to the point where he wouldn’t really think to bring it up to his granny or anyone else because he wouldn’t think it was a big deal. also, lest we forget, gija doesn’t take his own wellbeing especially seriously, and he’s way more inclined to act like a dying dog when he’s not feeling well instead of drawing attention to himself and worrying or inconveniencing anyone. but it’s also possible that everyone in his village was aware of it, which would add an extra element to how much they dote on him; i’m just leaning more towards the former option because i think gija would be more aware of his limits if he had a gaggle of village elders constantly warning him not to overexert himself. and the “kept me from getting sick” line to me feels like it’s referring to acute illnesses, which, yeah i can totally buy that he didn’t get sick much in that sense, considering how dedicated everyone was to looking after him.

the final thing i wanna say is that i find his dragon arm to be such an effective metaphor for hypermobility because like. yeah he can do cool shit with it but it also impacts his health, which mirrors the sort of cool-party-trick/yeowch double-edged sword of hypermobility.

[the-fallen-blue]

For such portrayals to be erasure requires that the experience of marginalization, itself, is core and requisite to a given identity. EG, one cannot be truly trans unless one has experienced trans suffering; transition itself, trans jokes and bodily experiences, trans joy are not enough. One cannot be genuinely female unless one lives in patriarchy; autonomous satisfaction in one's fem-coded skills, interests, or attitudes does not exist, only reactive pride in response to cultural shame. No modern First Nations identity has, or can ever have, any genuine continuity with a tribal culture or identity that predates first contact with Europeans, because the modern identity has, as a basic requirement, extrinsic oppression, which members of the precursor culture did not experience in a precolonial world.

For some people, of course, this is true. Identity is complex, and it is often impossible to disentangle culture from what that culture is a reaction to. The debate over authenticity in hip hop is a good example for those familiar, though not really my lane; I can speak with great depth to disability, though, as a place where the suffering can be inextricable from the rest. I can't personally imagine what ADHD would be like without being personally and institutionally fucked by it; authentic reflection of that experience, for me, will always require frustration, self-doubt, anger. It is inarguable that for some people, with some experiences, it is hard to fully recognize one's identity if its real-world consequences are not present as well.

But I also know that even in a world where my marriage was just as mundane and safe and historically unremarkable as a cishet marriage, all else being equal, I would still see more of myself in a lesbian elf than a straight one, and find the dynamic of her relationships more resonant. And I have a really hard time picturing a Desi teenager who sits down to read some urban coming-of-age fantasy about fighting rakshasas in Mumbai, or whatever, insisting that these characters just don't feel authentic or familiar because they're not constantly being microaggressed by white people, and she's been cheated out of the full Indian Experience™ by the novel's careless erasure. No culture or subculture is described only by suffering. Marginalized communities, like every other community, are rich, and complex, and full, and have a great deal to say about themselves that is celebratory and unique and nothing to do with the people outside them, regardless of how those outsiders feel about the people within.

So, as always, what it comes down to, is that different people require different forms of representation, even within the same community. What "fails" for one may be exactly what another person needs, or vice versa. Representing "the lived experience" of a vast group of completely different people with completely different lived experiences is not a thing, and satisfactory representation cannot be boiled down to single simple rules or monolithic universal methods.

Further thoughts.

There is a tendency to write settings - particularly for interactive media like ttrpgs, larps, etc - that are essentially gender-blind, where you can create whoever you want without that having an effect on the game. The decision to be gay, or a woman, or trans, or a gay trans woman with pink hair is an aesthetic choice that will not give you a meaningfully different experience in the game.

This rather kneecap's the setting's ability to tell queer stories, imho. If we take it as read that queerness refers to gender- and sexuality-based identities and behaviours that fall outside of the societal norms, then the experience of falling outside those societal norms is (rather tautologically) a key element of queerness.

So, in a completely gender-blind setting, one can't - tautologically - be gender-nonconforming. There is no expectation to conform to. The experience of queerness, of being outside of societal norms, becomes null and void. Such a setting will feature homosexuality, but it won't feature gay pride, and nor will it need to as none of the societal forces that led to the pride movement exist.

This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, a world where one is not oppressed for one's identity is an enjoyable world to explore for what should be obvious reasons. On the other hand, it becomes impossible to tell (say) a coming-out story in a world where there's no closet to be in to begin with.

There is also the element that whilst a setting may say its gender-blind, it's still written and played in by people from the real world, who still subconsciously inherit real-world biases, and this can be reflected in the world.

While (say) women might have just as much right to political power as men, if in practice the people with political power are disproportionately men, that sexism is still present. Far from removing it, the gender-blindness of the setting simply obfuscates it, and often actively proves an obstacle to addressing it; one cannot call somebody out in character for sexism in a setting where sexism doesn't exist, no matter how sexist they're being.

(Similar biases around sexuality, transness, polyamory, kink, aceness, etc also creep in).

(In many cases, this can also apply to other axes of marginalisation, such as race, etc. However, in a lot of settings this doesn't apply the same way. Many fantasy settings are deeply opinionated about a character's ancestry; see the D&D skull-callipers explaining that elves are just more intelligent and agile than everybody else, and this being a mechanically enforced fact in the world.)

My point, anyway, is that in these cases efforts towards inclusivity can paradoxically erase that which they seek to include. One cannot represent the lived experience of a marginalised identity in a setting that totally denies the existence of that marginalisation.

[gottamakesurveys]

Bold the one(s) that apply to youPart1!

Age:

Below 13

13-19

20-34

35- 49

50 or above

My Eyes:

Brown

Blue

Green

Grey

Hazel

Other

My hair colour:

Platinum blonde

Blonde

Light Blonde

Light Brown

Medium Brown

Dark Brown

Auburn

Black

Unnatural Colour

Other

Piercings:

Ears (lobes)

Ears (Other)

Nose

Lip

Tongue

Nipple

Belly Button

Somewhere else

Tattoos:

1

2-5

6-10

More than10

On upper arm

On legs

On thigh

On back

On hand

On foot

On stomach

Other

Height:

Below 5ft

5ft to 5ft 4

5 foot 5 to 5 foot 9

5 foot 10 to 6 foot 3

Over 6 foot 3

My sexuality / gender / identity:

Aromantic

Asexual

Bisexual

Female

Gay

Lesbian

Male

Monogomous

Non Binary

Pansexual

Polyamorous

Queer

Sapiosexual

Trans (Male to Female)

Trans (female to male)

Other

Religious Virws:

Agnostic

Atheist

Buddhist

Christian

Islamic

Jewish

Sikh

Other

Family Members:

A brother

A sister

Biological mother

Biological father

Step Dad

Step Mini

Step brother

Step sister

Foster mother

Foster father

An aunt

An uncle

A female cousin

A male cousin

A nephew

A niece

A grandmother

A grandfather

Other

Health:

I am an addict

I have cancer

I have a chronic illness

I have a chronic reoccurring symptom like headaches

I have a physical disability

I have a sensory disability

I have a neurological disorder / disability

I have an intellectual disability

I have another type of disability

I have a mental health condition

I’m neurodivergent

I have a sleep disorder

Other

I own / have a:

Band t shirt

Battery powered torch/flashlight

Best friend

Camping stove

Candles

Car

Cat

Cell/Mobile phone

Change in my pocket

Clock

Coffee machine

Computer

Dictionary

Dining table

Dog

Downstairs toilet

Drinks cabinet

Drug / medicine cabinet

Earrings

Facebook

Family portrait or photo

Game console

Garage

Gate

Gown (dressing/ bath)

Hairdryer

Helmet

Hold-all

Ice machine

Lamp

Microwave

Mitts

Pond

Potato peeler

Radio

Rug

Sandpaper

Sock drawer

Solar panels

Steamer

Television

Towel rack

Vacuum

I can:

Avoid trouble

Babysit

Bake well

Balance a ballon my head

Bat a ball

Blow a bubble with bubblegum

Box

Build a computer from scratch

Catch a fish

Change a tire

Charcoal cook

Play chess

Code software /on a computer

Speak two or more languages well

Learn a skillquickly

Perform a magic trick

Public speak

Sew

Whistle

Music Gentes I like:

Alternative

Classical

Dance

Electro / EDM

Gospel

Grunge

Heavy Metal

Hip Hop

Indie

J-Pop

K-Pop

Latin

Metal

Pop

Punk

Rap

Reggae

RNB

Rock

Soul

Techno

Movie genres I like:

Action

Animation

Arthouse

Bollywood

Comedy

Crime

Drama

Fantasy

Historic

Horror

Musical

Romance

Science Fiction

Thriller

Western

[kimyoonmiauthor]

WIPs I'm working on.

Finally catching up by doing four books at once. Loosely they are with zero spoilers...

Regency Historical Romance Fiction with ND-coded main characters because the ND terms came later in history. It's Rom-comish with some geeky content. The ND is mostly on hyperfocus topics. Is it smutty? Yes. Iunno, I tried my best. I had to background the Diversity of others, but the diversity is 100% accurate and a way to push back on Julia Quinn's but then "I would have to explain why the diversity is there" statement. I haven't written white main characters in forever and a day. But I'm hoping the disability rep and ND rep won't alienate people to my writing. BTW, no magical cures of course are metted out. And maybe heavy political commentary on our current landscape.

Roughly, maybe 3-act, but also I borrowed heavily from Jane Austen and her contemporaries to shape the story structure because I read more than Jane Austen to pull it off.

BTW, to be sure is a quirk of Jane Austen, at least I found, at least when I did searches of her most well known phrases. That phrase isn't found in books by her contemporaries, and is less likely to even be found with men of her time period, which, BTW, matches the pattern in her books too. (She had girly language for her time period, that's why people later talked about how adverbs were evil.)

First book is completed, second book needs the last 4 chapters finished. Otherworld queer-friendly Polyamory default, East Asian-ish fantasy

I rewrote this one about 3-4 times already, but I had a rough outline and wrote the first few drafts out of order.

East Asian-ish here, BTW, isn't like OMG, I pulled kimono from Japan and then went off and pulled Lanzhou noodles from China and then I did kimchi from Korea. Instead, what I imagine it to be is if there was *another* country in East Asia and was influenced by those countries but built its own culture, what would it look like? To pull this off I did a TON of research into the complete history of Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Mongolia, etc in order to get the flavor of what is shared, not shared and pull carefully from that history. As I like to say, if you want pan-anything in your story, you need to do more research, not less. And I wanted it not to be only pan Asian, but also unique unto itself because WTF is that Anthro degree there for?

Main character couple are straight presenting, but they aren't straight. They mention it CONSTANTLY about how they aren't straight. Endlessly, it gets integrated hard into the story as minor plot points. I know how our culture would define it, but they don't quite define their queerness in the same way, because I wanted to fuck around with the European ideals of What is a Straight person™ and What is a Queer Person™ to show that gender and sexuality isn't defined the same way across time and space. So yeah, totally messed with and I'm very, very sure some straight people and some queer people might be like OMG, You can't do that you're messing things up. But chill, like it's fiction and you should think about that. Did I get rid of the patriarchy? Absolutely. 'cause fuck the patriarchy. And I don't want to do white feminism. And yes I wrote this before the Barbie movie came out. And I read enough theory to be able to pull it off.

The story covers theories of activism I've read from various authors over the years and I suppose on the surface it doesn't look that interesting until you get to the theory stuff and the plot kinda builds on itself. I used Dream Record+East Asian 4-Act (a mix between them). It's not beholden to conflict in order to drive the story forward, but conflict is there, its just not how the story moves.

Other World Pure Queer Joy with all of the rainbow in a non-European-eque setting Fantasy (Loose sequel to the previous one) Did I invent my own gender system which I'm not revealing to anyone prior to publication? Absolutely. It's not even in the first few chapters of the book, but trickled out. In fact two systems and a mention of 2 other systems. 'cause FUCK IT, I want to escape the European binary so badly and I put a ton of thought and research into how to do it. I read European stories that broke the binary for them, read East Asian stories fairytales and lit, read South Asian, read South East Asian, and generally mucked around.

The Setting is mainly East Asia-ish, but I also have mentions of African, Indigneous tip offs, and I'm trying very hard to figure out how to get a monsoon system going. If I could only figure out the amount of land mass needed which no geographers can tell me. I want it for two continents which I'm guessing has enough land mass...

And yes, the definition of what straight™ is 100% fucked with in the worldbuilding. 'cause why the fuck not. I'm kinda of sick of white queerness taking over queer spaces and THE conversation, so I kinda want to mess with the whole system because too many queer books still hold to the contemporary white European system instead of uprooting the entire thing.

There are white people, BTW, in the world building, but they are more nomadic and darker shades of white people due to the world building.

Since I wanted JOY in capitals, etc the conflict is downplayed a bit. It is reaaaallllyyy smutty though. LOL. But the first thing I axe is sex scenes when the story runs long.

Roughly 7 chapters to rewrite on the ~11th draft.

Contemporary Corporate Drama Romance (sorta comedy)

This one is smutty as hell and took me forever, I mean forever to get it to the last chapter. I'm not kidding. It was like pulling teeth on this one. I had to change names a few times, the venue a few times, the mechanics of the set up a few times, the timing of the set up a few times. I kept getting stuck over and over again. I changed the race of the characters, the sexualities, the disabilities, anything to get this damned story to work.

I was going to set it in college originally, but that didn't work and fizzled. *sighs*

For this one, I'm not kidding, I dumped the entire draft at least three times and rewrote it from scratch because it wasn't working out.

But the main characters are Latine and East Asian, het romance, one of them is a complicated version of bisexual. *grins* Because I can and I know it exists and people are being assholes about it, so if people are being assholes about it, I can at least highlight and counter some of the ideas about it.

I struggled with including and subtracting diversity in this one, but queerness made it, I don't think the characters are ND coded, but I'm open to people thinking they are. There is mention of composers and artists and how they were shitty people. So it does come off geekish, I suppose. Haha, when the author is ND, but the characters aren't can the characters escape the hyperfocus of the author? Probably not... ^^

Not quite sure of the story structure since it's not beholden to three-act, but it kinda, sorta seems a bit braided to me. Where separate strings come together.

So yeah, that's what I'm rushing to finish before the end of the year. I write interstitial. So Ummm... any agents ready for me to query about 6-8 books in succession?

Oh and I'm not sorry that I don't subscribe to the idea that only conflict is interesting and that's the only way to build tension nor that I truly despise the break up requirement of romance imposed on by the 1950's ideals. Fucking be adults argue and talk it out instead of adhering to unhealthy standards.

[dailycharacteroption]

Ironbound Sword (Samurai Archetype)

(art by MyCKs on DeviantArt)

Many would agree that it takes great skill to wield a blade effectively, that much is true enough. However, it takes even greater skill to wield a weapon without causing undue harm.

Inspired by fiction centered on pacifistic warriors that shed blood and life only as a last resort, today we’re looking at the ironbound sword archetype!

Dedicated to incapacitating foes rather than killing, it is said that this vocation and underlying philosophy arose during a time of peace and stability in the nation of Lung Wa, where samurai were needed as peacekeepers instead of warriors, and serves to unburden the samurai’s soul from needless murder, even in self-defense.

This is of course, not really accurate to real-life samurai, who even at their most bureaucratic were still inundated in a philosophy of living and dying by the sword. Mercy wasn’t really something that was supposed to be crossing their minds. But then again, this is a fantasy game with fantasy settings, not a historical fiction game.

These samurai might be officers of the law who specialize in bringing criminals to face trial rather than doling out justice themselves, or they might refuse to kill most foes for philosophical reasons, possibly born out of seeing too much of war and death. The latter might face ridicule and disdain from those familiar with the traditional codes and expectations of their social class, but they stick true to themselves despite this, and there is honor in that.

Being able to fight effectively without lethally wounding a foe takes a lot of training. As such, these warriors not only suffer no accuracy loss for doing so, but also become adept at various maneuvers meant to subdue, and are capable of learning fighting techniques normally reserved for fighters.

They also have a knack for dealing powerful nonlethal blows meant to briefly knock foes unconscious, similar to the brawler.

Finally, they learn techniques to disarm and disable combatants with a countering move, parrying and knocking weapons away, or breaking/dislocating a limb in response to an incoming strike.

A samurai focused on nonlethal combat in interesting, though the loss of their banner does mean they lose some of their support utility. Still, if capturing foes alive is part of the campaign, then go for it. Just remember that not every foe warrants such mercy, such as undead or constructs that ignore nonlethal blows and foes that are beyond redemption.

Many with military training who become pacifists have a bitter personal history with warfare, and it’s no surprise that a lot of these characters may be personally responsible for some great atrocity that they feel they have to spend the rest of their days atoning for. Of course, others may simply seek to do as little harm as possible to keep their souls pure, which may be an ascetic choice or a demonstration of great arrogance, depending on the philosophy and the person.

Though he continues to wander the world, the ronin Ashijo never draws his blade, for it is a cursed weapon tied to his own dark history. Instead, he uses blunt blows with the hilt of his wakizashi to subdue his enemies when necessary, but he dreads the day when an evil great enough to force him to draw his blade rears it’s ugly head.

A dutiful servant of the House of the Sea Emperor, Kopo knows what it means to restrict himself, the locathah being adept at using his weapons above and below the waves to apprehend criminals whose transgressions offend the sea dragon ruler. And so he sets out seeking the party, who recently were forced to destroy one of the sacred dragonstones before it could be used for evil.

Moments from being devoured by a veldenar, a frog-like predator of the plane of air, the party is rescued by a masked warrior who rendered the beast unconscious, but alive with surprising skill. The stranger answered no questions, and was swift to move on, but in the next village, they hear rumors of the Samurai of Merciful Winds.

[sleepyowlet]

Like, sometimes the values of an author will show through? Lovecraft was racist, and that shows in his work. JKR is a transphobe, and that shows in how she treats some characters (like how she describes Rita Skeeter as "mannish").

It is important not to fall into racial stereotypes or queerphobic ones. It's important to do the fucking research when writing about disabilities you don't have.

If all your characters of Colour (text or coded) are bad guys and meet grisly fates and only the white ones are heroic and survive (hi there, Jirrt!)? You might wanna think about why you're writing your story that way. If you write your historical or fantasy setting as absolute rape hell for women, you might wanna check with yourself why you're doing that (eh, Mr. Martin?).

But even those scenarios can have their place! You, as the author, get to decide. You. Nobody else. This is not about "You're not allowed to write that!" it's about working on your unconscious biases.

There is a difference between being mindful about what you write and self-censorship.

I really think everyone needs to truly internalize this:

Fictional characters are objects.

They are not people. You cannot "objectify" them, because they have no personhood to be deprived of. They have no humanity to be erased. You cannot "disrespect" them, because they are not real.

[prokyon]

my WIP and other stuff 🐺🌈

[ID: a continental map of a fantasy world, with blue water and beige landmasses overlayed with a paper texture. A white title reading "The Legend of MoonMoon: a novel by Prokyon" is overlayed on top of the map.]

For the last 2 years I have been working on a novel about queer antifascist werewolves.

Early 2019 I came up with the concept of this novel and launched into hardcore developing it in November 2019. In November/December 2020 I wrote a 20,000 word outline of the book, and in 2021 I took advantage of NaNoWriMo to start drafting. By December the draft was at around 10,000 words and I will keep chipping away at it as long as it takes to finish. Affectionately titled "The Legend of MoonMoon: The Dumb Draft" we're aiming to get all the content down on the page and moving on from there. My plan has always been to finish the first draft, then put the book down for a few months and do a bunch more reading and researching in my genre before coming back to rewrites.

So what's the book about? Here's the NaNoWriMo summary, but in a nutshell:

In medieval times, a metalsmith named Vera* self-actualises for a hot minute and after transing their gender, they unwittingly unlock a divine punishment “fuck you and all your sons” werewolf curse. Gender validation in the worst way. A totally-unrelated mauling victim, a plague, and an encroaching empire full of zealots pushes Vera over the edge, and they do their best to right the wrongs of the world by eating fascists.

*Their name changes throughout the story. I don't consider this a spoiler, and outside of the story I refer to the MC as Kass, their final name. The choice to include "Vera" in blurbs and such is for potential readers who are not yet familiar with their character as "Kass" to reduce any "who is this, where's Kass?" confusion.

This is an #OwnVoices story. I myself being a queer, disabled Aboriginal, have built this story from the ground up with my own feelings and experiences around colonisation, queerphobia, ableism, racism, and the intersections of those issues. My intention is to subvert the way media has historically made monsters minority-coded to other us. This story embraces the role as monster and nonconformity, turns it into a tool of empowerment.

I'm a full-time student of conservation and environmental science, so most of the year I am preoccupied with that, HOWEVER:

I've been working to post more regularly in recent months, and you can look forward to more werewolf stuff (WIP updates, memes, drawings!) to come. I frequently post in the story's telegram channel. If you have any questions about the story or world you can always send me a tumblr ask if that's not your jam.

All stuff related to the book on my blog is tagged the enby werewolf thing.

I also stream art and games often on my twitch channel! Streams are archived on the youtube channel if you miss me going live! I'm an excellent gaymer and my regulars are: Assassin's Creed, Skyrim, Ori and the Blind Forest (& WOTW), and RDR2/RDO.

Happy holidays y'all!